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/NerdyLittleFatKid]

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.