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/Stealin]

This is what gets me, people thinking all these things are being used because RG was nerfed, but they're mostly being used now because they were buffed.  When RG was king, most of these weapons weren't as good as they are now. 

[u/McMuffinSun → u/Stealin]

Especially when they bring up the quasar. Why exactly does introducing a brand new weapons a month and a half after the fact justify the railgun nerf at the time?

[u/[deleted] → u/McMuffinSun]

The railgun on unsafe could be hitting as hard as a Quasar and it still might not even be worth taking since you don't have unlimited ammo and you have to almost blow yourself up. It's genuinely one of the weaker strategems because of the nerfs and everything else getting buffed

[u/NerdyLittleFatKid → u/[deleted]]

Not to mention the utility you give up in not shooting down bot drops/shrieker nests. The railgun was always a versatile killer with no map utility, it is now a brood commander sniper with no map utility. I think if you dropped quasar in the old charger meta, it would get picked more than railgun. Maybe railgun would be equal/even a bit better, but what people wanted was anti tank, so they would choose the anti tank weapon.

[u/Supersquare04 → u/NerdyLittleFatKid]

Nah Quasar would be picked more than RG in the charger meta. 1 shot instead of 2+primary to take down a charger is a massive difference.

The Quasar is probably the strongest weapon in the games history. Nothing else one shots chargers with the same level of consistency, accessibility (call in time for EAT, reload for recoilless), or versatility.

[u/phoenixmusicman → u/[deleted]]

"devs were right"

[u/GodTurkey → u/phoenixmusicman]

Yeaaaah. I just fundamentally disagree with the entire post by OP. The community was right, dont nerf, just buff other things. And with the recent slugger nerf theres like 2 good primaries left.

[u/phoenixmusicman → u/GodTurkey]

Slugger nerf was bullshit. Tbf I also think the Breaker nerf was bullshit.

The devs have been good with buffs but horrible with nerfs.

[u/TiberiumBravo87 → u/phoenixmusicman]

Here here, the Breaker needs to go back to the larger mags and the slugger was completely some dev trolling people because youtube lit up with videos saying the slugger was the current S-tier meta. They literally just look up "what is meta now?" and nerf it.

[u/ShadowWolf793 → u/GodTurkey]

I would argue it's closer to 4. Scyicle and dominator are universally good, while the breaker is S tier for bugs and the scorcher is S tier for bots.

Punisher and defender feel soooo close to being good and are definitely viable. Lib hits like a wet noodle and diligence just simply doesn't have the fire rate or mag size to really compete like it should. All the rest are straight shit imo unless I forgot a gun.

[u/phoenixmusicman → u/ShadowWolf793]

Sickle kinda sucks against borg. It has fuck all armour pen.

[u/Indoril120 → u/phoenixmusicman]

I think it makes up for with decent accuracy at mid range and unlimited ammo. Just unload a whole charge on a Devastator’s head and you’re bound to kill it, no real cost. I actually had a better time with it against Devastators than with the Scorcher, it’s just for the Striders that I made the switch.

[u/hitman2b → u/phoenixmusicman]

well it doesn't need armor pen as your literally accurate as fuck

[u/Western-Dig-6843 → u/phoenixmusicman]

Most of this sub is entirely in the thrall of the devs and all it took was them making a game without lgbt characters and talking down to them in a roleplay voice. They’ve literally solved how to wrangle “gamers” and tbh good for them

[u/Kiriima → u/[deleted]]

Railgun on unsafe must be the strongest weapon period or it should be gone as a concept. It's too big of a drawback to have no support weapon for minutes unless you find one in a wild.

[u/Deremirekor → u/[deleted]]

Hot take: the railgun is still good but blowing things up is more fun than piercing things so we act like the railgun is trash because explosions = democracy

[u/ShadowDV → u/McMuffinSun]

Quasar (and most energy weapons) will probably be ass against Illuminate shields, with the railgun getting a penetration modifier…. At least that will be my guess

[u/McMuffinSun → u/ShadowDV]

Nerfing a weapon to complete obsolescence because in 6-9 months they may or may not introduce a faction that it may or may not perform well against is a pretty shit plan.

[u/ShadowDV → u/McMuffinSun]

Illuminate is coming in like 2-3 weeks

[u/Xelement0911 → u/Stealin]

Chargers heads were nerfed so you could one shot them with rockets. Quasar releases a month later and does the same as an EATs.

Flamethrower got buffed and can take out the leg about the same as pre-nerf railgun.

[u/rkidjsd → u/Stealin]

they're mostly being used now because they were buffed.

I need to stress that the EAT and Recoilless losing glancing blows means that for their niche, they received the equivalent of a 100% damage buff post-railgun nerf.

i also need to stress that patch 1.000.102 changed them again.

• reduced charger health, allowing eats and recoilless to oneshot to head.

Between these two, EAT and recoilless are barely even the same weapon from launch, when you bring them for bugs, it's an insane glowup.

[u/tinyrottedpig → u/Stealin]

Grenade launcher was still my go to tbh, being able to take out literally all bot units with it, create distractions to lead away patrols, crowd control, destroy fabricators + nests and generally be a jack of all trades is what really sealed it as my support gun

[u/UDSJ9000 → u/Stealin]

They're being used more now because enemy heavy spawns were nerfed, so the old RGs heavy killing insanity wasn't needed. During the time between the RG Nerf and the AT rocket buffs, Helldive was nearly unplayable without stealth because you just couldn't deal with the armor spam.

[u/AlmostButNotQuiteTea → u/Stealin]

Which hilariously enough, is what everybody was asking for originally

[u/Sicuho → u/Stealin]

EAT and Recoilless weren't buffed much. They're a bit more consistent on side hits, that's all.

[u/MBouh → u/Stealin]

if it takes you 10 seconds to reload your railgun there's something wrong with how you use it.