Weapons Advice?

[djconner]

I just started playing the game yesterday, and I'm a little uncertain about a few things:
1. What's the practical difference between a SMG and a Machine Gun, and when do you want one or the other?
2. Same question, but for Sniper Rifle vs. Rifle-Rifle?
3. Is it just me, or do Shotguns just plain suck? Usually in games like this, shotguns are awesome close-quarters weapons, but they seem not all that better than a pistol to me.
4. My assumption is that the different look flavor text for stilettos, straight razors, and the like is purely cosmetic, and there's no advantage to, for example, hitting someone from behind with a razor vs. hitting him in the front with a crowbar? And while I'm thinking about it, I assume the crowbar is never actually used as a prying tool?
5. What's the deal with some enemies apparently having multiple grenades with no cooldown? My Demolitionist has a built-in grenade attack, but it's on, like, a 5-turn cooldown or something.

[Heau]

Haven't played the game in a while was just lurking for news but...
#1.
SMG: 1 action to fire, 3 shots, large hit penalty
HMG: 2 action to fire, 5 shots, even larger hit penalty

The hit penalty is easily offset by the #shots. The 2 action to fire is, however, very prohibitive early on. They are the weapon that scales to the most ridiculous levels to some of the perks that add flat dmg per hit (one of the perks intended for melee applies to all, I forget which - brawny maybe?), and the bullet that adds dmg to all hit has been broken off balance since release.

#2.
Sniper rifle is also 2 actions to fire vs simple rifle as the biggest gameplay impacting difference. However, there's a bit more to it. Sniper also suffer some larger short range penalty so they are harder to play on some indoor maps and tend to be weaker until you have a larger crew. Most weapons get to shore off their weakness as you level them up but some of them require a hell of a grind. Like HMG become the all-powerful weapons somewhere around 5th perk IIRC.

#3.
The sawed off shotguns as secondary weapons are pretty awful. The main weapon shotguns are bad at first but decent later albeit last time I played still weaker than hmg/smg just because of the stupid +10 bullet scaling on multi hit weapons. They have a hidden point-blank dmg increase that allows you to one shot most non-elite enemies once you get better shotguns. But nothing particularly impressive. iirc +10 if adjacent, +5 if 1 tile off and double that with epic shotguns or something along those lines.

I'd suggest to ignore shotguns until you get to a game where you can hire Rebeccile (I believe is his name? The highest tier con artist that comes with his own epic shotgun and all shotgun perks unlocked) to play around with a shotgun and see.

Still, I think the melee perk tree is a lot more conducive to the point-blank / melee style than the shotgun tree is. Melee becomes fairly reasonable once you get the +hp per kill perk #2 or #3. Shotgun feels impossible to play without a healer on the team.

#4. correct. It's just about the stats listed on the weapon. And correct its a weapon without additional special purpose that I'm aware of. I don't recall ever seeing a quest with a crowbar option.

#5. There are demolitionist abilities and there are consumable dynamite and grenade. Lack of cooldowns on the consumables or on the combo of the two and the occasional throw through walls has been among my biggest reason for reloads across all playthroughs. Too little counterplay to a set of enemies randomly spawning with enough dynamite to one-turn kill any crew hire and possibly you.

[EpikIce]

I recently came back to the game and have found that melee is in a powerful state right now. It gets stronger as you level it up. I've put bleed weapons on all my characters and it is a fun way to play unless it's a large building, I can usually get by with just melee. As you go up in skill with it there is a +20 heal for killing an enemy with melee. In the early game before you get good guns, blade weapons are really nice. You can stack multiple bleeds and the bleed damage kicks in at the very start of that enemies turn.

I only use shotguns if that's the only skill the character has, even then, I'm probably going to use melee with them every time unless I'm using over watch.

[djconner]

Do you find Machine Guns and Sniper Rifles to be worth the trouble of the 2 AP cost?

I'm nearing the end of my first game, and I ended up with pretty much only SMGs and Rifles (plus a good bit of Melee.)

[Heau]

Snipers, not really. But if you get an early healer henchmen and level it up it's fine. It's a decent weapon for low aim/low health units.

MGs are pretty broken on units with the +10 dmg trait and become completely insane in the late game once fully leveled. They're slow early but worth the trouble. If I play as someone with some melee ability for the early game, I'll usually pair it with MG as soon as I can to start grinding the levels. In the late game you can basically one-shot anything besides bosses with MG and double +10 sources.

[djconner]

After playing more, I came to these tentative conclusions:
Melee: Really good, the only real disadvantage being that making melee attacks often leave you out of cover and vulnerable.
Shotgun: I confirmed my suspicion that they're not great, and I can't see any compelling reason to use one, except perhaps if you've acquired a Unique or Epic one that's a lot better than other options at the time. I hired the high-level Japanese Con Artist woman and had her go around with a shotgun to see what they were like at that level. She's... OK, but not spectacular. The Shotgun Blast can be surprisingly effective, but is difficult to have ready when you need it.
SMG: Still seems like the best beginning-to-end weapon type in the game.
Rifle: Also good from beginning to end, and penalties for shorter range use seem to be less of a problem at higher levels.
Sniper Rifle: Usefulness is wildly variable from fight to fight, and even in a larger squad, I'd rather have a Rifle most of the time.
Machine Gun: REALLY good at high levels. I even specifically avoided using the +10 damage rounds with my top-level Enforcer's MG, and she was still regularly wiping out armored guys with a single burst.

One of the problems with many weapons, but notably the MG, is really a problem with the gangster leveling system itself. No matter how much you use them, your starting guys have an effectiveness ceiling that's much worse than that of the top guys. I think leveling up a MG user is always going to be less effective than hiring someone who's ALREADY at a high level with the weapon when you can afford it. Rifles, SMGs, and Melee seem to be the most reliable weapons for keeping a "starting" gangster viable throughout the game.

[djconner]

I'm finding all the weapons to have a place of some sort, at least in a large-ish squad, as I go on.

I kind of like an Enforcer with a shotgun and high mobility as a "sweeper," running around and finishing off the enemies who have already taken damage.

[djconner]

I've come back to the "Shotguns are mostly useless" camp. Shotgun Blast is good, but if you're in position to make it worth the trouble by hitting 3-5 guys with it, that means 3-5 guys are also in position to gun you down on their next turn.

[zzirSnipzz]

Goldie is awesome if you want a sniper boss as her skill is a sniper skill so you can level it up fast also can do collaterals so if you see a big line of enemies coming on the map in theory you can wipe them all out with her special
one tactic i use if i want to move around with a sniper is move them and then put into overwatch, make sure the enemy has to either run to a dif position or move out from behind cover to fire for it to work and ts pretty reliable in my experience

[Heau]

Originally posted by Royal Artillery:

Goldie is awesome if you want a sniper boss as her skill is a sniper skill so you can level it up fast also can do collaterals so if you see a big line of enemies coming on the map in theory you can wipe them all out with her special
one tactic i use if i want to move around with a sniper is move them and then put into overwatch, make sure the enemy has to either run to a dif position or move out from behind cover to fire for it to work and ts pretty reliable in my experience

Did they really fix how special ability kills yield progress towards weapons? It used to always provide handgun proficiency points. It was driving me insane on one of the melee ability bosses the last time I tried to play this game and I don't recall there being any patch since.

[zzirSnipzz]

Originally posted by Heau:

Originally posted by Royal Artillery:

Goldie is awesome if you want a sniper boss as her skill is a sniper skill so you can level it up fast also can do collaterals so if you see a big line of enemies coming on the map in theory you can wipe them all out with her special
one tactic i use if i want to move around with a sniper is move them and then put into overwatch, make sure the enemy has to either run to a dif position or move out from behind cover to fire for it to work and ts pretty reliable in my experience

Did they really fix how special ability kills yield progress towards weapons? It used to always provide handgun proficiency points. It was driving me insane on one of the melee ability bosses the last time I tried to play this game and I don't recall there being any patch since.

It was leveling my sniper deffo, i just came back to the game last week havent played since releases and enjoying it a bit

[djconner]

I've played a bunch of different bosses, and they all seemed to level the correct weapon type.

I also agree that Overwatch tends to be the best use for snipers - that and a good pistol. I love Diana Maduro and her crazy dart gun.