T9 CARV-S – the TR’s “adaptable” LMG, which has a large selection of attachments. Never was popular.

SVA-88 – the faded star of the VS arsenal, which used to offer 75% ADS speed, same as Orion, but with better controllability. The weapon has been rebalanced since then, and fell behind the Pulsar LSW in terms of viability. 

Pulsar LSW – can be treated as a slightly more CQC-oriented version of SVA-88 with a different recoil pattern and attachment selection.

MGR-L1 Promise – a newly released NC LMG with an exquisite and unique model, artfully crafted by /u/d0ku. The general theme of the weapon is ease of use and controllability over time, with some stats and mechanics intended to make sustained fire less punishing.

Let’s take a closer look and figure out if any of these weapons are worth using, and what circumstances would benefit them the most.

Stats

Damage Output

All of these LMGs share the damage model of 143 @ 10m – 112 @ 65m, which puts them in a weird place.

At range, they deal carbine-tier damage, and cannot really compete with weapons that deal more damage per shot, even if they’re not specialized towards ranged combat. It feels that you cannot kill an enemy 50m away without filing a notice two weeks in advance.

On the other hand, strictly average DPS makes them inferior in close quarters combat. 

Historically, weapons like that are shunned by players, and for a good reason. You would think that being average would make them versatile, and give them passable performance in every situation, but in reality it rather makes them mediocre. 

SPA and HVA are available to some of these LMGs, and they’ll have an impact on their performance:

Notes:

• At best, SPA provides a 2% DPS boost or a 0.086 second TTK reduction at 15m.
• At best, HVA provides a 7% DPS boost at 65m, or a 0.086 second TTK reduction between 42m and 52m.
• In terms of damage per bullet, HVA overtakes SPA at 30m.

Bullets-to-Kill and Time-to-Kill

Standard Infantry

 Heavy Assault

For the sake of brevity, BTK and TTK are listed only for the first threshold.

Notes:

• The only time SPA really makes a difference is the 7 -> 8 BTK Threshold in the 10m -> 15m range bracket. Otherwise, it’s merely a nice little boost.
• Same as with SPA, the only time when HVA is at a real disadvantage is in the 7 -> 8 BTK Threshold, and even then only when compared to SPA. This disadvantage can be sidestepped by landing at least one headshot.
• When talking about 100% headshots, there will be no BTK Threshold all the way up to ~40m. This is because 143 damage weapons kill an enemy with headshots with a good amount of overkill, and this is where they will differ from 167 damage weapons. 143 damage will take slightly longer to kill at close range, and slightly shorter beyond that range.
• Ammo choice doesn’t play a meaningful role against shielded Heavy Assaults, especially if you land some headshots.
• 6 headshots within maximum damage range deal 1430 damage, and an NMG HA has up to 1438 damage, so the only way it’ll take actually 6 headshots to kill them, is if they activate the overshield right when they’re being shot. Otherwise, NMG energy drain over time will eat those 8 energy, and 5 headshots will be enough. Thanks to /u/madoka_magica for pointing that out.

Both ammo attachments don’t make a big impact, especially for a moderately competent player, who goes for headshots at close ranges most of the time.

When both ammo attachments are available, pick depending on whether you want better performance within 30m or outside of that range. I’ll note that among skilled players CQC performance is generally deemed more important.

If only one attachment is available, you should use it, though it’ll be fairly low priority compared to other attachments.

Effective Range

Hip Fire Accuracy

All of these have a bad case LMG-tier Hip Fire accuracy, and won’t be able to hip fire effectively outside of few meters.

While the SVA has better Hip CoFs, it also has a nearly mandatory Compensator, which would bump up the Hip CoFs to be the largest of the four.

ADS Accuracy

T9 CARV-S, Pulsar LSW and SVA-88 have standard ADS CoFs for LMGs, which are rather bad, though all four LMGs can get an accuracy advantage for being still for the first several shots.

Promise has slightly better starting ADS CoF, and this is almost as good as it gets for LMGs – TR’s MG-H1 Watchman is the only LMG to have a better ADS Standing Moving CoF. 

As a more unique feature, Promise has reduced Maximum ADS CoFs for most of the stances, meaning that its CoF will not Bloom past a certain point. The CoF of 1 degree more or less guarantees 100% accuracy on the center mass of an infantry-sized target ~25m away. 

This means that Promise is vastly more effective in magdumping at close ranges, or when you start engaging out of a jump or a fall, though you will still have to burst fire when going for headshots, which you’ll definitely need to do if you want to kill enemies in a reasonable amount of time.

ADS Cone of Fire Bloom

Pulsar LSW and SVA-88 have reduced ADS CoF Bloom. However, Promise starts firing at lower CoF Bloom, so it’ll have better CoF for the first 5 shots, after which Pulsar LSW and SVA-88 will match and overtake it.

I’d consider this a point in favor of Promise, since at ranges where CoF matters you won’t be firing in overly long bursts anyway, and even with the CoF Bloom advantage, it’ll take 5 more shots for the lower bloom weapons to accumulate a 0.05 degrees of CoF advantage.

Recoil

Promise has negative recoil scaling, meaning its maximum Vertical and Horizontal Recoil will reduce with each shot, until they become the same as minimum values. This happens at the following rates, per shot:

• Vertical Recoil Increase: -0.05
• Vertical Recoil Increase Crouched: -0.1
• Horizontal Recoil Increase: -0.05

Recoil Analysis

Presented values are calculated for 10 round bursts, and account for FSRM and recoil scaling mechanics, assuming Standing stance and average recoil per shot.

Numbers in the table are pretty telling, so I’ll highlight only the biggest outliers.

Vertical Recoil

From the get-go, it’s obvious that Promise has by far the best Vertical Recoil per Second. In fact, it’s one of the lowest values for automatic weapons, and the lowest for all LMGs. The only ones that come even in close are NS-15M2 and T32 Bull, when they’re used with Compensator.

As mentioned, these numbers assume average values and take recoil scaling into account, but Promise will have excellent VRPS even if you get the worst possible values all the time. 

It’s worth noting that Promise requires only 2 shots to fully scale Vertical Recoil, if you fire them while crouching. It’s a neat feature to quickly stabilize the weapon from the get-go, though you shouldn’t go out of your way and crouch in every engagement. It’s mostly useful when you’re engaging a remote and exposed enemy from a safe position.

Horizontal Recoil

In terms of Horizontal Recoil, the classic trio is pretty close to each other, and not particularly good. CARV-S is slightly ahead of the VS LMGs, but Promise, once again, beats all three pretty soundly, and remains nearly twice as good.

Since Promise has unprecedented Tolerance size of 5 degrees, it can potentially have a huge amount of consecutive kicks in one direction, but this is unlikely to happen. The chance of 3 kicks in one direction is 12.5%, and 4 kicks is ~6%.

You’ll almost never see Promise slide along Horizontal plane for long. What’s more likely, Promise will shake around the middle, but every once in a while that middle will shift by one or two shots, and you will have to adjust your horizontal aim. 

Besides, just after 4 shots, Promise will have the lowest Horizontal Recoil per Shot among all automatic weapons, and you will barely notice Horizontal Recoil at all.

Picture to the left demonstrates a typical horizontal recoil pattern for Promise, though it doesn’t take recoil scaling into account, and values are not up to scale.

On the following two pictures, you can compare the Horizontal Deviation Probability Distributions for MGR-L1 Promise, T9 CARV-S and SVA-88. Pulsar LSW would have an identical pattern to SVA-88, so it’s not listed. All weapons are presented with a Forward Grip, and the results are averaged out between tenths of thousands of simulations.

On this graph you can see that Promise spends ~85% of the time within 0.1 degrees of the original crosshair position, and about 92% within 0.2 degrees, 95% within 0.3 degrees. This is basically showing how likely you are to have 4 kicks in the same direction in a row. Statistically, Promise can go further, but it’s highly unlikely. 

If you take a look at CARV-S and SVA-88 further below, you’ll that their recoil pattern is somewhat less consistent. 

For example, CARV-S spends about 52% of the time within 0.12 degrees, and about 82% within 0.3 degrees, which is already slightly worse than for Promise. 

You’ll notice that SVA-88 has about 10% chance of kicking all the way to 0.42 degrees. 

Recoil Angle

Pulsar LSW is the only LMG of the four to have a Recoil Angle. It has medium “strength” to the right, and overall doesn’t affect weapon handling in a meaningful way.

Promise is in a weird place. It has average Recoil Angle of zero, but 10 degrees of variance, so it’ll shake about a lot, but without bias to any particular direction. This will be especially noticeable and annoying during first few shots, while the recoil per shot is still comparatively large. Once recoil scaling fully kicks in, you won’t notice it much. 

Tap Firing Speed

Tap Firing Speed is measured in Rounds Per Minute, same as Rate of Fire, and it depends on weapon’s First Shot Recoil and Recoil Recovery statistics. 

Recoil Recovery Mechanics don’t really matter outside of tap firing or shortbursting, so Tap Firing Speed is the maximum RPM at which you can fire single shots, and still have the crosshair fully recenter between shots.

It’s a fairly useless statistic for normal gameplay, since usually you’ll fire more than 1-3 shots per burst, but it can be useful when dealing with tiny targets such as deployables, or when an exposed enemy is vastly outside of your effective range.

You’ll notice that Promise holds a huge advantage over other LMGs in terms of Tap Firing Speed, which is both due to lack of additional Recoil Recovery Delay, as well as best in class Recoil Recovery Rate.

Velocity

The classic trio is fairly close together, and has good projectile velocity, slightly above average for LMGs. SVA-88 is slightly ahead, especially with HVA, showing the weapon’s inclination towards ranged combat. 

Promise is noticeably behind, and its stock velocity is below average. There is a caveat – its SPRW Ammo attachment will increase velocity by 25% at the cost of reducing magazine size from 100 rounds to 75.

Conclusion on Effective Range

All of these weapons don’t particularly shine outside of 50m, for various reasons.

* – requires attachment.

Due to just average DPS and LMG-tier hip fire accuracy, none of them particularly shine at closer ranges either. Their sweet spot seems to be the infamous “medium range” somewhere between 20m and 50m. 

The problem is that within that range bracket ANY LMG will serve perfectly fine, including those oriented towards CQC. In fact, this is why weapons like LA1 Anchor are so popular.

Sure, CQC LMGs will be clearly inferior in terms of effectiveness at range, but it’s not a big deal. The nature of ranged engagements is that you often can just walk away into cover from an unfavorable fight, especially thanks to Heavy Assault’s overshield.

And if you’re engaging in favorable conditions, having slightly longer TTK is not a big deal. Thanks to LMGs’ large mags, you can keep sending rounds down range until target is dead. At worst, you’ll miss out on a kill, but you won’t die to your weapon’s inaccuracy. 

Situations where you have to fight effectively or die, and don’t have an option to run, are much more common in CQC, hence why CQC performance is generally preferable. Additionally, as a HA you’re expected to aggressively push the frontline, and that’ll often mean engaging at close ranges.  If you want to be useful to your faction, you don’t really get an option to play around your effective range, and purposefully stay out of close quarters.

Open field battles usually aren’t required, but even if you get stuck in one, you’d probably want to equip a ranged LMG or a Battle Rifle. Or even switch to Infiltrator.

This is a general philosophical problem with any non-CQC LMGs, what I’d like to refer as “the LMG problem”. 

Utility Stats

Ammo Capacity

* – uses Smart Feeder ammo attachment, which increases Reload Time by 0.325 seconds.

Nothing especially noteworthy. VS LMGs lag behind in terms of capacity, while Promise has the largest Ammo Pool to make sustained fire less punishing, which is the general theme of the weapon.

Note that Promise has two Ammo Attachments that affect Magazine Size, but no effect on damage. 

Reload Speed

Notes:

• Pulsar LSW enjoys the fastest reload, which definitely makes it more convenient.
• SVA-88 is not that far behind, but it has a much bigger Long Reload penalty.
• Surprisingly, Promise has the longest Reload, especially with Smart Feeder attachment. Running SPRW Ammo and having to reload more often is likely to cause issues.
• CARV-S has typically LMG-tier slow reload times.

Equip Time

CARV-S is about average for an LMG, while Pulsar LSW and SVA-88 are slightly below average. Having a short Equip Time is especially important for Heavy Assaults, who tend to switch to their Rocket Launchers and Med Kits a lot. And this is where Promise drops the ball. Even such a giant as Gauss SAW with a Forward Grip has Equip Time of 1.25 seconds. 

Long Equip Time of the Promise will definitely let you down in close quarters, and whenever you’re switching back and forth, you have to be ready to drop everything and equip your sidearm instead. 

Comparisons to Competition

Overall, none of these weapons look particularly appealing, and this is mostly the fault of their mediocre damage model; it lacks focus. Why would you ever use a 143 @ 698 weapon over 167+ damage LMGs, which are much more effective at the same medium range bracket and beyond? 

143 @ 698 LMGs do hold some advantages. For example, higher RoF makes a weapon more consistent, especially in close quarters. They’ll have slightly better recoil than CQC-oriented LMGs, and higher DPS than range-oriented LMGs, though that weapon class is another can of worms entirely.

None of this is really enough to compensate for inferior damage. Let’s go weapon-by-weapon and see what kind of competition they have to go against.

TR are left with TMG-50 as the only 167 damage option. I personally hate that it has 2 tiers of damage degradation and relatively poor recoil, especially the Tolerance. However, even TMG-50 will fare better than CARV-S at medium range and beyond, though there will be a significant reduction in effectiveness in close quarters, especially when comparing TMG-50 with HVA to CARV-S with SPA.

As another alternative, MSW-R has almost the same recoil as CARV-S. There are some noticeable disadvantages in ranged combat, such as smaller Magazine, lack of HVA and lower velocity. However, MSW-R comes with massively better performance at closer range, and makes a decent competitor overall. 

For VS, there is a similar situation for Pulsar LSW / SVA-88 and Orion VS54, which actually has slightly better Horizontal Recoil, though noticeably stronger Vertical Recoil and no Ammo attachment options, as well as smaller magazine battery.

Flare is generally frowned upon, but even it will be better at medium range than both of the 143 @ 698 LMGs.

For NC, you can take pretty much any 167+ damage LMG and it’ll be more effective at medium range, and depending on choice, better in CQC or at longer range. However, only the Promise has such low and smooth recoil, which is rather uncharacterestic for NC, and some people will certainly enjoy its controllability.

The recoil is non-existent. It’s almost a laser beam. It’s not a very strong laser beam, but a laser beam, which is good if you can aim.

– KosViik

If you’re looking for combat effectiveness, I’d say it’s better to learn to deal with recoil, though. Promise has a couple of other cool perks, such as limited Max ADS CoF and best in class Tap Firing speed, but those aren’t easily leveraged as advantages. 

Closing Thoughts

On overall spectrum of the effective range and effectiveness within that range, 143 @ 698 LMGs are between CQC LMGs and 167+ damage LMGs with ~matching DPS. The problem is that these waters are so muddy that there’s no reason to settle for this mediocre option.

Something like GD-22S will perform much better at range, and not particularly worse in CQC. And Anchor is basically a meme at this point, being one of the most versatile LMGs in the game. 

143 @ 698 LMGs seem to be in a bad place. They need to have their Minimum Damage Range extended at least to the levels of Assault Rifles, and their advantages over CQC LMGs in terms of recoil and controllability are not big enough. Hell, in some aspects they are even worse! 

Pretty much the only real advantage of 143 damage weapons at medium range is consistent BTK when engaging with headshots, and except for Promise, none of these guns are particularly good at it. 

As far as how 143 @ 698 LMGs relate to each other, I’d rank them as follows:

Promise > Pulsar LSW > SVA-88 > CARV-S

Overall, Promise is a unique case of a weapon. Its recoil pattern is one of a kind. Typically, LMGs have a ton of recoil, and while there are some exceptions, they usually come with below average DPS. I’d say Promise is a good weapon for newbies and casual players, and has even some role-play potential with its sustained fire feature.

There are some noticeable disadvantages, such as long Reload and Equip times. Promise also lacks attachments to boost the damage ranges, though as we’ve established, it’s not a big deal for this damage model. 

Promise also lacks an option to equip a Suppressor, not that it would be a good idea with this damage model.

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of the Promise, and something I haven’t mentioned yet, is the inconsistency of its first few shots. First shots are often the most important, and can easily decide the outcome of a firefight, and between high Recoil Angle Variance and highly variable Recoil, there’s definitely some annoying shake.

It’s not so bad, though. Realistically, even if your get the worst possible Recoil values every time, Promise will still have less recoil than other 143 @ 698 LMGs. It’s just that it can be annoyingly inconsistent, albeit on a small scale, and it still goes against what a competitive player would look for in a weapon.

As a final thought, don’t be discouraged by my negative outlook on these weapons. In the end, they’re perfectly capable killers. It’s just the differences between PlanetSide 2 weapons are so minuscule, that every little detail gets blown out of proportion. Worse is worse, even if it’s just by a few percent. 

Players have been asking for an LMG like this for a long time, and now that we have it, let’s take a deeper look to try and figure out how fast should you be throwing money at the monitor.

The following guide will be taking a good close look on the weapon, but if you want just a short summary:

It’s a great weapon for short range up to 20-50 meters. If you mainly go for headshots, it is very easy to kill multiple enemies inside buildings.

– /u/flub1337, the first player to earn an auraxium medal with Watchman

Stats

DAMAGE	125 @ 10m – 100 @ 55m
RATE OF FIRE	857 RPM
VELOCITY	550 m/s
AMMO	125 / 375
RELOAD TIME	5.525 sec / 7 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 699

Auto

Damage Output

Watchman’s damage output is above average, equal to 143 @ 750 weapons, like T9 CARV and Orion. This is pretty much as high as LMGs go, and it’s a solid amount of damage. 

Watchman has two tiers of damage degradation, which is typical for LMGs. However, low damage-per-shot weapons lose less absolute damage over range, though higher damage-per-shot weapons have longer Minimum Damage Range. So while they lose more damage over range, that process happens slower. For example:

• LA1 Anchor: 167 @ 10m – 125 @ 75m -> loses 42 damage (25%) over 65m.
• T9 CARV: 143 @ 10m – 112 @ 65m -> loses 31 damage (21.6%) over 50m.
• Watchman: 125 @ 10m – 100 @ 55m -> loses 25 damage (20%) over 45m.

If you imagine a Super Anchor with 641 RoF – that’s what it would take for a 167 damage weapon to match Watchman’s DPS – and compare how their DPS changes over range, you will notice that Watchman starts dealing more DPS at ~61m.

Of course, it doesn’t mean Watchman will actually be more effective at range than Anchor. Higher damage-per-shot weapons are naturally more effective at range.

Watchman has access to two Ammo attachments that affect its performance in a meaningful way, and it should be always used with one of them:

• Soft Point Ammunition (SPA) – increases Maximum Damage Range from 10m to 15m at the cost of reducing Projectile Velocity by 5%.
• Impact Ammunition (IA) – increases Minimum Damage from 100 to 112 at the cost of reducing Magazine Size from 125 to 100 rounds.

In terms of raw DPS, SPA is better within 20m, and IA is better outside that range. 

• SPA is most powerful at 15m, where it has a 1.6% advantage.
  • DPS: 1785 @ 15m – 1428 @ 55m
• IA is most powerful at 55m, where it has a 12% advantage.
  • DPS: 1785 @ 10m – 1600 @ 55m

As a 125 damage weapon, Watchman has very consistent and clean BTK Thresholds. As long as the standard infantry target is within Maximum Damage Range, it will be killed without any overkill whatsoever, both with headshots or bodyshots, with or without Nanoweave. Going even 1cm outside the Maximum Damage Range will increase the BTK by 1 and TTK by 0.07. The main function of SPA is to postpone this effect by extra 5m.

However, Watchman has a super high Rate of Fire, and among other advantages, it means Watchman’s TTK is not as penalized when going to the next BTK Threshold. For example, the 500 RoF Gauss SAW requires extra 120ms to kill an enemy 1m outside of the Maximum Damage Range, while Watchman requires only extra 70ms.

Impact Ammunition provides a noticeable damage boost at range, and makes damage degradation even less of an issue. For example, if we take our previous example with Super Anchor, but add ammo attachments this time, you’ll notice that Watchman starts dealing higher DPS at any range further than 20m.

Or if you compare Watchman with Impact Ammunition to CARV. Both degrade to 112 damage, but one fires at 857 RPM, and the other one at 750. Watchman will overtake CARV’s DPS at 15m already.

Bullets-to-Kill and Time-to-Kill

Standard Infantry

 Heavy Assault

For the sake of brevity, BTK and TTK are listed only for the first threshold.

Notes

• Within Maximum Damage Range, Watchman kills in 4 headshots, same as 143 damage weapons. Given Watchman’s higher RoF, it makes for an incredibly fast headshot Time-to-Kill, rivaling the infamous AF-4 Cyclone.
• Against Heavy Assaults, Ammo Attachment choice has no effect on TTK all the way up to medium range. Depending on enemy health and overshield energy, there could be some situations where SPA still kills faster, but since SPA deals at most 2 extra damage, these situations are highly improbable. 
• Against full-health targets, Impact Ammunition doesn’t come into play until 35m against standard infantry, and 48m against Nanoweave Infantry. 

Effective Range

Hip Fire Accuracy

Watchman has better than average starting Hip Cones of Fire, same as dedicated CQC LMGs like MSW-R and LA1 Anchor. It’s still pretty far from being able to comfortably hip fire at everything that moves, but you can land some decent shots at the center mass of an enemy a few meters away, and high Rate of Fire ensures good consistency. 

Laser Sight provides a few extra meters of effective Hip Fire range, but it’s nothing breathtaking, and it will not confer any new combat options, like being able to reliably hip fire for headshots, or being able to take on enemy Heavy Assaults without ADSing.

ADS Accuracy

On one hand, Watchman has fairly terrible Cones of Fire for stationary positions. Even in situations where you can afford to stand still, you cannot squeeze any more accuracy out of the weapon. It is definitely one of the meaningful downsides of the Watchman.

On the other hand, the 0.3 ADS Standing Moving CoF is hands down the best among all LMGs, period. Most other LMGs have 0.35 or 0.4 CoF.

This is honestly a weird and unexpected quality on a “bullet hose” type of weapon. However, this is somewhat compensated by relatively high Cone of Fire Bloom.

Cone of Fire Bloom

Despite dealing only 125 damage per shot, Watchman has the same Bloom per Shot as 143 damage weapons.

Watchman starts with better Cone of Fire, and it will hold an accuracy advantage for the first 8 shots – up to 2000 damage. After that, CARV and other similar 143 @ 750 will have a more efficient Cone of Fire. However, this doesn’t really matter outside of prolonged magdumping scenarios.

For example, by the time both weapons would fire 3000 damage, CARV’s CoF advantage would be only 0.05, and a 0.1 advantage by 4000 damage. Basically, as long as you keep your bursts within 15 rounds or so, you will not feel any downside to higher Bloom per Shot, but there will be a meaningful accuracy advantage for the first several shots. 

Recoil

Recoil Analysis

Watchman’s Vertical Recoil has a bit of random to it, but it’s not a big deal. The gun fires so fast that recoil will average out, and you won’t notice it. Vertical Recoil per Second is slightly lower than for MSW-R, and generally isn’t very high for an LMG with such a high DPS. 

First Shot Recoil and Multiplier are somewhat high, but still better than for competition.

As a more interesting feature, Watchman has some negative scaling applied to its Horizontal Recoil. 

After just a few shots, Watchman’s Horizontal Recoil scales down to the level of T32 Bull, which is downright incredible for a weapon with such a high DPS. 

These numbers are calculated for 10 round bursts and take scaling into account. Without Forward Grip, Watchman’s Average Horizontal Deviation is only 7% higher than for MSW-R and Orion with a Forward Grip.

T9 CARV has noticeably worse Horizontal Recoil Tolerance than all three, and will have ~60% higher Maximum Horizontal Deviation. 

Recoil Angle is average. A slight bias to the right with a bit of Variance to it. Most of the time you won’t even notice it, though statistically it will result in a minor impact to overall accuracy, giving the Watchman a slight nudge towards being a bullet hose.

Recoil Recovery

Watchman has better Recoil Recovery than vast majority of other LMGs, and this is good, because it increases the effectiveness of burst fire, making it easier for Watchman to repeatedly take advantage of its better starting Moving CoF. 

Velocity

Watchman’s velocity is average for a CQC LMG, and it’s about average on the overall velocity spectrum as well. It’s not too low, but you will definitely have to do some conscious leading when engaging enemies beyond medium range. 

Conclusion on Effective Range

Due to bad minimum Cones of Fire and low damage per shot, as well as high-ish FSRM and average velocity, Watchman has a somewhat limited effective range overall. 

However, Watchman gives you a lot of tools to keep itself under control, such as its affinity for burst firing, stable recoil and good Standing Moving ADS CoF.

So within that “limited effective range”, a properly handled Watchman will be more effective than your average CQC bullet hose like T9 CARV.

Another thing is consistency. The effective range of other CQC LMGs is roughly equal to Watchman’s, but their performance becomes noticeably worse as the range grows, while Watchman – especially outfitted with Impact Ammunition – will perform nearly equally well at 20m and 40m.

Just keep in mind that no matter the user skill, there eventually will be a stone wall of range where Watchman is simply not effective, and hitting shots and getting kills relies mostly on luck and enemy Exposure Time. 

Exposure Time is how long the enemy spends out of cover, susceptible to your shots. Given enough Exposure Time, pretty much any weapon can kill any target at any range, but Exposure Time is the one thing you have the least control of. 

Finding exposed targets is easier for flanking classes, such as Light Assault and Infiltrator, but it comes much less naturally to Heavy Assaults. Often you have to land shots on just a tiny part of enemy hitbox sticking out of cover, and Watchman may well let you down, if the enemy is too far.

And when you do stumble on an exposed enemy, often you’ll have just a few moments before they make it into cover, and you won’t have enough time to pepper the enemy with weak Watchman’s shots.

Utility Stats

Ammo Capacity

Watchman has a respectable ammo capacity, overall close to the bountiful T9 CARV, and more or less keeps up even while using Impact Ammo.

Reload Speed

Watchman takes a lot of time to reload, which makes it somewhat annoying to use, especially for those who suffer from reloaditus – an obsessive-compulsive disorder that forces the player to reload their weapon after every engagement.

If we wanted to assess how efficient is the Watchman, we could calculate how much “damage” it reloads per second, and compare it other LMGs:

Reload Damage per Second = Average Damage * Magazine Size / Reload Speed
Where Average Damage = (Maximum Damage + Minimum Damage) / 2

We can see that Watchman has good efficiency, though it’s still ~10% below average.

However, the issue is not time efficiency, but the fact that reload takes so darn long. Every second added to the Reload Time has an exponentially increasing negative impact, increasing chances of being engaged on, or missing a kill opportunity.

All that said, in terms of Short Reload, Watchman is very comparable to CARV, and as long as you avoid the unusually punishing Long Reload, you’ll be fine most of the time. Seriously, d0ku, what the hell were you thinking, putting the charging handle so far to the right and front?

Equip Time

Watchman’s Equip Time is about as expected for a full-sized LMG, and roughly equal to CARV overall.

Pros and Cons

Recommended Attachments

Tips and Conclusion

On the surface, Watchman looks like a typical bullet hose, but it’s actually a bit more nuanced, and to take advantage of everything it has to offer, it needs to be properly handled. You have to fire in bursts, which is made easier by excellent Recoil Recovery statistics. At the same time, high FSRM may make Watchman feel less controllable than it is. 

At the end of the day, Watchman’s most defining feature is short headshot TTK within Maximum Damage Range. Otherwise, it is effectively a sidegrade to the default T9 CARV. 

Apart from the First Shot Recoil, Watchman requires noticeably less recoil management, but more Cone of Fire management – burst firing, in other words. 

You have to be mindful of Watchman’s reload. Unlike MSW-R, you can’t just reload on the go, and you have to be ready to switch to a sidearm in case you get caught while reloading. At the same time, Watchman’s reload disadvantage is somewhat overblown – as long as you avoid being hit by a Long Reload, it won’t be much different from other “big” LMGs.

Overall, Watchman is a welcome addition to the Terran Republic arsenal. It provides veterans with a stylish answer to Anchor’s headshot TTK, and this time without the TR Recoil.

Easy recoil makes Watchman a suitable option for less skilled players as well, and it’s not like Watchman is too difficult to handle. Just remember to cut your bursts at about 10 shots at the most, and you’re good to go.

Watchman’s biggest downside is its inability to reach out to distant targets. Even when you can afford to stand still, there won’t be any accuracy boost. Couple that with low damage per shot and you can pretty much forget about even trying, unless the enemy will be exposed for a long time. That’s the price you have to pay for the combination of high DPS and easy recoil.

Flare VE6 and Ursa are two very similar VS LMGs, and they often get compared to each other. Flare is rated higher by the community than Ursa, so let’s take a closer look and try to figure out why.

Stats

Attachments

Common: Flash Suppressor, Suppressor, Forward Grip, Laser Sight, Darklight Flashlight, High Velocity Ammunition, Extended Magazine, Compensator.

Only Flare: Soft Point Ammunition.

Common Stats

Analysis

Ursa has:

• ~10% lower Horizontal Deviation
• ~20% lower First Shot Recoil
• ~6% higher Projectile Velocity
• Lower Rate of Fire results in ~6% less Vertical Recoil per Second
• ~12% faster Short Reload and ~10% faster Long Reload.
• 0.05 degrees tighter ADS Moving CoF

Nothing major so far, but better is better.

The biggest differences between these weapons lie in their damage properties.

Ursa has one tier higher Minimum Damage, which results in dealing up to 14.4% damage per shot, which happens at 75m. 

Flare has ~5% higher Rate of Fire, which results in up to 5% higher Damage per Second within maximum damage range: 1606 vs 1531.

Ranged Performance

Due to higher Minimum Damage, Ursa starts dealing more damage per shot than Flare fairly soon. However, Flare has higher Rate of Fire, so it takes a bit longer for Ursa to catch up in terms of DPS. 

• Ursa deals up to ~13% higher DPS than Flare at 75m. 
• And Flare deals up to ~5% higher DPS within 15m. 

Of course, Ursa will always be more effective at range due to better recoil. However, Ursa’s recoil advantage is fairly small. It seems that at least in terms of raw DPS, Flare can hold its own within ~40m, the range where most of the “useful” combat happens. 

In long ranged combat, TTK usually rises to the point where you can often hide in cover if you are caught in an unfavorable position, and in situations like that needing an extra bullet to kill is not a big deal. 

Flare’s performance at range is worse than Ursa’s, but that will rarely get you killed. 

CQC Performance

Flare has ~5% higher Rate of Fire, so in situations when Bullets-to-Kill are equal, it will also have 5% shorter TTK. Same as with Ursa’s recoil, it’s not much of an advantage, but better is better. 

However, only Flare has access to SPA, which is a sizable advantage, in this case.

167 damage weapons kill standard infantry in 3 headshots within their Maximum Damage Range, and SPA extends it to 15m. In terms of ADS performance in CQC, Flare is not very different from LA1 Anchor, which is considered to be one of the best LMGs in the game. In fact, Flare has less Vertical Recoil per Shot and lower First Shot Recoil than Anchor, so it can be more convenient, as far as landing headshots goes.

Of course, Anchor has other advantages, such as higher RoF and better Hip Fire, so we won’t focus on this.

SPA also helps Flare to somewhat compensate for dealing less damage per shot at range than Ursa. To gain a DPS advantage over Flare sooner, Ursa has to use HVA, which reduces its Maximum Damage Range to 8m, further increasing the gap between the two weapons.

Thanks to differences in Damage Ranges and Rate of Fire, Flare will hold up to ~57% advantage in headshot Time-to-Kill against standard infantry in the range bracket between 8m and 15m, which happens to be a fairly popular fighting distance. 

Of course, SPA won’t always make a difference. For example, it makes no difference against Heavy Assaults with overshields, both with headshots and bodyshots – provided they are at full health and energy.

SPA won’t make a difference if the enemy has Nanoweave, and you’re going for bodyshots. 

But it still should be well enough to make Flare a better choice for an average player, unless you specifically plan to participate in ranged combat.

In-game Performance

These are average stats of top 500 players with Ursa and Flare, taken from the Das Anfall’s leaderboards. 

It’s interesting to note how close these two weapons are. Ursa does have a small advantage in terms of Accuracy and Headshot Kill Rate (HSR) – courtesy of the weapon’s better recoil. 

Ursa also has lower LPK – shots Landed-per-Kill, obviously due to higher damage per shot. 

Flare has an obvious advantage in terms of KDR. Though you can see the difference between KDR provided by the website, and the number that you get if you actually divide Kills by Deaths. On this picture, it’s marked as WKDR.

I’m not sure how to treat this disparity, but either way it’s pretty obvious that wielding Ursa gets players killed more than Flare. 

Conclusion

Ursa is clearly better at range, but in current PS2 meta, it’s not much of an advantage. There’s currently not much reason to wield a dedicated “ranged” LMG for an average player.

While Flare is not a particularly stellar CQC LMG, it is better in that role than Ursa, which makes it a superior choice overall. 

You’re going to need:

1. Understanding of Weapon Mechanics.
2. Knowledge of how to use the Daybreak Census API to access detailed weapon stats
3. A set of tools, such as Weapon Simulator and Toolbox
4. At least 100-200 kills with the weapon are highly recommended.

It’s worth noting that Weapon Analysis is essentially theorycrafting, and theory can and will differ from practice, and practice always takes priority. The main point of Weapon Analysis is to explain WHY a weapon behaves a certain way.

Damage

There are many ways you can look at weapon’s damage. First is damage itself:

Max Damage @ Max Damage Range - Min Damage @ Min Damage Range

You can read all about it here. To quickly recap:

Bullet Damage is more important for ranged combat, where individual hits are easier to get than sustained automatic fire. High bullet damage also makes it harder to regulate incoming damage on the receiving end. 

In close quarters, DPS becomes a more important statistic. 

DPS = Bullet Damage * Rate of Fire / 60

Overall, it’s preferalbe to use DPS rather than TTK to judge a weapon’s damage output, since DPS is always objective, and does not depend on the target having a certain amount of HP or resistances. PlanetSide 2 targets are diverse, and besides infantry can include a lot of other targets. Infantry health itself is highly variable as well. 

We can’t talk about damage and DPS without mentioning Rate of Fire. High Rate of Fire is crucial for CQC, as it makes damage output more consistent, and makes it easier to always inflict at least some damage to the enemy. 

Of course, we can’t completely ignore TTK. It is an important tool for analyzing weapon’s performance against typical targets. The most common scenarios are standard infantry (1000 effective HP) and full nanoweave infantry (1250). I prefer to go for “worst case scenario”, and mostly look at full nanoweave numbers. 

Contextually, it may be important to take a look at TTK against Infiltrators (900 effective HP). A good example would be Commissioner, which has noticeably lower TTK against them.

For semi auto weapons, Bullets-to-Kill is arguably more important than TTK, as it determines how many “clicks” you need to kill the target. 

BTK = Round_Up(Target Health / Bullet Damage)

TTK = (BTK - 1) * Refire Time

Refire Time = 60 / Rate of Fire

Weapon’s damage will change depending on range to the target, and so will DPS, TTK and BTK. It’s important to analyze the weapon fully, over its whole effective range. Many people make the mistake of taking a look only at maximum damage numbers. 

Headshot and Legshot damage modifiers are important as well. 

Magazine Size

This stat on its own is fairly useless, since it doesn’t take bullet damage into account. Damage Per Magazine is a more objective statistic, so that’s what you should be mainly looking at. 

DPM = Damage * Clip Size

DPM affects how reliably a user can take out at least one target before needing to reload, and how many enemies can be killed in one magazine, which is useful in flanking situations. 

Obviously, the more DPM- the better, but after a certain plateau of ~6000 DPM, it stops mattering in regards to reliably killing one target, and we enter the realm of the weapon being able to sustain through several engagement, or continuously damage MAXes or light vehicles.

There is also a certain plateau where DPM can get dangerously low. Eridani and Tomoe are such weapons. I’d say the weapon needs at least 4000 DPM to be wielded somewhat comfortably. Anything lower, and you get a strictly 1v1 ambush weapon. 

Due to damage degradation, DPM will vary at different ranges, so you’ll have to take that into account as well. 

More DPM reduces the chance of being forced into Long Reload. 

Ammo Pool

This is the amount of ammunition a player carries with him. More ammo is always good, and it decides how independent a player can be; how much does he need to rely on things like Ammo Belt and Ammo Printer, and how tethered he is to engineers and terminals.

Ammo Pool isn’t a factor for most weapons, as they have more spare ammo than an average player can realistically spend in one life, but there are exceptions, such as Stalkers using burstfire sidearms.

Same as Clip Size, you should take bullet damage into account. Up to you which range you want to use.

Reload Time

Reload time mostly speaks to user comfort rather than combat effectiveness. Mostly you should be looking at Short Reload, since it’s much more likely to encounter, unless we’re talking about a weapon with low DPM. 

Reload time is more important for CQC weapons. Ironically, they usually have longer reloads than ranged weapons. Reload time is less important for Infiltrator and Light Assault, since they often can find a safe haven to reload & recharge, or die during attempted ambush before having a chance to enter a reload. 

Effective Range

Initial Accuracy

Hip Firing

For Hip Firing, you want to mainly be looking at Standing Moving CoF. 

For high damaging semi-auto weapons, the smaller the CoF – the better. Commissioner is a great example – due to its great initial accuracy, it can land devastating headshots from the hip even if the enemy is a quite a few meters away. 

For automatic and burst fire weapons, smaller CoFs are better only to a certain plateau of ~1.5 – 2.0 degrees. Smaller than that and Hip Fire becomes too accurate, and it becomes difficult to spray enemies in close quarters.

Aiming Down Sights

All CoFs are relevant, and you always want them to be as small as possible. However, you are still mainly looking at Standing Moving CoF, since it is the most common and safest stance. 

Cone of Fire Bloom

There are several ways you can look at CoF Bloom.

1) CoF Bloom per shot itself. It’s more important for semi-auto weapons, especially those that don’t spam shots, like Semi Auto Sniper Rifles. 

2) CoF Bloom Per Second = CoF Bloom * Rate of Fire / 60

This statistic matters only in one specific scenario: if the user goes full auto, but momentarily loses crosshair placement on the target. I.e. he’s shooting past the target for a few moments.

A weapon with low CoF Bloom Per Second can just return the crosshair placement on the enemy and keep firing.

A weapon with high CoF Bloom Per Second will likely have to restart the burst, losing a bit of TTK, and subjecting the user to FSRM and Recoil Recovery. If the user doesn’t restart the burst, he’s risking to lose even more TTK, because CoF blooms too much.

3) CoF Bloom Per Point of Damage Done = CoF Bloom / Bullet Damage

This statistic with an extra long name ties weapon’s damage output to accuracy loss. This allows you to objectively determine which weapon requires more burst firing, even with perfect accuracy, and regardless of weapon’s RoF or DPS.

CoF Recovery

It seems that all weapons follow the same principle: after a final shot in a burst, the weapon waits for a Refire Time, and then starts recovering CoF at a rate of 20 degrees per second. 

PS2 weapon mechanics allow to have an additional CoF recovery delay, but none of the weapons use it.

Knowing this you could calculate ideal delay between bursts, based on accumulated CoF, but it would be next to impossible for a player to take advantage of it. 

Burst Firing

Together, Initial Accuracy and CoF Bloom determine how much you need to burst fire a weapon. But how good is a weapon at burst firing is mostly determined by recoil statistics. 

Angular Size Research

There is no single definition for weapon’s effective range. I prefer to use this one:

Effective range is range where an automatic weapon can reliably kill an enemy in one long burst, ignoring recoil and assuming perfect crosshair placement. 

Normally, we would rely on Angular Size research to determine the effective range of the weapon, but unfortunately it was proven to be wrong, and at this time there is no way to even approximately calculate it.

Recoil Analysis

All of these recoil statistics can be calculated via Toolbox. 

Stability

Average Horizontal Deviation

This is the average distance between the crosshair during firing and its original position. Small AHD statistically guarantees the weapon will not deviate from the center too much, and it’ll be easier to hold aim on target. 

Maximum Horizontal Deviation

This statistic doesn’t matter very much, but abnormally big difference between MHD and AHD can indicate that the weapon can sometimes spin out of control, despite being fairly controllable otherwise. A Probability Distribution Graph should show how likely it is. 

On average, MHD should be about 2.5 times larger than AHD. Lower is good.

Recoil Angle Variance

RAV = ABS(ABS(Maximum Recoil Angle) - ABS(Minimum Recoil Angle))

High RAV can mess with the whole Recoil Pattern, and it makes burst firing especially hard. 

Rate of Fire

The faster a gun fires, the faster Horizontal Recoil can screw you over. 

Ease of Handling

Vertical Recoil Per Second

VRPS = Vertical Recoil / Refire Time = Vertical Recoil * RoF / 60

VRPS is a more objective alternative to Vertical Recoil Per Shot, and it’s directly proportional to the speed at which you need to drag the mouse to compensate for Vertical Recoil. 

Low VRPS makes a gun considerably more convenient, it increases weapon’s effective range, effectiveness of burst firing, and makes it easier to get multiple headshots with first few shots. 

Rate of Fire

With VRPS being equal, it is preferable to have higher RoF. A combination of Low Vertical Recoil Per Shot and High RoF is more comfortable for the user than high Vertical Recoil Per Shot and Low RoF.

The best example would be the notorious Gauss SAW, which gets a lot of heat for its Vertical Recoil, despite the fact that it has lower VRPS than CARV and Orion even without the Compensator. 

Average Recoil Angle

ARA = (Maximum Recoil Angle + Minimum Recoil Angle) / 2

In theory, it’s possible to fully compensate for the Recoil Angle, as long as there isn’t too much variance. In practice, same as with Vertical Recoil, lower angle is always good, and it is preferable to have the gun recoil straight up.

Recoil Recovery

These statistics are important for tap firing and burst firing. 

Projectile Speed

Determines how comfortable is the weapon at range, how much the user needs to compensate for bullet drop (if this weapon’s bullets are affected by Gravity at all), or lead a moving target, how fast can the user adapt to target’s movement.  

High velocity increases weapon’s affinity to being Suppressed. It doesn’t matter that much on CQC weapons, but generally – the more, the better.

When coupled with Projectile Lifespan, determines weapon’s maximum range. Usually it’s not important, but can be crucial in certain edge cases, like super long range sniping:

Spectre’s bullets have lifespan of 1.25 seconds. Normal velocity is 570, suppressed velocity is 570 * 0.6 = 342. That would put theoretical maximum range at 712m normal and 427m suppressed.

Misc. Stats

These stats are of some importance, and should be considered and put on display. 

Equip Time determines how good is a weapon for quickdrawing. For example, a Combat Medic might prefer a weapon with a shorter Equip Time to be able to faster switch to it if he gets caught with a Med Tool in hands. Same thing for other classes. 

Equip Time also affects how fast a weapon recovers after a quick melee attack or a grenade throw.

Faction. Having a cross-faction weapon can be both a blessing and a curse, since it will make it impossible for both allies and enemies to identify the user as belonging to a certain faction, judging by the sound alone. 

This is just something to keep in mind, since  the overall impact of this factor cannot be measured objectively. 

Scope-In Time. How long does it take to ADS. Normally, it would be a crucial stat, but it’s usually the same for weapons within their category, so it’s not an important point for weapon analysis.

Sprint Recovery. A delay before a weapon can be fired after you stop sprinting. Especially important for CQC weapons, though, once again, it’s the same for most weapons.

Fire Detect Range. Self-explanatory.

ADS Speed Multiplier. The higher, the better. A lot of people don’t understand relationships between percentages, and don’t realize that 75% ADS equates to 50% faster movement during ADS. 

Higher ADS Speed is a survival trait, as it allows to dodge more of enemy fire while dishing out accurate shots yourself. 

Specific Cases

Bolt Action and Pump Action

For these weapons, the most important statistic is Chamber Duration, as it determines their effective rate of fire. 

Spool-Up Weapons

Some weapons, like T7 MCG, start firing at lower RoF, and then gradually spool up to their maximum rate of fire. So you have to look at three stats:

1. Initial RoF
2. Spool Up Time
3. Maximum RoF

Shotgun

Total Damage Per Shot. Mostly important for quick-melee combos, and determines weapon’s performance in ideal situations, though it’s important to realize that shotguns very rarely meet them. 

Damage Per Shot = Pellet Damage * Pellets

Pellets Per Shot. Speaks to weapon’s consistency. With all else being equal, it’s better to have as many pellets as possible, as it reduces the effects of RNG. 

Pellet Spread. Affects weapon’s effective range. It’s always important to take into account Cone of Fire as well, and look at Pellet Coverage:

Pellet Coverage = Pellet Spread + Cone of Fire

This is shotguns’ version of “Initial CoF”.

Cone of Fire affects where Pellet Spread can land, and overall makes the weapon less consistent by double dipping into RNG. Ideally, you don’t want to have any CoF at all.

Pellet Spread is what makes a shotgun, so while smaller Pellet Spread makes the weapon more accurate and increases effective range, you still want to have some spread. 

Ideally, you want Hip Pellet Spread to be somewhere around 1.5 – 2.0 degrees, and ADS Pellet Spread around 0.5 – 1.0 degrees.

Burst-Fire Weapon

Very similar to analyzing an automatic weapon, but with a concession that the weapon can be harder to use optimally.

The requirement to click at a very specific rate of fire can make it harder to reach maximum rate of fire, and it can be harder to keep the crosshair over the target, as the user also has to compensate for uneven recoil while clicking. 

Complete lack of a semi-auto mode on a burst weapon should be counted as a disadvantage, as it means the gun can’t be tap-fired to snipe deployables or players massively out of weapon’s effective range, though obviously those are niche uses that are likely to be meaningless for most players. 

In addition to shots to kill, it may be prudent to also look at “bursts to kill”. 

Obviously, First Shot Recoil Multiplier plays a big role. It’s kind of controversial. On one hand, you want FSRM to be as small as possible, to ensure the first two shots in a burst land as closely as possible. On the other hand, you want FSRM to be close to 1x, so the recoil is evenly distributed during the burst, so it is easier for the user to emulate a fully automatic weapon. One thing is certain: you definitely don’t want FSRM to exceed 1x.

Vertical Recoil Per Shot is important as well. On weapons with long bursts, Vertical Recoil Per Second could be a more objective stat to look at. 

Look up this on how to calculate damage per second and damage per minute of a fixed burst weapon, and keep in mind that burst weapons tend to have recoil scaling.

Semi Auto Weapon

For semi auto weapon, Vertical Recoil and Tap Firing Speed, as well as CoF Recovery are the most important statistics. 

When looking at TTK and BTK, it could be prudent to look at how many bodyshots a weapon needs after a headshot opener. E.g. one of big advantages of Commissioner over Underboss is that Commissioner has much longer range of 1 headshot + 1 bodyshot combo. 

Or the fact that Blackhand reliably kills an enemy with 1 headshot + 1 bodyshot within ~60m, makes it considerably more comfortable to use. 

Tengu excels at consistently dealing damage to enemies, even against mobile targets, or when the user makes aiming mistakes. This makes Tengu a perfect weapon for newbies and low-aim players. 

Due to large pellet spread from the hip, Tengu has worse hip fire than other SMGs, almost always requiring the user to aim down sights.

Stats

Best of Both Worlds

Both SMGs and Shotguns have a number of problems that make them less effective than other CQC primary weapons. 

Shotguns fire multiple pellets with each shot, so they can easily inflict some damage with each shot. However, their Time to Kill is balanced around hitting nearly every pellet, and large Pellet Spread limits their effective range. Unless you’re within a few meters and aim well, any automatic CQC weapon is likely to kill faster. 

They also have relatively low Rate of Fire, so missing a whole shot is extremely punishing.

Shotguns also don’t have Cone of Fire Bloom, so you are expected to fire at maximum rate of fire to make your TTK more competitive. 

To summarize, to be effective with a shotgun in hectic close range combat you are expected to hold your aim pinpoint at enemy’s center mass and click at a very specific rate. Needless to say, this is hard to accomplish even for good players. 

The fact that shotguns easily inflict partial damage doesn’t mean much, because only partial damage will take ages to kill an enemy. 

SMGs have a different set of problems. On average, they have lower DPS than other CQC primary weapons, lower Damage per Magazine, and shorter effective range. The only thing they gain is increased hip fire accuracy, and 75% ADS. And sometimes you can have too much accuracy.

You have to compensate reduced firepower with your own skill, going for headshots and hip fire headshots, and outmaneuver the enemy with your mobility. This creates a significant skill requirement just to make SMGs competitive in CQC.

NSX Tengu is a perfect balance between shotguns and SMGs. Tengu easily inflicts partial damage on targets, but it doesn’t suffer from shotguns’ low RoF and from SMGs’ “too much accuracy”. You can waive Tengu in general direction of the enemy and still kill him in a reasonable amount of time. 

Tengu is inaccurate enough to be effectively used in hectic CQC setting, even by an average player. But it is accurate enough to have about the same effective range as other SMGs. 

Couple that with some very short reloads and decent Damage Per Mag, and you get a rock solid SMG in the end.

Mechanics

Mechanically, Tengu is a shotgun. Feel free to familiarize yourself with Weapon Mechanics and Shotgun Mechanics.

Cone of Fire Bloom. Unlike Shotguns, Tengu does have some CoF Bloom, in line with other 200 damage per shot weapons. Similar to other SMGs, Tengu has the same CoF Bloom for both ADS and Hip Firing.

CoF Bloom Per Point of Damage Done: 3.5 * 10-4

In this regard, Tengu shares the first place with Eridani, which is known for sustained hip fire accuracy. Of course, Pellet Spread will interfere with that a lot, but as far as CoF Bloom mechanics are concerned, Tengu is excellent.

The fact that Tengu fires multiple projectiles with each shot is a double edged sword:

Pros: 

• Makes it easier to consistently inflict some damage, even when target is actively dodging or the user makes aiming mistakes. This gives Tengu affinity for CQC and makes it friendly towards newbies and low-aim players. 
• As an additional consequence, Tengu user is less affected by flinch from getting shot, and can be competitive in duels even without Battle Hardened implant.

Cons:

• Optimal DPS is harder to reach.
• Damage can be reduced if target is partially protected by cover. 
• It is harder to focus your damage output at a particular point, such as enemy’s head. Or to single out a specific enemy in a group. 

Damage

Damage per Pellet: 50 @ 6m - 36 @ 40m
Pellets per Shot: 4
Damage per Shot: 200 @ 6m = 144 @ 40m
Rate of Fire: 500
Damage Per Second: 1666 - 1200
Headshot Damage Multiplier: 2x


Within maximum damage range, Tengu’s DPS is equal to 200 @ 500 weapon, such as Gauss SAW, which is below average for an SMG.  Considering that optimal DPS is harder to reach for Tengu, it has a comparatively low, but consistent damage output. 

Despite that, in the hands of an average user, Tengu is likely to be more effective and kill faster, just because it is so consistent at dealing damage.

Similar to other 200 damage weapons, Tengu gets hard countered by Nanoweave Armor, which can increase Ideal TTK from 0.48 seconds to 0.72 seconds – that’s 50% TTK increase for 20% damage reduction!

However, Tengu can potentially deal 400 damage with a headshot, and kill an enemy with just three headshots, with a good overkill in case a few pellets miss or hit the body.

Tengu takes 4 body shots or 2 head shots before it can reliably melee combo enemies.

Ammunition

Ammo: 20 / 140
Damage Per Magazine: 50 * 4 * 20 = 4000
Extended Mags: +4 rounds per magazine (+800 DPM)
DPM w/ Ext Mags: 4800
Reload Time: 1.875 sec / 2.5 sec


Tengu has very decent Damage Per Magazine, close to Cyclone’s, which holds the first place among first gen SMGs. Extended Mags provide a noticeable boost, pushing magazine size from “adequate” to “comfortable”. 

Tengu also has quick reloads; the long reload penalty is unusually mild for an SMG. 

Hip Fire Accuracy

Hip Cones of Fire:1.75 / 1.75 / 1.75 / 2.0
(crouching still, crouching moving, standing still, standing moving)
Hip CoF Bloom: 0.07
Pellet Spread Hip: 3.0

Due to large hip fire Pellet Spread, and larger initial Hip Fire CoFs, Tengu has notably worse hip fire than other SMGs. 

Tengu has access to a unique attachment – Hybrid Laser, which reduces Hip Fire CoFs and Hip Pellet Spread by 20%. It enables the user to hip fire with a bit more liberty, but other SMGs will still have much better Hip Fire accuracy.

Click to enlarge.

On these pictures, each weapon fires 2000 damage. This is 10 shots for NSX Tengu, and 16 shots for GD-10 Blitz. Both weapons are fired from the hip while Standing Moving – the most likely hip firing stance. As you can see, Blitz – and by extension other SMGs – has much more accurate Hip Fire. 

As mentioned, Tengu has below average DPS, and due to large pellet spread, it cannot focus its DPS when firing from the hip, and even with Hybrid Laser you can’t hip fire for headshots outside spitting range.

And with normal, partial body shots, Tengu simply takes too long to kill an enemy from the hip. If the enemy is on the beefy side, and slightly at range, you’re likely to run out of ammunition before killing the enemy, assuming you even live that long.

All of this boils down to – Tengu can be effectively hip fired, even without Hybrid Laser, but with much less freedom than other SMGs. Tengu requires more thoughtful approach. It is preferable to almost always Aim Down Sights, and hip fire only against squishy or weakened targets, or at very close ranges. 

ADS Accuracy and Effective Range

ADS Cones of Fire: 0.15 / 0.17 / 0.15 / 0.32
(crouching still, crouching moving, standing still, standing moving)
ADS CoF Bloom: 0.07
Pellet Spread ADS: 0.75
Velocity: 380 m/s
Projectile Lifespan / Gravity: 1.5 / 11.25


Overall, you can expect Tengu to have about the same effective range as other SMGs, around 20-30m. 

Remember two things:

• Tengu gets an accuracy boost for staying still or crouching.
• Tengu fires multiple projectiles, so it benefits from firing at completely exposed targets.

Given right conditions, Tengu can reach out to enemies at longer ranges, especially if they’re not Heavy Assaults. 

However, the reverse is also true. When the target has partial cover, you will need to be closer before you can do any meaningful damage.

Due to relatively large initial Pellet Spread, burst firing is not as important with Tengu as with other weapons, so you can afford to fire in longer bursts. Extremely high First Shot Recoil Multiplier makes shortbursting even less desirable. 

Tengu has slightly less Damage Degradation than other SMGs, losing 28% of damage over 29m. For comparison, 125 damage SMGs lose 33% of damage over 31m (assuming SPA on both).

Overall, Tengu has surprisingly decent effective range for an “automatic shotgun”. 

Recoil

Vertical Recoil: 0.4
Vertical Recoil Per Second: 3.33
First Shot Recoil Multiplier: 3.5x
Recoil Angle: -5 / 5
Horizontal Recoil: 0.25 / 0.25
Horizontal Recoil Tolerance: 0.6
Average Horizontal Deviation: 0.205
Maximum Horizontal Deviation: 0.5
Recoil Recovery Delay: 120
Recoil Recovery Rate: 18

Tengu has high vertical recoil for an SMG, but it’s fairly average overall. However, Tengu has extremely high First Shot Recoil Multiplier, and this is something that you will need to adjust to when firing at enemies beyond ~25m. 

Tengu has more stable horizontal recoil than most SMGs.

All that said, you will run into damage degradation and Pellet Spread issues long before recoil becomes a problem. So aside from the mentioned FSRM, recoil is not something you should overly concern yourself with when using Tengu.

Misc Stats

ADS Time To / From: 0.15 sec / 0.15 sec
ADS Movespeed Multiplier: 0.75x
Minimap Detect Range: 40m
Equip / Unequip Time: 0.65 sec / 0.25 sec

All of these are standard for an SMG.

Attachments

Optics

Tengu has access to a variety of 1x and 2x scopes, including HS/NV scope. As always, the choice will depend only on your personal preference, but generally speaking, there’s no reason to use anything other than 1x CCLR scope. 

Barrel

Flash Suppressor

This is the standard recommended attachment for most weapons, as it provides a bit of concealment at nearly no cost. Increased minimap detection range can mess with you, giving away your position to enemies outside your effective range, so if you do a lot of solo flanking, you may prefer to run Suppressor or no barrel attachment instead. 

Suppressor

Suppressor will reduce your ranged damage, reducing your Damage Per Second by up to 13%. Tengu sounds loud when you shoot it, but it sounds much quieter to other players around you. And the Suppressor makes Tengu nearly inaudible. 

Suppressor is a great attachment for flanking SMG Infiltrators and Light Assaults, who usually have more thoughtful and deliberate engagements, against unaware or weakened enemies. Having more time to ADS and aim properly will further reduce the effects of damage penalty.

However, it doesn’t make much sense to use Suppressor for aggressive pushing and hectic CQC skirmishes, as you’re likely to be spotted or lit up by a Motion Spotter anyway.

Rail

Tengu has access to Extended Mags (+4 rounds per mag), Darklight Flashlight and Hybrid Laser attachment.

Hybrid Laser reduces hip Pellet Spread and Hip CoFs by 20%. 

On paper, both Hybrid Laser and Extended Mags are viable. I’ve used both, and have been satisfied with their performance. 

The problem with Hybrid Laser build, is that Tengu has worse hip fire performance than other SMGs, and Hybrid Laser is inferior to Advanced Laser Sight.

 You would think that 20% reduction to Pellet Spread and 20% reduction to Hip Fire CoFs come together and equate to 40% reduction to Hip Fire CoFs of ALS, but it doesn’t actually work like that. Effectively, you still get a 20% reduction versus 40% reduction.

And given the fact that Tengu has worse hip fire capabilities than other SMGs even before the attachments, it doesn’t make much sense to go with Hybrid Laser.

It’s certainly a viable attachment, you can make it work, but objectively Extended Mags is better, especially when used by flanking classes – Light Assault and SMG Infiltrator.

Ammo

Tengu has access only to Soft Point Ammunition, and should always be used with it.

Recommended Attachments

This is a cookie cutter build if you don’t know which attachments to pick for your playstyle.

• 1x CCLR
• Flash Suppressor
• Soft Point Ammunition
• Extended Mags

Gameplay Tips

First and foremost, you must realize that Tengu’s hip fire is much worse than for other SMGs. You almost never want to hip fire, unless the enemy is just a few meters away. So in almost any engagement you want to be aiming down sights.

Other than that, Tengu plays a lot like other SMGs, so feel free to check out the corresponding sections of the SMG Guide and SMG Infiltrator Guide.

Remember to close the distance before engaging, when possible.

Take advantage of Tengu’s short reload. After killing one enemy, you almost always want to take a step back and reload, unless you’re flanking several enemies from a really good position, and can kill all of them at once.

Get a good sidearm, and get good with it. You’re gonna be relying on it a lot, similarly to other SMGs. 

Be careful about engaging enemies in partial cover. You won’t be dealing much damage to them.

When engaging enemies at range, you can boost your accuracy by being still or crouching. Just be careful about being sniper bait.

Conclusion

Tengu is the most competitive weapon in the whole NSX lineup. It is very effective, and will serve most players much better than Cyclone ever will – and that weapon is universally regarded as the best SMG. Unlike other SMGs, Tengu is friendly to newbies and low-aim players. It has the best qualities of shotguns and SMGs, while doing away with their worst qualities. 

Tengu is much easier to use than other 200+ damage weapons, while still letting you enjoy the feeling of impactful, high damage shots.

Worth buying?

Tengu is a must buy if you have any intention of using SMGs. 

However, at the end of the day, all SMGs have limited firepower and effective range. Most classes will have a more versatile CQC primary weapon option. If you don’t have a reason to use an SMG, you don’t have a reason to use Tengu.

Yumi is an excellent weapon for medium and long range combat, and it gives a huge advantage when firing first, more so than any other automatic weapon. But the burst delay makes the weapon a little bad in direct confrontation, especially if the enemy engages you first in close quarters. 

Playing with Yumi is like playing with any slow and accurate ranged Assault Rifle – you will have to stick to cover, be ready to disengage if you get shot and avoid rushing head-first.

Using the Yumi is the hard way to teach a player to look for good engagements; the strict requirement on accuracy and firing delay will force the user to always aim down sights and aim properly before opening fire. 

On the other hand, Yumi is a weapon that plays itself. Unlike other burst weapons, which are basically automatic weapons in disguise, Yumi doesn’t allow any Cone of Fire management, and barely requires recoil compensation. 

Yumi is predominantly a medium+ range support weapon. If you ever wanted a designated marksman rifle for a medic – this is it. 

Yumi was released in underpowered state, and was significantly buffed in Apr 27th, 2017 patch and Oct 19th, 2017 patch, and now that this weapon is actually viable, let’s take a deeper look. 

Stats

Mechanics

After you press the trigger, there is a 0.25 second firing delay. Then it takes a 0.24 seconds to fire off a 5 round burst, with 60 ms refire time between shots. For comparison, AF-4 Cyclone has 92 ms refire time. 

As with a semi-auto weapon, you can queue the next burst right after you start charging the current burst. Click-release-click-hold until the next burst starts charging. This technique is explained in detail here. 

If you press the trigger without Aiming Down Sights, you will not be able to Aim Down Sights until the weapon finishes firing.

Similarly, if you press the trigger while ADSing, you will not be able to leave ADS, even if you jump. This is actually one of the biggest turn-offs of this weapon, because when you click to fire, you essentially commit your next 0.55 seconds to firing, and this can be a problem if you get attacked by another enemy during this time. 

Melee Combo

Yumi’s fixed burstfire mode gives it an interesting mechanical quirk. You can click to start charging the burst, and then perform a quick melee attack while the weapon is firing. This makes Yumi surprisingly scary in close quarters, because even if only 4 out of 5 shots hit, a knife strike will still reliably kill standard infantry through nanoweave. 

Learn more here.

Damage

Rate of Fire during a burst: 1000 RPM
DPS during a burst: 2783 to 2083 depending on distance.

Overall Rate of Fire: ~545 RPM
Overall DPS: 1516 to 1135, depending on distance.

Yumi fires off the burst at the highest rate of fire among all primary weapons, and therefore has the highest non-shotgun DPS. Burst delay significantly reduces overall rate of fire, reducing overall DPS to be on the level of a 167 @ 550 RPM weapon. 

With perfect accuracy and bodyshots, Yumi will require two bursts against a full health target. Heavy Assaults will require an extra burst at most. It is possible to one-burst a target if several shots hit the head.

Overall, assuming good, but not perfect accuracy, you should expect 2-3 burst kills against standard enemies, and 3-4 bursts against Heavy Assaults.

Finally, one burst + one quick knife swing will reliably kill standard infantry, though it’s not an easy combo to hit against an aware player. 

Recoil

Yumi is the only weapon to feature a zero First Shot Recoil Multiplier, meaning it has no vertical recoil for the first shot. The first shot is still subjected to Horizontal Recoil, though. 

Yumi has one of the lowest values for Vertical Recoil, though extremely high rate of fire still creates a noticeable vertical pull during the burst. You can’t start compensating recoil on reaction, because the burst will be over before you can react.

Yumi has very little Horizontal Recoil for its damage profile, and a negligible recoil angle to the right. 

Recoil Recovery finishes before you can start the next burst. 

Accuracy

ADS CoFs: 0.03 / 0.15 / 0.03 / 0.15 / 0.05

Yumi has very small Cones of Fire in all stances, and reduced Cone of Fire Bloom. Most 167 damage weapons have CoF Bloom of 0.06. 

It’s worth noting that Yumi doesn’t get any bonus accuracy for crouching.

Overall, it’s safe to say that Yumi features one of the longest effective ranges among Assault Rifles. And even ranged monsters like Reaper DMR cannot compete with Yumi’s moving accuracy and low Bloom.

Hip CoFs: 2 / 2.25 / 2.5 / 3 / 0.12

Yumi has standard hip fire accuracy for an assault rifle. It can be surprisingly effective in a pinch, but don’t expect any miracles, especially if you use Compensator. 

Attachments

Optics

Yumi has access to a variety of reflex scopes from 1x to 3.4x, and HS/NV scope. As always, the choice will depend only on your personal preference.

A low magnification scope makes it feel like the weapon has no recoil at all, and it allows a wider field of view, which can be crucial while you are busy tunnel visioning in one direction and firing off several bursts – Yumi has a long exposure time. 

On the other hand, a higher magnification scope gives a clearer sight of the target, allowing for more deliberate accuracy. It can also help identify targets at longer ranges before you even open fire. 

When in doubt – start with 2x Reflex, and see whether you need more or less magnification.

Barrel

Yumi has access to Flash Suppressor and Compensator. Both are viable, depending on playstyle and intended application.

• Flash Suppressor will make you less noticeable, which is crucial in ranged combat. 
• Compensator will increase ranged accuracy and make it easier to get headshots. 

Rail

Yumi has access to Extended Mags (+5 rounds), Forward Grip, Darklight Flashlight and Underbarrel Smoke and Grenade Launchers.

Yumi is a rare case of a ranged weapon where Forward Grip is not mandatory. Yumi already has very little horizontal recoil, and at ranges where you would benefit from the Forward Grip, Yumi already gets weaker due to Cone of Fire Bloom and damage degradation.

Yumi’s underbarrel attachments are similar to those of other weapons.

Underbarrel Grenade Launcher offers a great way to increase utility, versatility and firepower. It can damage vehicles, finish off players behind cover, and even OHK if you manage to get a direct hit. UBGL was never a bad attachment to have. It has just two problems: it is usually available on crappy weapons, or weapons that greatly benefit from other rail attachments.

Yumi doesn’t have any of those problems, so it is a prime candidate for using UBGL. 

Ammo

Yumi has access to SPA and HVA. 

SPA is better within 35m and gives maximum benefit of +1.8% damage at 15m.

HVA is better at 35m+ and gives maximum benefit of +6.4% damage at 90m. 

If you’re interested in a more in-depth analysis of ammo types, /u/DrSwov has a reddit post with TTK numbers against different targets.

Recommended Attachments

There are many viable attachment combinations with Yumi. If you know what you’re doing, you should be able to easily figure out the best build for yourself. 

If you need some help to get started, here is an example of a cookie-cutter build:

• 2x Reflex
• Flash Suppressor
• High Velocity Ammo
• Underbarrel Grenade Launcher
• Battle Hardened Implant

The goal behind this loadout is to give you the most versatility and combat options, without being overly specialized in any particular area.

Gameplay Tips

NSX Yumi is way more versatile than it may seem on the first look. The burst mechanic spices things up a bit, but you quickly get used to it, and for most intents and purposes, you simply get a gun that shoots half the time, and charges up the other half. 

Use the burst delay to your advantage, and take aim properly while the gun is charging up. 

Yumi has surprisingly decent performance from the hip, but you should still invest in a powerful sidearm for close encounters, and get comfortable with it. If you get engaged while healing or reviving, the sidearm will be your go-to weapon, not the Yumi.

Being unable to fire single shots is definitely limiting, because you can’t tap-fire snipe engies behind turrets or deployables. 

Yumi is excellent at range out of the box, without any performance-enhancing attachments, so it can be used with any attachment combination and still be viable.

The burst mechanic certainly gives advantage to firing first, but it’s not like you automatically lose if you get engaged on. Dodging enemy fire and hip firing, or ADSing and going for headshots are both viable ways of fighting back, depending on situation. 

Don’t spend too much time firing at targets at super long range, you’re unlikely to kill them before they make it to cover, and every moment you spend outside cover increases the chances of getting sniped. 

In extreme close quarters, consider switching to a sidearm, if you’re good with it. You can also “pre charge” a burst as you round the corner, though it requires good timing, and you have to already know where the enemy is. 

Conclusion

Yumi is an interesting and worthy addition, both to NSX lineup and Assault Rifles in general. Not everyone will like it, but everyone can use it. Unlike most other NSX weapons, Yumi doesn’t have a steep skill requirement.

• Give Yumi to a PS2 newbie with some FPS experience, and he will be able to participate in ranged combat, even though he knows nothing about CoF and recoil management.
• Give Yumi to a hardened veteran with excellent accuracy, and most enemies will die before they realize they’re getting damaged. 

Yumi is a welcome respite from super-niche weapons, though the delayed burst mechanic   seems a little out of place on Medic, and would make more sense on Light Assault or Infiltrator, in my opinion.

If you’re thinking about purchasing the Yumi, it is strongly recommended you trial it, and use it in actual combat for the whole 30 minutes. 

Answering critique

The whole premise of Yumi being a “garbage” weapon is based on a 0.25 second burst delay, which is not a big deal, unless you get shot as soon as the engagement starts. This just means Yumi user has to be a little more thoughtful about engagements he’s taking, nothing more.

Ignoring the burst delay, Yumi is basically an incredibly accurate 167 @ 550 AR with nearly no recoil and automatic CoF reset. I wouldn’t say that’s bad.

Adding Yumi into Weapon Simulator

If you want to add NSX Yumi into my Weapon Simulator, add this string to the end of the Stats.csv file, which you can open with Windows Notepad:

804246,NSX Yumi,NS,Assault Rifle,167,10,125,90,1,60,1,0.48s / 0.56s / 0.56s,580,-,30,210,3550,2755,0.5,0.12,0.05,2,1.5,2.5,5,2,0.03,0.03,0.15,0.15,5,5,0.29,0.12,0.12,0.4,0,16,Auto,0
804246,NSX Yumi SPA,NS,Assault Rifle,167,15,125,90,1,60,1,0.48s / 0.56s / 0.56s,551,-,30,210,3550,2755,0.5,0.12,0.05,2,1.5,2.5,5,2,0.03,0.03,0.15,0.15,5,5,0.29,0.12,0.12,0.4,0,16,Auto,0
804246,NSX Yumi HVA,NS,Assault Rifle,167,8,125,110,1,60,1,0.48s / 0.56s / 0.56s,609,-,30,210,3550,2755,0.5,0.12,0.05,2,1.5,2.5,5,2,0.03,0.03,0.15,0.15,5,5,0.29,0.12,0.12,0.4,0,16,Auto,0

Keep in mind that it won’t properly simulate Yumi’s burst mechanics.

NSX Fujin is a throwing knife. It goes into grenade slot, and thrown using the “throw grenade” key. A headshot with this thing instantly and silently kills most infantry targets within 20m. Fujin can be used by all classes. By default, you carry 2 Fujins at the same time, and Grenade Bandoleer suit slot will provide 2 additional Fujins per rank.

The only way to unlock NSX Fujin is to complete the Gold level of Nanite Exports directives, which requires you to get 160 kills with four NSX weapons.

Is NSX Fujin worth it?

The only practical use for Fujin is silent assassination of stationary enemies within 20m, which makes it a fairly situational item. Depending on your class and playstyle, the amount of such enemies you encounter will range from “some” to “none”. 

And enemies like that are usually unskilled, low-priority targets. You don’t help your faction that much by aggressively hunting for them. And often they can be taken out almost risk-free with melee, which would be just as silent. 

Moving unaware enemies are much harder to headshot with a Fujin. However, throwing is silent and stealthy, so usually you can throw them without much risk – enemies don’t notice when you miss completely. 

Carrying only a single Frag Grenade is usually a waste of the slot, so Fujin can be useful as a replacement-filler. However, most classes get access to more impactful or versatile grenades. 

Technically, Fujin can instakill any standard infantry within 20m. One could argue that provides an amazing outplay potential. However, Fujin is incredibly bad in straight-up fight:

• It’s hard to headshot a moving target, especially when it is shooting back.
• Most firearms can deal more damage in the amount of time it takes to throw a Fujin and then re-equip the weapon.

Throwing becomes a viable combat option only if both your weapons need reloading, and even then it’s more of a “last resort”. 

Fujin doesn’t make a good combo with melee attacks:

• It cannot reliably combo-kill an enemy with Nanoweave Armor.
• There will always be a delay between throwing and swinging.

You can try playing on Internet Delay by throwing while stepping in and out of cover, similar to how you would use a pump action shotgun, but strict requirements to aiming and timing make it challenging at best.

However, just because something isn’t practical doesn’t mean it’s not worth using, right? NSX Fujin is perfect for the the world of PlanetSide 2, filled with besaltered, bored veterans. It introduces a new, sparkly fresh and unusual way of killing. All the trouble one has to go through to even get the NSX Fujin only makes it more exclusive and adds to the “special snowflake” factor.

You can also feel like a genuine ninja or badass specops operator. All those knife throw scenes in action movies? Fujin hits the spot. If you love that entourage, enjoy being stealthy or got nothing better to do – Fujin is right for you. Otherwise – don’t bother.

Stats and Mechanics

Census API link: Item ID: 6003418

Cost: 25 Nanites per one throwing knife.

Damage: 500 @ 20m – 250 @ 50m.

Fujin has the same damage resist type as bullets, so it is reduced by Nanoweave and deals damage to vehicles that take damage from small arms. Ignore the official description “Fujin […] slices through infantry defenses”.

Headshot: 2x Headshot Damage Multiplier (patchnotes are wrong)

This means that Fujin is lethal on a headshot against standard infantry targets within 20m, and within 26m against non-NAC Infiltrators. Enemies with Auxiliary Shield can survive a headshot.

Legshot: deals 70% damage when it hits legs.

Minimap and Sound: Fire Minimap Detection Range is only 1m, so effectively you don’t show up on enemy minimap when you throw a Fujin. It is also very silent and has a barely noticeable tracer, like the Crossbow. 

Sprint: Fujin seems to have the same ~0.3 second Sprint Recovery Delay before you can start throwing out of sprint, and ~0.35 second Sprint Override Delay until you can sprint after throwing.

Speed: Fujin starts flying roughly ~0.5 seconds after you press the “throw” key and has 70 m/s velocity. 

Rate of Fire: after you throw a Fujin, there is a 1 second delay before you can start throwing another one. Effectively, it means 1.5 seconds between throws.

Accuracy and Range: Fujin is pinpoint accurate, even while jumping and falling, but it has some projectile drop. The Projectile Lifespan is equal to 3 seconds, so the maximum flight distance is 210m, but obviously hits will be hard to score.

Interaction with other weapons

You can throw a Fujin:

• Right after firing any weapon or using melee.
• During a burst of a burst fire weapon
• During a reload – the reload will be interrupted. 

Throw Timeline

When you press the “throw” key, the following happens:

1. You spend some time unequipping your weapon. Unequp Time is equal to 0.25 seconds for all known weapons.
2. Spend 0.1 seconds throwing the Fujin (visual animation takes 0.2 seconds). Knife actually starts flying in ~0.5 seconds after you press the “throw” key.
3. Spend some time equipping your weapon back, depending on weapon’s Equip Time. 

This means that you can fire a pistol almost right after throwing, but there will be a significant delay before you can fire an LMG. You cannot do a quick melee swing until you finish equipping a weapon.

You cannot switch weapons while throwing. If you try, you will equip the weapon you had in your hands before throwing, and only then start equipping another weapon.

But you can throw while switching, if you start switching weapons right before you hit the “throw” key. 

A comprehensive example: you are reloading an LMG. Suddenly an enemy appears. You start switching to a pistol, and immediately hit the “throw” key.

1. You will spend 0.25 seconds unequipping the LMG
2. then 0.25 seconds on equipping (or unequipping?) the sidearm
3. then 0.1 second on throwing the Fujin. 
4. then pistol’s Equip Time on equipping your pistol. Fujin will start flying slightly earlier than you can fire the pistol.

Action Buffer

You can “buffer” actions right after throwing by holding a certain key. For example, you can throw a Fujin, and then hold the “throw” key until you throw another Fujin in the shortest amount of time possible. Or you can throw a Fujin and hold “fire” button, and you will start firing as soon as you re-equip the weapon. Or you can hold both keys, and you will fire until you can throw again. 

Similarly, if you want to start sprinting as soon as possible after the throw, simply start holding the “sprint” key immediately after you pressed the “throw” key. If you were already holding the sprint before throwing, you will have to release the key and start holding again.

If you want to perform a quick-knife attack after throwing, you don’t need to hold it, one press is enough. 

Example: you want to sneak up and silently kill an unaware enemy. When you move close enough, you hit several keys right after another: equip the sidearm, throw the Fujin and press quick melee. You can strike all 3 keys at once, and your character will automatically play out the actions: start equipping the sidearm, throw the Fujin, then perform a quick knife attack as soon as possible, leaving you with sidearm in hands in the end.

In this example, you equip the sidearm to shave off some time before the quick knife comes out. With this example, I don’t mean to imply that it’s necessarily better than doing 2 quick knife swings or wielding the knife.

Tips and Tactics

Big rule: don’t use Fujin on enemies that are already engaging you. Resist the temptation of throwing the Fujin at everything that moves, because shooting is usually a better option.

A stationary, unaware target within 20m – these are your rules of engagement if you want Fujin to be reliable.

If the enemy is moving, but isn’t aware of you – you can try instakilling him with Fujin before engaging with your primary weapon. Enemies usually don’t notice a complete miss, so if you have several Fujins, you can make several attempts relatively risk-free.

Fujin can be a great “numerical equalizer”. For example, if you stumble upon several unaware enemies, you can quickly remove some of them with Fujins before going loud with your primary weapon against the rest. 

Aiming

At close range, Fujin doesn’t have that much projectile drop, so aiming at the upper part of the enemy’s head usually guarantees a headshot. 

With normal weapons, you aim first, and then fire. With Fujin, it is easier to press the “throw” key first, and then aim at the target during the 0.5 seconds of the throwing animation.

It’s much easier to hit the Fujin when you remain stationary yourself. 

If the enemy is moving in a straight line, you can make it easier for yourself to headshot him by moving behind him, so that he moves directly away from you. 

It is recommended to use crosshair overlay with Fujin, as it heavily relies on pinpoint accuracy from the hip. 

Rebind the “throw grenade” key to something more convenient than default [G]. A thumb mouse button, perhaps.

Videos

When searching for NSX Fujin videos on youtube, always check the date. Videos released before Dec 22, 2016 patch are outdated.

A montage by Inshpekta Gubbins:

3rd Person Animation tests:

In some ways, NSX Tanto is similar to another NS carbine, NS-11C, which is more traditional and easier to use.

They both feature 75% ADS movement speed, good accuracy and low damage output. But there are noticeable differences between them as well. Let’s take a closer look at both weapons and figure out which one might suit you better.

Stats

NSX Tanto

NS-11C

Shared Stats

Damage

Maximum potential benefit of:

• HVA: +7% damage at 60m
• SPA: +3% damage at 15m

Both carbines deal exact same damage, and have access to both SPA and HVA. However, NS-11C fires 8.6% faster, and has more ammo per magazine by default.

NS-11C gets a small edge for potential raw damage output.

Bullets-to-Kill and Time-to-Kill

Headshots

Standard Target

Nanoweave Armor 5

I don’t list BTK and TTK against Heavy Assaults for the sake of saving space. You can perform that analysis with the Toolbox yourself. 

Numbers above show the general trend: both weapons take a lot of time to kill, but before factoring accuracy and recoil, NS-11C takes slightly less time due to higher Rate of Fire.

Hip Fire Performance

NS-11C

NS-11C has the usual carbine-tier starting Hip Fire accuracy, and very low Cone of Fire Bloom, which means it can sustain hip fire without losing much accuracy. This can be especially noticeable while flying or jumping. 

NS-11C’s hip fire isn’t anything special, but still better than for most ARs and LMGs, and more than passable in a pinch, though low RoF and DPS limit your firepower versus hardened targets, especially if you’re not close enough to hip fire for headshots.

NS-11C takes the edge for ease of use when hip firing.

NSX Tanto

NSX Tanto offers perfect starting accuracy in any stance. It has high Hip CoF Bloom, but even then, it takes 7+ shots to exceed Hip CoF of NS-11C with Laser Sight, which isn’t even a standard attachment.

Tanto is potentially the most accurate hip fire weapon in the game. You can even countersnipe with it! But that potential isn’t easy to reach. You still have to contend with recoil and CoF Bloom.

NSX Tanto requires finesse. You can’t point it in general direction of the enemy and hope for RNG hits. You have to engage in bursts of 4-8 rounds, depending on distance and aiming point.

And because of the weapon’s low DPS, that aiming point better be the head, or you might find yourself outgunned.

Unlike with NS-11C, Tanto can realistically go for hip fire headshots at any distance, but naturally it will be challenging at 20m+.

In that regard, NSX Tanto can be interesting for people who played a lot of Counter-Strike, and used to hip firing and short bursting.

Additionally, you can tap hip fire the Tanto, and let Cone of Fire fully reset between shots. It would mean firing at 536 RPM or ~9 rounds per second. 

Tanto’s hip fire is best suited for a high-aim player with low mouse sensitivity, large monitor, excellent PC performance and Vertical Field of View below maximum. All of it would increase the relative size of the target on your screen, and make it easier to get good hip fire hits from greater ranges, at the cost of reduced awareness and twitch aim effectiveness.

NSX Tanto gets the ultimate edge for high potential accuracy of hip fire.

Both

It’s worth noting that both weapons have low DPS and are not suited for CQC domination. Unless you can reliably hit headshots or engage with a complete surprise advantage, it is better to avoid hip firing, and keep your distance, especially with NSX Tanto’s super low DPS.

Ranged Performance

NSX Tanto and NS-11C have different Recoil and Cone of Fire characteristics, and can be easier or harder to use depending on player and situation.

However, both carbines are likely to be inferior at range to 167 damage carbines, such as Razor, Pulsar C and Cougar, and don’t stand a chance against the magnificent cannon of destruction – AC-X11.

ADS Accuracy

Again, NSX Tanto’s big selling point is that its first shot is perfectly accurate, even on the move. While its ADS CoF Bloom is higher than average (0.06 vs 0.05), it still takes 10 (!) shots before NS-11C becomes more accurate, even when fired from a completely still position.

On that note – it is beneficial to start the engagement with NS-11C while stationary, if you’re engaging an unaware enemy at range from a safe position. But you don’t have to be still throughout whole engagement, you can start moving after you fire 5 shots and receive no accuracy penalty – that’s just how CoF Mechanics work.

In that case, NS-11C will be almost as accurate as NSX Tanto, the worse starting CoF isn’t likely to play any role, unless we’re talking about extreme ranges of 150m+.

NSX Tanto gets the edge for ADS Accuracy.

Recoil

NS-11C

As far as conventional 143 damage carbines go, NS-11C’s accuracy and velocity are above average. The only carbine that has it better is T5 AMC, mostly thanks to access to Advanced Forward Grip.

NS-11C has the lowest vertical recoil among carbines, which makes it very easy to hold on target. High First Shot Recoil is a bit obnoxious when you’re trying to engage a small target in short bursts. 

Overall, NS-11C isn’t something you would want for extreme range shooting or “sniping”, but it’s more than capable at range, and respectable for a carbine.

NS-11C gets a slight edge for ease of use at range.

NSX Tanto

The first obvious thing is high Vertical Recoil, and lack of Compensator to tone it down. Unlike NS-11C, you will have to consciously compensate for Vertical Recoil every time you engage with Tanto, and getting good hits at range may be challenging. The combination of low RoF and High Vertical Recoil is the opposite of convenient.

Lower FSRM makes short bursting a bit more convenient. Even though actual first shot recoil is the same as for NS-11C with Compensator, at least recoil is more consistent from shot to shot.

NSX Tanto has lower Horizontal Recoil, with 30% lower Average and Maximum Horizontal Deviations. It also has less pronounced Recoil Angle, and with less Variance.

All of this goes a long way of making Tanto’s recoil pattern more consistent and predictable, even if takes more effort to compensate for.

If you tap fire and let the crosshair fully settle between shots, you can take up to ~5 shots in 1 second, and each shot will have perfect accuracy. Potentially, you can kill a stationary player with 5 headshots within 0.85 seconds. Most players will not stand and get shot for that long, but you can potentially “snipe” an oblivious sniper or an engineer behind a turret. 

You can also snipe deployables with it.

NSX Tanto gets the edge for potential accuracy at range. You can see where this is going.

Other Traits

Equip Time

Carbines in general have the shortest Equip Time among primary weapons, and NSX Tanto has the shortest Equip Time among carbines. Returning to NSX Tanto from most sidearms or tools is going to take only 0.75 seconds. 

Combine that with perfect hip fire accuracy and you get the best quickdraw primary weapon. This can be especially important for Engineers, when they get caught with a Repair Tool out, or if you’re playing with Med Kit Primary.

That said, NS-11C is only a 0.05 seconds behind.

Ammo Pool

For some reason, NSX Tanto has a huge amount of reserve ammunition. A lot of the time that doesn’t matter, but it can occasionally make a crucial difference for a perching Light Assault, and NSX Tanto certainly benefits a rooftop camping playstyle.

NSX Tanto gets the edge for ammo pool.

Reload Speed

While NSX Tanto has pretty decent reload speed, it’s still 0,45 second slower than for NS-11C, which reloads faster than average.

NS-11C gets a slight edge for reload speed.

0.75x ADS Movement Speed Multiplier

Both carbines allow you to move 50% faster while Aiming Down Sights than with most other primary weapons. It’s a great trait for dancing in and out of cover, slicing corners and dodging enemy fire in a faceoff. 

It can allow you to survive just enough time to get your aim where it needs to be and get those hits.

This trait is especially obnoxious in case of NSX Tanto, which is still pinpoint accurate on the move.

Cross-faction tracers and sound

Both carbines share this quality, and it can add precious milliseconds before enemies identify you as a threat. This is especially important considering how many shots you need just to down one target, and how long it takes to fire them all.

For psychological reasons, this trait is most useful for VS players, as most of their weapons go “pew-pew”.

Which one to use?

As you probably have picked up along this article, NSX Tanto has higher potential than NS-11C, but is harder to use. It can be treated as a more extremely tuned version of NS-11C, the next logical evolutionary step. 

• If you already enjoy the playstyle of NS-11C, but wish you had more control – you’ll like what NSX Tanto has to offer.
• If you are just thinking about entering the realm of accurate, mobile carbines that reward good aim – it’s better to start with NS-11C and transition to NSX Tanto once you feel comfortable with the playstyle.
• If you value versatility and no-nonsense ease of use, and enjoy airborne combat – you’ll have better success with NS-11C.
• If you prefer a run & gun and in-your-face aggressive playstyle – you won’t like either of these weapons. 

Gameplay Tips

Both carbines specialize at “medium range” of about 20m to 50m. They can engage outside these bounds, but it’s not really their forte. Keep your distance when you can, and don’t try to snipe with them, and you should be fine.

Light Assaults really benefit from their sustained accuracy, which makes them great weapons for perching and general rooftop shenanigans. Just do your best to resist the temptation of jumping down in the midst of enemies.

If you are assaulting a building, either try to stay away the furthest from enemies, engage them in their backs, or stay behind your allies. 

When engaging an enemy in a 1v1 shootout, make full use of 75% ADS speed multiplier, and strafe erratically. If there is a piece of cover around – even better. Try to play the cover and catch the enemy sprinting or distracted. If you get under fire the moment you show your nose – just go back and wait for a more opportune moment. 

Both carbines require a lot of hits to down a target, and sure take their sweet time firing them. This means that after 1-2 engagement attempts, enemies around will likely know your exact position. Try not to stay in one place for too long, and engage from different angles when possible. 

Go for headshots when you can, but for both carbines there is a certain distance where they just can’t get them easily and reliably.

While theoretically NSX Tanto can shortburst or tapfire for headshots at any distance, it’s likely to take a disproportionate amount of time, giving an aware target an opportunity to hide in cover, and for other enemies to shoot you. 

In those cases, it’s perfectly fine to for bodyshots. Both carbines have great sustained ADS accuracy, and you’re very likely to eventually kill the enemy, unless he hides into cover or you get sniped first.

Attachments

Both carbines have access to mostly same attachments.

Barrel

Lack of Compensator for NSX Tanto is hurtful, but high Vertical Recoil seems to be the intended downside. And if Tanto had access to Compensator, it would be considered mandatory, pushing out other Barrel Attachments as viable options, and Compensator’s penalties would affect the intended feature – perfect starting hip fire accuracy.

While NS-11C has access to Compensator, and a lot of successful players enjoy using it with one, it’s far from being mandatory. NS-11C has the lowest Vertical Recoil and Vertical Recoil per Second among all carbines, and its performance at range is mostly limited by Horizontal Recoil and low damage. 

Suppressor works great on both carbines, as long as you keep in mind it comes at a cost to your maximum effective range. If you don’t want to deal with that, feel free to use Flash Suppressor instead.

This is a rare case where all available barrel attachments are viable and worth considering.

Rail

Forward Grip is recommended for NS-11C. The random nature of Horizontal Recoil limits your effective range in annoying and unpredictable way. 

While you could go the direction of “compensating weapon’s weaknesses” and equipping a Laser Sight, you wouldn’t get much use of it. When possible, you should simply stay away from close quarters altogether. When not – you still get the benefit of 75% ADS, and still the drawback of low DPS. 

With same reasoning, I recommend Forward Grip for NSX Tanto. It already has predictable and consistent recoil pattern, with one of the lowest Horizontal Recoils out there. 

You could say “if my Horizontal Recoil is already so great, I’ll just use Extended Mags” – and it would be more or less fine for medium range.  But in my experience, usually you cannot afford to stay exposed for so long to fire a whole magazine. 

You already take a long time killing one enemy, you’re likely to get noticed and shot, and you’ll need to go to cover and change position. Might as well reload along the way. 

And if 30 rounds isn’t enough for the user to kill even one target, they should work on their aim or engagement choices, not on attachment picks.

NSX Tanto is already very accurate based on Cone of Fire mechanics. It makes sense to tune the recoil up to par. Unlike NS-11C, NSX Tanto can really reach out. 

Ammo

While both High Velocity Ammo and Soft Point Ammo offer small, barely noticeable bonuses, they always seem to cause the most amount of argument. It comes down to what you value more, performance within 10-27m or after 27m. 

My personal recommendation is to go with HVA for both, as it can potentially offer higher damage increase, and increasing the velocity can’t hurt. 

Optics

As always, optics are up to personal preference. You can use any optic and do good with it.

But since both weapons require good accuracy, going with higher magnification is common and advised. 

For NS-11C, I recommend 2x Reflex. 

3.4x or 4x scopes are viable, but you may find them unnecessary, as less consistent Horizontal Recoil makes your crosshair shake too much.

Weirdly enough, optics choices for NSX Tanto are much more limited, it has access to only one 3.4x Reflex Scope, and no 4x Scopes.

If you are using NSX Tanto with HVA and Forward Grip, I would recommend the 3.4x Reflex. Since Tanto has much lower Horizontal Recoil, your effective range isn’t as limited as for NS-11C. You can also tap fire or “snipe” at greater ranges. And in close quarters, where high magnification would be a burden, you still get the excellent hip fire accuracy. Win-win!

Be prepared to deal with annoying Vertical Recoil, though. If you find it too much, it’s fine to use 2x Reflex or even 1x Reflex.

Additional Material

• Weapon Mechanics Guide – to learn more about inner workings of PlanetSide 2 weapons.
• Gunplay Guide – a collection of detailed tips on using weapons, aiming and engaging.
• Weapon Analysis Toolbox – compare and analyze different weapons.

It was one of the first three released SMGs, and remained relatively unchanged for a long time. During that time it had enjoyed booming popularity and hype of being the best SMG in the game.

Only recently Cyclone faced an adjustment in recoil statistics, and perhaps now it’s a good time to look into this phenomenon. Was Cyclone really that good, and is it still? What’s the reason for so much hype? Let’s dig in!

Stats

Headshot Damage Multiplier: 2 Minimap Detect Range: 40 ADS Movespeed Multiplier: 0.75

Damage output

SPA is a no-brainer attachment for all SMGs, so before talking about damage, let’s adjust for SPA:

Maximum Damage Range: 6m -> 11m
Projectile Velocity: 360 m/s -> 324 m/s

Note: in this table, I’ve skipped the 112 damage tier at 36-37m. 

As expected from an SMG, Cyclone can deliver superb performance at close range, and capable of a scary 3 headshot kill, which takes only 0.184 seconds. 

However, due to 4 tiers of damage degradation, Cyclone rapidly loses effectiveness as range increases. Cyclone remains usable at 30-40m, depending on attachments, but cannot compete with traditional automatic weapons further than that. 

Higher damage per shot does give Cyclone an advantage over other SMGs in ranged combat, where high damage per shot is generally desirable. 

It’s worth noting that Cyclone has largest damage per magazine out of all 1st generation SMGs, and the biggest benefit from Extended Mags, as well as nice Short Reload.

Rate of Fire

Cyclone has relatively low rate of fire for an SMG. That can be a disadvantage in close quarters, reducing the consistency of damage output, as explained in greater detail here.

However, lower RoF has an interesting interaction with Cyclone’s weird horizontal recoil, making it more stable on average. More on that below.

Cone of Fire and Bloom

Hip Accuracy w/ ALS: 0.6 / 0.75 / 0.6 / 0.9

As with all SMGs, Cyclone has the same ADS accuracy in all stances. In other words, staying stationary or crouching does not provide an accuracy boost, and this limits Cyclone’s effective range. All SMGs have the same CoF Bloom for both ADSing and Hip Firing. 

This goes with the theme of a mobile weapon: you’re given an incentive to move as much as possible and utilize the 75% ADS movement speed or full movement speed while hip firing.

All SMGs enjoy the best hip fire accuracy among all primary weapons, and access to Advanced Laser Sight allows you to improve it even further. 

It’s worth noting that 125 damage SMGs have the bloom of 143 damage weapons, so they bloom more per point of damage done. Unlike them, Cyclone has the same bloom as other 167 damage weapons, so it can sustain fire more effectively. More details here.

This contributes to Cyclone being better at range than some other SMGs, and combined with other mentioned factors makes Cyclone one of the best hip fire weapons in the game.

Why good hip fire is important?

There is a detailed explanation of this in my Gunplay Guide, but let’s quickly go over it. 

Hip firing is underrated in PlanetSide 2. On paper, it seems simple: ADSing gives more accuracy, and more accuracy is better, right? Well, not always.

In close quarters, ADSing can give you too much accuracy. It provides you with a tight stream of bullets, and an enemy can take just half a sidestep to dodge the entire stream.

ADSing also has a lot of disadvantages: it takes time, slows you down and reduces your field of vision.

Hip firing gives you a spray of bullets, and if at least part of Cone of Fire overlaps with enemy hitbox, you’re likely to deal at least some damage.

It’s easier to avoid a laser pointer than a flashlight. Take a look at this comparison:

A slight crosshair movement leads to all shots completely missing in ADS mode, and only slight coverage reduction with hip fire. 

While obviously you want to maximize your damage, sometimes it means giving up a portion of damage output to prevent giving up all of it.

Most players will have much easier time spraying enemies from the hip and doing consistent damage, while being able to move fast and dodge enemy fire. 

The higher the Rate of Fire, the more consistent will be the damage distribution over Cone of Fire area, and this is where Cyclone is a bit lacking compared to other SMGs.

However, an SMG with ALS may face the same issue of being too accurate even when firing from the hip, and that makes SMGs harder to use than other CQC automatic weapons. 

For most weapons, ADSing for headshots provides the fastest theoretical time to kill.

But SMGs with ALS can hip fire for headshots within 10m, shaving off the time it takes to aim down sights, and that is what makes them so powerful in CQC. 

This is also one of Cyclone’s strong points, as it has that mentioned quick 3 headshot kill, though it takes a skilled user to perform that consistently.

Recoil and how it was changed

This is the part of Cyclone’s statistics that was adjusted in recent patch.

The maximum horizontal recoil and horizontal recoil tolerance were raised. But Cyclone’s minimum horizontal recoil remains low. 

This means that Cyclone will have a bit higher average horizontal recoil per shot, and potentially has a chance to snap out of control with 3 kicks in the same direction, but it is statistically unlikely, especially considering Cyclone’s low RoF.

On average, Cyclone will still remain more stable than Armistice or Eridani. 

The nerfs have considerably raised Cyclone’s vertical recoil per second, but it still remains controllable when compared to bigger guns.

Of course, NS-7 PDW will still be more capable at range, but it won’t perform as well in close quarters.

Effective Range

Cyclone is deadly within 11m and effective within 23m. And with Advanced Laser Sight, it can effectively hip fire over a large portion of that range bracket.

It’s still usable within 30-40m, depending on attachments, target type and player skill.

Just keep in mind that Cyclone is an SMG, and will suffer obvious disadvantages when going against bigger guns at medium+ range, though 75% ADS movement speed can help reduce the gap.

Attachments

1x Reflex makes for an easy scope choice, since Cyclone is not effective at ranges that would warrant higher magnification. 

SPA is also a no-brainer attachment for all SMGs. 

Rail and Barrel attachments are not so straightforward, and all of them can be viable for certain playstyles. 

The “MLG” players with excellent aiming skill might prefer Forward Grip + Compensator combo, and ADS for headshots at all times.

The main purpose of this setup is to increase headshot accuracy in 10-20m range bracket, and overall effective range will be improved a little.

This combination will seem completely bewildering to most people and for a good reason. Personally, I’d never use this combination as well. But I see this working for select few exceptional players.

Flash Suppressor makes an okay Barrel slot filler, especially at night. 

Suppressor will reduce the effective range, and it’s not so useful on infiltrators, since cloaking sounds will direct enemies to your position anyway. But it could work on a cocky Light Assault build.

Extended Mags vs. ALS comes down to playstyle.

If you’re careful about your engagements and mind the Long Reload, ALS will give you excellent dueling potential. You’ll have to always engage enemies one by one, though.

Extended Mags will make Cyclone a bit more general-purpose than strict 1v1 CQC fights.

You will have to ADS more often, but have the ability to engage more than  one enemy at a time, won’t go through Long Reload as often, and be able to take out beefier targets outside optimal range.

Playstyle

You can find some guidelines on how to use an SMG here.

Truth Behind the Myth

Cyclone is often called “the best”. Be it “the best SMG for NC infiltrators” or “best SMG overall” and even “best weapon in the game, period”.

Why does it receive such praise and is it deserved? To find the answer, we have to look at the bigger picture.

If you don’t mind reading a wall of text, /u/Quinnocent gives an excellent explanation here. 

Weak Competition

Compared to other 1st generation SMGs, Cyclone is indeed too good. You may even say “overpowered”.

Cyclone has a great combination of all the important stats:

• better hip fire than Armistice
• better DPS than Eridani
• noticeably longer effective range
• higher damage per magazine
• potentially fastest time to kill with headshots

Basically, Cyclone can perform nearly as well in close quarters as other 1st gen SMGs while being better at range, and it performs even better in skilled hands.

Lack of clear disadvantages

Cyclone’s disadvantages are statistical and not easily perceivable by players.

1) Low Rate of Fire means that statistically Cyclone is less consistent when spraying in close quarters, and loses more TTK as range increases.

An excerpt from the Weapon Mechanics Guide:

…let’s compare two SMGs:
AF-4 Cyclone: 167 @ 6m – 100 @ 46m / 652 RoF
SMG-46 Armistice: 125 @ 6m – 84 @ 42m / 896 RoF

They both have similar DPS and effective engagement ranges. At 6m, they have the same TTK of 0.47. However, when crossing the bullet damage threshold from 6m to 7m, Armistice’s TTK will increase to 0.54, and Cyclone’s TTK will increase to 0.56.

They both will need one additional bullet to kill, but Armistice fires those bullets at a much faster rate, so it’s a less of a problem for that weapon.

This determines how much of a penalty is inflicted by using Suppressor, and generally for engaging the target outside the maximum damage range.

2) Less consistent horizontal recoil. Sometimes Cyclone can get out of hand and kick more than others. But on average it will perform better.

3) Higher vertical recoil per second than for other SMGs, but still very controllable.

While Cyclone has ~35% more vertical recoil per second than other SMGs, this disadvantage can be safely ignored, because Cyclone’s vertical recoil is still very mild when compared to larger primary weapons.

Specifics of TTK Calculations

Cyclone is often praised for the best headshot time to kill. But where does it come from?

Let’s compare 1st gen SMGs:

As we can see, the difference between their Damage Per Second is minimal. The big disparity in headshot TTK has to do with how Time to Kill is calculated:

TTK = (BTK - 1) / ( RoF / 60)
or
TTK = (BTK - 1) * Refire Rate

The Bullets-to-Kill is reduced by one, because there is always one fewer Refire Times between shots.

Spread fingers of one hand before you. You’ll see five fingers (hopefully), and four gaps between them. Fingers are bullets, and gaps are Refire Times. 

The reason why Cyclone’s TTK is so short is because there are only two gaps between the three shots.

However, the longest Refire Time means Cyclone receives bigger penalty for missing.

Let’s take a look at how number change if the user misses 50% of shots:

Now they are only 0.01 or 0.02 seconds apart. The difference will continue to diminish as amount of shots increases.

To summarize, Cyclone can offer better performance in ideal circumstances, but will face greater punishment outside them. 

 “Most PlanetSide 2 battles are CQC”

This is another popular statement, which creates the logic of “Cyclone is strong in CQC, so it’s the best weapon overall”. 

The problem with the statement “most PS2 battles are CQC” – it’s not specific enough.

Some PS2 players enjoy playing for the objective, they are competitive, and will try to capture as much territory as possible. Often they’re organized and even use voice comms.

A lot of objectives, such as capture points and generators, are located indoors. 

And from that point of view, majority of their battles is indeed fought in close quarters. Especially if they often use Galaxy drops to bypass enemy defenses and the medium-long range part of battle, and drop straight on point. 

Often these players are most vocal in community. So naturally they will put greater value into a weapon like Cyclone. 

Just keep in mind that’s not the only way to PlanetSide 2, as long as there is no incentive to play for the objective, any playstyle is valid.

Cyclone Heavies

Most other New Conglomerate classes already had powerful automatic weapons for CQC, but this wasn’t the case for Heavy Assaults.

Cyclone became the first automatic CQC weapon, available to NC HA. Suddenly they had a high DPS weapon with excellent hip fire. 

In contrast with slow-firing, average DPS unwieldy LMGs, Cyclone does feel like a godsend. 

“Cyclone Heavies” became a thing. They are able to dominate close quarters fights against LMGs of enemies, while remaining competitive at 20-30m, which can’t be said about other factions’ SMGs.

This is the biggest contributor to Cyclone hype.

Crowd mentality

Say something often enough and it becomes the truth. A lot of people praised Cyclone for reasons above, and other people started repeating it. At some point Cyclone’s hype became a self-sustaining effect: people praise it because people praise it.

This issue is only made worse by certain vocal community members that make a point to repeat just how overpowered the Cyclone is whenever it is mentioned.  

Closing thoughts

Cyclone was and still is overpowered when compared to other SMGs.

The recoil nerfs were not enough to tone down its effective range, they merely made it less consistent.

Other SMGs do certain things better: Armistice is better for CQC spraying and NS-7 is better at range. 

But only Cyclone does it all sufficiently well, and gives opportunity for skill to shine, which arguably makes it the best SMG overall.

That said, I would rather see other SMGs buffed to Cyclone’s level than Cyclone nerfed further. SMGs overall are a fairly weak class, and could use some buffs across the board.

The guide is now concluded. Special thanks to /u/HansStahlfaust for suggesting the topic, as well as to /u/Mustarde, /u/EclecticDreck and /u/CryoXVS whose feedback shaped this guide.

It focuses on quick kills with headshots at close to medium range, and has a unique combination of traits: no damage degradation and increased headshot damage multiplier, low recoil and high rate of fire.

Limited magazine size means you are likely to have only one engagement per reload.

Tomoe bridges the gap between traditional automatic Scout Rifles, that engage enemies with automatic fire at medium range, and semi auto Scout Rifles, that go all-or-nothing on headshots.

Stats

Damage output

Damage per Second: 1400
Damage per Magazine: 2464

These are rather low values. However, since Tomoe has no damage degradation, it doesn’t lose any performance as range increases. 

Headshot Damage Multiplier: 2.5x

This is one of Tomoe’s main selling points: it does 280 damage on a headshot, which means 4 headshot kill against a generic infantry target. 

Average reload speed and a lot of spare ammunition.

Bullets to Kill and Time to Kill

While Tomoe is clearly built around getting as many headshots as possible, it should be possible to kill any enemy with bodyshots. However, it will take a disproportionately more time, and low Damage per Magazine will give you little margin for error.

You should go for bodyshots only:

Against weakened, distracted or unaware enemies. Being able to cloak should give you plenty of opportunities to pick your engagements.

When you’re massively out of range and can’t hit the tiny head. Tomoe’s low recoil and no damage degradation make it possible to reach out to quite distant targets

When you can’t hit the head, because the enemy is moving in an unpredictable and erratic manner. Though in cases like that it may be better to not engage at all.

Tables below contain the BTK and TTK values. Since Tomoe has no damage degradation, they are true for any distance.

Headshots

Bodyshots

Cone of Fire and Bloom

Hip Fire CoFs

Tomoe’s starting hip fire CoFs are bad, and the huge Bloom of 0.4 means whatever hip fire accuracy you have is only going to last for a few first shots, and then rapidly spiral out of control. Unless you’re in melee range, forget hip fire even exists for Tomoe.

ADS CoFs

Tomoe’s ADS CoFs are nothing special when compared to other precision weapons, but it sufficiently accurate in general terms.

Notice that you get an accuracy boost for both crouching and staying stationary, and as an Infiltrator, you should take advantage of it. 

ADS Bloom of 0.05 is somewhat high for such small damage per shot, so it’s recommended to not straight up magdump, and instead fire in bursts of 4-6 rounds, unless the target is very close.

That said, it is comparable to many weapons that deal 112 minimum damage per shot.

Advanced CoF Mechanics

Starting Still CoF: 0.1
Starting Moving CoF: 0.3
Bloom per Shot: 0.05

From these statistics, and using Rule 2 of Advanced CoF Mechanics, we can say that you only get an accuracy boost for staying stationary during your first 4 shots.

After 4 shots, you can start moving at no accuracy penalty. 

This knowledge is extremely situational, because at closer ranges you’d want to engage while moving, always. And at longer ranges, you wouldn’t want to fire more than 4-5 round in a burst.

Recoil

As pulled from DBG API by planetstats, here are Tomoe’s recoil stats:

Analysis

Tomoe has silky smooth and stable recoil pattern. It is not noticeable at close range. At long range, it gives you the ability to easily take out stationary enemies.

Tomoe has a very unusual quality: super long Recoil Recovery Delay.

After your last shot in a burst, whole 0.4 seconds will pass before crosshair starts returning into its original position.

And the low Recoil Decrease ensure it will take its sweet time while doing so.

Believe it or not, this is actually a good thing. Tomoe engages enemies in 2-4 bursts per magazine, and the long Recoil Recovery Delay gives you time to reset Cone of Fire and readjust your aim between bursts without any forced crosshair movement.

Effective Range

Tomoe should be adequately effective up to 30m or so, but after that you are likely to have problems engaging moving targets.

Additionally, ADSing for headshots in close quarters can be very challenging, and with Tomoe’s hip fire being so terrible, you should make all effort to stay outdoors, and away from CQC in general.

However, extremely skilled players can find great success in taking Tomoe in aggressive close quarters, and enjoy quick headshot kills without using a bolt action rifle. 

Going outside Effective Range

Super small magazine size and average projectile velocity of 520 m/s will make engaging moving and aware targets challenging, even when you can afford to sit still and fire in short bursts for a prolonged amount of time. 

However, very low recoil and lack of damage degradation give you the ability to kill stationary enemies with a few short bursts even at very long ranges. 

In theory, Tomoe’s maximum range is limited only by user skill, since there is no damage degradation, and crouching CoFs are nearly equal to zero.

Attachments

Scope

Tomoe’s optimal range is within 10 to 30m bracket, and headshots are your primary goal. 

With that in mind, I recommend to use a 1x or 2x reflex scope.

Stronger magnification can make it inconvenient to aim at targets within 10-20m, and limit your field of vision too much.

Rail

You are faced with a choice between Forward Grip (-25% horizontal recoil) and Extended Mags (+2 rounds per mag).

Arguments can be made for both.

Damage per mag is one of Tomoe’s biggest issues, and horizontal recoil is pretty great by default. Having a couple of extra rounds makes going into Long Reload less likely, which can be important in aggressive CQC setting.

However, Ex. Mags’ benefit is very small, which makes Forward Grip a better choice for most players. Ideally, you want to engage enemies outdoors, at medium range, and you need all the accuracy you can get to hit those headshots more reliably.

Barrel

Tomoe has access to Flash Suppressor, Suppressor and Compensator.

All three are viable, as long as you keep their upsides and downsides in mind. 

Suppressor may be of special interest, as it will not affect Tomoe’s damage in any way, only the velocity. 

But, personally, I recommend the Compensator.

Tomoe’s hip fire is already beyond terrible.

As an infiltrator, you don’t care that much about increasing minimap detection range from 40m to 75m. While it can give away your position to enemies outside your effective range, you can use cloak to prevent them from engaging on you without closing in first.

Tomoe’s performance depends on accuracy very much, and you really want smoother recoil for more convenience.

Recommended Infiltrator Loadout

Cloak Type

Tomoe has limited effective range, but you will still be mainly participating in open field combat. So you will often need to move into position before engaging, and you will need the increased cloak time of Hunter cloaking.

This will work well with reserved, engage-in-ideal-conditions playstyle, but if you do have the skill to consistently hit ADS headshots at close range, you will find better success with Nano Armor Cloaking and more aggressive playstyle.

Suit Slot

Nanoweave is recommended. 

In case you mess up and fail to kill the enemy within one magazine – and it’s easy to mess up with Tomoe – you will need some defenses, to survive long enough to reload or whip out your sidearm.

You will not always have the opportunity to just hide into cover and vanish – too close for that.

Using the Tomoe may often leave you exposed for a prolonged amount of time, while you’re burst firing at an enemy. It’s not like a bolt action rifle, where you make one shot and immediately recloak. So Nanoweave will help you survive if someone’s shooting your way.

Grenade

EMP is the recommended choice. The sheer versatility of this grenade cannot be overstated, even if there is no particular synergy with the Tomoe. You’ll be using it mainly to delete enemy Motion Spotters. 

Tool and Utility

Motion Spotter and Anti-Personnel Mines make a great combination with Tomoe. You can deploy a Motion Spotter and throw a couple of mines around. The Motion Spotter will show up on enemy minimap, and attract them to destroy it, giving you opportunities to ambush them. Mines can ensure you won’t be flanked, and that Motion Spotter is going to last a while.

This is perfect for outdoors skirmishing.

The rest of the loadout is up to preference. 

Optimal engagement

As you may have constructed by now, you want to engage enemies with Tomoe within 10 to 30m, from a cloaked stationary position, and fire in 4-6 round bursts at enemy’s head, making your best effort to keep the crosshair on target.

Tip: when engaging from behind, be aware that enemy will play a “being hit in the head from the back” animation, forcing enemy to bend forward, and actually hiding the head from you for a moment.

When engaging an enemy in the back, you already have an advantage, so it may be better to go for bodyshots.

“Optimal” is not everything

Tomoe is weak in head to head fights, unless you massively outskill the enemy. Stay away from closed spaces and always keep the enemy at an arm’s length.  

If you do need to close in, whipping out a sidearm may be a good idea, as at least it can hip fire accurately. 

It’s usually not a good idea to engage enemies at long range, unless you can do so safely, or the enemy is staying stationary, in which case Tomoe can be used almost like a sniper rifle. 

Closing thoughts

Tomoe’s competition are other full auto scout rifles and NS-7, which can be used in the same capacity. 

All of them already require very good accuracy and proper engagements, and they already kill one enemy per reload at most.

Tomoe just acknowledges and embraces these traits, and pushes them to the extreme. It kills in the same 4 headshots as other full auto scout rifles, but has better accuracy and recoil, and higher Rate of Fire.

Tomoe challenges you to go for headshots and rewards them immensely. However, as soon as you try to go for something suboptimal, like bodyshots against HA or – god forbid – hip firing, you’re gonna regret it instantly.

When paired up with sufficient skill, Tomoe can be very strong and versatile.

However, if you’re already good at clicking heads, you may as well use a CQC BASR and have 0 TTK and more kills per reload.

Tomoe very much requires both aiming and positioning skills, as well as awareness and judgement – when and how to engage. 

Overall, it’s an interesting weapon, but a very steep skill requirements makes it something that 90% of infiltrator players would not enjoy using.

Weapon’s problems

Tomoe has two recurring issues:

1. Low Damage Per Magazine. This is a constant issue when dealing with hardened or evasive targets beyond certain distance. 
2. Weak in 5-10m range segment, especially in head to head engagements. 

These issues combined require you to keep enemies in a “sweet spot” distance, where they are not too far, and not too close. Tomoe’s main competition, the conventional automatic Scout Rifles, don’t have to deal with these issues to the same extent.

They have better hip fire, so they work better in CQC, and they have much more DPM, so they can actually kill enemies through bodyshots. In a theoretical scenario, where the user can land 100% headshots, Tomoe wins every time, but reality is rarely so bright.

Mustarde’s thoughts

(no link to source because it’s a PM)

I auraxiumed Tomoe on all 3 factions. It’s a CQC monster, and has the DPM to be useful in mid range. You don’t need the highest skill level to use it, however it still requires headshots to be competitive, otherwise you will lose out in CQC.

Due to its no damage falloff and accurate high ROF, at mid-long range it probably is comparable or better than most LMG/AR/carbines out there, but automatics aren’t really supposed to be competitive beyond 70m or so.

I’d say it’s slightly better than SOAS / Stalker / Artemis at this point, but depends on the user having good aim and headshot accuracy. I burst it in 4-5 round taps beyond 15m.

Mustarde’s  Loadout: Nano Armor Cloaking, Nanoweave Armor, Recon Darts, EMP grenades, Med Kits. 

And on the cloak choice:

Because it is such a CQC reliant weapon, I have found greater success with the nano-armor cloak, which gives me 100 shield back plus lets me escape and survive dicey encounters. That plus nanoweave let’s me get in people’s faces and splooge the Tomoe mag and escape for reloading.

The hunter cloak works too, obviously, with a different and more conservative style. But I still think the NAC is a powerful option. If you expect to be taking any fire, it’s really worth considering. It makes you on-par with other classes which is huge in 1v1’s, especially with a gun that often forces you to face off against others.

With a bolt action, you usually don’t get shot much for that single headshot, so I don’t rely on NAC at all, even when using a 4x BASR. But for scouts and now SMG’s, I’m fully on the NAC train, after years of using Hunter cloaking. I’ve seen a very noticeable improvement in performance with it.

Adding Tomoe into Weapon Simulator

If you want to add NSX Tomoe into my Weapon Simulator, add this string to the end of the Stats.csv file, which you can open with Windows Notepad:

804252,NSX Tomoe,NS,Scout Rifle,112,10,112,20,1.5,80,1,0.55s / 0.64s / 0.64s,,-,22,286,2900,2100,0.5,0.4,0.05,3.25,2.75,3.75,5,2.75,0.1,0.03,0.3,0.06,-3,3,0.25,0.14,0.14,0.4,2,6,Auto,0

The guide is now concluded, feel free to comment or ask questions below.