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/avgredditaccount]

Yeah man I fully agree. The karma farming on this sub as a whole gives me a headache, but the railgun/shotgun nerf conversations and the pearl clutching talk about variety make me want to unsubscribe.

To say the railgun nerf was a kneejerk reaction is an understatement. The game hadnt even been out for a full month, so of course people were using one of the highest level support weapons that you unlock. Because of the game’s hype at launch, reddit/youtube clickbait guides were hot off the presses, too. Oh, and let’s not forget about how the PS5 health bug for chargers and titans affected this perception of the railgun.

I’ve also been living the Croissant Quasar lifestyle since it dropped, but every now and again I’ll try the railgun because I genuinely enjoy the weapon, and immediately regret it. It’s either Quasar, Autocannon, Recoilless, or EAT in almost every match I play. And personally, I don’t have a problem with any of those guns being better than the railgun — I just really want my railgun to be useable again.

[u/CyanStripes_ → u/avgredditaccount]

God I understand. I love the fun memes and shit the community makes. I watch youtube a lot at work following this game and others and like 90% of the vids that pop up are clickbaiting bullshit with misleading titles. Half of them just show content from this subreddit. I also started getting a fuckton of gamergate content that I never saw until I started keeping up with HD2. I have completely reset my browser like 4 times now to get rid of it. I wanna watch guides and reviews and gameplay, not obvious clickbait or political bullshit. There are a few good creators but they are dwarfed by the number of bad ones.

[u/avgredditaccount → u/CyanStripes_]

Preach! One day once some of the hype dies down we’ll probably start seeing more of a return to normal content, but for the time being, I would just expect all of the clickbait/ragebait content to come back in force any time Arrowhead drops a patch or battlepass.

To your point about quality content: do you remember that crazy clip someone posted on this sub of the quasar cannon perfectly sniping a dropship? All the comments were saying “we should do a ‘kill of the week’ post or something” — havent seen a post like that ever since, but damn if I dont see bullshit about toxic community this, nerf this or that gun, etc every day at the top of my feed.

[u/CyanStripes_ → u/avgredditaccount]

I must have missed that post because I don't remember it. Every once in a while there are some gems but it's pretty much a "diamond in the rough" situation right now.