Alzir

Biggest wall of text ever 🙂

Assault kits.

M16A3 –

ROF – 800
Damage – 25 max damage, and 18.4 minimum.
Reload time – 1.8 secs with bullet in chamber, and 2.37 secs if empty.
Vertical Recoil – 0.25
Recoil side to side – 0.1 left, 0.3 right.

Attachments – Heavy barrel only.

Verdict – This is the M4A1 of assault rifles, being the most versatile weapon, making it arguably the best choice for any map. The gun is expected to receive a slight nerf in the armoured kill patch, but this is thought to be a change to the guns vertical recoil only, which shouldn’t change it’s status as the best weapon overall. You will be outshot in close quarters by several high ROF weapons, like the AEK, F2000, MP7 etc, but none of these weapons perform as well as the M16A3 at Medium to Long ranges.

AEK –

ROF – 900
Damage – 25 max damage, and 18.4 minimum.
Reload time – 2.5 secs with bullet in chamber, and 3.0 secs if empty.
Vertical Recoil – 0.2
Recoil side to side – 0.5 left, 0.3 right.

Attachments – This needs a foregrip, and you can’t go wrong with a heavy barrel. A laser sight is a viable alternative to the heavy barrel.

Verdict – This is primarily a close quarters and medium range weapon so in the bigger maps you’ll probably want to avoid this gun, but it’s certainly a viable option for other maps. It’s a gun that has been tweaked several times by DICE, and having been nerfed out of use for a period, it’s seen a bit of a comeback recently. It certainly competes with the M16A3, especially at close range, but with the high side to side recoil you’ll start to struggle landing shots at longer ranges. The vertical recoil however is still better than the M16A3, and this helps it at medium range, so you may still land some good headshots with it. Aside from the side to side recoil, the other big disadvantage over the M16A3, is the reload time which is a good bit higher. In close quarters maps you can fit a laser sight and hip fire accurately with it, saving the ADS time from your time to kill. One final thing to note is that the side to side recoil on this gun is higher towards the left, which means you may struggle to adapt to it’s recoil control if used to other weapons. You need to pull down and towards the right slightly to counter it.

F2000 –

ROF – 850
Damage – 25 max damage, and 18.4 minimum.
Reload time – 2.65 secs with bullet in chamber, and a massive 3.6 secs if empty.
Vertical Recoil – 0.26
Recoil side to side – 0.5 left, 0.4 right.

Attachments – A foregrip is a must for this gun, and as you should only be using this in close quarters, attach a laser sight.

Verdict – While the AEK outshoots this and has slight more manageable recoil, the F2000 with foregrip and laser sight, is a hip fire death machine. Your cone of fire is extremely small and in CQ you’ll never need to ADS. At longer ranges the gun suffers, so understand that and use it to it’s strengths. Currently this is my favourite weapon for the close quarters expansion maps, however note that it has a horrible reload time, so make sure you’re in cover or you’re ready to quickly switch to your pistol, before reloading. You’ll also notice that like the AEK the recoil drifts left again, more than right, though not quite to the same extent. This shouldn’t be as much of an issue since you’ll be hip firing mostly with it.

AK74 –

ROF – 650
Damage – 25 max damage, and 18.4 minimum.
Reload time – 2.2 secs with bullet in chamber, and 3.2 secs if empty.
Vertical Recoil – 0.28
Recoil side to side – 0.2 left, 0.3 right.

Attachments – This is one where I’m a little unsure about the foregrip, as on the AK you get a massive bonus to using one compared with other guns, which actually quite nicely balances the side to side recoil figures. The side to side recoil is however lowish to start with, so it really comes down to a matter of taste, and you can decide yourself whether the reduction in ADS accuracy is worth it. A heavy barrel is a must for when using this for it’s primary role, as a medium to long range assault rifle. It does actually perform ok when hip firing if you stick a laser sight and foregrip on it, but you have such a low rate of fire in comparison to other kits, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage doing this.

Verdict – With a heavy barrel, this gun is extremely accurate at range, with very manageable recoil, and one of the best 1st shot accuracy modifiers in the game. You’ll be out damaged at close range due to it’s low ROF, and take not of the massive reload time when the chambers empty, especially considering this gun has the 3rd quickest reload time with a bullet in chamber for assault rifles.

M416 – not one I’ve used a lot, but worthy of a mention due to how close it’s stats resemble the M16A3.

ROF – 750
Damage – 25 max damage, and 18.4 minimum.
Reload time – 1.9 secs with bullet in chamber, and 2.5 secs if empty.
Vertical Recoil – 0.28
Recoil side to side – 0.1 left, 0.3 right.

Attachments -heavy barrel only.

Verdict – one stat not mentioned above is the first shot accuracy modifier which is really the only stat on this gun which is better than the M16A3, however the guns are both quite similar across the board. The differences there at the moment make the M16A3 the better choice, although the M416 may have the edge at longer ranges. Having said that, and depending on the extent of the M16A3 nerf in the next patch, this could be a gun to have a look at in the near future.

Choosing a sight –

Since I’m really only going to look at the kits I use, I’ll not be covering any recon guns, so long range scopes are not worth going into. For almost every gun I use, I prefer the Kobra sight. The reason for this is that it’s field of view is probably the highest of all the sights, and the time to ADS with it is joint lowest across the board (except for basic iron sights which are marginally quicker – but it’s not worth going into this).

The basic RDS and the two holo scopes (holo and PKA-S holo) are joint with the Kobra in ADS speed, however there are some differences which I feel makes the Kobra better in most cases. The holo sights for example have a 1.5 zoom, so you’re limiting your field of view while ADSing with these scopes. Since I don’t really need to improve my accuracy at range, I choose not to use them for this reason.

The basic Red Dot Sight is pretty much the same as the Kobra, though with some guns I think there’s a little more metal of the scope obsuring the view so I generally move off it once I have the Kobra unlocked. The dot is nice though for accuracy.

Just a final point on scopes, if you’re using a sniper kit, and like to play objectives, consider using a 3.5 scope as you avoid the glint which gives your position away. The glint, and I think also scope sway starts applying to all scopes with a 4x zoom and above.

Rate of fire (ROF) – To win a fight you want to be putting damage on a target as quickly as possible, so obviously the faster you fire the higher your damage output, however high ROF weapons are often balanced with high recoil stats, so it’s important to look at that as well. This stat is most important when considering the close range strengths of a gun, for example; do you ever wonder why you always die to an AEK or MP7 in the face? It’s often because their ROF stats are amongst the highest in the game (900 for AEK, and 950 for the MP7) – although recoil and hip fire accuracy also come into it.

Recoil – We all know what this is, but do you understand the mechanics at play in gameplay terms? The best way to demonstrate it is to take a few steps back from a wall sometime in game, line up a shot aiming down your sight, and drop the hammer, emptying your clip. You’ll notice the bullet pattern on the wall drift up and towards the top right or left corner (most guns that I’ve tested drift right). The extent to which your bullets deviate up is determined by the vertical recoil stat of the gun, and the extent to which it drifts left or right, is determined by the horizontal recoil stats (aka side to side). The reason the drift is to one or other corner (normally) is because horizontal recoil has two stats, a figure which pulls it left, and another that pulls right, and these are normally different.

I don’t know exactly how recoil is calculated by the game’s engine, but note that if you pick a gun like the SCAR-L which has identical left and right horizontal recoil (0.225), it will give you a roughly vertical bullet pattern on a wall. It’s not a perfectly straight line because individual bullets will deviate as you fire, which is important to note if you’re looking at a gun such as the KH2000, which also has identical left and right horizontal recoil figures, but at 0.4 each direction, your vertical pattern won’t be as tight as with the SCAR-L. You would therefore consider a foregrip for the KH2000, which I’ll talk about in a bit.

You may also want to perform the same test when not aiming down sight, firing from the hip, and pay attention to the extent of the bullet spread. The hip fire accuracy stat determines how tight a pattern you see here. In both cases you can control the tightness of the pattern with a combination of recoil control via the mouse, and firing in bursts. Perform either test at different ranges, and alter your bursts until you see the tightest pattern which allows you to put as many bullets on the spot in the shortest time, and this should be the burst you use at those ranges in game.

Vertical recoil is the easiest to control, pulling straight down with your mouse, horizontal is slightly tricker as you have to learn the angle to pull down and whether it’s to the left or right. While both figures will affect your ability to hit targets at range, you may find the horizontal recoil figure more significant here.

How damage works – Each gun has a maximum and minimum damage figure which applies at different ranges. If you take the naked M16A3 (i.e. no attachments) as an example here, you apply 25 damage per hit within the first 8 metres, and beyond this “drop off point” there’s a linear decrease in your damage out to the gun’s “drop off range” where it hits the minimum figure off 18.4 damage per shot (50 metres for the M16). Beyond your drop off range, all your shots will hit for 18.4 damage. In a nutshell what this translates to is that within 8 metres, you can kill someone with 4 body shots (2 to the head), after 8 metres your target will require 5 shots to kill out to about 39 metres where a target will then require 6 shots, and 6 body shots will be the minimum required to kill someone at 100% health for any range after that. Attachments modify these ranges and it’s important to understand how when chosing one.

The difference between normal and hardcore – In normal you start with 100 health, in HC you start with 60. The weapons stats are the same between the modes, but the health difference means you’re talking a 3, 4, and then 5 shot kill at the distances above (with most assault rifles), rather than 4, 5, and 6 shots. Anyone who cries about having to empty an entire clip into someone at close range while playing normal mode, is therefore complaining that their accuracy is approx 13% (based on a 31 clip). Hardcore also permits 1 shot sniper kills (for 5 of the 11 sniper rifles), and decreases the minimum shot required on some other guns to 2 hits, for example the G3A3 which does 34 dmg per shot before drop off starts.

One final point regarding damage is that a headshot gives you a times 2 damage multiplier, therefore a 25 damage shot becomes 50 when it hits the head.

First shot accuracy multiplier – Don’t ask me too much about this, but your first shot on all guns receives an extra kick to it’s recoil.

Aiming Down Sight (ADS) – When aiming down sight you get an accuracy bonus, but be aware that different attachments modify your bullet spread while you ADS. Also note that while moving from side to side there is a negative effect on your ADS bonus. Finally, when you’re ADSing the bonus to accuracy decreases the longer you continuously fire.

Muzzle Velocity – Basically this is how fast your bullets travel, but in gameplay terms, the higher this is, the less you’ll need to lead a target.

Back up atm, but if it’s down again later this is why.