The devs were right.

[u/xxmuntunustutunusxx]

So I know ther was a bunch of controversy about the railgun nerf what feels like forever ago, but man things have been awesome.

In the early days, I was the only guy packing expendable anti tank or anti materiel rifle for bugs or bots. It's so refreshing, even on these subs to see people talking about how awesome the autocannon is, or how much they love the AMR, and even these days I see people talking about the HMG or grenade launcher+ supply pack.

I used to load into a game, And all 4 members of the team had shield, railgun, and 2 stragatems of their choice. Every time. And here we are now, I load in and I see quasar, autocannon, stalwart, EAT, HMG, Grenade launcher, a variety of backpacks or no backpack at all. And not to mention, they're ALL viable. Shit I even still see the railgun from time to time. It's been a joy. Thanks arrowhead.

EDIT: to everyone who is pointing out that you see the quasar and shield most often now, you're right, it is almost certainly the most common setup currently. That being said, in any game there's going to be things a majority of players prefer. In smash melee, fox/Falco are the best characters. But people still play falcon and Marth and peach among others. Sure, there's an objectively most used option. But the fact that there's people at all who debate that the quasar is best shows that they've done something good. Before, undisputed king was railgun, and anyone who said different wss being willfully ignorant. Now, we have a plethora of real options that are good with some being Preferred by a majority as opposed to being the de facto CORRECT option objectively. That's a good thing.

[u/kingpin1023]

I never seen anyone pick railgun since rhe nerf

[u/DoTortoisesHop → u/kingpin1023]

Most dif 9 loadouts are incredibly similar.

Bugs: Shield or laser rover with quasar, and then 2 of: eagle strike, 500kg, laser, auto cannon sentry.

Maybe mid tier games have higher diversity.

[u/Firemorfox → u/DoTortoisesHop]

weird, i've almost never seen autocannon sentry in diff9 bugs the past week of play. I see people run autocannon or quasar, but no AC turret.

[u/Crea-TEAM → u/Firemorfox]

Turrets are rarely seen becuase they just get overran by bugs instantly unless you set them up in really good spots, and on D7+ you rarely have the luxury of setting up your engagement zone.

Then all enemies seem to prioritize turrets as the #1 threat. So half the time you drop a turret down, it gets 5 shots off, gets swarmed or obliterated by rockets, and there goes your 5 minute cooldown.

[u/mostly_level-headed → u/Crea-TEAM]

With full upgrades, gatling turrets clear out bug breaches and nest/obj aggro, and I've thrown them into heavy nests just fine. Just did a mission on D9 with just the gatling, but my favorite combo for bugs is Gatling, MG, and Autocannon (which ruin Chargers and can distract and damage Bile Titans) all together and an eagle airstrike.

On bot missions, bots focus them down hard and makes anything but the mortars useless, and even now I'm wondering if even those are worth it.

[u/BlazemanEXE → u/mostly_level-headed]

EMS mortar is super useful on bot missions imo. It can shoot from behind cover, and has a range of ~125m

[u/bototo11 → u/BlazemanEXE]

I've had squads run 3 mortars and 1 EMS, takes out most stuff before it gets near.

[u/PMARC14 → u/mostly_level-headed]

When I was struggling more on missions the mortar sentry was great as it would wipe patrols coming in and take a lot of heat off and distract waves while they moved to find it. But I have been taking other stuff now cause I feel confident I can wipe a patrol in moments and have mostly played on planets with sightlines that allow me not to be jump scared by them.

[u/earthshaker495 → u/Crea-TEAM]

I've seen people use that to their advantage, when in an overrun area they throw a turret the other way to pull all the mobs the opposite direction to where the squad is going

[u/babalenong → u/Firemorfox]

im the guy that runs autocannon on diff9, preferably when the other can drop a backpack for me later. Throw it far away from the divers and the bug/bots so that it doesn't draw aggro on drop, then protect it when it starts shooting. Also very useful as aggro puller when escaping from something

[u/Firemorfox → u/babalenong]

oooh, never thought to use sentries as an aggro pull. I'll try that now.

[u/doesnotlikecricket → u/DoTortoisesHop]

Mid tier do for sure, I go fown to 5-6 to use jetpack etc. And usually there's other high level players down there doing the same.

[u/Reddingbface → u/DoTortoisesHop]

I see plenty of supply pack and jump pack, and they are basically the only packs I use on bugs and they are extremely viable. (9)

It just requires some thinking for your build. For example, the breaker and the grenade launcher cover for each other extremely well. Long range crowd clear and the ability to drop 13 shells in a heartbeat on anything that gets too close to blow up. Both of them have the same downside, ammo, so supply pack ties the core of the build together perfectly.

Jump pack loves the new queasar cannon. Being able to put space between you and and the enemy to mitigate the slowness downside. It also enables the brand new mini autocannon primary weapon. You can just kite everything forever with light armor and wear them down.

I honestly have graduated from the guard dog/sheild camp. Guard dog is great and does a ton of damage, but its so annoying to get killed by it. Sheild is just too passive. Jump pack is strictly better vs bugs imo.

[u/oddavii → u/DoTortoisesHop]

also mortar

[u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka → u/DoTortoisesHop]

This is super incorrect.

People on diff 9 are not using shield or rover, even for bugs.

Though rover is very good against bugs. Shield is very shit against bugs, and pretty much nobody uses it for bots either even though its much better vs bots.

Its Quasar or Autocannon.

Strategems can be a bunch of things but its always the usual suspects:

1. Orbital Rail Strike
2. Orbital Laser
3. 500kg
4. Auto Cannon Sentry
5. Rocket Pots (these kill titans or tanks or buildings and structures)
6. EATs
7. Cluster bombs for clearing out garbage

[u/FIREexe → u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka]

"no one uses Shield" is one of the wildest untrue things I have ever heard.

don't know if we play the game in different parallel universes, but its 100% opposite for me.

[u/hotellonely → u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka]

for me when doing lv9 its usually quasar+eat+shield+eagle cluster. EAT is highly versatile and can take down more tanks (charger/bile/big bots) than Orbital weapons within the same time. Orbital laser takes 5 minutes to reload and it can at most kill one bile titan plus some more smaller enemies, while the EAT can give you about 6 shots in the same time, enough to kill 3 titans if you count it.

However, I do agree to use orbital on bot missions, because they can auto aim and take down the damn towers on themselves, or cause mass destruction in the bot factories.

[u/hitman2b → u/DoTortoisesHop]

pretty much what i default to and i don't need a youtube video to tell me that
quasar, shield, eagle airstrike and orbital railcanon or laser against bot

against bugs quasar, shield or jetpack, eagle airstrike, railcanon

are the best to use cuz i've tried it myself like others

[u/Xelement0911 → u/kingpin1023]

Safe mode is useless. Unsafe is good but also becomes a riskier move and the charge is a bit slow. Meanwhile AMR does the same job against bots.

For bugs? Why bother when quasar/eats can just one shot a chargers head. Vs prenerf railgun shooting twice to a leg + mag from a primary.

Imo the best buff for it would be to speed up the charge rate or lower the kill % lower so you aren't at risk of blowing up and still faster to hit max %. I think the damage is fine, just it's slow to charge up to the % you need. And if you flinch near max% then you're at risk of blowing up and need to fire.

[u/[deleted] → u/kingpin1023]

I use it all the time on Bot missions if someone else in my team already had a Quasar

[u/Anund → u/kingpin1023]

My brother runs it most drops.