No love for twin handguns?

[SolomonGrundy]

Reading through a few threads I see a lot of folks dumping twins in favor of rifles, bows, crossbows, and cards.

Now each of these weapons has advantages over twins, but twins offers advantages over each of these weapons as well.
Twins do more DPS than rifles for all elements but fire and virus.
Twins have faster fire rate, and more mobility than rifles or bows
Twins have better range and are far more elemental than crossbows
Twins have far more PP than cards (yeah, I'm kinda strething there, cards are really good when matched up vs twins).

Can posters/players who are dumping twins explain why they are so non usefull to them now? Please feel free to rebutt my statments above.

[Yoshiflash]

Well you should know my station by now.

High levels = Twin Handguns and Crossbows.

Low level = Rifle(but only grinded ones)

People start out using rifles early because the damage on the weapon kicks your total so far beyond your other options it simply makes sense. Those people just continue to use them religiously, eagerly awaiting the day they can use their phantom-line and all the while convincing people its the only way to go.

Man I tell ya...the more I post on these forums, now that I have a job with internet but no PSU, I realize how utterly poisoned the pool of information becomes due to people with a bagillion posts but very little (comparably to some) in game experience, convincing newer players that their playstyle or opinions are the right way to go.

Unlike most MMOs you can go a REALLY long time without ever learning through other players actions and experience IN GAME. You spend so much time in parties with people just leveling this and that weapon, and dilly dallyin around because of the lack of challenge in a party environment. This really takes a toll on the "learning from your environment" aspect that most online games possess.

But now I'm just ranting....

[Kaydin]

Reka's staple weapons are the Dualies. I'm really not much of a fan of the big guns - Rifles, Launches, etc. I use them anyways when needed, but Dualies are still my favorites.

[Pillan]

I take it that we’re comparing damage spam ranged weapons.

From most potential damage/time to least at adequate levels, the guns are machinegun, shotgun, crossbow, card, and twin handgun. Laser cannons could potentially outdamage the others, but it’s not likely to get 3 or 4 enemies in a line. (Rifles and bows are actually on the low end, though they make up for the damage loss with effects or ignoring DFP in the case of bows.)

Machineguns run out way too fast, shotguns are slow and hard to maneuver, crossbows drain PP almost as fast as mechs, and cards can’t first person (though a good card user can hit airborne enemies with them anyway). I would agree that twin handguns are the most versatile of the three.

I personally use twin handguns a lot on my fG/GT, but I got rid of them long ago on my FG (future aF). This is simply because twin handguns have the same effect level and same damage/time as crossbows between levels 11-20 and at 21+ the crossbow shines even more (more damage and more effect). Plus you can throw in a right hand weapon. You do sacrifice a lot of ATA by doing this, so I don’t recommend it as a Beast FG. On aF I’ll stick to Cards most of the time because they get more damage/time at 11+ and can be used with another weapon.


I forgot to add that I'm keeping Twin Mayalee for obvious reasons.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Pillan on 2007-05-11 15:41 ]</font>

[Yoshiflash]

I should add that I use twin handguns exclusively for first person damage.

Crossbows exclusively for non-first person.

Traps for SE on large enemies and the occasional unruly mob of Vahras.

I'll admit that I like messing with other guns to break up the monotony but my fG is totally capped and is currently used solely for farming things for my other classes to use.

[-Shimarisu-]

The only twin handgun PAs you need are burn and freeze. Mostly just for DPS.

Virus is outperformed by fire on small fry as it dies before the virus runs out usually. Meaning it dies faster with burn status. Virus shoud be used on SE 4 weapons.

Crossbow outperforms twin handguns and it's advisable to learn more PAs in that, with burn and IMO shock being the best two.

What you should learn for optimal performance:

Rifle/bow:

Fire
Ice
Dark

Twin handguns:

Fire
Ice

Crossbow:

Fire
Plasma
(any others depending on areas you play most in)

Cards:

Fire
Ice
(any others depending on areas you play most in)


Really not convinced that rangers need to learn more than just fire and ice in twin handguns. If you want to SE, crossbow is superior, if you want to DPS, crossbow is STILL superior but you may like the superior range and direction of bullets with handguns in some scenarios. Most bosses are fire element so you'll want the ice. As are most flyers. For greater range, you'll go rifle, so learn ice in that too.

[-Shimarisu-]

Also just want to stress that given the low ATP mod on twins vs the high ATP mod on cards, a newman GT might fare best with cards wheras a cast might outperform with twin handguns. I don't have a cast to make the comparison however and I can't be bothered making stat calculations as yet.

[SolomonGrundy]

On 2007-05-11 15:38, Pillan wrote:
I take it that we’re comparing damage spam ranged weapons.

From most potential damage/time to least at adequate levels, the guns are machinegun, shotgun, crossbow, card, and twin handgun. Laser cannons could potentially outdamage the others, but it’s not likely to get 3 or 4 enemies in a line. (Rifles and bows are actually on the low end, though they make up for the damage loss with effects or ignoring DFP in the case of bows.)

Machineguns run out way too fast, shotguns are slow and hard to maneuver, crossbows drain PP almost as fast as mechs, and cards can’t first person (though a good card user can hit airborne enemies with them anyway). I would agree that twin handguns are the most versatile of the three.

I personally use twin handguns a lot on my fG/GT, but I got rid of them long ago on my FG (future aF). This is simply because twin handguns have the same effect level and same damage/time as crossbows between levels 11-20 and at 21+ the crossbow shines even more (more damage and more effect). Plus you can throw in a right hand weapon. You do sacrifice a lot of ATA by doing this, so I don’t recommend it as a Beast FG. On aF I’ll stick to Cards most of the time because they get more damage/time at 11+ and can be used with another weapon.


I forgot to add that I'm keeping Twin Mayalee for obvious reasons.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Pillan on 2007-05-11 15:41 ]</font>

by the way pillian, in the recently locked AT thread you said tat rangers guns have only 100 ATA. not true, they have more like 150-200 ATA
8* twins (and tenora 6*) = 200
9* crossbows: 150
8* shotties: 160
8* rifles: 170

cards and bows have higher ATA natch...

[Pillan]

9 star shot is 135, 9 star twin handgun is 146, 9 star crossbow is 156, 9 star rifle is 188.

I’m guessing you were considering the Kubaras (which no one really uses, aside from the mechs). And I did mention rifles, cards, bows, and machineguns as exceptions (mechs get a godly 87% ATA at level 30). A gunner using any one of those weapons clearly has more ATA than a Fortefighter.

Yeah, I guess I was off saying 100 and should have said 150, but fG and fF still end up having about the same ATA when you take everything into consideration and fF clearly has more when they’re not skill spamming. It’s just another one of those weird things that comes up when you pay too much attention to how the game works.


Anyway, I really don’t want to get far off topic in your thread, so I’ll end with something on topic.

Even with the same element as the enemy type, crossbows end up out damaging twin handguns after level 21. Adding their effect level into consideration, they become the ideal effect spam weapon for any class that can equip them. You can really use them for both effect and damage spam, so I really recommend getting every element in them if you have the PA slots.

You could keep Twin Mayalee as your only twin handgun bullet. 5% less ATA and 20% more ATP plus Zalure pretty much makes up for the damage loss.

[Tulio07]

only rifle shot I use is Burn. I love my dualies.