Alright...I'm at the vital point of the game where I must choose which guns...

BBQQuesadillas posted...

to stick with. I'm where you first enter the castle, and the merchant is waiting with a slew of new weapons for you (riot gun, blacktail, etc.)
I have been fairing quite well with my classic shotty and Red9 up til this point, but I'm assuming because the game gets harder now. Should I upgrade to the Blacktail, Riot gun, and Sniper loadout, or should I stay classic? I have no intentions on buying the striker, I do not like it. I feel like Leon moves a lot quicker with the updated handgun and shotgun, is this true? Opinions please.

If you're happy with the Red 9's low capacity and slow firing, but improved stability and damage, then stick with it.

If you want high capacity, fast firing, fast aiming, and hard hitting, get the Blacktail. It's not quite as stable for distance firing, but there's always the rifle for really long range shooting.

I recommend the Blacktail for newbies, as it takes less getting used to, and is more forgiving of errors. I personally use the Red 9, with the stock. Exclusively upgraded in the late game it dominates most non-boss enemies.

I use the bolt action rifle. Lots of ammo upgrades to buy. Takes less space (more room for the Red9 + stock). Upgrades to 30 damage per shot, which rocks. Slow, but you shouldn't be wasting rifle ammo anyway.

The TMP is an excellent weapon, early and late. Pretty steady, and rock solid with the stock. Cheap, lots of ammo upgrades. You can buy up to 1000 rounds from the Merchant that way. Plenty of ammo presets/drops. Great for single shots where damage doesn't count.

Broken butterfly is free, lots of ammo upgrades, upgradeable to 50 damage per shot. A surprising number of magnum ammo presets. All that and a great reloading animation. This plus exclusively upgrade bolt action rifle mean real stopping power in the late game.

I go with the Striker, as it's too awesome to skip. If not that, then the Riot Gun for faster aiming. I've gotten the early shotgun fully upgraded. The ranged damage from the exclusive upgrade isn't worth it.

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

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Jove the Sleep Depraved
http://primal.wikia.com

BimmyLee posted...

Nothing wrong with going with "classic" weapons. I've done runs with many different weapon combinations and not once I've felt that my weapons were handicapping me in any important way.

Not even the starting handgun, or the Punisher? I've never kept the starting handgun very long, and definitely never upgraded it. The Punisher is an interesting toy, but no more than that. They're both just too weak for the mid- to late-game.

In any case, let me answer some of your questions:
I haven't actually timed how fast Leon moves with different weapons equipped, but a rough speed guide is as follows:
- Leon runs fastest when he has both arms free to swing: with a grenade/egg/rocket-launcher/nothing equipped;

Leon is only hands free when carrying the infinite rocket launcher. He carries a regular rocket launcher in both hands, and seems noticeably slower in that case. (I might have those reversed.)

I'm really liking the feel of the Red9 this time around, the blacktail felt super shaky and not as solid.

Yeah, I'm also not crazy about the Blacktail because of this. One of the reasons it feels shaky is that it has 50% faster aiming-speed than the other pistols and, while this is definitely and advantage in some sense, I personally find it too fast.

The starting handgun, Punisher, and Blacktail are all about equally shaky, imho. In addition to "wavering" over the aim point, the aim point itself drifts over time. So you can't just get the aimpoint close to a target and wait for random chance to eventually line up the shot for you. The aimpoint's drift will usually prevent that from happening.

The Red 9 and the TMP both seem to be much steadier. At a guess I'd say the Red 9 has less shaking, the TMP has less drift, even without stocks.

The Blacktail works well for those with poorer aim, or are still learning the game. It's very possible to point the Blacktail at one enemy and hold down the firing button for rapid fire. This will generally neutralize if not destroy the target, due to large amounts of high damage lead flying downrange.

In the meantime you can be looking around and identifying the next threat and deciding to pick out a better weapon, or turn and run. As the Blacktail gets upgraded to more damage, capacity, and firing speed this can even be entertaining.

But as I become better and better at identifying threats and dealing with them appropriately, and, even more, get better at aiming, the Blacktail does seem too shaky.

It's not just the poor aiming. I can't escape the feeling that Leon's got some degenerative nerve condition, which if it worsens will end his zombie fighting days forever.

Such a pleasure to use the stocked Red 9, or the stocked TMP after that.

As for shotguns, they have two important characteristics: knockback, and spread damage. "Knock them to the ground. Kill them while they're down." Damage doesn't even come into it that much. It works in the Pueblo vs the mob and chainsaws. It can work most other places.

That's why I usually skip the Riot Gun entirely, and only give the plain shotgun a capacity upgrade or two for convenience. If it can get Leon through the Cabin, it can handle anything else a shotgun is good for.

As far as I know the un-upgraded early shotgun has just as much knockback as the fully upgraded Striker.

These days I skip most of the Striker's upgrades. If it wasn't so much smaller than the other shotguns I'd probably skip it, too. But it frees up so much room. Not only itself, but in its ammo huge capacity.

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Jove the Sleep Depraved
http://primal.wikia.com

BBQQuesadillas posted...

I got another question concerning the Broken Butterfly...As cool as the gun is, I'm already at the point where I did the Krauser knife fight scene, and I have my pistol, shotgun, and rifle exclusive'd. All I have left to max is my BB, and I don't feel like using any other weapons. As cool as the gun is, do I really need to max it to 50 firepower? If I remember correctly, the Handcannon is pretty expensive to max out, so should I just wait til playthrough two?

The Handcannon is so expensive that I wouldn't worry about the money to exclusively upgrade the Broken Butterfly.

On the other hand, with the fully upgraded Red 9 and Bolt Action Rifle there's not a lot else you need to upgrade.

The Broken Butterfly has a few uses, which aren't requirements. I like it upgraded as much as possible for It (U3), since the BB can make the final fight a lot shorter.

The Broken Butterfly is also good for JJs (those gatling gunners), and shield guys (penetration). Vs Saddler in the final confrontation it can finish the fight with 12 rounds fired. That lets you keep the special rocket launcher to sell at the beginning of the next game for around $30k.

On the other hand, the rifle can handle JJs with headshots. The shotgun, especially the Striker, is good for shield guys, and Saddler can be dealt with using a purchased rocket launcher.

And if you start a new game from the cleared save, the exclusively upgraded Broken Butterfly is massive overkill for everything. (Except the chainsaw Ganados, they have a damage cap.) To the point that I've never even considered unlocking the HandCannon.

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Jove the Sleep Depraved
http://primal.wikia.com

EgHeadFool posted...

I'm late to the game but here's how I like to play (without any special weapons).

Handgun - I stick with the Punisher all the way through the game. I like how it handles and it's invaluable in the castle for taking down shield enemies without wasting shotgun. I've also used its piercing ability to stun 2+ enemies with one shot on many occasions. I don't understand the low endgame power argument because you should mostly only be using it to take down human enemies (or the flying bugs which are 1-hit kills while in the air). And human enemies should go down on average in 1 or 2 shots. Shoot the face/knees -> melee -> knife to death. Doesn't work out that way when you're getting swarmed but it balances out when you can knock down multiple enemies with one melee and knife more than one to death.

The thing about shield enemies is that the shotgun deals with them nicely. You're going to carry a shotgun anyway, so there's no need to limit yourself with the Punisher just for shield enemies.

I also generally find myself selling most of the shotgun shells found late in the game to the Merchant. That's due to using the exclusively upgraded Red9 to turn the plentiful 9mm ammo into 6.5 dmg shots. That's so effective I end up selling a lot of 9mm ammo, too.

Shotgun - I buy the Riot Gun as soon as it's available. It's excellent at mid-range and has saved my ass at longer range too. The Striker is really powerful and devastating at close range but I can't justify the purchase on a first run.

The Riot Gun's okay, but not worth the money. Shotgun's are for close range crowds. Every other situation there's a better answer than a shotgun.

The true worth of the Striker is the space it saves in the attache case. Not only the smaller size of the weapon, but the ammo density in the weapon itself. Lots of cheap capacity upgrades to buy shotgun shells, too. In fact, once I get the Striker almost all found shotgun shells get sold to the Merchant.

Rifle - Useless in the village so I just wait until the castle and buy the semi-auto rifle (where it's totally essential). No scope required.

The early Bolt Action Rifle is mostly useful for one-hit-kill headshots on Ganados that have sprouted plagas. That's not a problem until after dark, but there will be enough of them to make the BAR worth it. One BAR shot vs much more ammo, time, and trouble to handle a sprouted plagas.

And I go to a lot of time and trouble to keep plagas from sprouting in the first place.

Magnum - Not super useful until late game. Just use the free one in the castle.

I really like the free Broken Butterfly vs the two sets of three Knights in the Castle. Otherwise complete agreement.

Machine gun - Waste of inventory space.

Imho, the TMP is worth it just for the regular 9mm ammo it saves, vs nests, spinels, gold watches, treasures, head shots, knee shots, dynamite, explosive barrels, etc. etc. It's even useful for shooting Ganados on the edge of dropoffs, like the gondola ride.

Get the stock for the TMP and it's as steady as the Red 9 with stock. The TMP's got enough purchaseable upgrades to buy over 1000 rounds from the Merchant alone.

When fully upgraded the TMP's got 250 rounds at 1.8 dmg = 450 total damage. That's during 25 seconds of continuous fire. Between buying ammo from the Merchant and TMP ammo presets it's possible to build up a reserve of hundreds of rounds of TMP ammo.

So it's compact, rock steady, vast amounts of ammo, continuous damage until you let up on the trigger. And lets you save pistol ammo. What's not to like?

Thanks for your thoughts. Good to see well-reasoned posts here.

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Jove the Sleep Depraved
http://primal.wikia.com

EgHeadFool posted...

We just have different play styles for shotgun probably. One nice thing about my setup is it virtually doesn't require upgrading. Very few enemies require true stopping power especially if you do the melee -> knife strategy I use. For the sewers I just dodge everything. There's also a free rocket launcher in the castle so that's one free boss kill basically.

The free rocket launcher is destined for Verdugo in all my playthroughs. Means there less room for the grenades I use in its place. But once I've got the Striker and used the RPG, it's time to start piling up grenades for the Military Base, and Salazar.

Or maybe blowing up the hive actually gets you enough cash to replace it.

There are better ways to take down the hive. It's got a base 100 health, but weapons with penetration, like a Magnum or Rifle, seem to do better. With the Red 9 upgraded to its max at that point it's about 30 rounds or so. I'll sometimes waste a last few rounds in the Bolt Action Rifle or Broken Butterfly before buying capacity upgrades.

As for your point about Ganados with plagas in the village -- I always seem to have more than enough flash grenades to take care of them. So for those two groups of three armored knights, I basically group them, pop a couple of shotgun blasts to expose all the plagas simultaneously, and then flash grenade to finish them all.

It looks like you've got better movement control and aiming skills than I do. No problem with that, and it's impressive if you can win through with all those weapons at minimal upgrades, + the knife.

A big part of the reason I play through again and again is finding the best weapons and upgrades for my playstyle.

Although I do enjoy using the base shotgun without upgrades. Like a weak, directional grenade with lots of ammo.

At any rate I'm currently doing a pro run this way and I've got almost half a million pesetas and I'm exactly at the knight armor spot. All I've really bought is attaché case upgrades and weapons.

Nice work. I generally have 100k pesetas after the lake, due to extensive money and item scavenging, and lack of weapons to spend money on.

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Jove the Sleep Depraved
http://primal.wikia.com