Weapon Build Tiers?

[★F¡G§åK★]

I've been using a guide for reference, but there's no information about how old this guide is, so I'm looking for experienced players to tell me if this tier list still looks accurate, assuming there's been balances since the guide was posted.

S - Rockets
A - Pistol+Shotgun, SMG, Brawling (+ Turrets)
B - Snipers (due to high variance)
C - Melee, Flamethrower, LMG
D - AR

I'm about 10hrs in, and ARs do definitely feel like full trash. Are the C tier builds still bad? I haven't used them yet.

[Heau]

If you can find the date the guide was posted you can check posts from devs in your steam library to figure out when it was released. Odds are it was some vanilla patch. There hasn't been a ton of balance passes but if pistol/shotgun is A, it's probably very early vanilla before they nerfed the AP cost of the jackhammer. I one-turned the end game fight with a shotgun on Lucia on my blind playthrough. Felt a bit underwhelming.

I don't think anything is bad enough to warrant so many tiers. And I'm not sure I'd separate weapons tied to a single skill. Like SMG/AR is the same proficiency, you play whichever is the strongest one you have at that point of the game.

What will be the most powerful is whatever you catch from the 2 or 3 caches giving you access to end-game(vanilla) weapons around lvl 10. Some people save scum the chests to get the weapon for the class they want. I would only bother save scumming it if I do a degenerate run like the 6 brawler run I made long ago (late vanilla, before dlc). Otherwise if I get a weapon I have nobody for, I just respec someone.


The lockpicking 10 chest in the Patriarch's daughter room
La perla's gift - either the freebie+side room from blowing the wall, or the bonus one if you turn in the slave to her for extra loot.

With DLCs now you can also get very potent weapons that can take you from like lvl 12-24 via crafting from steeltown. Steeltown itself though may feel challenging if you go as soon as you can (lvl 12).

I don't think I've used rockets in my last 3 runs. They are pretty powerful as opener when paired with sneaky ♥♥♥♥ but you don't get a clean opener for most difficult encounters anyway.

And different weapons have different point in the run when they can shine. For example, AR tend to be fine early, then they fall off midgame unless you commit like elemental weapon mods(pricy) on meh tier weapons, but there's a completely busted build from the crafted crossbow from holy detonation DLC where you can basically solo 4 ennemies per turn.

HMG can be pretty powerful early with a deddicated utility character. I did demoralize into the HMG AoE as opener for one run where I had HMG +4 melee + medic/leader for example. But they can be very pricy on ammo on a blind playthrough and feel bad as a result.

Anyway, if I had to do some sort of class build tier, based on my playstyle, it would be something like

S - Brawler / no weapon dedicated medic
A - Melee / automatic weapons / Heavy Weapons
B - Small weapons / Snipers / rockets

Yet I know several people on these forums that dread playing brawler or melee so I'm confident they would give you an entirely different answer.

All runs on SJ permadeath for reference.

[★F¡G§åK★]

Originally posted by Heau:

If you can find the date the guide was posted you can check posts from devs in your steam library to figure out when it was released. Odds are it was some vanilla patch. There hasn't been a ton of balance passes but if pistol/shotgun is A, it's probably very early vanilla before they nerfed the AP cost of the jackhammer. I one-turned the end game fight with a shotgun on Lucia on my blind playthrough. Felt a bit underwhelming.

I don't think anything is bad enough to warrant so many tiers. And I'm not sure I'd separate weapons tied to a single skill. Like SMG/AR is the same proficiency, you play whichever is the strongest one you have at that point of the game.

What will be the most powerful is whatever you catch from the 2 or 3 caches giving you access to end-game(vanilla) weapons around lvl 10. Some people save scum the chests to get the weapon for the class they want. I would only bother save scumming it if I do a degenerate run like the 6 brawler run I made long ago (late vanilla, before dlc). Otherwise if I get a weapon I have nobody for, I just respec someone.


The lockpicking 10 chest in the Patriarch's daughter room
La perla's gift - either the freebie+side room from blowing the wall, or the bonus one if you turn in the slave to her for extra loot.

With DLCs now you can also get very potent weapons that can take you from like lvl 12-24 via crafting from steeltown. Steeltown itself though may feel challenging if you go as soon as you can (lvl 12).

I don't think I've used rockets in my last 3 runs. They are pretty powerful as opener when paired with sneaky ♥♥♥♥ but you don't get a clean opener for most difficult encounters anyway.

And different weapons have different point in the run when they can shine. For example, AR tend to be fine early, then they fall off midgame unless you commit like elemental weapon mods(pricy) on meh tier weapons, but there's a completely busted build from the crafted crossbow from holy detonation DLC where you can basically solo 4 ennemies per turn.

HMG can be pretty powerful early with a deddicated utility character. I did demoralize into the HMG AoE as opener for one run where I had HMG +4 melee + medic/leader for example. But they can be very pricy on ammo on a blind playthrough and feel bad as a result.

Anyway, if I had to do some sort of class build tier, based on my playstyle, it would be something like

S - Brawler / no weapon dedicated medic
A - Melee / automatic weapons / Heavy Weapons
B - Small weapons / Snipers / rockets

Yet I know several people on these forums that dread playing brawler or melee so I'm confident they would give you an entirely different answer.

All runs on SJ permadeath for reference.

I'm now 20hrs in, and I appreciate everything about your response except for ranking rockets worst. The rocket ultimate with a fully min/maxxed explosion expert is just pure mass wipe. Combined with a pistol to charge it fast means being able to use it almost every fight.

I've only dabbled with ARs, but my main complaint with them is that the effective range is so finicky. If they get up in your grill, you'll miss a ton. If they're too far away, you'll miss a ton, and they don't have the burst quantity of the SMG to make taking those bad shots worth the squeeze.

Also, IDC what anyone says about snipers. I love getting to start most fights by wiping a guy on turn one, and getting initiative. Then, having this murder machine sitting in the back removing 1-2 baddies every turn.

[Heau]

If you give sneaky ♥♥♥♥ to your rocketeer, you can use a basic rocket attack opener instead of a sniper and basically wipe out an entire pack with the multiplier against unalerted ennemies, significantly reducing the relative value of the sniper. Snipers also feel pretty bad in the holy detonation DLC where mobility has a very high value.

AR become decent with gopher hunter + double tap where you kinda reliably kill enemies behind cover from anywhere. There are some interesting synergies to running 2 AR characters with puncturing shot early game. But far and away the most busted thing is the infused uranium crossbow (holy detonation dlc) with an oversized mag. Between leadership giving 2 AP, (+2 AP from foam finger), and the +3 AP from trigger happy, you can attack twice at 4 targets and basically kill all 4 like a sniper with 4 AP attacks. The fireball rifle from Steeltown can also carry your mid to late game for cheap if you pair the unit with either weird science or toaster or both for scaling. It's also a pretty viable sneaky ♥♥♥♥ opener option when you don't play rockets or sniper since you can often get ~3 ennemies AoE opener. But yeah, for AR to feel strong earlier in the game, you need to invest in intelligence early so that your double tap free crits have high crit dmg scaling. Otherwise their dmg is lackluster.

I'm not sure why you feel AR have finicky aim. They have pretty good aim from near to long range. SMGs have very big long range penalties. Are you sure its not just that your AR character maybe invested less into AR skill or Awareness stat than your comparable other ranged weapons users? Sometimes its just a side effect of leveling other skills for RP.

[★F¡G§åK★]

Originally posted by Heau:

If you give sneaky ♥♥♥♥ to your rocketeer, you can use a basic rocket attack opener instead of a sniper and basically wipe out an entire pack with the multiplier against unalerted ennemies, significantly reducing the relative value of the sniper. Snipers also feel pretty bad in the holy detonation DLC where mobility has a very high value.

AR become decent with gopher hunter + double tap where you kinda reliably kill enemies behind cover from anywhere. There are some interesting synergies to running 2 AR characters with puncturing shot early game. But far and away the most busted thing is the infused uranium crossbow (holy detonation dlc) with an oversized mag. Between leadership giving 2 AP, (+2 AP from foam finger), and the +3 AP from trigger happy, you can attack twice at 4 targets and basically kill all 4 like a sniper with 4 AP attacks. The fireball rifle from Steeltown can also carry your mid to late game for cheap if you pair the unit with either weird science or toaster or both for scaling. It's also a pretty viable sneaky ♥♥♥♥ opener option when you don't play rockets or sniper since you can often get ~3 ennemies AoE opener. But yeah, for AR to feel strong earlier in the game, you need to invest in intelligence early so that your double tap free crits have high crit dmg scaling. Otherwise their dmg is lackluster.

I'm not sure why you feel AR have finicky aim. They have pretty good aim from near to long range. SMGs have very big long range penalties. Are you sure its not just that your AR character maybe invested less into AR skill or Awareness stat than your comparable other ranged weapons users? Sometimes its just a side effect of leveling other skills for RP.

I'm certainly using sneaky ♥♥♥♥ on my rocketeer. It's just not always cost effective to open with him unless there's a good grouping to aim at.

Also, I'm only referring to vanilla. I tend not to bother with DLC, unless the reviews are stellar, which they definitely aren't in WL3.

My SMG guys never really have to worry about being so short on effective range, as they have so much AP that they can just usually walk right up to whomever I need them to, and the sniper gets the guys I can't. When they DO walk up to someone, they melt faces. The AR requires a much more finesse approach to get them in proper range to have effective accuracy.

Also, yes, all of my guys are much more focused on world skills like lock picking and mechanics, so their weapon skills are secondary. The SMG just sprays so much lead that he can miss a ton and still drop people.

If it's one thing I can't tolerate in games like this, is having to walk away from a thing I can't lock pick, or hack, or... get making fresh toast. I'd rather suck a little more at combat, but still win than have to remember to come get this chest I couldn't open.

[Heau]

Eh the DLCs got smashed because they introduced new combat mechanics while a lot of people wanted more of the same old - as is more commonly the case with crpg.

If you enjoy both the combat and the RP, or just the combat and don't care for the RP, you'll probably enjoy them. If you're in it mostly for the RP, the new combat mechanics might be a deterrent to the extra stories.

In Vanilla, for AR vs SMG, I'd usually run SMGs from the little vegas boss for a couple levels, and finish the game with an energy modded ripper but between the peak relevance of those weapons I'd typically work the best AR I could purchase instead.

[★F¡G§åK★]

Originally posted by Heau:

Eh the DLCs got smashed because they introduced new combat mechanics while a lot of people wanted more of the same old - as is more commonly the case with crpg.

If you enjoy both the combat and the RP, or just the combat and don't care for the RP, you'll probably enjoy them. If you're in it mostly for the RP, the new combat mechanics might be a deterrent to the extra stories.

In Vanilla, for AR vs SMG, I'd usually run SMGs from the little vegas boss for a couple levels, and finish the game with an energy modded ripper but between the peak relevance of those weapons I'd typically work the best AR I could purchase instead.

I love tactics, and the story is usually just an annoyance, interrupting my sweet, sweet min/maxing. I tend to skip most dialogue, but this game's dialogue is much more interesting than most. If the mechanics are 10/10, I'd honestly usually prefer if every character was deaf/dumb, and just wrote my quests down on a cocktail napkin. IDGAF about their back stories, or feelings, or any other useless exposition. I'm an adult, I have ♥♥♥♥ to do, and I don't want my game taking 80hrs to finish instead of 50, because every GD NPC wanted to spin a yarn.

That being said, maybe I'll check out the DLC.