Weapon popularity

[Kien]

Tell what experience you have online with what weapons people use.

Edit:
Also post weapons/perks you never use!


My input for versus:

boltgun
Perked boltgun is used by average players, don't see skilled ones use it. Getting killed by an ultramarine with unperked boltgun is just embarrasing. :S

stalker bolter
A popular weapon of various skill levels. Most of the skilled players combines it with melta.

melta gun & melta gun+stalker bolter
These are the weapons most used by skilled players. Most of the time they end up with the most kills. Melta is painful to fight against.

plasma gun
Most rare tac weapon to see, never used by skilled players. Few people use the charge up shot.

storm bolter
Used by average- players. Don't see it used by skilled ones.

vengance launcher
The least popular of all weapons, and perhaps the hardest to use. Most players end up in the middle in terms of kills but at some rare times you find a really skilled player use it to great effect. I wish I had more skill with determining the distance and know when to detonate them. :L Pikachu!

---

plasma cannon & lascannon
Mostly used by average players but some times there is some really skilled one with these, and they are dangerous. Skilled lascannon guys are down right painful when they manage to headshot you all time and hit you while you're both moving. Having lots of plasma cannons in one team tends to be too powerful with all the spamming everywhere.

heavy bolter
Average- players use this, I have never seen really skilled people with it.

---

chainsword/power sword
Used among all levels of skill. Is the only melee weapon used by skilled players.

axe
Rare weapon used by average- players.

hammer
Used by average players.


Things I never use:
Melta gun because its' so powerful and popular. I never use perks that reduce damage or increase armor, I simple think it might reduce the challenge int he wrong way.



In exterminatus:

Boltgun & stormbolter
Rarly seen, which is a good thing since they have so poor armor damage.

Plasma gun
Most common weapon because it's so versatile.

Meltagun
Used sometimes by skilled players who knows the fact that it's shear damage and spread and piercing makes up for it's lack of range.

Vengance launcher
Very rare weapon which is good since it's poor against anything with armor, very good against low tier orks though.

---

Heavy bolter
By far the most common of the dev weapons, very common in general. Some less smart people think it's still useful in map 4. :L

Plasma cannon
Seen time to time. Some less smart people think it's still useful in map 4. :L

Lascannon
Rare weapon which is rather sad since it's very powerful.

---

Chainsword/power sword
Common weapon.

Axe
Rare weapon

Hammer
The most common melee weapon and wonderful when seen in the hands of skilled players.

[Kalimac]

Now I tend to play a lot with the same people from a few clans, but most of them are skilled or at least above average at the game, so the weapons I see used are something along these lines:

Bolter: Not used that often, when it is used it's almost always double perked and decently efficient if the player knows how to use it.

Stalker: Used often, almost always in combination with melta. Almost never perked, as it's not really necessary. I use it for my main build, with serrated and larraman's blessing, mostly because I refuse to use melta.

Melta: Used far too much, and is a general pain in the ass, especially if combined with another weapon as it almost always is.

Plasma gun: I almost never see it, but when I do the people using it tend to know how and can be very deadly.

Storm bolter: Mostly used by lower level players, as it's honestly a bad weapon. Almost never see it used.

Vengeance Launcher: Used about as much as stalker bolter, sometimes in combination with melta. Usually pretty deadly, as the players that have stuck with it know their stuff.

Plasma Cannon: Not used as much since the nerf it got, but still see it quite often. Is still a pretty broken weapon if spammed heavily.

Lascannon: Mostly used on larger maps, but still pretty common. Extremely deadly in competent hands, both at range and in close combat.

Heavy bolter: Mostly see it used by lowe level players, but there's usually at least one player using it each game.


As for the assault weapons, I agree. Except for when I use my joke build with Power Axe, True Grit and some other bad perk. Also, the usage of bolt pistol vs plasma pistol seems pretty even, but I'd say the plasma pistol is a bit more commonly used.

[Arbit]

I've said this a couple times, but the plasma gun is pretty good with the fast charge up perk. Charge it up as you are cornering, and if no one is there tap reload to release the charge. If someone is there, you hit them and they start the fight with no armor. It's mostly good for midrange maps and has some good applications against HB devs since they can't dodge it. Against dreadnoughts the plasma gun is fucking annoying. You can charge and fire it three times in quick succession before it overheats. It doesn't do amazing damage - about 5% per shot - but it makes the dread do a stagger animation during which it is impossible to aim. It's also extremely easy to nail the dread at long distance and doesn't attract attention like las/plas devs. It's pretty much the only tac weapon that does significant damage to the dread at any range and of course you get the benefit of a melta for all the hammerines that are sure to be buzzing about.

The heavy bolter is awesome with the fast setup perk. It requires good map awareness so you don't get screwed by assaults/raptors, but with the halo or artificer's armor you can be quite a beast with this thing. It's bad for big open maps, for sure.

Most of the good players I encounter are chainsword assaults/raptors, tac with a melta plus somethings else (you really see a whole variety of melta tac builds), and lasdevs. The most amazing players I see are chainsword assaults/raps. Even with lag, some people are just REALLY GOOD at anticipating which way I will roll and messing me up before I can bring the melta to bear, or keeping at just long enough range that I can't use my melta but it's too close for the stalker and I get pelted to death with the bolt pistol.

edit: Interesting to hear people's opinions about the heavy bolter. I've gotten some pretty ridiculous kill streaks with it.

[uncle_anaesthesia]

boltgun
I use occasionally with obvious perks and a lot of players are still using. i think once all the perks are achieved then people move on to others. it used by mostly average players, but ive had easy double figure kill streaks lag permitting

stalker bolter
very popular.I use with the perks and have high hit rates, ive heard people complainig about the kick when perked but u get used to it and the double tapping helps down devs quicker.

melta gun
one shot killer best in tight corners, i use serrated knife perk for a finish in between recharge. its the most hated up there with "plasma spam!"

storm bolter
piece of shit hits everything but the target my least liked but i see some average players still using it.

vengance launcher
my favourite with plasma combined perk. great for medium to long range but up close and you have to be nimble. great for defending points from assaults trying to ctf

plasma cannon
great support for tacs just point and let rip. up close you tend to be stuffed. most used when lag is shit and you ar getting killed helluva lot.

heavy bolter
good weapon when used properly eats up enemy. perks matter with this. iron halo/feel no pain = u win against assaults.

lascannon
dont use much doesnt suit my style of play. but have seen some really good players using it one shotting players taking points

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chainsword/power sword
popular used by all levels

axe
Rare weapon used by average- players.

hammer
hardest to use in my opinion but once mastered is awesome. its always about the timing which due to the lag issues can be a royal pain

[Dimension]

Here's my view:

Tactical Weapons:

Bolter: These days mostly used by low and average players. occasionally you run into a guy who has it double-perked and knows his shit with it and will kill you in the face. There's not many of those, but they do exist. from my own experience, I don't hesitate to take on stalker bolters, even at longer ranges or even get the occasional kill on a lasdev. I used to double perk it, now playing around with just bolter targeter and larramans. Do not underestimate this weapon in competent hands.

Storm Bolter:
used by average players mostly. With twin link, this becomes a medium-close range headshot machine, although to a lesser extent than the bolter. competent guys will mess you up with this. I've had good results with twin link, combat stims and mastercrafted wargear, though you will be messed up by swords and meltas if you're not careful. You can try and engage at longer ranges, but you need to keep on your toes in case you get countered by a stalker or las. I see this weapon more often than bolters.

Stalker Bolter:
very common across all skills, usually without perks. mostly in combination with melta. others go for mastercrafted, some with serrated, rare you'll see a guy who double-perks it. I personally use it with the double shot and a melta. double shot eats ammo if you're not careful, but I've gotten used to it. I get better results with the double tap in medium range, its superior against devs, lets me use cover more efficiently and I get more unscoped kills, especially against ASM/tacs. When the going gets tough, and there's not too many devs around, this is the loadout I use.

Melta:
very common across all skills, often (but not always) in combination with another weapon. Many will combine it with impr. melta charge for additional reload speed. its a pain to fight against in close quarters, especially with lag. Its a very good weapon, but I don't really fear it. I either just stay in range, or try my luck with a good groundpound and a stun combo. awesome players will fop you with well-timed and aimed combat rolls, at which point I stay at med range and try to take them down with pistols. Which also makes me giddy. I use the melta in combination with stalked in versus and plasma in exterminatus to good effect, though I don't rely on this weapon as a primary means of killing people.

Vengeance launcher:
This is the one tac weapon I truly fear. you get someone using that weapon every other game or so. As a tac, I cannot win in a straight firefight unless over long range (stalker) or with the melta. if you're not at full health, you will be killed with less than three grenades. as an ASM, I try and melee, get close to them in order to either win straight-up, or force them into a suicide. I sometimes try this weapon out, and though initial trials are promising with surprising damage, I haven't gotten the knack of it yet. Good players will shoot and kill you without you being able to get good return fire because they dodge in and out of cover, or use the explosion radius to get you around corners and behind walls.

Plasma:
rarest tac weapon. from my own experience, not that easy to use, but it kind of plays like a strange mix of a VL (fire delay), stalker (long range accuracy) and melta (close range blast coming around corners). I use it extensively in exterminatus, but in versus I've not gotten the knack of it yet. the occasional good player will get good results with this, especially with coolant.

Devastators:
Plasma:
noob weapon, usually a good or average player will resort to this when he cannot get at you with other builds, which speaks for itself, really. will mess you up because its surprisingly mobile if you're not careful. might give you a hard time as a stalker even at longer ranges, at mid you will win, at short you will lose again unless you're good with unscoped shots. people combine it with health perks mostly, occasionally coolant. its hated, and still not fully balanced imo. I don't use this weapon because I feel cheap. might have to play with it and some point to complete weapon challenges, but I delay this.

heavy bolter:
very useful in synergy with tacs, used across all skill ranges and pretty common. There are some frightningly good people with it, and in some maps they might find spots where its impossible to get the drop on them. I've seen people get ridiculous kill streaks with this, just like with las. heavy bolter expertise allows you to be very mobile and aggressive with this. My own build is expertise and iron halo, though some people use reactive blast to mess up an ASM's shit. HB packs so much damage, you cannot rely on being able to take a HB dev out with straight up melee, you need to get a good ground pound, or soften the target up beforehand with grenades and charged PP shots.

lascannon: rarest of the dev weapons, though not by much. many players use this, but suck with it. others are good, but will hardly contribute to a SG game and are too immobile to contribute in annihilation. a few really manage to unlock its potential, making me fear it in the same vein the VL does. I personally use it with artificer and iron halo in order to be able to soak up damage and lay down suppressive fire. also might allow me to kill a melta guy up close unscoped if he's too immobile. I use the gun in exterminatus to good results, mainly becuase of its firepower and surprisingly large mag size. when I'm not killing stuff at long range or pelting small stuff with the BP, I use this unscoped on throngs of advancing skar boys and nobs to good effect.


ASM
Sword:
good all-rounder, you can take on pretty much anything in this, including melta tacs who are not on top of their game or don't expect you. surprisingly different play styles depending on perk combinations. impenetrable will allow you to often survive one melta shot. if you get a good combo in, the melta is dead. ACT works both as a means to be very mobile, get repeated groundpounds and as a exit button if you get bad karma in the face of a melta, HB, nade or something. DFA is good for the additional stun and damage, allowing you to kill tacs and ASM with one or two blows if its well placed. devs take one more hit, but you won't always be alive to deliver it and might get stunned by counter melee. zeal is good for prolonged combat and might give you the edge vs other ASM. furious charge is fun, but just not as usefull as DFA. A very interesting build I saw ONCE, was a guy who had the extended PP Magazine, a sword and air cooled thrusters. The guy was in the air almost all the time, shooting stuff, then ground pound, one, two strikes, then up in the air again. toughest bitch to hit I ever saw.

Axe:
or "Failaxe" as I call it. it does do noticably more damage than the sword, which might give you the edge in a straight slug vs one. with zeal or if you add ground pounds, this edge is lost. a good tac player will not let you get more than a single axe swing in, no matter how well placed your groundpound is. even plasmadevs and competent lasdevs will outmaneuver you. this weapon really shines vs sword against HB devs though, as you kill those noticably faster. then again, so does the hammer. vs hammer, its down to who suprises whom. if you surprise the hammer, you'll win and vice versa. with sword, killing hammers is more tricky, but doable. in general, the more maneuverable the target, the bigger the advantage the sword has. I used the failaxe extensively up until a few days ago in order to unlock master. in the end what I used was ACT plus groundpound, in order to reposition fast if my first axe swing does not kill.

Hammer:
dev-ballbuster extraordinaire. use this weapon to mess up lasdevs and plasma devs to your liking. the slow hitting speed of the hammer will mean that you need to be ninja with it though. you will also mess up unsuspecting tacs. scoped stalkers are notorious for this, or scoped bolters. mobile tacs stand a good chance vs you, and you're best off either high, tailing it out there, or attempting another groundpound. HB's die to hammers as well, but since good HB guys are aware of this, they will choose locations where they see you coming or where you cannot reach. as an ASM, no matter the weapon, this is where you need to break out your grenades, pistols and try and change your angle of attack as often as possible. Hammers are good vs other asm as well and will dominate the ground fight. however, because of your slow swings, you're slower to take to the air and might get outmaneuvered, ending either with you dieing to pistol shots, groundpounds, shoulder charges or melee to the back. hammers are also good in exterminatus. hammers work well with ACT, DFA, impenetrable. Killing blow is not needed if you're packing nades or are good with charged PP shots. it does improve your game vs devs, especially HB devs though, and will insure a kill even if you land only a glancing blow on a tac. a pretty weird and freakishly effective setup I saw was a guy with true grit, stims, impenetrable and a hammer. he would either kill you in melee, or apply stims and get into a short-medium range firefights with tacs, usually winning because of impen and the stims. ridiculous kill streaks on this guy. Not an easy setup to learn though, and believe me I tried.

[Kalimac]

Nice write-up, I agree with mostly everything.

[Kien]

Nice to see people's experience online. Everyone seems to agree on the plasma gun and axe.

[Arbit]

Man, I ran into a vengeance launcher user a couple nights ago and my respect for that weapon has gone up tenfold. This guy entered the game halfway through and ended the round with a K : D of like 16:3, with the next highest at like 10:2 or something. I may be inspired to finally rebind my reload key and give this weapon a serious try.

[Pocktio]

Pfah storm bolter was amazing, y'all crazy fools.

Good at everything but you can snipe with bp so the gap is filled.

[Cyke]

I've run into frightening players using everything from double perk boltguns, stalker/melta combo, and heavy bolter players that redeploy constantly and seem to have a knack for repeatedly being in the worst possible spot. Improved Melta Charge users are my worst enemy, but when I manage to take them out with an ASM, it's very satisfying.

Then there's ASMs with Death From Above, which are always nasty regardless of their weapon.. that 75 armor/50 normal damage can really ruin your day if they get a well-centered pound in.

Personally I most often use the chainsword, then the lascannon, then the boltgun. I've familiarized myself with those, and it's rare that I take up other arms.

Are you guys PC players too?

[Arbit]

lascannon: rarest of the dev weapons, though not by much. many players use this, but suck with it. others are good, but will hardly contribute to a SG game and are too immobile to contribute in annihilation. a few really manage to unlock its potential, making me fear it in the same vein the VL does. I personally use it with artificer and iron halo in order to be able to soak up damage and lay down suppressive fire. also might allow me to kill a melta guy up close unscoped if he's too immobile. I use the gun in exterminatus to good results, mainly becuase of its firepower and surprisingly large mag size. when I'm not killing stuff at long range or pelting small stuff with the BP, I use this unscoped on throngs of advancing skar boys and nobs to good effect.

I wish I had tried this gun out earlier. I mostly avoid sniper rifles because I am horrible with them, but this is very much an action-man's/woman's sniper rifle. No sitting around for 5+ seconds waiting for the reticule to shrink, decent rate of fire, and usable unscoped. The only thing I don't like about it is no wookie suit. And the reload time I guess.

Like you say, it's surprisingly good in exterminatus. The weapon is good out of the box so I've been going with artificer armor and reactive armor - the fast recharge time means if I wade into melee, the reactive armor is constantly going off. Take a little time here and there to shoot ranged orks so they don't keep your armor from regenning and you're good to go. I almost soloed all of Arena 1 on Kalkys (stepped off the 2nd point at the wrong time) and thanks to the amazing grot killing power of the devstomp I can outscore ASM and tacs with ease, provided the level has lots of grots