This is a debate that has been going on forever, yet I don't really know if I can say I've reached a personal conclusion. A pistol can often carry more efficiency in dmg/pec and more pistols have the skill increase bonus on the higher end, and also many times they can do more damage per second(atleast they used to be able to, not sure now). On the other hand a rifle can reduce armor decay and pull a single mob at a time. Some people think that the extra peds lost in efficiency are made up in less armor decay, but I don't know if this is true. What opinions do you all hold? And if someone has a good point(Darkfire?) about meele, then post that as well, I never really liked them enough to say I was a meele user primarily.

The main good point for melle is that just about anyone can afford a 1x0 and 2x0 battle axe which are the basic staple of the melle collection. The 2x0 in particular is rated as one of the most efficint weapons going around and yet is so widely available that the markup is as little as +4 at times. That said there is a considerable loss to armor decay due to the obvious lack of range, the arguement can also be made that this is why melle weapons raise your HP faster than other skills, to facilitate hunting without armor more often.

As for the arguement about pulling 1 creature at a time i find it rather funny that people cant think of a simple draw shot with a rifle then a quick weapon change to solve the problem. A rifle with a decent range isnt that expensive or heavy that you cant just carry it around for the initial draw shot. There is never really an excuse for more than a 1 creature pull, unless your hunting something with a large agro radius, weapon choice is not an excuse.

i think alice is an expert wrt melee.

actually i started skilling in melee myself (with axes).
Issues:
- slow reload
- axes are difficult to max, so more misses
- quite good eco though (apart from the misses above)
- you need quite a few of them for longer hunts
- indeed more armor decay, but if you build up things carefully (read: start with small mobs), armor might not really be needed and you'll build up some evade pretty quickly

Well what I meant is that when you use a rifle with say 100 range or 140 range, you have that much extra time to take health off it without it hitting u. Personally for drawing a mob myself I just use an mk2 punisher I looted since it has some nice range and it cost me nothing to buy haha.

Okay here is my word on your subject, there are major pros and cons to all of them and situations where each of them shine brightly.

First and foremost imho the biggest problem with melee is you CAN NOT use a fapper on big mobs. Take falx for instance, Travis and I hunt them rather often. He has enormous LB skills ( I won't say how much because it's not my avatar but lets just leave it the fact that the word master appears in his prof standing). Anyway LB is by far his most efficient weapon yet he can not use them on large mobs when I am fapping because I can not fap him. Unfortunately MA measures range from the center of the mob so on falx he has to be standing inside the mob to hit it. This is a major bummer. Melee weapons though are almost all cheap big dmg waepons so that is a +. Melee also builds HP and strength faster than any other weapon. As far as maxing melee, it is no harder to max than any other type of weapon albeit possibly more expensive to do so. Just like ranged weapons all non sib melee weapons max at the same skill level (it is no easier to max a 1x0 than a determination).


Now with rifles, they are slow and to get a good rifle you need to pay a LOT of money. Rifle does have range advatage but honestly in armor decay there is not that large of a difference. Reason being is that the kill speed is slow and your armor will get munched. I also do not like the fact that skills affect range. On rifles this will be VERY apparent. Also you will have even crappier reload speed because skills affect reload. Realod speed makes a big difference trust me. I will explain why in the pistol response.

Pistols have their +'s and -'s too. The major advantage in my opinion to HG is that there are many more high dmg/sec pistols than any other type of weapon and some of them have SIB (X5 pwns ALL guns including Modified Mercenary). Increased kill speed means less fapping, less armor decay, and less death to you. Reload on pistols is MUCH fatser as well. Now I mentioned reload speed being important and here is why. You can not switch to your fap until your item reloads. Witha rifle this could be a bit of time and cause you to take an extra hit before fap and also allows for more mob regen. Take a Maddox IV though, it has a sub 1 second reload. I have found that because it reloads so fast I can get an extra shot or two in before fapping because the chances are that the mob wont swing again before it reloads. Range is an issue though. Pistols have much shorter range, the advantage being you get more defense skills.

What it boils down to is you have two choices, pick the one you like, or skill them all evenly (what I did to some extent).

I can tell you though that argument that rifles save armor decay is completely moot. Travis and I have spent the last couple of days hunting daspletor. Today we measured numbers on armor decay compared to kill speed between Korss H400 and Maddox IV. The kill speed on H400 is somewhat slower than on the Maddox. The difference in armor decay cost was non existant (less than half a ped). This tells me that the amount of armor decay saved by using a rifle is negligible.

Keep in mind Daspletor are 100% impact (cheapest dmg type to defend against). Also keep in mind it takes about 5 minutes of straight firing with an imp fapper to kill one and they hit MUCH harder than almost ANY armor can defend against (young does about 145 unarmored). Lastly keep in mind kill cost for a single daspletor young is anywhere from 30-45 PED depending on what gun armor etc. you use.


Hope this helps, maybe Travis could shed some light on melee for us.

@kaiser +K

next.

i use pistol, why? i love the speed, decay on the weapon is good (unlike melee..i know ammo cost), and real life me is somewhat of a pistol lover as well. down side to pistols is that you take the damage of a melee user (about the same) and get no hit point gains for it ... bummer. as for rifle used it a bit as primary didnt like the speed for the slower kill rate, i still have one around for tag shots but thats about it. i tried melee (short blades [no future], powerfist [no future] long blades [too slow on TT and not enough skill for anything else]) didnt really like it. so i use pistol for it in game and out of game apeal.

I think that above all else the "best" weapon will depend more on you playstyle than any actuall characteristic of the weapon itself. It seems to me that all the weapons in this game seem fairly balanced each with its own pros and cons and there is no clear "best" weapon type to speak of. The best advice i can give to someone tryin to make the decision is to read through the pros and cons we have listed above and to chose the weapon that suits your playstyle most ... or the one that you just plain outright enjoy using coz nothing spells fun liek clubbing OJ's at the rig

Also if anyone has some extensive experience with Mindforce hunting post us a little tidbit of wisdom up here as well as this is also an option, an underused option but an option none the less.

Addz Wrote:I think that above all else the "best" weapon will depend more on you playstyle than any actuall characteristic of the weapon itself. It seems to me that all the weapons in this game seem fairly balanced each with its own pros and cons and there is no clear "best" weapon type to speak of. The best advice i can give to someone tryin to make the decision is to read through the pros and cons we have listed above and to chose the weapon that suits your playstyle most ... or the one that you just plain outright enjoy using coz nothing spells fun liek clubbing OJ's at the rig

Also if anyone has some extensive experience with Mindforce hunting post us a little tidbit of wisdom up here as well as this is also an option, an underused option but an option none the less.

No fair, thats what i was trying to say LOL