Spent my whole 13 hours of Patch Day on this one, Railgun ended up being... an interesting subject to spend it on lets put it that way. Thanks for watching and as always my favorite comment will be featured at the end of the next video! Cya Next Time!
Ouch, railgun truly was hammered. though it didn't make sense that gunships needs so many shots to actually take down considering its not even a heavy.
Curious if you would/could do a video detailing the sound radius of weapons. I don’t think I have seen that yet other than you mentioning it in each video. Would be nice to have them all in one video.
@@neziaojuara1768 nah I wouldn't be so quick to judge. They probably just don't want the Railgun to be completely dominant again so they're doing small changes to make people test it out again to get feedback. Notice how the senator got the exact change everyone wanted for it since launch? It's likely that these buffs have been lingering around for a while and were intended to be added after bug fixes. As they fix the games issues I think we'll see more frequent balance patches like this one.
@@EravinVT Very true but the AMR has no delay in the follow up shots with a 6 ammo mag. It can destroy turrets and tanks better hitting the vent than the rail gun as by the time you reload that turret is looking at you.
I wish the devs would just remove the railgun and rebuild it from the ground up because it has such a huge identity crisis. Even if the damage and penetration was S-tier, it would still not *feel* powerful, since it is just a weak "pew", enemies don't get staggered and even if you hit they just topple over and die. It needs better sound and VFX design to actually make it feel good. It's a goddamn railgun, pretty much the epitome of "powerful sci-fi- weapon", and we actually see that in the orbital railcannon. It looks cool, has visual (and actual) impact and actually feels like a superfast projectile demolishing whatever is unlucky enough to get hit by it. So why isn't the railgun just the scaled down version of that? Why does such a powerful accurate weapon only have a basic red-dot when it is actually more like a artillery/sniper weapon? It needs variable magnification scopes. Why does it have a slow projectilevelocity? If we ignore the shitty ingame excuse "the portable version is just not powerful yet" (in which case: Why is it manufactured at all?), it should be *the* weapon with the highest projectile velocity in the game. It should be so fast you don't even have to lead your shots at a distance of 500 m! Again, the orbital railcannon does that so much better: You see the targetting laser locking onto the taget and then boom, not a second later the strike hits. Whereas the normal orbital artillery takes a while to reach your target. Real-life railguns produce a trail of flames behind them due to their insane velocity and cause explosions when they penetrate through a target due to the sheer force of impact that's unleashed... Why do the in-game projectiles just disappear into the enemies with minimal visual effects?
All engagements are to serve the purposes of Liberty. If there are other things to do that result in greater Liberation, then advance towards those other things. Living to spread Democracy another day is surprisingly often on that list of greater sources of Liberation.
Quick note in the exploding factor of the gun, i was doing some quick tests earlier and wasn't paying attention so the gun blew up in my hands yet surprisingly, my hands were still there. Did this again and turns out it'll deal 50% of your HP if you have the Fortified perk which can be handy for those who are just learning the weapon and don't really have the times down pat.
not to be that guy, but a great youtuber if you just want to look at STATS and TABLES is Ryken XIV. Great videos that summarise tons of content at ones. Not saying that stealth master Eravin is bad or anythinhg
Thanks for suffering to share this info with us. I knew this wouldn't change anything just reading the notes, and after playing today it sure didn't feel much better. You can kill chargers slightly faster now, but you don't get a stagger... I don't know what compelled them to provide a nerf alongside a small buff to the weapon, but it sure feels like they don't want to admit they overnerfed this weapon. I really want to enjoy using it again, but I just feel like I'm not helping my team enough when there's better options I can take.
Yeah I want to enjoy railgun but it's overnerfed and dated compared to the enemies that have entered the game and competing weapons in the support slot
The devs have been increasing the "hard armor" targets to the game while slowly removing hard armor damage from support weapons. Factory striders need structure damage, gunships need structure damage. Additionally weapons that ignore armor have also all seen debuffs in the form of enemy buffs. Striders now resist explosions more, explosion weapons are all getting their AoE reduced, the arc thrower lost its range, and now its stagger. EATs now struggle to 2-shot bile titans with updated hit boxes. The aggregate result is that any "buffs" are being offset by enemy changes and additions, and all of our old orbitals and eagles are failing to make up the difference. I ended up loosing a lvl5 mission to a single gunship when I took the railgun. No non-support weapon strat can harm a gunship, nor primary weapon. I basically got killed, then spent the next 5 minutes being hunted down and blown up every time I tried to get my railgun back until I ran out of lives because I had nothing that could actually harm it.
I can see what the Devs were getting at with thr Railgun, it doesn't do a lot of damage because it's not an explosive, high calibre projectile like the 84mm HEAT shells of the Recoilless, it's a small, high velocity solid bullet, realistically it'll only damage what it smashes through, it should reward accuracy even more, maybe with a longer range scope, and with a bit more stagger (and probably higher muzzle velocity) I'd also appreciate if we got more Ammo-type Backpacks, like a backpack that hooks up to energy weapons (mainly lasers, arc and the Railgun) to allow better charge up speeds or none at all and a slight increase in damage, that sounds like a cool choice to make for a dedicated build Or, what about a shoulder fired variant of the Railgun? Slightly more spool up, maybe a three round magazine, with Autocannon ergonomics but actual anti tank penetration, with the caveat that it needs a battery backpack
Honestly I’d be content if it could just keep up against gunships. It’s an unavoidable extremely oppressive enemy, so not being able to handle them well really stinks
@@EravinVT Assuming that they have a pilot (I feel Hulks already do, when their faces blows up they leave an awfully-person-shaped hole) it would make sense that you'd be able to one shot a gunship by shooting the cockpit dead on but shooting the engines would take more, Railgun is in a weird spot, but I'm enjoying it atm, wasn't a big fan of the Meta on release Also, why don't gunships have destroyable rocket racks like the Rocket Devastators? I know it wouldn't really do a significant amount of difference, but it'd be nice if a missed Autocannon shell breaks the rocket launchers, just as a bit of help and immersion
IRL railcannons actually are explosive upon impact due to the sheer kinetic energy it packs, they literally don't even need an explosive warhead on it, just an iron slug can exceed a hi-explosive cannon shot its OP irl and is balanced by only can be fired only a few times before the barrel burns and melts itself, and is expensive AF for how power hungry it is.
When I bought the game, I was in awe observing people using the rail gun. Then I made my way level 20, saving up slips to buy it - next day, it was nerfed to utter worthlessness...and it obviously still is 😢
The problem seems to be that the devs rubber-band with their balancing ethos. They over-nerf powerful weapons, leaving them in a bad state to the point that other weapons fulfill almost every function the nerf'd one originally did and if they _do_ provide some kind of buff again, they either nerf some other trait (keeping it bad in spite of the buff) or the buff is so inconsequential that it makes no difference. They see people talk about how good it is, then butcher it without really thinking, then get scared about buffing it back up because they think it'll be too powerful again.
There was a lot of very incremental nothing burger changes this patch unfortunately, there were some big Ws such as Senator Speed Loader, Crossbow becoming the stealth weapon of my dreams, and the arc Blitzer becoming absolutely insane. But the other changes were so incremental they didn’t even change a breakpoint despite shifting damage numbers
This is why I can't stand when people are bothered by the valid criticisms lobbied towards this patch. They all say things like, "You're seriously complaining about nerfs? Did you see the laundry list of buffs?" What buffs? They were almost all inconsequential or paired with a nerf of equal weight. I just wanna see this game thrive, but the devs seem to enjoy shooting themselves in the foot.
I'll agree that the Railgun was over nerfed, but what else has ever been hit that badly or seen rubber banding on? Most of this patch, and past patches too, have been fairly incremental overall.
@@Legendary_Honey Conversely, most of the nerfs are meaningless as well. Even the quasar cannon everyone can't stop complaining about is borderline identical in practice. Straight up most of the actually meaningful changes are all the buffs, because at least you're going to notice them. The eruptor and xbow don't count as the 'nerfs' to their explosion are amplified tenfold by how Striders behave now This patch is downright puzzling, it changes way less than it seems.The main thing it changes was make striders ten times harder to kill and make the community a billion times more toxic. Genuinely, why did they even bother with the weapon balance when most of it makes no difference except make people on discord whine about nerfs?
@@ExValeFor "and make the community a billion times more toxic" I think that might just be the norm for this game when it comes to balance changes. Since it is a PvE game, gamers have a mentality that almost nothing should ever get nerfed. But this produces an issue from a developer standpoint; any time you overshoot a weapon, all weapons now need to match it, and now while you are trying to get weapons to match it, another can overshoot; and it all can get really out of hand really quickly. And then what do you do when an enemy that was supposed to be a specific type of threat, no longer is; now you either need to make a whole new enemy to fill the old role, or fix it some other way. All in all a whole headache. The best the devs can ask for over the next several months is to still have a fun game, but with more weapon variety. With the complaints about different nerfs and buffs being lost to time.
Against Bots, its a no-go, why? It does ass damage against the Gunships, meanwhile the AMR and LC will rip through them. The only advantage the railgun has is the damage to the Hulks, it loses to the other two at: Killing tanks Devastators Laser Cannon Turrets Factory Walker Small mob clearing Opening Crates. I HIGHLY advise you avoid using this gun until they buff the use against structures, but who knows if they will, as they seem anal about it right now as they even made the LC (Laser Cannon) take longer at killing the Laser Cannon Turrets than it use to take.
I've noticed a trend of the devs slowly removing support weapons abilities to deal with "hard armor", and it is getting frustrating. With gunships and factory striders there are now WAAAAAAAAAY too many enemies that are immune to medium armor pen, AND when you can pierce it, you are dealing with "structural damage. Arc thrower got a distance nerf so it can't damage gunships Laser cannon just got a structure damage nerf after players found out it was amazing at taking out structures. The railgun is seemingly WORSE than the AMR at dealing with structures which makes no sense. All this is frustrating, but it would be manageable if the stragagems could offset this power vacuum, but there is not a SINGLE orbital/eagle that can take out a gunship, 110mm have shit accuracy and that doesn't seem like its getting better, and the new airburst is basically a troll against airborn targets. Despite all the "buffs" given to other weapons, the devs rarely give an increase to the ability to hurt hard targets, and seem to only be adding more hard targets to the game (in the form of mission objectives and enemies). IF anything, outside chargers, the game has only gotten more difficult on every front.
Arrowhead seems to want to retain the feeling of fear players had when they were new to tank enemies. But instead of making bigger badder enemies, they’re making helldivers weaker to induce a similar feeling. Tank enemies have a powerful presence in this game not because they are overwhelming battlefield threats, but because Arrowhead doesn’t like that experienced players can efficiently take them out, and in turn makes the most effective weapons against tanks less effective.
List of improvement to the Railgun: * Better optics (must) * Variable Zoom (current, 100 m and 200m) (must) * Higher damage against Gunships in particular to combat them (whether through better armor penetration or damage value doesn't matter) * Higher Stagger against targets that can survive a weak spot shot (interrupting Bile Titans when they puke can give teammates room to focus fire against it) The focus here is on the Railgun being able to compete with the AMR in a similar role. So just make it better against targets that are in the category of heavy armor, but still numerous enough that you don't want to use a 500 KG or Orbital Precision strike every single time you encounter them. Because of the bugs using swarming tactics they will just be a worse matchup IMO. Bots are the preferable matchup because they stay back (except the Scorcher Hulks...) and the strongest feature of Railgun against bots right now is it can one-shot Hulks.
As it is now(once again) capable of damaging charger legs in safe mode (albeit at 50% dmg and therefore taking 5shots to strip armor due to only matching the armor rating)
Came to say this. You need AP4 to faceshot a hulk which Railgun could previously do in two shots, now it's 1 shot. Since it's above armor instead of matching, it's doing the full 600 damage instead of 300. Also means it can safe mode hit a charge, impossible with less than 5.
True, slipped my mind with how dog water it performs against 5/6/7 class armor. Corrected in the description. Changes nothing about the results however so no harm done
It's puzzling. The only non-massive thing with 5 armour or more I can think of is hulk faces. Hulks suck but not so much that I'd like railgun's 600/120 over AMR's 450/135 or even Autocannon's 260/260 + 150/150
@@EravinVT I think it may be a good idea to specify the number of shots needed to strip armour from chargers since it's often better to strip the armour then change weapons and blow the leg off rather than keep trying to hit the head or use your support weapon to blow the leg off (assuming you were aiming for the head and hit the leg by mistake the first time) I think you should also look into how effective weapons like the railgun and arc thrower are in combination with other stratagems such as the 500KG or EAT. Bile Titans for example normally take an eternity to kill with either weapon, but after an EAT headshot or 500KG they can be finished off quite rapidly with either weapon allowing you to save your second EAT for another BT or perhaps an incoming charger. (the same applies to shrieker nests, 1 EAT plus 5 railgun shots to kill IIRC saves quite a bit of time when clearing them from a distance) I do wish they'd make the railgun hitscan though, and bring back the stagger. it's nowhere near as good as it used to be, but it's definitely a solid B tier support weapon imo. there's better and there's worse.
I'm sorry but 2 shots to the leg is NOT decent That's actually a joke cause you still gotta shoot the leg afterwards. not ideal when getting chased by two+ chargers and swarms of bugs. im sure on medium mission where chargers are the target its "decent" seriously should be one shot to strip leg armor. that would make it a much more convenient pick without being broken for bugs, theres no reason to defend it like it is right now. stripping armor to shoot weak spots is great way to play but right now the game actively punishes you for playing that way for chargers, especially when AT can one shot the head instead of shoot legs. and the 3 headshots 2 leg shots were already a thing prepatch. which goes against the video discussion about how the "buffs" helped it
@@petercottantail7850 The AP buff made the 2-shot on the leg slightly faster, as you don't need to go to full charge anymore. The ease of kill is roughly equivalent to the Autocannon, another generalist support weapon that can be used vs Chargers and medium enemies too. And you can reload on the go after killing one Charger, unlike the RR / EATs. You could argue for more buffs, but it's not terrible, especially strange seeing the negativity considering how people were happy with the Arc Thrower's TTK on Chargers, they're really pretty similar. Also, if I'm correct in understanding that the Railgun can now pierce through Heavy Devastator shields again, I think its value there is being undersold a little as well, being able to take on Hulks, Striders and Devastators is the majority of Automaton engagements.
Finally someone explains and shares my love for the railgun. I’ve said since day 1 that the railgun and rail cannon, due to science behind it, are my favorite things to use. Great vid! Got my sub.
I literally searched for this a few hours ago. I love that it 1 shots dominators even with bad aim but not killing striders or gunships is really bad. You can make it work with EAT against bots. Against bugs it might be better since you can 500kg titans and if they survive just shoot out their sacs and hope that kills them. It 2 shots charger leg armor and 3 shots them to the head which isn't too bad but the flammenwerfer is so much better.
Do you think you can take a look at the Diligence and Diligence CS? Would like to see your opinion on these considering they also lean towards a more methodical, aim heavy playstyle.
The funny thing about the Railgun's overcharge explosion is that it's survivable if you're wearing *any* armor with the Fortified passive. Apparently this has been a thing since forever but I did some testing for a few hours and yeah the explosion doesn't instantly kill you as long as you have armor with Fortified. The explosion is also survivable with any Heavy armor, with or without Fortified so I guess that's an extra point for people who like running them :p
But besides the interaction it has with Fortified armor the buff feels pretty insignificant, and to tack on a nerf to its staggering potential? Jeez AH do you guys just hate the Railgun or what? While the increased penetration does help a bit in some enemy interactions it hasn't made the Railgun any better, it's still completely butt at destroying structures and other hard enemies and with the stagger nerf it's almost worse at fighting the enemies it's actually good against. Just give the Railgun an actual buff and admit the original nerf was uncalled for AH -_-
Imagine being Arrowhead Studios, making a really good weapon in the Railgun, placing it in the final batch of support weapon unlocks at level 20, then deciding to make it one of the worst guns in the game. All the effort people go through to access this “late game” weapon only for it to feel awful to use.
You should definitely do an in-depth video on the Pistols; I hear the Peacemaker can actually one-shot light bots in the head now. Also, the DCS can now one-shot devastators in the face. *_Devastators._* So good...
That’s how it should be; if your aim is good enough and you’re willing to sacrifice ergonomics and magazines, then you should be able to make short work of medium targets
I've had a lot of fun cutting the Rocket and Heavy Devastators in half, find it much more safer and reliable to peek boom reload and repeat. However what it lacks is anti air against gunships and also it takes too long pop cannon turrets. I could make that up by using the Eruptor though 😁
1:00 For the TLDR, it uses magnets, but the other type of magnets. Which are weird enough that physicists just call spooky magic and too much math and move on...
Thanks or suffering for us. I obviously don't test as well as you do, but from what I saw, the Plasma Punisher came out of the patch the best. Very surprisingly. You already made a video on it once so it'd be weird to redo it so soon, but I recommend trying it out to see what I'm talking about, because most people like myself avoid that weapon, and now it's my go-to.
If you want to circumvent the inconsistant charge times (and save ammunition) you can use a macro with the charge time of 2975ms. Technically it charges to 2990ms before exploding but this is unreliable for some reason. Charging to 99.5% doesn't change the fact that the gun does crappy in general on heavier targets but I have noticed there is a slight increase in structure damage, It usually takes 1-2 less shots than 90% to take down a heavier target. Macros are cringe but if you want to use the gun, this definitely makes it more viable.
Despite all this I switched from quasar cannon to the railgun and I haven’t regretted it. My other friend runs a quasar and with the nerfs to it the railgun is perfect for dealing with devsators and hulks (and orbital railgun for those pesky tanks) while he focuses on high priority targets like gunships, dropships and factory striders. TLDR railgun + quasar combo is god tier agenst bots . + it looks sick
All they need to do is give it a smidge of a damage buff so it can at least 2 shot chargers to the head and itd at least have a reason to exist. Fun fact! Quasar, EAT and Recoiless do 650 damage. With tier 6 pen at the correct angle. The Railgun USED to do 600 damage with tier 6 pen at the correct charge level. This means they 100% nerfed the railguns damage with the railgun nerf because if the railgun did the same amount of damage then it would be able to at least 2 shot chargers to the head. They dont need to revert the damage entirely. But just enough. Eravin explains this much better and explains how its structure damage specifically in the video(which effects enemies as well, theyre just referred to as "structures" due to armor level). But just a simple explanation for people who didn't watch
It’s durable damage “damage vs structures” which is a separate other hidden value was reduced to ashes. The original 600 ballistic is here, but the 600 structure is not
@EravinVT yeah I forgot about that. Edited my comment in kind! Thanks for the testing. Really hope they undo that or at least partial undo it. I just wanna 2 shot chargers man :(
Just my two cents, if it could 2-shot Chargers I don't think anyone would ever use Quasar, EAT or Recoilless for bugs ever again. The ease of those 2-shots would far outweigh a 1-shot then resupply (EAT) / static reload (RR) / 10s cooldown (Quasar).
@newspiked7385 you are forgetting the fact that EAT/RR/Quasar are LEAGUES better at dealing with bile titans, tank, factory striders, cannon towers... etc etc etc. Railgun may as well not exist vs them. Not to mention how much better they are at taking out things like shrieker nests and spore spewers Chargers are farm from anyone's biggest threat unless all you play is diff 4
@@TheCosmicAstro- guess it depends on how you use your strats. For me I'm pretty happy to use my strats for the heaviest targets as long as my support weapon can handle everything else. Even when I run EAT/RR/Quasar, I think I'll only go for a Bile kill with it if I've used up all my strikes or as a finishing blow. Especially if I know every Charger is a 2-shot, that's 2 or even 3 strats I can dedicate solely to Bile Titans, that's plenty.
I love how you haven’t panicked yet about the patrols increasing on Helldive difficulty. You’d think the earth was caving in with the other content creator’s. Like OMG how will they farm samples. 🤭
I think, the railgun is still superior to AMR (and all other anti-armor support weapons) in two specific dimensions, in it's FPV FoV and its overall "snappiness" (if you crouch with MM/engi kit). I''ll explain, Mouse sensitivity coefficient for FPV in this game seems to be MDV 100% (e.g. like it was for AWP in CS by default), thus you can adjust sens with MDH 0% to 3rd-1st person to only one FOV. With RG you have same FoV in FPV ADS as with most pistols, ARs, shotguns. AMR has lover FOV with 50m zoom, so as other AArmor guns (and they also occlude a huge portion of already low FoV). For those of us who play apex/BD/literally anything it's a minor but existent point of not throwing away habitual mouse sens. As for 3rd person ADS, I can't help but feel, that it has some stupid sticky aim-assist. As for snappiness, I sincerelly think that "weapon ergonomics" in shooting games are at the same level of malignancy as screenshake and stun/stuggerlock. But 100% sure devs will never change anything in that department. Lastly, as far as "ugly scopes" go, IMO they all are equally awfull, with Penetrator's one being somewhat partially decent. The contrast between awesome detailed weapon animations and utterly ugly and lazy scopes is infinite.
Completely agree. There’s no reason to ever use the railgun against either enemy type given the other options you have, even after the “buff”. I’m convinced they have a grudge against the rail bc it was the first “meta”, it’s so stupid. The original function and power of the rail gun at launch would fit well in the game today. Even if they thought it would be too powerful then drop the mag count or increase the shot amount to strip armor a bit, that’s all that was ever needed. Instead they made the rail pointless and a burden to ever consider using on higher difficulties. So dumb. 🤦♂️
QUESTION: Can any PLEASE tell ME where to post bugs to? I noticed that the Plasma Shotgun self damages you when you are wearing the Energy based Shield backpack Stratagem since the patch. Any help would be thankful.
its kinda strange how railgun takes 4 shots to blow tank heat sink but only 2 for hulk, while LC (prepatch idk about now) killed tank heatsinks way faster than hulk heat sinks, about 50% longer. its not a big deal but strange. hulk heat sink i guess has higher armor value or something so its halving lc?
dang i really wanted a breakdown on the FS vs RG matchup, especially if it strips armor. i've seen armor being stripped of the forehead of factory striders, and that new weak spot could apperently be damaged by medium armor pen weapons. oh and i'd love to know if it strips armor of other spots as well, like possibly the legs. I always got the notion that the railgun was for destroying armor and not direct dmg, so i hoped that one of the most complex enemies were delved more into, especially since it feels like the railgun's goal is more to assist in killing than actually killing.
I've been triyeng out the railgun recently and so far, the AMR feels better to use, and besides RG being able to penetrate heavy armor, the AMR can kill the same medium Armor targets with less effort
This thing needs scaling stagger and projectile speed as you increase the charge if it doesn't have that already; Or just a full overhaul to make something that should excel at taking out heavy targets actually viable for that.
@EravinVT oh I'm just thinking of what would make railgun more useful in the current state since it is capable of finishing off weakened heavies. I'd still get take the amr myself for the task, even if it's not the most efficient strat
I have brought it back to my load out against bots, my team and I always loaded out for super heavy. With this update I can change my load out and help with Devs and Hulks, it takes a lot off their plate. It was when we get swarmed by devs and hulks that we’d get bogged down a bit, now we are flying through them.
Railgun should be hitscan, but with very high recoil. Damage should be variable based on angle of attack and how much of the target's body the railgun round passes through. To use a bile titan as an example, a headshot from ground level would do typical headshot damage. A headshot from high ground where the round passes through the head, thorax and abdomen of the bile titan would do epic damage. Or in the case of a hulk, shots penetrating armor from the side would be more damaging than armor shots from the front or back (ignoring the heat sink for the sake of argument) due to the width of the target being greater than the thickness front to back. Make fighting with the railgun a matter of position. Also, variable optics with a good sight would be totally appropriate. (Basically, the railgun should be the ultimate sniper rifle in the game.) Stagger being somewhat low strikes me as reasonable since, assuming the round is penetrative rather than expanding, the blowthrough would account for lessened stagger.
If it can deal with Hulks and chicken legs, that's all I need to know. Having easy ways to deal with those and having quasars on the team as well to deal with the rest will really take the pressure off the newly nerfed quasar and keep my grenades in my pockets where they belong.
Well I did go Railgun on a bug mission and the squadmate I was paired with did nothing but bitch that I was not doing anything. I was thinking the bile titan only took 7-8 shots at unsafe 90% though, when you did your test did you aim for forehead? keeping in mind that when it opens it's mouth to spit it's forehead weakspot disappears into it's back?
@@EravinVTcrack titan side plate and 2 impact nades is my back pocket strategy for titans when i dont have dedicated anti tank. Sometimes i run nade launcher, supply pack, rail strike, and 110’s, specially for spamming titans and hordes. Everyone stands in awe as i pokeball the titan to death in 3 seconds once the plate is broken. Also 3 GL shots will kill titan once plate is broken :)
Has anyone tested yet how many shots are needed to destroy the vents on top of factory strider? I want to become Strider Rider jetpacking onto Striders and blowing up their top vents :D this is where non-explosive weapons come in, because I dont want to blow myself off in the process. Laser cannon is probably best, but Im wondering what else :D
This rework feels sad. I don't understand what niche it's supposed to occupy? Your summary around 13:27 captures a lot of my points, but what do all of the Railgun's drawbacks offer in return? The AMR does just about everything that it can with better ammo economy, better reloading, fire rate/DPS, meaning overall far more flexibility. Oh, and it can't KILL YOU AND BLOW ITSELF UP if you overcharge it. I really feel like that's a point that doesn't hold enough weight in its considerations: it takes over _half_ its ammo reserve to take down a single bile titan where each shot is risking blowing yourself up and no longer having a support weapon to recover if you don't have the timing down. What reason is there to pick this gun over the AMR, arc thrower, flamethrower, or the quasar cannon (even after its nerf)? The flamethrower can kill you, but at least the weapon is still there, _and_ it can kill loads of enemies at a time with relatively little downtime. The arc thrower takes no ammo, can't kill you (nothing to say about teammates), can still stagger enemies more, and has a far higher fire rate. And the quasar cannon, even with its longer cooldown and longer charge-up time still doesn't blow you up to penetrate the same or more armor and deal far more damage. All this while taking no ammo and having no reload - you can just swap weapons for 15 seconds until it cools off. I think they're making these adjustments without considering its use cases or competition, which is frustrating, since that's what all the nerfs are meant to do: bring more weapons in line with the rest, so that you aren't funneled towards a meta. When they're increasing the armor penetration, what is that supposed to allow the railgun to do that it couldn't before? I believe their thought process was to make it more accessible, since you no longer have to max out every shot to do anything of value. But that doesn't mean it's worth using; you can still get more value out of other support weapons.
I'm curious how you would suggest buffing the railgun. If it gets to the point where it's competing with weapons like the recoilless and quasar for killing armored targets, it's suddenly the best option there is due to its ability to somewhat safely spend its shots on smaller targets without really wasting the shots. What I kinda want is for it to have proportional performance between enemies where it makes sense. It can three shot a charger to the head, and a recoilless only needs double the shots to kill a titan compared to a charger, so why the hell does the railgun suffer with 3-4 times as many? Let me six full charge shot it, it's NOT like that's an ultra convenient shot to make. Vs bots it's almost reasonable, quasar and recoilless land at 3 direct hit shots to kill a tank so 9 is proportional. I'd still want it to be better. 6 would be so nice there. Also, low shot velocity is insane on the railgun. It's a railgun. As in relativistic people projectile. It should be hitscan.
pre nerf railgun was 6 shots for a BT head on average cause you can't stand and 90 charge a Titan trying to kill you realistically 4 times, 2 hits to chargers heads and 1 to strip leg armor which would be fine now as we have rockets 1 shotting it and a flamethrower burning it in 2seconds. and old railgaun would be strong in bots, but not so strong everyone would use it. Basically give us old railgun
I've only been using it against bugs but the past couple of days I've actually been warming up to the railgun again. Though, not because it's actually that strong but I've been finding it feels like how the Autocannon is to the bots. Moderately good against all the medium tier enemies, and situational against the heavier ones. Which is nice since the autocanon's usefulness against bugs really depends on if bile spewers are present since it's not great against Chargers and I don't think it can solo kill a Bile Titan? (though it will take care of the sacks nicely). Since the railgun can one tap spewers still it's filling that similar flex role and while not great against Bile Titans I have followed up with the rest of the time's fire power to finish some off. It's a little more mobile than the autocannon to which helps against bugs; it's an excuse to run the supply pack to which is nice because bugs certainly can force more stims and nades out of ya than bots. I ran a funny 'manual reload' build of punisher(stock)/senator/railgun/supply pack and it's got a tool for every bug in the bunch. The railgun is like, on the edge of being pretty good again. There's a laundry list of things that could be done to improve it but nothing needs to move by miles, just a few yards here and there.
I recorded a lot about the laser cannon today actually but, it’s been very thoroughly covered by others recently and this patch did not change much for it tbh. Might be awhile before I get to it
@@EravinVT I see. I felt noticeable TTK change against bots overall (decrease TTK against chaffs and devs, increase TTK against tanks, turrets, objs), especially against factory strider under belly. Or maybe they change the weak spot for it?
Convert to laser cannon for bots. The time is now. Capable of destroying everything in the bot arsenal with ease (outside of berserkers,) this support weapon will remain sleeper supreme. Don't like the las cannon? Good news, the AMR does it the job almost as well. The only things the AMR struggles with is gunships, tanks, and cannon turrets, all of which take about an entire magazine.
I know the damage looks miserable but lets be honest you're only bringing this for devastators, hulks, chargers and stalkers. It performs well enough against those to consider bringing it instead of the AMR with its longer reload (and equally bad scope). There shouldn't be a world where you're bringing it for tanks, fabs or titans, IMO For as long as your whole team is nothing but quasars which I predict will remain the case as the nerf basically doesn't do anything, it's really just a matter of preference between it and the AMR to me
If the rest of the team can cover heavies it's the best in class for devastators and hulks as a claim to fame, But with the addition of Factory Striders and Gunships, this novelty was weakened even further into arguably a niche
@@EravinVTngl, I find the Hulks, Devastators and Berserkers a problem for me. The gunships can be destroyed with a Scorcher and even a Tank can be as well. And I suck with the AMR.
Redunk the one gun classically known for massive penetration in exchange for smalll area of damage... is so bad at it. Honestly I still dont know what to use in my back slot. I've often just gone in without anything lately and found it (Granted i play on 7 or 8 most of the time. not 9). If i take something in its been EAT. Except after this last update a really annoying thing is when I fire and drop it. I no longer take my primary out. I take my secondary out (and then grenade myself). I dont know if that was a glitch or a change. but before it would just go to whatever weapon i had out last
It truly need a new buff/gimmick like being able to pierce multiple targets and leaving a trail of fire being or something like that to make it a bit for viable and fun. I cant justify using this when other support or even primary weapons can do the same or an even better job in most cases while not having those big downside (like low firerate/ammo) :(
I’m just confused what the intended role of this thing is. Like, is it supposed to be anti-armor or anti-tank cuz it feels like it’s doing both and excelling in neither beyond the barest minimum
Hey, you should take another look the DCS now that it’s been significantly buffed. I did some testing and it can now one shot devastators up to 125m away! That’s a massive improvement from the 20m limit that it was at before. It’s a wonderful weapon now. It’s honestly made the standard Diligence kinda irrelevant because of how hard it hits and how nimble it is now. Also, poor railgun. Edit: oh, and it two shots berserker heads now if you can land the shots. Not sure what range that drops off at, getting those maniacs to sit still is tricky.
@@EravinVT It was already on the cusp of greatness, it just needed that little boost to become actually good. I, for one, am very happy. I’ve wanted the DCS to be good since before the first balance patch, and now it’s finally living up to what I wanted it to be. The Diligence has some catching up to do now, though.
I actually liked it against bugs when I tried the railgun last night after the changes. Still can one shot the titan in the head during his spit. The medium enemies look cool too when they just explode. I’ll need to try it again vs bots tonight. I struggled with it, was hard to hit shots and I ended up just switching to the laser canon and testing that out. The bot map was pretty obscured in terms of vision so nah r that’s why j couldn’t anything.
I'm sorry, but in my experience the railgun is practically silent. I've seen two heavy devastators at POI facing away from each other, killed one, and got no response from the other. I don't feel like ammo economy is as bad as stated here. One shot devastators in body, bile spewers, or hive guard in head. Pretty sure everyone's darling the auto cannon takes at least 2, but it doesn't quite have double ammo.
I mean, its BETTER then it was I'm pretty sure. But more testing on my part is required. Honestly they may as well give the RAILGUN its clip back from Helldivers 1 (it had a 5 round clip). RANDOM FUN FACT, Ever hear of Titanfall or the Titanfall universe? Last I checked all the weapons in that universe are indeed RAILGUNS. And I think we all remember the KRABER, getting good with that BOLTGUN of a Sniper Rifle came with some serious bragging rights. Plus the Dopamine Rush from nailing those headshots was OH SO GOOOOOOD! Id even call it a cure for Depression.
The only thing that the railgun changes have actually changed is taking it from useless to techincally viable against bugs, due to it's charger kill no longer requiring 90% charge. For bots, more armor pen changes almost nothing, you still just use it to pop devastators, hulks, and the occasional problematic strider, and it still does next to no damage against things that actually have armor. The AMR fills the same exact role but can actually kill gunships and striders, and it baffles me as to why the railgun still has it's massive armor handicap in a world where the AMR can kill a factory strider in two mags. Initially the nerf kind of made sense, turning it into an anti-bot sniper weapon instead of an anti-everything gun, but now that the power of AT rockets has been brought up I feel like the initial iteration of the railgun would fit right in to the modern meta and maybe even be a bit underpowered.
so for bots it overkill's all basic troop types, good against Devastators, Berserkers, Striders, and Hulks. bad against tanks, turrets, gunships and mobile factories for bugs it overkill's every common bugs and is good vs commanders, spewers and chargers. ok vs stalkers if you have distance or stuns, and cant handle titans I don't know it seems to be tuned to counter medium sized enemies now, while struggling with large/super heavy troops. I can't help but wonder if we are unfairly comparing it to it's overpowered state instead of see what it can bring to the table now
I usually play in a full squad and most of the teammates bring the dedicated AT like Eats and Quasars. So knowing this gun is very effective against annoying ads like Devastators and Berserkers will probably make me use it more. And I'm too noob with the AMR and I don't like the ergonomics of it. I feel like this weapon would only really be useful for Bots though. Plus a Stun grenade and a eye hole shot on a Hulk makes it trivial. Grenade pistols can deal with Fabs and the Scorcher can takedown gunships. I do wish its penetrating was way higher so Chargers legs can be shot with 2 shots instead of 3.
It’s one true claim to fame is the 1hko hulk headshots in an ease of access unseen elsewhere besides a recoilless or EAT. But its struggle against other heavy units while being redundant with strong primaries that clear Devastators makes it very underwhelming currently
@@EravinVT Yeah. I still think it needs more. It's definitely a bit better than before but I hope they either give it stronger damage or just make it a primary even.
Thanks for the tests, but I would like to know more How are u able to 4 shot a tank turret to the heatsink? I literally stood on top of isolated annihilator tanks on several occasions, and it took me ~8 rounds of 90%+ charge to the heatsink in first person mode to kill it Is there an issue with hitting it from the top ? 🤔 Funnily enough, about factory striders, after I removed the cannon turret and the gatling guns, it took me ~8 shots to the eye to drop it It took so many more shots to the under belly I've lost count
My only problem with it at least on the bot side is that it does so little damage to vents. Im fine with it being awful against factory striders, but why is it terrible when used on tank vents, canon turret vents, and other objectives like mortar emplacements?
Strongly disagree here. Gun is much better against chargers and bile spewers now. Even though you still need the same amount of shots, you don't need to charge them as much. Also, it works pretty well for finishing off damaged bile titans.
Compare your case here to using any other much better support weapon that kills chargers in 1 titans in 4 such as Queso Cannon though. This thing has a hulk 1hko party trick and that’s about it compared to other support options in its weight class. In a vacuum any weapon is “fine” but when tested against its peers, this thing doesn’t hold water
@@EravinVT From the balance perspective, it would be really bad for this gun to just wipe out titans and chargers. It seems to be very good for medium enemies, and somewhat capable against big ones. The closest peer for this weapon would probably be the arc thrower. EAT and Queso are great for heavy enemies, but they are miserable to use against anything else.
Used to love the Railgun for Automatons! It was my go-to cause I could one shot devastators and hulks as long as I stayed calm. Teammates loved it too cause it kept the devastator pressure off of them. But now with the Striders and gunships its just not worth it. My favorite is the Spear now believe it or not.
I think the railgun is better against bugs than the author implies. If you bring stratagems to capitalize on it’s weakness (cluster AND 500), and you play to its strength (jet pack OR shield and faster fire rate than quasar) it is a valid option
I was testing it last night on 9! I wanted to use the jump pack so I could take advantage of the head armor with sets over 100 and still have decent mobility against bugs. Also wanted to kill chargers, so I was looking at the quasar or the railgun. I *think* the railgun might be a better option (combined with breaker) for holding of hordes while both eagles are rearming. Granted, a lot of that choice is my own personal fun factor!
I find it hilarious how accurate and painfully funny the video was. It seems really easy to fix this weapon (heavy armor specialist) but the devs seem afraid to overpower it. Too bad bc it’s fun to use.
Man I really want this gun to be good. Was running it on a few dives today and it's ability to slap walkers and devestators is very satisfying and there's the hulk 1 shot potential but it is WORTHLESS on all the other enemies. Strider, tanks, gunships, big laser turrets, destructible objectives... it can't do anything to them.
So much oof. There are so many different ways they could give this weapon it's own viable niche, too, and I don't understand why they're letting it languish like this. Just one option that comes to mind is recognizing that overpenetration is a real problem with weapons of this nature so you can leave the damage relatively low, but it is either so fast as to effectively be, or actually is, a hitscan weapon, it always penetrates at least one target regardless of armour (for maximum fun I'd let it penetrate anything even terrain out to a certain distance, no matter how much it penetrates) and giving it incredible stagger force. Like watch the tank bounce and knock the Helldiver flat on their butt when firing the full charge amounts of force.
It needs to strip chargers in 1 or 2 shots. Shooting it 3 or 4 times and then switching to your primary and shooting it some more just makes you wonder why you brought the thing
Thank you! 🙏 I was hoping it would do better against gunships and factory striders. Looks like it improved a little there but not enough to consider it a viable choice against those units. I mean some primaries outperform it by a lot when it comes to gunships and factory striders. When fighting Automatons it feels like a nerf to me with stagger reduced. I don't need a safe shot to kill a hulk. Why even bother using a safe mode anyways? If you miss weakpoint while fighting a hulk with unsafe mode, at least you do body damage. Before it would stagger hulk's and other units which helped a lot. Now with the stagger gone it feels even weaker.
I was wondering, can you do a vid on the factory strider going over ideal ways to kill them with both stragems and weapons? Maybe this would be a series worth starting for high tier enemies?
I've seen several of my peers covering this topic so i've abstained from it for the most part, my go to methods for getting rid of these are also very hammer and less scalpel so my knowledge on what precision can bring them down is very limited other then the belly being class 3 armor. I always take the path of least resistance fighting them or leave them be as they are very slow
HANDS DOWN BEST GUIDES!!! Love the content keep it going ^^ That being said.. are you going to do another vid for the crossbow ? If not.. what is your opinion on the changes ? For me as a crossbow main.. it's really really bad now.. feels like the unwanted child of the scorcher and dominator. Poor ammo economy, aoe, damage breakpoints.
13:03 "Gone are the days of Railgun domination." Indeed, and I don't think they're coming back. Though, from a game balance perspective, this thing is a balancing nightmare. Make it too strong and you invalidate the launchers by having a weapon everyone can run to sweep up medium enemies with ease and then also deal with tank-class enemies without a second thought. People only even care about it being capable of this *because* it's launch version was absurd. Had it started where it is now, I don't think it'd have nearly as many people wanting it buffed. IMO, if the Railgun were to regain it's ability to kill tank-class enemies, it would have to be heavily reworked into a new weapon entirely, as keeping it mostly the same but bringing back it's immense flexibility would be utterly anathema to the rest of the game's balance concept. Everything has a tradeoff in some way or another. Pre-nerf RG didn't have enough tradeoffs to justify it's power, and was thusly nerfed.
Not the reason it was nerfed, it was nerfed due to overperforming via a bug while every other AT option was gutter trash. Instead of addressing the bug and buffing the other AT weapons they nerfed railgun. Then they proceeded to buff the other AT, then address the bug. Old Railgun would be amongst the crowd in no particular prestige comparatively in the current meta game.
@@EravinVT Do you recall what the heavy enemy breakpoints were back then? I never got around to gathering the data on it, and finding that info feels like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Understandable, it slipped my mind to even mention the classic 2 and primary dump just because we’ve had so many faster kill options develop since that strat was common
I know the BR-14 supposedly got a 'buff' as well, it still feels bad and the scope is still misaligned. At this point I find myself becoming fatigued of the 'balance' that Arrowhead is using; it feels like the favorite guns of a set month are nerfed the next big patch. The nerfed weapons are not restored in any meaningful way. If Ah could explain their balance efforts, it might help but sometime soon the general player base will just grow tired of nerf heavy balance and move on.
Spent my whole 13 hours of Patch Day on this one, Railgun ended up being... an interesting subject to spend it on lets put it that way. Thanks for watching and as always my favorite comment will be featured at the end of the next video! Cya Next Time!
Need a guide on the autocannon.
You can strip charger leg in 2 but you need to be willing to go 90 ish. Not great but I still think it's better than before.
🙏
Ouch, railgun truly was hammered. though it didn't make sense that gunships needs so many shots to actually take down considering its not even a heavy.
Curious if you would/could do a video detailing the sound radius of weapons. I don’t think I have seen that yet other than you mentioning it in each video. Would be nice to have them all in one video.
Community: Please buff this underpowered and over nerfed weapon
AH: Minor armor pen buff + Significant Stagger Nerf 👍
lmao
Yep, they won't ever buff this weapon out of stuborness, I've already lost hope this thing will be anywhere near decent ever again.
For real. Does it feel kinda better? Sure. But only being able to stagger things that already get one shot makes no sense. This patch was a funky one.
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@@neziaojuara1768 nah I wouldn't be so quick to judge. They probably just don't want the Railgun to be completely dominant again so they're doing small changes to make people test it out again to get feedback.
Notice how the senator got the exact change everyone wanted for it since launch? It's likely that these buffs have been lingering around for a while and were intended to be added after bug fixes. As they fix the games issues I think we'll see more frequent balance patches like this one.
Basically it functions like the AMR without the accuracy, a longer reload, and less utility at range.
The 1 headshot vs 2 headshots is the notable difference atm
And without taking up a backpack slot
@@EravinVT Very true but the AMR has no delay in the follow up shots with a 6 ammo mag. It can destroy turrets and tanks better hitting the vent than the rail gun as by the time you reload that turret is looking at you.
you can actually fn aim it though
And amr can’t strip chargers
I wish the devs would just remove the railgun and rebuild it from the ground up because it has such a huge identity crisis.
Even if the damage and penetration was S-tier, it would still not *feel* powerful, since it is just a weak "pew", enemies don't get staggered and even if you hit they just topple over and die. It needs better sound and VFX design to actually make it feel good.
It's a goddamn railgun, pretty much the epitome of "powerful sci-fi- weapon", and we actually see that in the orbital railcannon. It looks cool, has visual (and actual) impact and actually feels like a superfast projectile demolishing whatever is unlucky enough to get hit by it. So why isn't the railgun just the scaled down version of that?
Why does such a powerful accurate weapon only have a basic red-dot when it is actually more like a artillery/sniper weapon? It needs variable magnification scopes.
Why does it have a slow projectilevelocity? If we ignore the shitty ingame excuse "the portable version is just not powerful yet" (in which case: Why is it manufactured at all?), it should be *the*
weapon with the highest projectile velocity in the game. It should be so fast you don't even have to lead your shots at a distance of 500 m! Again, the orbital railcannon does that so much better: You see the targetting laser locking onto the taget and then boom, not a second later the strike hits. Whereas the normal orbital artillery takes a while to reach your target.
Real-life railguns produce a trail of flames behind them due to their insane velocity and cause explosions when they penetrate through a target due to the sheer force of impact that's unleashed... Why do the in-game projectiles just disappear into the enemies with minimal visual effects?
How it started: Rail gun is best gun. How it's going: I'm going to bed. 😅
lmao
Railgun is Bad Gun cause there’s no Fun with Railgun 🥹
@@EravinVT feels bad man 😔. I hope it’ll still have its uses as button pusher for the 15min scientist evac, but that’s about it.
"courageously advancing in the opposite direction". good one.
We never retreat!
All engagements are to serve the purposes of Liberty. If there are other things to do that result in greater Liberation, then advance towards those other things.
Living to spread Democracy another day is surprisingly often on that list of greater sources of Liberation.
That's sad. I really like the high-risk, high-reward aspect of the railgun, but in the current iteration, the reward isn't there...
Yeah, the only reward I felt today was the three hour nap following my audio recording session
Quick note in the exploding factor of the gun, i was doing some quick tests earlier and wasn't paying attention so the gun blew up in my hands yet surprisingly, my hands were still there. Did this again and turns out it'll deal 50% of your HP if you have the Fortified perk which can be handy for those who are just learning the weapon and don't really have the times down pat.
that's kinda funny, didn't think to try wearing fortified with it but good tip, was off my game today
Exploding should never be a problem. But a neat nugget of information
So... Even self-damage got nerfed? Poor boy
I also did this, I had fortified heavy armor and a shield pack so I wasn't sure if those other factors helped.
@@EravinVT Ah it's all good, it's pretty niche and might be a bug the devs haven't caught cause no one's been using the railgun lol
Literally no point seeing the other content creators when your breakdowns are so thorough. Good job bruh ❤
appreciate that, i'll try to stay worthy of such high regard :D and thanks for watching
not to be that guy, but a great youtuber if you just want to look at STATS and TABLES is Ryken XIV. Great videos that summarise tons of content at ones. Not saying that stealth master Eravin is bad or anythinhg
Be quiet my guy or the devs gonna nerf him too
@bigsadge747 : says "not to be that guy", then proceeds to be That Guy.
@@PaperMage236 thats why i said but fool
Thanks for suffering to share this info with us. I knew this wouldn't change anything just reading the notes, and after playing today it sure didn't feel much better. You can kill chargers slightly faster now, but you don't get a stagger... I don't know what compelled them to provide a nerf alongside a small buff to the weapon, but it sure feels like they don't want to admit they overnerfed this weapon. I really want to enjoy using it again, but I just feel like I'm not helping my team enough when there's better options I can take.
Yeah I want to enjoy railgun but it's overnerfed and dated compared to the enemies that have entered the game and competing weapons in the support slot
The devs have been increasing the "hard armor" targets to the game while slowly removing hard armor damage from support weapons. Factory striders need structure damage, gunships need structure damage.
Additionally weapons that ignore armor have also all seen debuffs in the form of enemy buffs. Striders now resist explosions more, explosion weapons are all getting their AoE reduced, the arc thrower lost its range, and now its stagger. EATs now struggle to 2-shot bile titans with updated hit boxes.
The aggregate result is that any "buffs" are being offset by enemy changes and additions, and all of our old orbitals and eagles are failing to make up the difference.
I ended up loosing a lvl5 mission to a single gunship when I took the railgun. No non-support weapon strat can harm a gunship, nor primary weapon. I basically got killed, then spent the next 5 minutes being hunted down and blown up every time I tried to get my railgun back until I ran out of lives because I had nothing that could actually harm it.
@@Keithslawinski actually, the eruptor can harm a gunship - it can one-shot a gunship if you hit the right shot. difficult, but its doable.
I can see what the Devs were getting at with thr Railgun, it doesn't do a lot of damage because it's not an explosive, high calibre projectile like the 84mm HEAT shells of the Recoilless, it's a small, high velocity solid bullet, realistically it'll only damage what it smashes through, it should reward accuracy even more, maybe with a longer range scope, and with a bit more stagger (and probably higher muzzle velocity)
I'd also appreciate if we got more Ammo-type Backpacks, like a backpack that hooks up to energy weapons (mainly lasers, arc and the Railgun) to allow better charge up speeds or none at all and a slight increase in damage, that sounds like a cool choice to make for a dedicated build
Or, what about a shoulder fired variant of the Railgun? Slightly more spool up, maybe a three round magazine, with Autocannon ergonomics but actual anti tank penetration, with the caveat that it needs a battery backpack
Honestly I’d be content if it could just keep up against gunships. It’s an unavoidable extremely oppressive enemy, so not being able to handle them well really stinks
@@EravinVT
Assuming that they have a pilot (I feel Hulks already do, when their faces blows up they leave an awfully-person-shaped hole) it would make sense that you'd be able to one shot a gunship by shooting the cockpit dead on but shooting the engines would take more, Railgun is in a weird spot, but I'm enjoying it atm, wasn't a big fan of the Meta on release
Also, why don't gunships have destroyable rocket racks like the Rocket Devastators? I know it wouldn't really do a significant amount of difference, but it'd be nice if a missed Autocannon shell breaks the rocket launchers, just as a bit of help and immersion
IRL railcannons actually are explosive upon impact due to the sheer kinetic energy it packs, they literally don't even need an explosive warhead on it, just an iron slug can exceed a hi-explosive cannon shot
its OP irl and is balanced by only can be fired only a few times before the barrel burns and melts itself, and is expensive AF for how power hungry it is.
Im still wishing the grenade pistol at least got 2 per ammo box
Kinda insane it doesn’t
Or grenade packs filled its grenades.
No, we got the opposite. Now the grenade pistol can't 1-shot striders, so expect to burn through ammo even faster. Lucky us.
@@Keithslawinski it still can, it's just trickier. Which sucks and can be inconsistent but they still can be one shot
When I bought the game, I was in awe observing people using the rail gun.
Then I made my way level 20, saving up slips to buy it - next day, it was nerfed to utter worthlessness...and it obviously still is 😢
Sadness
The problem seems to be that the devs rubber-band with their balancing ethos. They over-nerf powerful weapons, leaving them in a bad state to the point that other weapons fulfill almost every function the nerf'd one originally did and if they _do_ provide some kind of buff again, they either nerf some other trait (keeping it bad in spite of the buff) or the buff is so inconsequential that it makes no difference.
They see people talk about how good it is, then butcher it without really thinking, then get scared about buffing it back up because they think it'll be too powerful again.
There was a lot of very incremental nothing burger changes this patch unfortunately, there were some big Ws such as Senator Speed Loader, Crossbow becoming the stealth weapon of my dreams, and the arc Blitzer becoming absolutely insane. But the other changes were so incremental they didn’t even change a breakpoint despite shifting damage numbers
This is why I can't stand when people are bothered by the valid criticisms lobbied towards this patch. They all say things like, "You're seriously complaining about nerfs? Did you see the laundry list of buffs?"
What buffs? They were almost all inconsequential or paired with a nerf of equal weight. I just wanna see this game thrive, but the devs seem to enjoy shooting themselves in the foot.
I'll agree that the Railgun was over nerfed, but what else has ever been hit that badly or seen rubber banding on? Most of this patch, and past patches too, have been fairly incremental overall.
@@Legendary_Honey Conversely, most of the nerfs are meaningless as well. Even the quasar cannon everyone can't stop complaining about is borderline identical in practice. Straight up most of the actually meaningful changes are all the buffs, because at least you're going to notice them. The eruptor and xbow don't count as the 'nerfs' to their explosion are amplified tenfold by how Striders behave now
This patch is downright puzzling, it changes way less than it seems.The main thing it changes was make striders ten times harder to kill and make the community a billion times more toxic. Genuinely, why did they even bother with the weapon balance when most of it makes no difference except make people on discord whine about nerfs?
@@ExValeFor "and make the community a billion times more toxic"
I think that might just be the norm for this game when it comes to balance changes. Since it is a PvE game, gamers have a mentality that almost nothing should ever get nerfed. But this produces an issue from a developer standpoint; any time you overshoot a weapon, all weapons now need to match it, and now while you are trying to get weapons to match it, another can overshoot; and it all can get really out of hand really quickly. And then what do you do when an enemy that was supposed to be a specific type of threat, no longer is; now you either need to make a whole new enemy to fill the old role, or fix it some other way. All in all a whole headache.
The best the devs can ask for over the next several months is to still have a fun game, but with more weapon variety. With the complaints about different nerfs and buffs being lost to time.
a video explaining armor values and hardness would be greatly appreciated😊
plan to get to this one day
@@EravinVT can't wait!
Come on devs, just revert the original nerf wholesale
thats what they should do
Against Bots, its a no-go, why? It does ass damage against the Gunships, meanwhile the AMR and LC will rip through them.
The only advantage the railgun has is the damage to the Hulks, it loses to the other two at:
Killing tanks
Devastators
Laser Cannon Turrets
Factory Walker
Small mob clearing
Opening Crates.
I HIGHLY advise you avoid using this gun until they buff the use against structures, but who knows if they will, as they seem anal about it right now as they even made the LC (Laser Cannon) take longer at killing the Laser Cannon Turrets than it use to take.
Yeah it’s very weak atm besides its one hulk wonder trick
I've noticed a trend of the devs slowly removing support weapons abilities to deal with "hard armor", and it is getting frustrating. With gunships and factory striders there are now WAAAAAAAAAY too many enemies that are immune to medium armor pen, AND when you can pierce it, you are dealing with "structural damage.
Arc thrower got a distance nerf so it can't damage gunships
Laser cannon just got a structure damage nerf after players found out it was amazing at taking out structures.
The railgun is seemingly WORSE than the AMR at dealing with structures which makes no sense.
All this is frustrating, but it would be manageable if the stragagems could offset this power vacuum, but there is not a SINGLE orbital/eagle that can take out a gunship, 110mm have shit accuracy and that doesn't seem like its getting better, and the new airburst is basically a troll against airborn targets.
Despite all the "buffs" given to other weapons, the devs rarely give an increase to the ability to hurt hard targets, and seem to only be adding more hard targets to the game (in the form of mission objectives and enemies). IF anything, outside chargers, the game has only gotten more difficult on every front.
If the devs played above 6 I’d be very impressed. Their decisions don’t feel like they understand how the game works at 9
Arrowhead seems to want to retain the feeling of fear players had when they were new to tank enemies. But instead of making bigger badder enemies, they’re making helldivers weaker to induce a similar feeling.
Tank enemies have a powerful presence in this game not because they are overwhelming battlefield threats, but because Arrowhead doesn’t like that experienced players can efficiently take them out, and in turn makes the most effective weapons against tanks less effective.
Just giving the stagger back is all I ask. The lack of damage versus the hardest targets is fine, as long as we can support by staggering
Sad times
List of improvement to the Railgun:
* Better optics (must)
* Variable Zoom (current, 100 m and 200m) (must)
* Higher damage against Gunships in particular to combat them (whether through better armor penetration or damage value doesn't matter)
* Higher Stagger against targets that can survive a weak spot shot (interrupting Bile Titans when they puke can give teammates room to focus fire against it)
The focus here is on the Railgun being able to compete with the AMR in a similar role. So just make it better against targets that are in the category of heavy armor, but still numerous enough that you don't want to use a 500 KG or Orbital Precision strike every single time you encounter them. Because of the bugs using swarming tactics they will just be a worse matchup IMO. Bots are the preferable matchup because they stay back (except the Scorcher Hulks...) and the strongest feature of Railgun against bots right now is it can one-shot Hulks.
Im pretty sure your info about penetration level is incorrect, railgun now has level 5(heavy 1) penetration in safemode
As it is now(once again) capable of damaging charger legs in safe mode (albeit at 50% dmg and therefore taking 5shots to strip armor due to only matching the armor rating)
and because of that you only need to charge the railgun just a bit over safe mode to reach level 6(heavy 2) penetration and two shot charger leg armor
Came to say this. You need AP4 to faceshot a hulk which Railgun could previously do in two shots, now it's 1 shot. Since it's above armor instead of matching, it's doing the full 600 damage instead of 300.
Also means it can safe mode hit a charge, impossible with less than 5.
True, slipped my mind with how dog water it performs against 5/6/7 class armor. Corrected in the description. Changes nothing about the results however so no harm done
It's puzzling. The only non-massive thing with 5 armour or more I can think of is hulk faces. Hulks suck but not so much that I'd like railgun's 600/120 over AMR's 450/135 or even Autocannon's 260/260 + 150/150
For chargers it is actually 2 high charge shots to the leg to remove armor, or 3 to head to kill it. It's decent.
That’s.. in the video, I just say 3 kills through the leg which implies 2 is removed armor
@@EravinVT I see, I misunderstood that point. Thanks for all your video's, they are great.
@@EravinVT I think it may be a good idea to specify the number of shots needed to strip armour from chargers since it's often better to strip the armour then change weapons and blow the leg off rather than keep trying to hit the head or use your support weapon to blow the leg off (assuming you were aiming for the head and hit the leg by mistake the first time)
I think you should also look into how effective weapons like the railgun and arc thrower are in combination with other stratagems such as the 500KG or EAT. Bile Titans for example normally take an eternity to kill with either weapon, but after an EAT headshot or 500KG they can be finished off quite rapidly with either weapon allowing you to save your second EAT for another BT or perhaps an incoming charger. (the same applies to shrieker nests, 1 EAT plus 5 railgun shots to kill IIRC saves quite a bit of time when clearing them from a distance)
I do wish they'd make the railgun hitscan though, and bring back the stagger. it's nowhere near as good as it used to be, but it's definitely a solid B tier support weapon imo. there's better and there's worse.
I'm sorry but 2 shots to the leg is NOT decent That's actually a joke cause you still gotta shoot the leg afterwards. not ideal when getting chased by two+ chargers and swarms of bugs. im sure on medium mission where chargers are the target its "decent"
seriously should be one shot to strip leg armor.
that would make it a much more convenient pick without being broken for bugs, theres no reason to defend it like it is right now. stripping armor to shoot weak spots is great way to play but right now the game actively punishes you for playing that way for chargers, especially when AT can one shot the head instead of shoot legs. and the 3 headshots 2 leg shots were already a thing prepatch. which goes against the video discussion about how the "buffs" helped it
@@petercottantail7850 The AP buff made the 2-shot on the leg slightly faster, as you don't need to go to full charge anymore. The ease of kill is roughly equivalent to the Autocannon, another generalist support weapon that can be used vs Chargers and medium enemies too. And you can reload on the go after killing one Charger, unlike the RR / EATs. You could argue for more buffs, but it's not terrible, especially strange seeing the negativity considering how people were happy with the Arc Thrower's TTK on Chargers, they're really pretty similar.
Also, if I'm correct in understanding that the Railgun can now pierce through Heavy Devastator shields again, I think its value there is being undersold a little as well, being able to take on Hulks, Striders and Devastators is the majority of Automaton engagements.
Finally someone explains and shares my love for the railgun. I’ve said since day 1 that the railgun and rail cannon, due to science behind it, are my favorite things to use. Great vid! Got my sub.
I literally searched for this a few hours ago.
I love that it 1 shots dominators even with bad aim but not killing striders or gunships is really bad. You can make it work with EAT against bots.
Against bugs it might be better since you can 500kg titans and if they survive just shoot out their sacs and hope that kills them. It 2 shots charger leg armor and 3 shots them to the head which isn't too bad but the flammenwerfer is so much better.
Yeah it’s just a near miss anyway I look at it up against its peers. Likely needs another touch up before people use it much again
Do you think you can take a look at the Diligence and Diligence CS? Would like to see your opinion on these considering they also lean towards a more methodical, aim heavy playstyle.
My Diligence CS video holds up in it's entirety besides the ergo. The extra 12 damage changed no major breakpoints!
@@EravinVT So it's basically a range buff
effective range buff yeah
@@EravinVT Though it does consistently 1 headshot Devastators now, or maybe I'm high and I need to check again
Ergonomics buff is huge to me
Able to get good headshots effectively now
Was gonna try it out sometime soon, but now I'm definitely not. So thanks for saving me the time and inevitable frustration!
Glad I could help! and thanks for watchin
If it makes you feel better, I'm pretty sure Joel still has nightmares about the old Railgun.
Likely
The funny thing about the Railgun's overcharge explosion is that it's survivable if you're wearing *any* armor with the Fortified passive. Apparently this has been a thing since forever but I did some testing for a few hours and yeah the explosion doesn't instantly kill you as long as you have armor with Fortified.
The explosion is also survivable with any Heavy armor, with or without Fortified so I guess that's an extra point for people who like running them :p
But besides the interaction it has with Fortified armor the buff feels pretty insignificant, and to tack on a nerf to its staggering potential? Jeez AH do you guys just hate the Railgun or what? While the increased penetration does help a bit in some enemy interactions it hasn't made the Railgun any better, it's still completely butt at destroying structures and other hard enemies and with the stagger nerf it's almost worse at fighting the enemies it's actually good against.
Just give the Railgun an actual buff and admit the original nerf was uncalled for AH -_-
Basically this
Imagine being Arrowhead Studios, making a really good weapon in the Railgun, placing it in the final batch of support weapon unlocks at level 20, then deciding to make it one of the worst guns in the game. All the effort people go through to access this “late game” weapon only for it to feel awful to use.
You should definitely do an in-depth video on the Pistols; I hear the Peacemaker can actually one-shot light bots in the head now.
Also, the DCS can now one-shot devastators in the face. *_Devastators._* So good...
Peacemaker could before it’s just more reliable now due to fall off at range
That’s how it should be; if your aim is good enough and you’re willing to sacrifice ergonomics and magazines, then you should be able to make short work of medium targets
@@EravinVT
Ah, so that's why l was having issues one-shotting those bots before; hope it's much more lenient now.
@@saltire_2825
I agree, that's why l love this DCS buff.
I've had a lot of fun cutting the Rocket and Heavy Devastators in half, find it much more safer and reliable to peek boom reload and repeat. However what it lacks is anti air against gunships and also it takes too long pop cannon turrets. I could make that up by using the Eruptor though 😁
The two targets it owns it does it better then anything else in the class, but the rest...oof
I’ll take the scorcher over the eruptor for those two job tbh.
Thanks for suffering for us eravin.😂
I’m tired boss
the charger legs can be broken in 2 unsafe shot and after that you can use regular weapon to kill it
I feel like that’s implied atleast to some degree, but it’s really not a difference maker either way
@@EravinVT and there also some funny thing the penetrating enemy behind target someho.w sometime it does sometime its not
1:00 For the TLDR, it uses magnets, but the other type of magnets. Which are weird enough that physicists just call spooky magic and too much math and move on...
Correct
Thanks or suffering for us. I obviously don't test as well as you do, but from what I saw, the Plasma Punisher came out of the patch the best. Very surprisingly. You already made a video on it once so it'd be weird to redo it so soon, but I recommend trying it out to see what I'm talking about, because most people like myself avoid that weapon, and now it's my go-to.
Yeah plasma punisher I already rated very high so with the buffs its now no longer sleeper strong just strong
If you want to circumvent the inconsistant charge times (and save ammunition) you can use a macro with the charge time of 2975ms. Technically it charges to 2990ms before exploding but this is unreliable for some reason. Charging to 99.5% doesn't change the fact that the gun does crappy in general on heavier targets but I have noticed there is a slight increase in structure damage, It usually takes 1-2 less shots than 90% to take down a heavier target. Macros are cringe but if you want to use the gun, this definitely makes it more viable.
Despite all this I switched from quasar cannon to the railgun and I haven’t regretted it. My other friend runs a quasar and with the nerfs to it the railgun is perfect for dealing with devsators and hulks (and orbital railgun for those pesky tanks) while he focuses on high priority targets like gunships, dropships and factory striders. TLDR railgun + quasar combo is god tier agenst bots . + it looks sick
All they need to do is give it a smidge of a damage buff so it can at least 2 shot chargers to the head and itd at least have a reason to exist.
Fun fact! Quasar, EAT and Recoiless do 650 damage. With tier 6 pen at the correct angle.
The Railgun USED to do 600 damage with tier 6 pen at the correct charge level.
This means they 100% nerfed the railguns damage with the railgun nerf because if the railgun did the same amount of damage then it would be able to at least 2 shot chargers to the head.
They dont need to revert the damage entirely. But just enough.
Eravin explains this much better and explains how its structure damage specifically in the video(which effects enemies as well, theyre just referred to as "structures" due to armor level).
But just a simple explanation for people who didn't watch
It’s durable damage “damage vs structures” which is a separate other hidden value was reduced to ashes. The original 600 ballistic is here, but the 600 structure is not
@EravinVT yeah I forgot about that.
Edited my comment in kind!
Thanks for the testing.
Really hope they undo that or at least partial undo it.
I just wanna 2 shot chargers man :(
Just my two cents, if it could 2-shot Chargers I don't think anyone would ever use Quasar, EAT or Recoilless for bugs ever again. The ease of those 2-shots would far outweigh a 1-shot then resupply (EAT) / static reload (RR) / 10s cooldown (Quasar).
@newspiked7385 you are forgetting the fact that EAT/RR/Quasar are LEAGUES better at dealing with bile titans, tank, factory striders, cannon towers... etc etc etc. Railgun may as well not exist vs them. Not to mention how much better they are at taking out things like shrieker nests and spore spewers
Chargers are farm from anyone's biggest threat unless all you play is diff 4
@@TheCosmicAstro- guess it depends on how you use your strats. For me I'm pretty happy to use my strats for the heaviest targets as long as my support weapon can handle everything else. Even when I run EAT/RR/Quasar, I think I'll only go for a Bile kill with it if I've used up all my strikes or as a finishing blow. Especially if I know every Charger is a 2-shot, that's 2 or even 3 strats I can dedicate solely to Bile Titans, that's plenty.
I love how you haven’t panicked yet about the patrols increasing on Helldive difficulty. You’d think the earth was caving in with the other content creator’s. Like OMG how will they farm samples. 🤭
I think, the railgun is still superior to AMR (and all other anti-armor support weapons) in two specific dimensions, in it's FPV FoV and its overall "snappiness" (if you crouch with MM/engi kit).
I''ll explain, Mouse sensitivity coefficient for FPV in this game seems to be MDV 100% (e.g. like it was for AWP in CS by default), thus you can adjust sens with MDH 0% to 3rd-1st person to only one FOV. With RG you have same FoV in FPV ADS as with most pistols, ARs, shotguns. AMR has lover FOV with 50m zoom, so as other AArmor guns (and they also occlude a huge portion of already low FoV). For those of us who play apex/BD/literally anything it's a minor but existent point of not throwing away habitual mouse sens. As for 3rd person ADS, I can't help but feel, that it has some stupid sticky aim-assist.
As for snappiness, I sincerelly think that "weapon ergonomics" in shooting games are at the same level of malignancy as screenshake and stun/stuggerlock. But 100% sure devs will never change anything in that department.
Lastly, as far as "ugly scopes" go, IMO they all are equally awfull, with Penetrator's one being somewhat partially decent. The contrast between awesome detailed weapon animations and utterly ugly and lazy scopes is infinite.
this is an amazing breakdown of the new railgun. thank you for making this.
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!
Completely agree. There’s no reason to ever use the railgun against either enemy type given the other options you have, even after the “buff”. I’m convinced they have a grudge against the rail bc it was the first “meta”, it’s so stupid. The original function and power of the rail gun at launch would fit well in the game today. Even if they thought it would be too powerful then drop the mag count or increase the shot amount to strip armor a bit, that’s all that was ever needed. Instead they made the rail pointless and a burden to ever consider using on higher difficulties. So dumb. 🤦♂️
QUESTION: Can any PLEASE tell ME where to post bugs to? I noticed that the Plasma Shotgun self damages you when you are wearing the Energy based Shield backpack Stratagem since the patch. Any help would be thankful.
its kinda strange how railgun takes 4 shots to blow tank heat sink but only 2 for hulk, while LC (prepatch idk about now) killed tank heatsinks way faster than hulk heat sinks, about 50% longer.
its not a big deal but strange. hulk heat sink i guess has higher armor value or something so its halving lc?
Honestly, it would be a viable pick if they kept the stagger. That way it doesn’t kill heavies but still sets them up for your team
Taking the stagger away was just bizarre when the buff wasn’t even significant
dang i really wanted a breakdown on the FS vs RG matchup, especially if it strips armor. i've seen armor being stripped of the forehead of factory striders, and that new weak spot could apperently be damaged by medium armor pen weapons. oh and i'd love to know if it strips armor of other spots as well, like possibly the legs.
I always got the notion that the railgun was for destroying armor and not direct dmg, so i hoped that one of the most complex enemies were delved more into, especially since it feels like the railgun's goal is more to assist in killing than actually killing.
Basically it was very bad at doing all of that due to the structure damage. Anything you’ve seen do it previously, did it better
@@EravinVT guess im gonna look up what structure damage is then. thanks for the heads up!
I've been triyeng out the railgun recently and so far, the AMR feels better to use, and besides RG being able to penetrate heavy armor, the AMR can kill the same medium Armor targets with less effort
This thing needs scaling stagger and projectile speed as you increase the charge if it doesn't have that already; Or just a full overhaul to make something that should excel at taking out heavy targets actually viable for that.
Also this thing seriously needs a better scope
It's probably okay to use with EATs or 110 Rockets/ other anti tank stratagems
Just use stratagems when it comes to tank level armor in 9 does not work out
@EravinVT oh I'm just thinking of what would make railgun more useful in the current state since it is capable of finishing off weakened heavies. I'd still get take the amr myself for the task, even if it's not the most efficient strat
I have brought it back to my load out against bots, my team and I always loaded out for super heavy. With this update I can change my load out and help with Devs and Hulks, it takes a lot off their plate. It was when we get swarmed by devs and hulks that we’d get bogged down a bit, now we are flying through them.
This could (emphasis on could,) be one of many buffs to the gun, but they're implementing these changes at an glacial pace.
Nerf was uncalled for, especially now as they have made other options viable
Increase hard armor pen and it will be good again
It could be brought back to its release version and be middle of the pack now
Railgun should be hitscan, but with very high recoil. Damage should be variable based on angle of attack and how much of the target's body the railgun round passes through. To use a bile titan as an example, a headshot from ground level would do typical headshot damage. A headshot from high ground where the round passes through the head, thorax and abdomen of the bile titan would do epic damage. Or in the case of a hulk, shots penetrating armor from the side would be more damaging than armor shots from the front or back (ignoring the heat sink for the sake of argument) due to the width of the target being greater than the thickness front to back. Make fighting with the railgun a matter of position.
Also, variable optics with a good sight would be totally appropriate. (Basically, the railgun should be the ultimate sniper rifle in the game.)
Stagger being somewhat low strikes me as reasonable since, assuming the round is penetrative rather than expanding, the blowthrough would account for lessened stagger.
If it can deal with Hulks and chicken legs, that's all I need to know. Having easy ways to deal with those and having quasars on the team as well to deal with the rest will really take the pressure off the newly nerfed quasar and keep my grenades in my pockets where they belong.
It is the best in the business for hulks bar none, that trick it atleast does have
Well I did go Railgun on a bug mission and the squadmate I was paired with did nothing but bitch that I was not doing anything. I was thinking the bile titan only took 7-8 shots at unsafe 90% though, when you did your test did you aim for forehead? keeping in mind that when it opens it's mouth to spit it's forehead weakspot disappears into it's back?
When I did my testing I kept in mind how much easier my life could be rn if I did anything else to kill this titan.
@@EravinVTcrack titan side plate and 2 impact nades is my back pocket strategy for titans when i dont have dedicated anti tank.
Sometimes i run nade launcher, supply pack, rail strike, and 110’s, specially for spamming titans and hordes.
Everyone stands in awe as i pokeball the titan to death in 3 seconds once the plate is broken. Also 3 GL shots will kill titan once plate is broken :)
Has anyone tested yet how many shots are needed to destroy the vents on top of factory strider?
I want to become Strider Rider jetpacking onto Striders and blowing up their top vents :D this is where non-explosive weapons come in, because I dont want to blow myself off in the process. Laser cannon is probably best, but Im wondering what else :D
If it involves killing anything the game considers a “structure” skip the railgun in favor of somethin else for sure
This rework feels sad. I don't understand what niche it's supposed to occupy? Your summary around 13:27 captures a lot of my points, but what do all of the Railgun's drawbacks offer in return? The AMR does just about everything that it can with better ammo economy, better reloading, fire rate/DPS, meaning overall far more flexibility. Oh, and it can't KILL YOU AND BLOW ITSELF UP if you overcharge it. I really feel like that's a point that doesn't hold enough weight in its considerations: it takes over _half_ its ammo reserve to take down a single bile titan where each shot is risking blowing yourself up and no longer having a support weapon to recover if you don't have the timing down.
What reason is there to pick this gun over the AMR, arc thrower, flamethrower, or the quasar cannon (even after its nerf)? The flamethrower can kill you, but at least the weapon is still there, _and_ it can kill loads of enemies at a time with relatively little downtime. The arc thrower takes no ammo, can't kill you (nothing to say about teammates), can still stagger enemies more, and has a far higher fire rate. And the quasar cannon, even with its longer cooldown and longer charge-up time still doesn't blow you up to penetrate the same or more armor and deal far more damage. All this while taking no ammo and having no reload - you can just swap weapons for 15 seconds until it cools off.
I think they're making these adjustments without considering its use cases or competition, which is frustrating, since that's what all the nerfs are meant to do: bring more weapons in line with the rest, so that you aren't funneled towards a meta. When they're increasing the armor penetration, what is that supposed to allow the railgun to do that it couldn't before? I believe their thought process was to make it more accessible, since you no longer have to max out every shot to do anything of value. But that doesn't mean it's worth using; you can still get more value out of other support weapons.
Hulk headshots Devastators very easily, and that’s about it besides killing anything “eventually”
I'm curious how you would suggest buffing the railgun. If it gets to the point where it's competing with weapons like the recoilless and quasar for killing armored targets, it's suddenly the best option there is due to its ability to somewhat safely spend its shots on smaller targets without really wasting the shots.
What I kinda want is for it to have proportional performance between enemies where it makes sense. It can three shot a charger to the head, and a recoilless only needs double the shots to kill a titan compared to a charger, so why the hell does the railgun suffer with 3-4 times as many? Let me six full charge shot it, it's NOT like that's an ultra convenient shot to make. Vs bots it's almost reasonable, quasar and recoilless land at 3 direct hit shots to kill a tank so 9 is proportional. I'd still want it to be better. 6 would be so nice there.
Also, low shot velocity is insane on the railgun. It's a railgun. As in relativistic people projectile. It should be hitscan.
pre nerf railgun was 6 shots for a BT head on average cause you can't stand and 90 charge a Titan trying to kill you realistically 4 times, 2 hits to chargers heads and 1 to strip leg armor which would be fine now as we have rockets 1 shotting it and a flamethrower burning it in 2seconds. and old railgaun would be strong in bots, but not so strong everyone would use it. Basically give us old railgun
I had to go through so many other videos to get a good video that breaks down the railgun like you did. Awesome info
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!
I've only been using it against bugs but the past couple of days I've actually been warming up to the railgun again. Though, not because it's actually that strong but I've been finding it feels like how the Autocannon is to the bots. Moderately good against all the medium tier enemies, and situational against the heavier ones. Which is nice since the autocanon's usefulness against bugs really depends on if bile spewers are present since it's not great against Chargers and I don't think it can solo kill a Bile Titan? (though it will take care of the sacks nicely). Since the railgun can one tap spewers still it's filling that similar flex role and while not great against Bile Titans I have followed up with the rest of the time's fire power to finish some off. It's a little more mobile than the autocannon to which helps against bugs; it's an excuse to run the supply pack to which is nice because bugs certainly can force more stims and nades out of ya than bots.
I ran a funny 'manual reload' build of punisher(stock)/senator/railgun/supply pack and it's got a tool for every bug in the bunch.
The railgun is like, on the edge of being pretty good again. There's a laundry list of things that could be done to improve it but nothing needs to move by miles, just a few yards here and there.
Can you stress test the Laser Cannon next? 🙏
I recorded a lot about the laser cannon today actually but, it’s been very thoroughly covered by others recently and this patch did not change much for it tbh. Might be awhile before I get to it
@@EravinVT I see. I felt noticeable TTK change against bots overall (decrease TTK against chaffs and devs, increase TTK against tanks, turrets, objs), especially against factory strider under belly. Or maybe they change the weak spot for it?
Convert to laser cannon for bots. The time is now. Capable of destroying everything in the bot arsenal with ease (outside of berserkers,) this support weapon will remain sleeper supreme.
Don't like the las cannon? Good news, the AMR does it the job almost as well. The only things the AMR struggles with is gunships, tanks, and cannon turrets, all of which take about an entire magazine.
Prefer my Queso beam cannon
This Helldiver salutes you for your sacrifice.
I know the damage looks miserable but lets be honest you're only bringing this for devastators, hulks, chargers and stalkers. It performs well enough against those to consider bringing it instead of the AMR with its longer reload (and equally bad scope). There shouldn't be a world where you're bringing it for tanks, fabs or titans, IMO
For as long as your whole team is nothing but quasars which I predict will remain the case as the nerf basically doesn't do anything, it's really just a matter of preference between it and the AMR to me
If the rest of the team can cover heavies it's the best in class for devastators and hulks as a claim to fame, But with the addition of Factory Striders and Gunships, this novelty was weakened even further into arguably a niche
@@EravinVTngl, I find the Hulks, Devastators and Berserkers a problem for me. The gunships can be destroyed with a Scorcher and even a Tank can be as well.
And I suck with the AMR.
Redunk the one gun classically known for massive penetration in exchange for smalll area of damage... is so bad at it.
Honestly I still dont know what to use in my back slot. I've often just gone in without anything lately and found it (Granted i play on 7 or 8 most of the time. not 9). If i take something in its been EAT. Except after this last update a really annoying thing is when I fire and drop it. I no longer take my primary out. I take my secondary out (and then grenade myself).
I dont know if that was a glitch or a change. but before it would just go to whatever weapon i had out last
It truly need a new buff/gimmick like being able to pierce multiple targets and leaving a trail of fire being or something like that to make it a bit for viable and fun.
I cant justify using this when other support or even primary weapons can do the same or an even better job in most cases while not having those big downside (like low firerate/ammo) :(
I’m just confused what the intended role of this thing is.
Like, is it supposed to be anti-armor or anti-tank cuz it feels like it’s doing both and excelling in neither beyond the barest minimum
Anti fun
My only beef with the railgun is the aiming reticle is so big it obscures what you aim at.
I fail to see why there have to be bad guns in the the coop game
Me too
Players will ruin their own experience using an unfun but optimized strategy if given the option.
@@TheMeerpants Thats for the players to do NOT the game dev
Hey, you should take another look the DCS now that it’s been significantly buffed. I did some testing and it can now one shot devastators up to 125m away! That’s a massive improvement from the 20m limit that it was at before. It’s a wonderful weapon now. It’s honestly made the standard Diligence kinda irrelevant because of how hard it hits and how nimble it is now. Also, poor railgun.
Edit: oh, and it two shots berserker heads now if you can land the shots. Not sure what range that drops off at, getting those maniacs to sit still is tricky.
Yeah we’ve been talking about the CS breakpoints getting miraculously better with just 12 damage. It’s top shelf now
@@EravinVT It was already on the cusp of greatness, it just needed that little boost to become actually good. I, for one, am very happy. I’ve wanted the DCS to be good since before the first balance patch, and now it’s finally living up to what I wanted it to be. The Diligence has some catching up to do now, though.
I remember finally hitting 20 and getting the railgun thinking it would replace my AMR, took it one mission against bots and went straight back lmao
Lol
I actually liked it against bugs when I tried the railgun last night after the changes. Still can one shot the titan in the head during his spit. The medium enemies look cool too when they just explode.
I’ll need to try it again vs bots tonight. I struggled with it, was hard to hit shots and I ended up just switching to the laser canon and testing that out.
The bot map was pretty obscured in terms of vision so nah r that’s why j couldn’t anything.
I'm sorry, but in my experience the railgun is practically silent.
I've seen two heavy devastators at POI facing away from each other, killed one, and got no response from the other.
I don't feel like ammo economy is as bad as stated here.
One shot devastators in body, bile spewers, or hive guard in head.
Pretty sure everyone's darling the auto cannon takes at least 2, but it doesn't quite have double ammo.
I mean, its BETTER then it was I'm pretty sure. But more testing on my part is required. Honestly they may as well give the RAILGUN its clip back from Helldivers 1 (it had a 5 round clip).
RANDOM FUN FACT, Ever hear of Titanfall or the Titanfall universe? Last I checked all the weapons in that universe are indeed RAILGUNS. And I think we all remember the KRABER, getting good with that BOLTGUN of a Sniper Rifle came with some serious bragging rights. Plus the Dopamine Rush from nailing those headshots was OH SO GOOOOOOD! Id even call it a cure for Depression.
Thanks for putting in the work man🙏
No problem 👍thanks for watchin
The railgun will strip charger legs in two slightly overcharged shots, same as when the gun was first released
Yep
The only thing that the railgun changes have actually changed is taking it from useless to techincally viable against bugs, due to it's charger kill no longer requiring 90% charge. For bots, more armor pen changes almost nothing, you still just use it to pop devastators, hulks, and the occasional problematic strider, and it still does next to no damage against things that actually have armor. The AMR fills the same exact role but can actually kill gunships and striders, and it baffles me as to why the railgun still has it's massive armor handicap in a world where the AMR can kill a factory strider in two mags.
Initially the nerf kind of made sense, turning it into an anti-bot sniper weapon instead of an anti-everything gun, but now that the power of AT rockets has been brought up I feel like the initial iteration of the railgun would fit right in to the modern meta and maybe even be a bit underpowered.
The initial railgun would be among the crowd with our current support cast, not standing above of below its peers. This thing just stinks
so for bots it overkill's all basic troop types, good against Devastators, Berserkers, Striders, and Hulks. bad against tanks, turrets, gunships and mobile factories
for bugs it overkill's every common bugs and is good vs commanders, spewers and chargers. ok vs stalkers if you have distance or stuns, and cant handle titans
I don't know it seems to be tuned to counter medium sized enemies now, while struggling with large/super heavy troops. I can't help but wonder if we are unfairly comparing it to it's overpowered state instead of see what it can bring to the table now
This video is depressing and it's deserved for such a dumb weapon that the Devs just.... Formed a personal vendetta against or something? Idk.
tell me about it xD
I usually play in a full squad and most of the teammates bring the dedicated AT like Eats and Quasars.
So knowing this gun is very effective against annoying ads like Devastators and Berserkers will probably make me use it more. And I'm too noob with the AMR and I don't like the ergonomics of it.
I feel like this weapon would only really be useful for Bots though. Plus a Stun grenade and a eye hole shot on a Hulk makes it trivial.
Grenade pistols can deal with Fabs and the Scorcher can takedown gunships.
I do wish its penetrating was way higher so Chargers legs can be shot with 2 shots instead of 3.
It’s one true claim to fame is the 1hko hulk headshots in an ease of access unseen elsewhere besides a recoilless or EAT. But its struggle against other heavy units while being redundant with strong primaries that clear Devastators makes it very underwhelming currently
@@EravinVT Yeah. I still think it needs more. It's definitely a bit better than before but I hope they either give it stronger damage or just make it a primary even.
2 shots at least strips the leg armour though which makes the charger pretty vulnerable to die from anything.
the rail gun muzzle velocity needs a major buff. i think that would make it viable.
It would certainly help, the structure damage is just insanely low
Thanks for the tests, but I would like to know more
How are u able to 4 shot a tank turret to the heatsink?
I literally stood on top of isolated annihilator tanks on several occasions, and it took me ~8 rounds of 90%+ charge to the heatsink in first person mode to kill it
Is there an issue with hitting it from the top ?
🤔
Funnily enough, about factory striders, after I removed the cannon turret and the gatling guns, it took me ~8 shots to the eye to drop it
It took so many more shots to the under belly I've lost count
My only problem with it at least on the bot side is that it does so little damage to vents. Im fine with it being awful against factory striders, but why is it terrible when used on tank vents, canon turret vents, and other objectives like mortar emplacements?
No idea, it’s very sad
Probably because vents are lower armor, meaning, it deals full damage from vent or front?
Strongly disagree here. Gun is much better against chargers and bile spewers now. Even though you still need the same amount of shots, you don't need to charge them as much. Also, it works pretty well for finishing off damaged bile titans.
Compare your case here to using any other much better support weapon that kills chargers in 1 titans in 4 such as Queso Cannon though. This thing has a hulk 1hko party trick and that’s about it compared to other support options in its weight class. In a vacuum any weapon is “fine” but when tested against its peers, this thing doesn’t hold water
@@EravinVT From the balance perspective, it would be really bad for this gun to just wipe out titans and chargers. It seems to be very good for medium enemies, and somewhat capable against big ones. The closest peer for this weapon would probably be the arc thrower. EAT and Queso are great for heavy enemies, but they are miserable to use against anything else.
Used to love the Railgun for Automatons! It was my go-to cause I could one shot devastators and hulks as long as I stayed calm. Teammates loved it too cause it kept the devastator pressure off of them. But now with the Striders and gunships its just not worth it. My favorite is the Spear now believe it or not.
Yeah I really wanted the spear lock on fix above all but sadly no dice yet
I think the railgun is better against bugs than the author implies. If you bring stratagems to capitalize on it’s weakness (cluster AND 500), and you play to its strength (jet pack OR shield and faster fire rate than quasar) it is a valid option
Just use stratagems does not hold water on Difficulty 9
I was testing it last night on 9!
I wanted to use the jump pack so I could take advantage of the head armor with sets over 100 and still have decent mobility against bugs. Also wanted to kill chargers, so I was looking at the quasar or the railgun. I *think* the railgun might be a better option (combined with breaker) for holding of hordes while both eagles are rearming.
Granted, a lot of that choice is my own personal fun factor!
I find it hilarious how accurate and painfully funny the video was. It seems really easy to fix this weapon (heavy armor specialist) but the devs seem afraid to overpower it. Too bad bc it’s fun to use.
Man I really want this gun to be good. Was running it on a few dives today and it's ability to slap walkers and devestators is very satisfying and there's the hulk 1 shot potential but it is WORTHLESS on all the other enemies. Strider, tanks, gunships, big laser turrets, destructible objectives... it can't do anything to them.
Yep, a one trick hulk
Right after the update. wow
So much oof. There are so many different ways they could give this weapon it's own viable niche, too, and I don't understand why they're letting it languish like this. Just one option that comes to mind is recognizing that overpenetration is a real problem with weapons of this nature so you can leave the damage relatively low, but it is either so fast as to effectively be, or actually is, a hitscan weapon, it always penetrates at least one target regardless of armour (for maximum fun I'd let it penetrate anything even terrain out to a certain distance, no matter how much it penetrates) and giving it incredible stagger force. Like watch the tank bounce and knock the Helldiver flat on their butt when firing the full charge amounts of force.
It needs to strip chargers in 1 or 2 shots. Shooting it 3 or 4 times and then switching to your primary and shooting it some more just makes you wonder why you brought the thing
Thank you! 🙏 I was hoping it would do better against gunships and factory striders. Looks like it improved a little there but not enough to consider it a viable choice against those units. I mean some primaries outperform it by a lot when it comes to gunships and factory striders. When fighting Automatons it feels like a nerf to me with stagger reduced. I don't need a safe shot to kill a hulk. Why even bother using a safe mode anyways? If you miss weakpoint while fighting a hulk with unsafe mode, at least you do body damage. Before it would stagger hulk's and other units which helped a lot. Now with the stagger gone it feels even weaker.
Overall very little changed with it positively while the missing stagger had a very pronounced impact. Definitely an overall unremarkable change
I was wondering, can you do a vid on the factory strider going over ideal ways to kill them with both stragems and weapons? Maybe this would be a series worth starting for high tier enemies?
I've seen several of my peers covering this topic so i've abstained from it for the most part, my go to methods for getting rid of these are also very hammer and less scalpel so my knowledge on what precision can bring them down is very limited other then the belly being class 3 armor. I always take the path of least resistance fighting them or leave them be as they are very slow
@@EravinVT I see, makes sense. Who would you suggest covering this style of breakdown?
HANDS DOWN BEST GUIDES!!! Love the content keep it going ^^
That being said.. are you going to do another vid for the crossbow ? If not.. what is your opinion on the changes ? For me as a crossbow main.. it's really really bad now.. feels like the unwanted child of the scorcher and dominator. Poor ammo economy, aoe, damage breakpoints.
I'm absolutely doing a new crossbow related video tomorrow! It's my favorite weapon now hands down and the standard issue for the Ghost Divers
01:05 Wow been a long time that I’ve seen that specific Howstuffworks image
🤣
In a sense, I kinda understand how they don’t want it to break armor like a rocket. But it def needs a more defined role in exchange
13:03 "Gone are the days of Railgun domination." Indeed, and I don't think they're coming back. Though, from a game balance perspective, this thing is a balancing nightmare. Make it too strong and you invalidate the launchers by having a weapon everyone can run to sweep up medium enemies with ease and then also deal with tank-class enemies without a second thought. People only even care about it being capable of this *because* it's launch version was absurd. Had it started where it is now, I don't think it'd have nearly as many people wanting it buffed.
IMO, if the Railgun were to regain it's ability to kill tank-class enemies, it would have to be heavily reworked into a new weapon entirely, as keeping it mostly the same but bringing back it's immense flexibility would be utterly anathema to the rest of the game's balance concept. Everything has a tradeoff in some way or another. Pre-nerf RG didn't have enough tradeoffs to justify it's power, and was thusly nerfed.
Not the reason it was nerfed, it was nerfed due to overperforming via a bug while every other AT option was gutter trash. Instead of addressing the bug and buffing the other AT weapons they nerfed railgun. Then they proceeded to buff the other AT, then address the bug. Old Railgun would be amongst the crowd in no particular prestige comparatively in the current meta game.
@@EravinVT Do you recall what the heavy enemy breakpoints were back then? I never got around to gathering the data on it, and finding that info feels like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Id like to make and addendum and say that the charger legs are now back to being two shotted by two well charged shots
Don't think that's the case, the armor comes off but they do not die
@@EravinVT oh misunderstood. I'm so used to the routine being rip off with two shots and then pull out a primary and shot it that I misunderstood lol
Understandable, it slipped my mind to even mention the classic 2 and primary dump just because we’ve had so many faster kill options develop since that strat was common
With all of these nerfs, it honestly feels like I just need to fall back to the EAT's.
I know the BR-14 supposedly got a 'buff' as well, it still feels bad and the scope is still misaligned. At this point I find myself becoming fatigued of the 'balance' that Arrowhead is using; it feels like the favorite guns of a set month are nerfed the next big patch. The nerfed weapons are not restored in any meaningful way. If Ah could explain their balance efforts, it might help but sometime soon the general player base will just grow tired of nerf heavy balance and move on.