After the great work Afro did in his Tediore Reloads and Axton thread, I wanted to do something similar with another aspect of Axton that I’ve recently come to love: assault rifles.
I didn’t really give assault rifles a fair chance at first. They were, in my opinion, too weak to get the job done, so I didn’t bother using any. However, I picked up a Rifleman Com a while back and started to REALLY see what they could do. The result was that I had been completely wrong about them!
Ever since then, I had thought about doing an assault rifle damage comparison using some of Axton’s different coms. I wanted to make sure that I covered as many possibilities as I could, so I decided to test the damage capability of each specific assault rifle mentioned against his Legendary Engineer, Legendary Ranger, Legendary Soldier, Rifleman, Veteran, Grenadier, Gunner and Chaotic Neutral Ranger Coms. These are the stats from the 8 coms that I used:
Legendary Engineer
+46% Cooldown Rate
Legendary Ranger
+55% Team Shield Recharge Rate
-33% Team Shield Recharge Delay
Legendary Soldier
+47% Cooldown Rate
+39% Gun Damage
+25% Fire Rate
Front Line Rifleman
+50% Assault Rifle Magazine Size
+46% Assault Rifle Gun Damage
+5 Battlefront
+4 Impact
+4 Onslaught
Expert Veteran
+38% Reload Speed
+47% Magazine Size
+5 Steady
+4 Pressure
+3 Last Ditch Effort
Impact Grenadier
+47% Grenade Damage
+30% Explosive Damage Resistance
+6 Impact
+5 Steady
Auto Gunner
+31% Team Fire Rate
+6 Steady
+5 Overload
Chaotic Neutral Ranger
+49% Magazine Size
+34% Fire Rate
+6 Impact
+5 Grit
The test rifles I chose were the Fire Swift Lead Storm, Slippery Seeker, the Fire Deep Seraphim, the Slippery Kerblaster, the Slippery Ogre and the Fire Deep Veruc. Of course, there are other rifles, but I used these specific ones because I had them on me and they were easier to test than some of the other ones (the Sawbar comes to mind). Here are the stats for each:
Fire Swift Lead Storm (Vladof Grip/Dahl Stock/No Sight)
239922 Gun Damage
70.4 Accuracy
15.0 Fire Rate
3.5 Reload Speed
60 Magazine Size
141047.4 Burn Damage/sec
6% Chance to Ignite
Slippery Seeker (Torgue Grip/Dahl Stock/Torgue Sight)
1817608 Gun Damage
88.5 Accuracy
1.5 Fire Rate
3.1 Reload Speed
22 Magazine Size
Fire Deep Seraphim (all Dahl)
453703 Gun Damage
90.6 Accuracy
6.8 Fire Rate
3.5 Reload Speed
40 Magazine Size
141047.4 Burn Damage/sec
6% Chance to Ignite
Slippery Kerblaster (Torgue Grip/Dahl Stock/Torgue Sight)
1421970 Gun Damage
89.9 Accuracy
2.8 Fire Rate
3.1 Reload Speed
29 Magazine Size
Slippery Ogre (Torgue Grip/Dahl Stock/Torgue Sight)
460802 Gun Damage
81.9 Accuracy
6.3 Fire Rate
3.1 Reload Speed
81 Magazine Size
Fire Deep Veruc (all Dahl)
248009 x3 Gun Damage
92.6 Accuracy
6.8 Fire Rate
2.8 Reload Speed
39 Magazine Size
141047.4 Burn Damage/sec
6% Chance to Ignite
In addition, DScarface tested the Horse Bekah, the Horse Hammer Buster, the Wild Damned Cowboy and the Severe Hail. They had the following stats:
Horse Bekah (Jakobs Grip/Dahl Stock/Vladof Sight)
609326 Gun Damage
93.3 Accuracy
15.3 Fire Rate
3.1 Reload Speed
16 Magazine Size
Horse Hammer Buster (Jakobs Grip/Dahl Stock/Dahl Scope)
759118 Gun Damage
93.0 Accuracy
15.3 Fire Rate
3.1 Reload Speed
16 Magazine size
Wild Damned Cowboy (Jakobs Grip/Torgue Stock/Jakobs Scope)
764196 Gun Damage
86.4 Accuracy
2.2 Fire Rate
3.2 Reload Speed
15 Magazine Size
Fire Severe Hail (Vladof Grip/Dahl Stock/Torgue Sight)
218342 Gun Damage
92.4 Accuracy
9.7 Fire Rate
2.7 Reload Speed
37 Magazine Size
141047.5 Burn Damage/sec
6% Chance to Ignite
For relics, I used:
Bone of the Ancients
+39% (X element) Damage
+47% Cooldown Rate
and:
Explosive Damage Relic
+39% Explosive Damage
For the non-elemental (Jakobs) weapons, DScarface used a:
Heart of the Ancients
+39% Assault Rifle Damage
+39% Fight For Your Life Time
+180% Second Wind Health
I used the same method as always to obtain the numbers:
-No B.A.R.
-Only tested damage on slagged L80 Stumpy enemies (“The Forest” Tiny Tina DLC map)
-OP8 Gear used
-Spec was consistent throughout testing (http://www.bl2skills.com/commando.html#55055105415503515010105410000000)
-Single shot only (no burst firing)
-Battlefront was always active
Here we go:
[Swift Lead Storm]
Legendary Engineer
1350K
Legendary Ranger
1148K
Legendary Soldier
1408K
Front Line Rifleman
1634K
Expert Veteran
1012K
Impact Grenadier
1175K
Auto Gunner
1012K
Chaotic Neutral Ranger
1175K
[Slippery Seeker]
Legendary Engineer
6821K
Legendary Ranger
5798K
Legendary Soldier
7114K
Front Line Rifleman
8253K
Expert Veteran
5116K
Impact Grenadier
5934K
Auto Gunner
5116K
Chaotic Neutral Ranger
5934K
[Deep Seraphim]
Legendary Engineer
2554K
Legendary Ranger
2171K
Legendary Soldier
2663K
Front Line Rifleman
3090K
Expert Veteran
1915K
Impact Grenadier
2222K
Auto Gunner
1915K
Chaotic Neutral Ranger
2222K
[Slippery Kerblaster]
Legendary Engineer
5336K (initial impact)/[color=red]10406K[/color] (child grenade damage)
Legendary Ranger
4536K (initial impact)/[color=red]7484K[/color] (child grenade damage)
Legendary Soldier
5566K (initial impact)/[color=red]9184K[/color] (child grenade damage)
Front Line Rifleman
6457K (initial impact)/[color=red]12591K[/color] (child grenade damage)
Expert Veteran
4002K (initial impact)/[color=red]7604K[/color] (child grenade damage)
Impact Grenadier
4642K (initial impact)/[color=red]11003K[/color] (child grenade damage)
Auto Gunner
4002K (initial impact)/[color=red]7804K[/color] (child grenade damage)
Chaotic Neutral Ranger
4642K (initial impact)/[color=red]7660K[/color] (child grenade damage)
[Slippery Ogre]
Legendary Engineer
4764K
Legendary Ranger
3652K
Legendary Soldier
4482K
Front Line Rifleman
5765K
Expert Veteran
3514K
Impact Grenadier
4713K
Auto Gunner
3573K
Chaotic Neutral Ranger
3738K
[Deep Veruc]
Legendary Engineer
1396K
Legendary Ranger
1186K
Legendary Soldier
1456K
Front Line Rifleman
1689K
Expert Veteran
1047K
Impact Grenadier
1214K
Auto Gunner
1047K
Chaotic Neutral Ranger
1214K
Numbers provided courtesy of DScarface (thanks, man!):
[Horse Bekah]
Legendary Engineer
1965K (initial impact)/[color=red]5897K[/color] (bullet split)
Legendary Ranger
1719K (initial impact)/[color=red]5157K[/color] (bullet split)
Legendary Soldier
2036K (initial impact)/[color=red]6110K[/color] (bullet split)
Front Line Rifleman
2450K (initial impact)/[color=red]7351K[/color] (bullet split)
Expert Veteran
1554K (initial impact)/[color=red]4664K[/color] (bullet split)
Impact Grenadier
1752K (initial impact)/[color=red]5256K[/color] (bullet split)
Auto Gunner
1554K (initial impact)/[color=red]4664K[/color] (bullet split)
Chaotic Neutral Ranger
1752K (initial impact)/[color=red]5256K[/color] (bullet split)
[Horse Hammer Buster]
Legendary Engineer
2449K
Legendary Ranger
2141K
Legendary Soldier
2537K
Front Line Rifleman
2857K
Expert Veteran
1936K
Impact Grenadier
2182K
Auto Gunner
1936K
Chaotic Neutral Ranger
2182K
[Wild Damned Cowboy]
Legendary Engineer
2465K
Legendary Ranger
2156K
Legendary Soldier
2554K
Front Line Rifleman
2876K
Expert Veteran
1949K
Impact Grenadier
2197K
Auto Gunner
1949K
Chaotic Neutral Ranger
2197K
[Severe Hail]
Legendary Engineer
3146K
Legendary Ranger
2423K
Legendary Soldier
2974K
Front Line Rifleman
3772K
Expert Veteran
2323K
Impact Grenadier
2994K
Auto Gunner
2359K
Chaotic Neutral Ranger
2480K
Observations:
The Ogre would sometimes cause the single shot damage to spike a bit, so to keep everything consistent, I only listed the lowest damage number I saw from each com.
As I looked through all the numbers, I kept noticing how well damage-wise the Front Line Rifleman Com performed. Out of all the coms tested, it turned out the highest numbers.
Both the Legendary Engineer and the Legendary Soldier Coms did very well too, and the numbers were extremely close for nearly every gun. The only times the Engineer caused more damage than the Soldier were in the Ogre and Kerblaster (child grenade) tests, yet even then, the numbers remained very close. Throughout all the tests, these two coms always had great numbers, and they did well.
The results for the Impact Grenadier, Chaotic Neutral Ranger and Legendary Ranger Coms were close together as well. The numbers weren’t too far off from each other, but for both the Ogre and Kerblaster (child grenade) tests, the Impact Grenadier outperformed the other two.
The final two coms, Auto Gunner and Expert Veteran, also performed about the same, yet the damage was the weakest out of all the other coms.
A Note about Ranger-boosting coms:
To keep things consistent, I did NOT spec into Ranger for any of the main testing. However, since both the Chaotic Neutral Ranger and Legendary Ranger Coms have boosts to this skill, I went 5/5 in Ranger and did a quick couple of tests with them to see what I’d get. Since I didn’t have the Ranger boost on my Chaotic Neutral one, I instead grabbed the max stat Lawful Neutral Ranger that I had used for the Tediore tests. It had +6 Ranger and +5 Impact, and while it isn’t EXACTLY the same as the Chaotic Neutral, it’ll give you a good idea of what the damage will look like going from 0/5 Ranger to 10/5 or 11/5 in it. The Kerblaster got the most noticeable benefit from the Ranger boost, so I used it for both examples. These are the numbers that I got:
Slippery Kerblaster + Chaotic Neutral Ranger, +6 Impact/+5 Grit, 0/5 Ranger:
4642K (initial impact)/[color=red]7660K[/color] (child grenade damage)
Slippery Kerblaster + Lawful Neutral Ranger, +6 Ranger/+5 Impact, 11/5 Ranger:
4829K (initial impact)/[color=red]7968K[/color] (child grenade damage)
Slippery Kerblaster + Legendary Ranger, 0/5 Ranger:
4536K (initial impact)/[color=red]7484K[/color] (child grenade damage)
Slippery Kerblaster + Legendary Ranger, 10/5 Ranger:
4802K (initial impact)/[color=red]7924K[/color] (child grenade damage)
DPS Comparison Test Videos:
In addition, I performed tests on these 6 guns (each using all the aforementioned coms) to find out what their DPS capability looked like. Again, you’ll probably scratch your head when you see me use coms like the Impact Grenadier with weapons such as the Veruc and Seraphim (they don’t get grenade damage boosts), but I wanted to keep everything consistent. I used L80 Treants for the testing because they had a good amount of health, which meant that I could get a pretty accurate picture of what the DPS would be. Here are the videos:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zb9nRIOPS0 Seraphim
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oYnhykLzpw Veruc
www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8ewTbWzDXA Kerblaster
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ2isXJ9Y6Q Ogre
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j66DyTeUHY Seeker
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VY_tep9ukk Lead Storm
Notes about the videos:
I made a minor boo-boo right before I recorded the videos for the Ogre and Seeker because I had accidentally sold my Auto Gunner Com (I had found a max stat version one day while farming the train). Luckily, since the old one had +6 Steady and +5 Metal Storm, I was able to find another one without too much farming. The new one had +5 Overload instead of Metal Storm, but it still didn’t change both the single shot and DPS numbers because it also had the +6 Steady bonus.
I forgot to show my skill build and BAR after I demonstrated the Ogre’s damage with the Expert Veteran Com. It was the same exact build and BAR as the other coms.
Final Thoughts:
Whew! That was a lot of numbers, but I hope this thread gives you an idea of what each com is capable of when talking about assault rifles. In my humble opinion, I’m going to keep rocking the Front Line Rifleman. It has great damage, expanded magazine size (without even needing Overload) and the added benefit of Onslaught for maximizing damage when my kill skill buffs activate.
Speaking of opinions, I’d really like to know what you think! Also, let me know if I missed something important that should be here. Thanks for reading!
