I made a thread yesterday talking about how I think the plasma pistol is (regrettably) the worst gun in the game. I thought about it and want to try the same with the BEST gun.
So my thought process is similar to the other. What is consistently the best quality weapon with the most kill potential and the most applications?
My assessment brought me to pick the Shock Rifle.
The reason I picked this over some others is multifaceted and I’ll outline it in detail:
I picked it over the sniper for both availability and ammo capacity. Very often there is only one sniper on a map, or it is replaced by a skewer. Thus it just isn’t consistently available like the shock rifle tends to be. Additionally, the shock rifle has an extra magazine than the sniper does, giving it more kill potential per pickup. With a little practice the shock rifle is a perfectly capable sniper replacement that has even more applications.
So better kill potential and more availability. What else?
It also emp’s vehicles and can chain splash damage to localized targets. It can potentially kill multiple people without even shooting them directly. That’s insane frankly, even if it doesn’t come up super often.
As an aside it also has a minor melee damage bonus even though it’s not usually something that comes up and it’s melee speed is actually very slow compared to the rest of them.
So by my estimation and understanding of how much potential a weapon has, I feel like the Shock Rifle is the best overall weapon in the game. It can do everything by itself, from any range and in any situation, and the only thing it requires is a steady hand and a little practice.