It seems to me like Aurelia is the best AR user in TPS. Her skills nullify all of the issues ARs have; poor accuracy (under continuous fire), low fire rates (on some), lowish damage (on some), and decreased crit (sans Jakobs) mean nothing to Aurelia.
-Being able to freeze enemies easily means her ARs get a constant +200% critical hit boost, along with the 60% (even more accounting for All Glory to the Master) she can get from her skills.
-Large Caliber makes it so that bullet hoses like Vladof and Scav take less bullets to kill things. The decreased mag doesn’t effect those guns as much, and the increased damage can even redeem a decent parts bandit AR.
-Duchess makes the poor recoil and sustained accuracy of ARs a moot point. At high enough stacks, they can start looking a lot like Hyperions.
-QnQ and Podsnappery can speed up slow ARs such as Torgues, some Dahls, and some Scavs.
-Every weapon benefits from Wintertide, but ARs, being the fastest firing explosive and non-elemental weapons (from both Jakobs and Vladof) have a special synergy with it.
Overall, I think she may be the AR class in TPS. Even though they are looked at as an ammo diversity option in the TG, I think she has better synergy with them than any other character. Especially with Jakobs, Torgue, and Vladof (the shredifier demo in the TG thread looked the best to me out of the entire AR section).
Short answer no I don’t think she’s the definitive ar class.
Long Answer is that I believe you’re smart enough to know that the question “who is the best with all X weapons” is a foolish one (honestly expected this thread to be from one of our newer community members). ARs, like all other weapons, are diverse and widespread. The Hail for example is an AR that I think is thousands of times better with Athena than Aurelia, which is a point that is very very hard to argue. Torgue ARs are another example of a weapon I feel does better elsewhere (although I think Aurelia definitely is up there due to her bullet speed). You also can’t really take anything Jakobs out of Nisha’s well deserving hands, especially things like the Gatling Gun.
Overall though, she does the best job of mitigating all of the weaknesses that ARs as a whole have. She can overcome every deficiency no matter the manufacturer.
Athena is good with the Hail, but not as good with Jakobs. Nisha is good with Jakobs, but not as good with Scav. Jack is great with all of them, but I think most ARs lack of a proper crit boost hurts them a little bit with him. I just think Aurelia has the best kit synergy with ARs, more than any other character in TPS.
Not to say that other characters can’t use some ARs better, but I think that if you take a random AR off the ground, with any parts or rarity, as long as it isn’t in fire or corrosive Aurelia will probably make it work better than most other characters. Her skills work really well with them.
I disagreed with your assessment of what constitutes AR weaknesses and what Aurelia does with them.
ARs are not inaccurate: they have the second best average accuracy value (After Snipers)
Their problem is low damage per shot for what you have in exchange.
Some of the comparisons are also a bit off. For example:
Aurelia is, IMO, the worst character to live with their crit penalty: the type C crit modifier applies multiplicatively to all other crit modifiers, so you can’t “erase” it per se. It just weights more and more as you pile up the crit bonus. So a character like Aurelia that relies on crits to kill will be more negatively affected by it.
By contrast, Athena cares little about crits so she suffers little by having less powerful ones.
And last thing, I agree with @Hoyle4: ARs are the second most varied gun Type (After pistols)
A Dahl Major Tom, a Shredifier, a Kerboom, a Hail and the Hammer buster have very little in common.
Add to that the variety brought by the spinigun and Torgue barrel that change completely the behavior of the gun, and one of the most diverse list of possible accessories (try the wild accessory on any AR for a total change in handling) and you get a category that can’t be put in one basket.
Aurelia does have neat tricks to take advantage of many ARs, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call her the best over such a wide range of guns.
Never mind. Just looked at Nisha’s skill tree and saw that she does have more base damage increases than Aurelia, so I guess my would be point about the crit is null.
Still, she and Jack handle recoil better than any other the other classes. Nisha may not care about accuracy as much as others, but the fast fire rates and lowish damage on Vladofs and Scavs would leave her ammo reserves dry in no time at all.
Athena isn’t effected by the crit modifier, but she also isn’t the greatest user of Jakobs ARs for that reason. Her playstyle doesn’t really lend itself to Jakobs ARs either, they aren’t as great hip fired as they are ADS. Also, Torgue rifles don’t start to perform at their potential until she’s built up at least a bit of Maelstrom.
Willy is equally average with almost everything, Clappy has little synergy with Vladof and Scav ARs.
Then there’s Jack who just rocks with everything. Probably edges out Aurelia, but I made a point in the OP and I’ll try to stick with it.
True, but Aurelia has skills that can benefit all of them.
-Kerbooms like base damage and cryo, of which Aurelia can provide plenty.
-Major Tom, if Duchess tightens the spread of that middle grouping faster, is a good fit (though it doesn’t seem like it’s mentioned anywhere that it does, so it probably doesn’t).
-Shredifier goes hand in hand with Large Caliber and Duchess.
-Hail gets increased base, crit and fire rate.
-Hammerbuster gets more crit, base, and reload speed.
Which was my point. She can nullify or drastically reduce the weakness of any AR she picks up regardless of the manufacturer. She’s good with all of them (barring 2 elements, so I suppose I shouldn’t say all). Some characters excel with certain rifles, but the class on a whole is greatly serviced by Aurelia’s skills set.
Handsome_Dad
(Wh-?! A mask?! This is tooootally my face! I... uh... )
#6
How many red text and/or non-red text ARs are commonly sought after for Aurelia? Are any so good for her that people frequently build around them?
I’ve only played her through 20 or so, so I obviously haven’t been able to spend time with high skill points.
red text gear aside, Nisha is better with an AR elemental or not. And Jack, I just started a Jack and i"m having a blast in UVHM using gear i’ve never used including junk ARs. Aurelia can’t mob or waste a boss with a random AR like Jack can.