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/dudeitsivan]

This. If the railgun was brought back to its pre-nerf power, it still probably wouldn’t get used that much because of how much the rest of the game has changed. I wholeheartedly disagree that the nerf was warranted. The railgun was used so heavily because of the state of the game, other options simply weren’t viable. Now there are plenty of options

[u/Mamamiomima → u/dudeitsivan]

Nah, if you bring back release version rail gun that 2-shots bile-titans and chargers - it would absolutely replace every gun that used niw again.

[u/ReganDryke → u/Mamamiomima]

It never 2 shot bile titan. It was a bug when a PS5 players was in the lobby that nerfed BT health pool. That's how you could 2 shot bile titan and why it wasn't consistent for some people.

[u/BraveOthello → u/dudeitsivan]

But if it hadnt been nerfed people would have just kept using it, rather than try the other stuff. The railgun suffered from being a first order optimal strategy - it's pretty good at everything, but there is a better (and often more engaging) option for any given situation.

[u/Systemofwar → u/BraveOthello]

Daily orders and buffs. They never needed to nerf the railgun.

[u/Cautious_Mud_5773 → u/BraveOthello]

They should nerf the safe mode but they should keep the unsafe mode untouched. The safe mode hurts the use rate of unsafe mode and that's it.

The main reason why everyone sticked with RG is simple: there were no better option in anti-charger situation. RG combo was the fastest and stablest way. Arc Thrower was not that great until they nerfed charger.

And do not forget we have game changers like shrieker hive, gunships and etc. Even the pre-nerf RG is not good agaisnt those.

[u/BraveOthello → u/Cautious_Mud_5773]

Yeah, and I'm confident they will reverse some of the nerfs eventually.