Low Rate of Fire Pulse Rifles: Read Instead
What are Their strengths, weakness, and how do they compare to other weapons in the crucible.
The Regular Type
- Have a total fire rate of 300rpm or 100 Bursts per Minute (bpm) (with delay between bursts included)
- A burst fire rate of 900rpm, (fire rate of the actual burst, it is the same for all pulse rifles)
- A burst delay of 0.467s
- Deal about 23 damage to the body and 34 to the head
- It takes 9 body shots to kill or 6 headshots (all 6 shots must be headshots for most targets).
- This means it will take 3 bursts to kill with only body shots or 2 bursts with headshots (You must hit all headshots for the 2 burst).
- Maximum TTK (if you get all body shots) is 1.34s and Minimum TTK (if you get enough headshots) is 0.73s.
The Hakke Type (fire 4 rounds per burst)
- Have a total fire rate of 400rpm or 100bpm(with delay between bursts included)
- A burst fire rate of 900rpm, (fire rate of the actual burst, it is the same for all pulse rifles)
- A burst delay of 0.4s
- Deal about 18 damage to the body and 26 to the head
- It takes 12 body shots to kill or 8 headshots (at least 7 headshots needed plus 1 body)
- This means it will take 3 bursts to kill with only body shots or 2 bursts with headshots (at least 7 headshots needed for the 2 burst).
- Maximum TTK (if you get all body shots) is 1.4s and Minimum TTK (if you get enough headshots) is 0.8s.
These pulse rifles have a phenomenal headshot time to kill, average body shot TTK, and used to be one of the best weapons in the crucible. Now after some nerfs they are basically the worst. They are so terrible because it is virtually impossible to land all the headshots needed for the 2 burst kill. This is due to the low base stability and that you must land all shots within each burst with no exceptions.
The Hakke type are even worse with a slower TTK and the 4 round burst makes landing enough headshots even more difficult.
I would not recommend using this weapon archetype what so ever.
Since these are so bad how might we fix them? I would recommend that they buff the damage up 8%, which would allow you to kill with 4 headshots plus 2 body or 8 bodyshots. To balance for the damage increase a small increase in the burst delay would be needed; about 18% longer burst delay would take the fire rate down to about 260rpm. This would put the headshot TTK at 0.83s and body at 1.5s. For hakke it would mean 7 headshots to kill or 11 body shots and 347rpm, which would put it at a TTK of 0.83s for headshots and 1.52s for body shots. As well I would also do an overall stability buff.
These changes would make them kill quickly with headshots although still matched by some other weapons. Achieving the quick TTK would be much easier but not too easy and if you miss and don’t get it you will be punished.
This is what I think of these pulse rifles and how I would change them. Can u get those 2 burst kills? How would you change these to make them better?
Medium Rate of Fire: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/208850357?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=1
High Rate of Fire: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/207979184?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=1
All other In depth posts: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/209148528
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All it might need is to do 210 on 6 crit hits instead of 204, but as it is now you can 2 burst most people in crucible.
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I have a counterbalance, braced frame and third eye spare change in my vault waiting for a buff.
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I didn't watch the video but did read your writing. Very informative with solid data to backup your opinion. I would think otherwise. Currently there are 4 groups of Pulse Rifles. G1: Grasp of Malok (ultra fast) G2: Hawksaw, PDX 45 (fast) G3: Nirwen's, PDX 41, Herja-D (middle) G4: Spare, Lyudmila (slow) Just give us 3 groups will be more than sufficient.
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Tl:dr-low rof pulses suck, buff stability damage and rof slightly.
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I've got a spare change with head seeker, braced frame, and glass half full that has been used maybe twice. There is no point is using it when a hawksaw or grasp can kill me before I get two bursts off
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I've done pretty well the few times I've played around with the Spare.Change but the weapon archetype could definitely use a buff.
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Great post!
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Good work here.
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I agree with anyone who advocates even a slight buff to pulses. I like your idea. I still use my beloved red death, and now Nirwens, even tho they were nerfed. Just a little tweaking will make them more competitive again.
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With slow rate of fire as pulse rifle should nearly max on stability.