Opticor vandal- How it compares to to it's standard and other weapons I've seen it compared to.

[Deadoon]

First off, I do like the vandal for what it is. This is a basic stat comparison with a few details of each one. Some may know most iff not all this information, others might not realize tidbits here and there. Many people are making comparisons to the Ferrox and even lanka to an extent about this, which are somewhat understandable all things considered all of these are charge up high powered weapons.  I will admit I was a fan of the concept of the opticor, and my view of it might have been sullied by how much worse it was long ago when I originally made and leveled it.

 

First off Vandal VS Original  

MR 14 VS MR 14(weapons are supposed to be balanced by MR now, so I'm putting this here for comparison's sake, even if same)

Damage 400(impact}+200(aoe) VS 1000+400 

Critical chance 24% vs 20%

Critical Multiplier 2.6 vs 2.5

Status chance 30% vs 20%

Charge time .6s VS 2s.

Reload 1.4s vs 2s

Magazine size  8 vs 5

Beam width, aoe size, reserve ammo, ammo type, and others are the same.

Simply put, the vandal is obviously weaker. It does however have the benefit of having consistently powerful shots as well as a reasonably short charge up. The standard benefits greatly from precision and the tempo of choosing targets wisely. The vandal does not benefit from this as much, the high fire rate as well as particle effects obscure vision of targets, and the charge up is short enough that snap firing is a potential course of action. The aoe of the standard rarely is needed to kill a target, but for the vandal it ends up being a key piece of damage. The vandal also benefits more from the status chance surprisingly well. The explosion and beam hit separately and each have the same status(I believe, it is too consistent for otherwise) and the more shots that can be fired can stack these consistently. Reloading is a much, much more common affair for the vandal, but with a cheap ammo stock, scarcity even in sortie level content should be unheard of still. The opticor is the most ammo efficient rifle, with the vandal in second place. 

If you want the biggest gun around, the Standard is your best bet. If you want a super-heavy rifle or light cannon to deal with most any threat but might take a second shot if they are really tough, the vandal is right up your alley.

 

Next closest Vandal VS Ferrox(normal shots, thrown has completely different build style).

MR 14 VS MR 14

Damage 400(impact}+200(aoe) VS 350 

Critical chance 24% vs 32%

Critical Multiplier 2.6 vs 2.8

Status chance 30% vs 10%

Charge time .6s VS .5 seconds.

Reload 1.4s vs 1.8s

Magazine size  8 vs 10

Punch through 1 vs 1.5

Beam width .5m vs Nil

Reserve ammo 200 vs 540

Ammo type is the same.

Now for one that many make a comparison to, the Ferrox.  Similar at a glance but the usage is significantly different. The Ferrox is a much more precise weapon, the pinpoint attack and lack of aoe are indicative of this. The much higher crit chance and improved crit mult put make it much better for those crit headshots. The vandal on the other hand has much more brute force in it's style, the wide beam means that grazing shots and hitting unnecessary body parts is going to be a common occurrence(or intended effect), it offsets this with a higher impact damage and a powerful aoe that hits alongside it upon beam termination. Both are precise hitscan weapons and can be used at range inconsequentially. The ferrox will seldom hit unneccessary targets it the intended one is in the middle of a group due to it's precision, while the vandal might graze a few before hitting the intended target.

If you can get consistent headshots, the ferrox will do more damage to those targets, but the vandal spreads the damage around more and aoe doesn't get headshots like it used to. If you can't get headshots consistently or are trying to just fire off rounds into groups, the vandal will do you much better overall.

And the a few make: Vandal VS Lanka

MR 14 VS MR 10

Damage 400(impact}+200(aoe) VS 200-525 * Combo mult

Critical chance 24% vs 25% (+20/30/50% add)

Critical Multiplier 2.6 vs 2.0

Status chance 30% vs 25%

Charge time .6s VS 1s.

Reload 1.4s vs 2s

Magazine size  8 vs 10

Punch through 1 vs 0-5m

Reserve ammo 200 vs 72

Ammo type Rifle vs Sniper

This is a comparison I loathe to make because they are so dissimilar, even more so than the the standard, but here I go. The Lanka has a much better ability to deal single target damage, even compared to the standard, which the AOE will interfere with weak point strikes on some enemies and the vandal relies on that for a greater portion of it's damage. The crit chance bonus of the lanka is significantly better, and the punch through also helps deal with groups of enemies in a linear fashion. However as a projectile weapon it suffers slightly against small moving targets like enemy heads, so you might miss those a bit but the high projectile speed and high base damage alongside the combo mult should alleviate this. The vandal though has a much higher fire rate, with a wide hitbox for the laser. The laser's hitbox will cause unintentional strikes, like the Lanka's projectiles. The Vandal however does hit twice at it's final impact area, making it's status proc chance in essence higher. The Critical multiplier difference is offset by the scope doing additional crit chance. The only real downside is the Lanka, if spammed at range, suffers slightly from a rarer ammo type and less reserves, so you will need to displace for ammo more often if you like to sit behind others.

If you want a very high single target damage weapon with long range and are willing to deal with HV projectiles and uncommon ammo, the lanka is a very powerful option, if not the best. If you want a medium range weapon with wide hitscan beams, splash damage, very common ammo and still hits pretty hard, the vandal might be better. 

 

TL;DR- Opticor strong as ever but still slow, Vandal second place in raw damage, but quite fast. Ferrox precise and powerful when it uses that, Vandal brutish and spreads the pain. Lanka very powerful and projectile based, but not very spammable, Vandal has splash damage and big hitscan lasers, very spammable.

Edited March 13, 2019 by Deadoon
Ease of reading formatting.

[DeathshotSE]

From playing with both weapons, Opticor Vandal is really a nice middle ground. The charge speed and fire rate make it pretty bearable to use without fire rate mod. Comparatively, using Ferrox immediately after Opticor Vandal feels like a misery without fire rate mods. That Ferrox 1.33 fire rate really makes re-firing it miserable. There is a noticeable difference between re-firing Opticor Vandal vs Ferrox. I don't use fire rate mod on Opticor Vandal, but it is a must-have for me for the Ferrox.

[DarkRuler2500]

I personally like the Opticor Vandal alot more than the usual Opticor.
Much more fire-rate makes +fire rate mods unneeded and thus you can build a crit-focussed build.

[Shaburanigud]

1 hour ago, DeathshotSE said:

From playing with both weapons, Opticor Vandal is really a nice middle ground. The charge speed and fire rate make it pretty bearable to use without fire rate mod. Comparatively, using Ferrox immediately after Opticor Vandal feels like a misery without fire rate mods. That Ferrox 1.33 fire rate really makes re-firing it miserable. There is a noticeable difference between re-firing Opticor Vandal vs Ferrox. I don't use fire rate mod on Opticor Vandal, but it is a must-have for me for the Ferrox.

Lets hope we get some change for that when we get the Ferrox Variant.
This time they might even lower the dmg and get rid of the whole charge mecchanic.

Personally I think the reason why DE did this was because they don't want any weapons on higher MR. I think they are consciously limiting the max weapon MR to something around 14 and 16 with only primes being able to be MR 16 weapons. I could be wrong, but thats what I felt when they showed it as an MR14(same as the standard Opticor).
In the future it may become standard for higher MR weapons that arn't primed may just get side grade variants like this instead of upgrade variants.

[DeathshotSE]

15 minutes ago, Shaburanigud said:

Lets hope we get some change for that when we get the Ferrox Variant.
This time they might even lower the dmg and get rid of the whole charge mecchanic.

Personally I think the reason why DE did this was because they don't want any weapons on higher MR. I think they are consciously limiting the max weapon MR to something around 14 and 16 with only primes being able to be MR 16 weapons. I could be wrong, but thats what I felt when they showed it as an MR14(same as the standard Opticor).
In the future it may become standard for higher MR weapons that arn't primed may just get side grade variants like this instead of upgrade variants.

Yeah. These variants of existing weapons are great. Instead of just increasing all stats to make a strong weapon stronger, they created an alternative. A change in style that isn't detrimental to those that missed it since it isn't a straight upgrade.

I get the feeling DE doesn't want to make higher MR requirement weapons because of that vocal minority that is too lazy to work for it. When the Syndicate primaries came out with MR12 requirement, I saw so many people complaining. Yes some thing aren't fun, but sometimes you gotta do the boring things to get to the fun things.

Edited March 13, 2019 by DeathshotSE

[Deadoon]

11 minutes ago, DeathshotSE said:

Yeah. These variants of existing weapons are great. Instead of just increasing all stats to make a strong weapon stronger, they created an alternative. A change in style that isn't detrimental to those that missed it since it isn't a straight upgrade.

I get the feeling DE doesn't want to make higher MR requirement weapons because of that vocal minority that is too lazy to work for it. When the Syndicate primaries came out with MR12 requirement, I saw so many people complaining. Yes some thing aren't fun, but sometimes you gotta do the boring things to get to the fun things.

Then again when those came out MR was not worth much of anything, you only got loadout slots from it. Even base mod power wasn't a thing yet.

[0_The_F00l]

The very fact that it is controversial means that they got it right, 

I was initially worried that the original big bois gun was going to be outmatched. 

But this feels a lot like a more general use gun which can be run through most missions with little effort required, 

I loved my Opticor but I rarely used it outside of very specific missions or when I felt like letting enemies see the light. 

I see myself using the vandal variant a lot more frequently. But I see myself still using my Opticor in the same earlier scenarios too. 

[Shaburanigud]

1 hour ago, DeathshotSE said:

Yeah. These variants of existing weapons are great. Instead of just increasing all stats to make a strong weapon stronger, they created an alternative. A change in style that isn't detrimental to those that missed it since it isn't a straight upgrade.

I get the feeling DE doesn't want to make higher MR requirement weapons because of that vocal minority that is too lazy to work for it. When the Syndicate primaries came out with MR12 requirement, I saw so many people complaining. Yes some thing aren't fun, but sometimes you gotta do the boring things to get to the fun things.

I'd go against that actually. These days alot of gamers have short attention spans and if DE can't keep them interested for the long run as well as give an satisfying reward that compensates the work, new players WILL leave. And while it might not seem important it is VERY important to do that. Not to mention that Warframe itself still has a steady flow of new players as well.(I was one of those people who started this game after seeing the Fortuna Trailer)

All in all, I think they played it safe, and I appreciate that. A single weapon that's balanced but has a giant wall of work to get to might turn away players.
Not to mention I like variants. And warframe doesn't really need more OP weapons to outshine the older ones.
I prefer more power coming through Weapon builds and Warframe builds which would make older weapons viable as well as new ones.

[Xzorn]

I think it would be more productive if you posted DPS calcs instead of simply comparing numbers.

The 0.6 Charge rate on Vandal alone is more than three Fire Rate mods on normal Opticor can gain. The Charge delay reduces to roughly 0.45 at 0.6 meaning you're getting even more Sustained DPS from the weapon than normal Opticor using Vile Acceleration which I assume most player use at the very least.

Opticor Vandal
400 DMG 24%x2.6 Crit, 30% Status 0.6s Charge, 1.4s Reload, 8 Mag
Serration + Heavy Cal
400 * (1 + !.65 + 1.65) = 1,720
Primed Bane
1720 * 1.55 = 2,666
Elemental 90% x2
2,666 * 1.8 = 4,798.8
Point Strike + Vital
0.24 * (1 + 1.5) = 0.6
2.6 * (1 + 1.2) = 5.72
Multi-shot
( 2,666 + 4,798.8 ) * 1.9 = 14,183.12
Avg Damage per Shot
14,183.12 * ( 1 + ( 1 - 5.72) * 0.6) = 54,350
Sustained DPS
14,183.12 * ( 1 + ( 1 - 5.72) * 0.6) * ( 8 / ( 1.4 + ( 8 / 0.95 ))
14,183.12 * 3.832 * 0.851 = 44,272

 

You'll find normal Opticor does about 71.2k Avg damage per shot with 32k Sustained DPS using Heavy Cal and Vile Acceleration but it does not have room for Primed Bane or perhaps a Riven. Vandal does less per shot but considerably more DPS and it handles much better. Considering Sniper combos I don't see a reason for it to not do a little more damage per shot as well but Vandal still comes out as the better weapon.

I do not share the opinion that Vandal / Wraith / Prisma should be side-grades however. They're an upgrade path for nearly every weapon and the game functions better that way. Not sure why Opticor got Vandal though when weapons like Spectra are ancient. Now that woulda been a mean little Vandal beam weapon.

[Deadoon]

24 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

I think it would be more productive if you posted DPS calcs instead of simply comparing numbers.

The 0.6 Charge rate on Vandal alone is more than three Fire Rate mods on normal Opticor can gain. The Charge delay reduces to roughly 0.45 at 0.6 meaning you're getting even more Sustained DPS from the weapon than normal Opticor using Vile Acceleration which I assume most player use at the very least.

You'll find normal Opticor does about 71.2k Avg damage per shot with 32k Sustained DPS using Heavy Cal and Vile Acceleration but it does not have room for Primed Bane or perhaps a Riven. Vandal does less per shot but considerably more DPS and it handles much better. Considering Sniper combos I don't see a reason for it to not do a little more damage per shot as well but Vandal still comes out as the better weapon.

I do not share the opinion that Vandal / Wraith / Prisma should be side-grades however. They're an upgrade path for nearly every weapon and the game functions better that way. Not sure why Opticor got Vandal though when weapons like Spectra are ancient. Now that woulda been a mean little Vandal beam weapon.

Modding is somewhat individualized and each person can do it differently, I was putting the stats up in order to provide an at-a-glance visual of how they are different. That is why I put in stats that are not in game like beam width, AOE,  and Indirect gameplay stats like MR.

It would be less productive to put DPS calcs, especially as those are very "raw" and do not take into account usability, complications, individual abilities and external multipliers. Each of which I addressed in the descriptors of the comparisons.

The opticor causes overkill, the Vandal less so, but stil often does. The time before they can shoot again is dependent on the build, the opticor might have vile, the Vandal might not and each could be "correct" in their usage. A poor ferrox user with inadequate accuracy will do worse than a vandal user with similar, but a good user of the ferrox will out dps a good vandal user. The lanka is a weapon that benefits from measured strikes and good situational awareness. Spraying it wildly or firing weaker shots will hamper it's viability significantly, the vandal doesn't care too much, it is cheap and has reasonable power behind it.

Builds and dps Calcs would detract from what the weapons are and how they handle. How a weapon handles is sometimes just as, if not more important than how powerful it is. Some people might want a gun that takes 10 seconds to fire a 20k damage beam, and that would be a dps improvement over the opticor, but is that worth it?

[Benour]

I give this weapon 10/10 always wanted to play with opticor more but it was clunky af even with Vile accel mod. Also have god tier riven for it so i dont really care about "lower" dps or w/e. Im actually very happy with its stats AND im actually taking it to normal missions and can stand my ground with it, even if there are hordes of enemies i can just keep killing them efficiently. Its not collecting dust like my 7 forma grandpa opticor. So yeah gj DE might even grab tennogen for it since i have like 6k kills with it already and love using it. 

[DeathshotSE]

18 hours ago, Shaburanigud said:

I'd go against that actually. These days alot of gamers have short attention spans and if DE can't keep them interested for the long run as well as give an satisfying reward that compensates the work, new players WILL leave. And while it might not seem important it is VERY important to do that. Not to mention that Warframe itself still has a steady flow of new players as well.(I was one of those people who started this game after seeing the Fortuna Trailer)

All in all, I think they played it safe, and I appreciate that. A single weapon that's balanced but has a giant wall of work to get to might turn away players.
Not to mention I like variants. And warframe doesn't really need more OP weapons to outshine the older ones.
I prefer more power coming through Weapon builds and Warframe builds which would make older weapons viable as well as new ones.

That's true. I recently learned how many "casual" players there are when the numbers were released for Destiny 1's population percentage that completed the raid.

It's such a double-edge sword though. Add more options at a lower level and it becomes overwhelming having to pick from an extremely large pool. It also doesn't motivate players to progress since there is no incentive. On the other hand, spreading the options out, making them available through progression, makes the power progression more understandable, but as you say, can turn players away. DE really digged themselves into a hole by not making MR a standard early on. Players saw that as the norm and rejected anything that puts them at a disadvantage.

Edited March 14, 2019 by DeathshotSE