Is The Vectis Worth Keeping?

[--Q--Ascended-Seraphim]

I spent quite a bit of time gathering the materials needed for it, it was so expensive, but so very meh.

Shots are slow, damage is so so. My snipetron vandal beats it by a mile.

Should I sell it?

[MoyuTheTrinity]

I spent quite a bit of time gathering the materials needed for it, it was so expensive, but so very meh.

Shots are slow, damage is so so. My snipetron vandal beats it by a mile.

Should I sell it?

vectis is probably the best sniper anyone who does not own the snipetron vandal when it comes to effective sniping in warframe the lanka is just to slow

[DuWryght]

Not when Vectis Prime comes out.

 

huehue.

[MoyuTheTrinity]

Not when Vectis Prime comes out.

 

huehue.

 

tho its probably going to be hard for a weapon like the vectis even if the prime does 50 more damage to live up ti the dread and paris prime wich are basicly the same gun with alittle charge time XD

travle time is not a very good drawback to a gun anymore since they sped up the projectiles a while back (unless you are completly incompetent)

[Top_Honk]

It's easily one of the most boring weapons in the game.

[Cwierz]

Only if you have a nova imo.

AMD->Vectis Shot-> Drop

 

Otherwise snipers are fairly bad. Svandal is good though. Wish they would re-release it.

[Eirshy]

Uh.... Vectis is the only sniper rifle worth a damn right now. Snidal's just a beefed up carbine using sniper ammo.

Run the numbers. It's kinda sad, really.

 

The base idea here is to give everything the exact same basic mods:

Point Strike (maxed (+150% crit chance))

Vital Sense (maxed (+120% crit damage))

Hammer Shot (maxed +60% crit damage)

 

The Bows and the Lanka are assumed to run Speed Trigger maxed, as nobody in their right mind wouldn't run Speed Trigger on the Lanka (bows less guaranteed, but wow does it make them spammy).

 

The Bows cap crit chance at 100% with an r4 Point (Paris Prime) or an r3 Point (Dread).

The Snidal would have one free mod slot, due to it not really scaling well to Critical Delay or needing Speed Trigger.

 

The Vectis has multiple builds; PS and VS are always equipped, the other two are a mixtured of Charged Chamber (Chrg, 1.4x damage) or Primed Chamber (Prim, 2x damage), Critical Delay (Del, +48% crit chance), and Hammer Shot (Ham, +60% crit damage).

 

Not shown: Mixing Primed and Charged

Prim > Chrg > Ham > Del

So PrimChrgHam would be better than PrimDelHam (~1618 normalized)

 

Also, the min damage listing for the bows is incorrect; the 100% crit chance means that it will always do maxed damage.

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the Snidal, too. And my Lanka. But then, both are potato'd and have 4 and 5 forma on them (respectively).

 

But the math doesn't lie, the Vectis is simply better for high end content, and even it pales in comparison to the bows.

Edited May 19, 2014 by TheBlueJelly

[Psychosist]

If you're having an issue with the Vectis's speed, I suggest a Fast Hands mod (4/5 ranks is fine) and the use of reload cancelling. If you tap your reload key immediately after each shot, you can initiate the reload much quicker than you would by just letting it auto-reload. Takes some practice and getting used to, but you can double your fire rate this way.

 

Signed by a multi-forma Vectis user

[Deathstroke505]

Not when Vectis Prime comes out.

 

huehue.

nvm

Edited May 19, 2014 by Deathstroke505

[Inez]

Uh.... Vectis is the only sniper rifle worth a damn right now. Snidal's just a beefed up carbine using sniper ammo.

Run the numbers. It's kinda sad, really.

 

The base idea here is to give everything the exact same basic mods:

Point Strike (maxed (+150% crit chance))

Vital Sense (maxed (+120% crit damage))

Hammer Shot (maxed +60% crit damage)

 

The Bows and the Lanka are assumed to run Speed Trigger maxed, as nobody in their right mind wouldn't run Speed Trigger on the Lanka (bows less guaranteed, but wow does it make them spammy).

 

The Bows cap crit chance at 100% with an r4 Point (Paris Prime) or an r3 Point (Dread).

The Snidal would have one free mod slot, due to it not really scaling well to Critical Delay or needing Speed Trigger.

 

The Vectis has multiple builds; PS and VS are always equipped, the other two are a mixtured of Charged Chamber (Chrg, 1.4x damage) or Primed Chamber (Prim, 2x damage), Critical Delay (Del, +48% crit chance), and Hammer Shot (Ham, +60% crit damage).

 

Not shown: Mixing Primed and Charged

Prim > Chrg > Ham > Del

So PrimChrgHam would be better than PrimDelHam (~1618 normalized)

 

Also, the min damage listing for the bows is incorrect; the 100% crit chance means that it will always do maxed damage.

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the Snidal, too. And my Lanka. But then, both are potato'd and have 4 and 5 forma on them (respectively).

 

But the math doesn't lie, the Vectis is simply better for high end content, and even it pales in comparison to the bows.

 

That's a lot of effort to completely ignore fire rate.

 

Snipetron does roughly 20% more sustained dps with a much higher rate of fire, making it far easier to use.

 

So, yeah, math does lie.

[DoomFruit]

That's a lot of effort to completely ignore fire rate.

 

Snipetron does roughly 20% more sustained dps with a much higher rate of fire, making it far easier to use.

 

So, yeah, math does lie.

It's a sniper rifle. The very definition of one shot, one kill. Sustained fire rate and DPS is utterly irrelevant - why not just use a Soma or Boltor Prime if you're counting rate of fire?

[Eirshy]

That's a lot of effort you went through to make a fool of yourself, Inez.

 

The math doesn't lie.

 

You'd know this if you actually ran it. Here, let me walk you through it since apparently you can't be assed:

 

 

 

Speed Trigger on a Paris Prime or Dread gets you a total time-spent-between-shots of 1.325 seconds. The bows more than double the normalized damage of the Snidal, and the Snidal takes 0.667 seconds base between shots (for 6 shots, then 2 seconds to reload).

 

Grats, you got off two shots in the time it takes the PP/Dread to fire one.

Too bad they still did more damage than you.

 

Looking at the Vectis (ChrgHam) instead, with NO RELOAD SPEED MODS, it has a 1.0 second reload. In the time it takes to fire one shot, the Snidal gets off 1.5 shots (for a total of 6 Snidal shots). So that's 2 shots with the Vectis for every 3 shots with the Snidal. Vectis wins by 446.4 normalized damage, and will regardless out-pace the Snidal once the Snidal has to reload for two seconds (which lets the Vectis fire two more shots- catching up in ammo usage). Seriously, the Vectis has higher damage output, just with the reload spread over each shot rather than after 6 shots.

 

And before you go "But if I crit both shots-", you clearly don't understand what "normalized" damage is if you're going to make that argument. Normalizing damage takes your crit stat (which is probablility based) and outputs what is effectively your average damage. You know, so you can actually compare the damage output to other weapons. Comparing non-normalized damage values is the mark of a fool who doesn't know any better. And even if it wasn't, the more shots you fire the closer to your normalized damage your output will be.

 

 

Which brings us to the most important aspect of why your argument is $&*&*#(%&, Inez.

 

"You know those guns that are designed for ohkos?"

"Yeah?"
"Let's rate them based on their dps output instead!"

 

Unless the delay between shots renders them inoperable (Snipetron (original) reload, Bows without Speed Trigger before thier Crit buff, Lanka without Speed Trigger), the only metric that makes any sense on a sniper weapon is Damage Per Bullet.

 

 

And as DoomFruit said, why not just use a Soma or Boltor Prime if you're going to talk DPS?

 

 

AND, on top of that, remember how I said the Snidal was bassically a manly carbine? You know what purpose a carbine serves in shooters? The half way point between a General Purpose Rifle (standardly "Assault" Rifle) and a Sniper Rifle. It having a better fire rate actually makes sense for how the gun is supposed to be used.

 

 

 

 

Also, congratulations, you found both of my berserk buttons in forum arguments.

- Inapropriate use of statistics.

- Incorrect statistics.

Edited May 19, 2014 by TheBlueJelly

[Inez]

If you like OHOK weapons that's fine. My default loadout has been Latron Prime and Marelok lately.

 

But for "high end gameplay" you take weapons that kill lots of stuff quickly and take down highly armored heavies quickly. And BlueJelly argued that Vectis beat Snidal specifically in high end gameplay.

 

BlueJelly doesn't understand that Speed Trigger is a massive dps gain on the Snidal and near useless on the Vectis.  This pushes its sustained dps up to about 20% higher than Vectis.

 

Instead he waffles on about irrelevant stuff like crit rates (hint: they're exactly the same on both weapons) and brings up bows, which are in an entirely different league.

 

He also says that among snipers the only stat that matters is Damage per Bullet. But he deliberately mods the bows for less single shot damage and more usability. So clearly, usability figures into his notions somewhere, if at some completely arbitrary breakpoint.  And the Snidal is far more useable than the Vectis. And does more dps.

 

And then he argues that on a conceptual level that the Snidal loses out. Ok, he got me there. I was using math, killing efficiency and TTK. My bad.

[Eirshy]

As a courtesy, here is the closest to a TLDR version I'll give without being prompted.

> Even with Speed Trigger, the Snidal still has less DPS than the Vectis (ChrgHam) and Bows in my given chart.

>>> My bad on not including that to begin with, though.

>>> Fast Hands gives an extremely similar result for the Snidal without sacrificing practicality for theoretical DPS.

 

> TTK is less valuable than DPB when talking about Snipers as Snipers due to one shot being one shot.

> Fire Rate is not really that important when talking about Snipers as Snipers, due to the time it takes to find and line up a shot.

 

> All Snipers must eventually transition into Carbines when they stop OHKOing.

>>> Bows take the longest due to their normalized damage being both the highest AND the same as their minimum damage.

>>> The Snidal has a smoother transition to Carbine than other sniper weapons due to less overkill.

 

> Thread's context makes the question primarily a Snipers as Snipers situation, in which the Vectis is only beaten by the bows.

 

 

 

 

Firstly, the math.

 

I should probably apologize for not first running the numbers with Speed Trigger on the Snidal. This was unfair, as the Snidal explicitly has one extra slot free in the dpb chart I made, as there is no obvious "it needs X" like the Vectis, Lanka, or Bows. However, running the numbers with Speed Trigger does not change the results.

 

The Snidal with maxed Speed Trigger is now rocking 2.4 shots per second, with a turn around time of 4.5 seconds per 6 shots (factoring in reload). This is, of course, ignoring the recoil (which I'd imagine would actually be a bit of an issue at 2.4 shots per second as, if memory serves, the thing does have a bit of kick that stabalizes by the time the gun is ready to be fired again). The vectis (ChrgHam), as discussed earlier, outputs one shot per second. These match up at 9 seconds quite nicely.

 

Snidal gets 12 shots, for 5766 normalized damage.

Vectis gets 9 shots, for 8495.55 normalized damage.

No, even with Speed Trigger, the Vectis STILL has better DPS. I should also note that this is WITHOUT a reload speed mod on the Vectis.

 

 

Comparing to the bows, bows fire once every 1.325 seconds, which, unfortunately, doesn't line up nicely with the 6-shot clips of a Snidal. Like, at all. So we're comparing 180 shots with the bows to 318 shots with the Snidal (as that is the first point where they line up in terms of time taken to fire).

 

180 bow shots gets us 201,600 damage.

318 Snidal shots gets us 152,799 normalized damage.

No, even with Speed Trigger, the Bows STILL have the better DPS.

 

 

Before you attempt to claim Fast Hands gets better returns than Speed Trigger, Fast Hands gets you a full clip cycle time of ~4.5385, just barely slower. Since the recoil and re-aligning of the shot is less of a problem at the 1.5/sec fire rate, I'd actually say that Fast Hands is likely a better mod for the Snidal than Speed Trigger.

 

 

 

 

Next, sniper weapons in general.

 

There are two aspects of a sniper weapon that you must consider.

 

TTK (Time Till Kill), which should always be the absolute minimum (one shot). Because this is ideally one shot to begin with, the rating is often switched to a very similar metric- how tanky things have to be before they can survive one shot. This value is thus tracked by DPB (Damage Per Bullet), as a higher DPB will maintain a TTK of one shot against tankier things.

 

The chart I gave was a DPB chart; the reason why we still normalize damage in DPB (in spite of normalizing working on the idea that the RNG will eventually converge on the crit chance as the actual number of crits) is because it is hard to compare crit stats otherwise. If we went strictly on minimum damage, the bows would outclass everything by a mile (with only Prim Vecti being able to beat the Lanka). And if we went strictly on maximum damage, crit chance wouldn't play any role in determining if something has a higher chance of oneshotting than something else.

 

 

TAR (Target Acquisition Rate), which is impossible to test in the vaccume of raw math, as it is reliant on the individual behind the sights' ability to line up the shot. The closest you can get is by looking at the minimum TAR: the time it takes the weapon to fire off n shots, and factor in reload. This is stil inaccurate due to the individual never being able to instantly line up shots- even if shooting at a conga line, your brain has to register that, yes, the target is already in the cross hairs- but it's at least a comparable metric that doesn't get polluted by human error.

 

However, this is somewhat unfair to weapons more specialized for the sniping art. While a minimum TAR is nice to think about (and exactly what you use when talking about "full cycle" DPS), a low rate of fire gets a bigger TAR penalty than it often should. This is because a slower rate of fire allows you more time to line up the shot. And if you have any priority in targetting, it can take easily up to a whole second to find and line up your next shot. THIS is why the bows (and Lanka) aren't that disadvantaged by their charge mechanic- the human part of TAR requires a similar minimum TAR.

 

 

 

 

On a conceptual level, the Snidal is of a different paradigm in this current environment. You see, once a sniper rifle loses its ohko TTK, it is demoted to a carbine- as it now must be treated like one. THIS is where the Snidal excells. While yes, the DPS is PROVABLY lower, you must instead look at the number of bullets fired.

 

While the Snidal might not do as much damage in the same amount of time, it applies damage with a finer grain. This means that the Snidal spends less of its damage output on overkill. THIS is where the Snidal has the advantage- it's more like a Carbine than a Sniper Rifle. Say something has 1200 health. The bows thus cannot oneshot it, and must spend two shots. The Snidal, however, assuming it deals exactly normalized damage, only needs 3 shots to kill it. Thus, in that DPS comparison I gave above, the bows would kill 90 enemies, while the Snidal will have killed 109 enemies. This is also where magazine size comes into play. If the shots required to kill something are lower than the shots left in the mag, the reload speed is not a factor in getting the kill. If we put two 1200-HP enemies against our player, the Snidal can take them down in 2.5 seconds and spend the 2 seconds reloading (which is actually what kills its DPS) in safety. The bows, on the other hand, will take 4.6 seconds before spending the last 0.7 seconds of reload in safety.

 

 

Being a carbine-like sniper is not a bad thing. It means that, while you become a carbine instead of a sniper earlier, you'll transition more gracefully to carbine than other snipers. That quality really is *entirely* a playstyle choice- one which I will not belittle anyone for making (there's a reason I still pull out my Snidal on occasion, you know).

 

 

 

HOWEVER this thread was created asking if the OP should keep the Vectis when he also has a Snidal. The Vectis is a pure sniper weapon, spending a full reload between every shot, and thus relying on its ability to oneshot things (thus, its DPB). With that context, this thread is primarily asking about sniper weapons as sniper weapons. And in that light...

> Only the Vectis is able to compete with the Bows at this current moment.

> The Bows are abject better than every other sniper weapon as they are reliable in their high damage output.

 

The snidal may be fun and actually fairly useful. But at 30 minutes into a T3 Survival key, she's going to have a lot of problems keeping up until the other sniper weapons hit their ohko limit.

 

 

 

 

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT FROM THE FUTURE:

The numbers in this post are actually off with regards to the Snidal vs Vectis, and this is because I mistakenly forgot to give the Snidal its mag's last shot for free. This is actually a mistake I'm fairly sure practically *everyone* has made in their DPS calculators, as it only becomes apparent when you look at the Vectis compared to something else.

 

My conclusions were still correct, as the Vectis with Charged Chamber out-dpses the Snidal, however, Fast Hands does not produce a similar DPS to Speed Trigger on the Snidal.

 

The updated math can be found here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/236732-which-weaponis-the-highest-dps/page-2#entry2743275

Edited May 25, 2014 by TheBlueJelly

[Inez]

Here's the stats for the Vectis:

Firerate: 1.5 shots per second

Reload: 1 second

 

.75 + 1 = 1.75

 

The Vectis gets off one shot every 1.75 seconds, not every second. You are massively overestimating its dps.

 

If my Vectis fired 1 shot per second without wasting two mod slots and reload cancelling, it would prolly be my favorite weapon in the game.

[Rekkou]

Here's the stats for the Vectis:

Firerate: 1.5 shots per second

Reload: 1 second

 

.75 + 1 = 1.75

 

The Vectis gets off one shot every 1.75 seconds, not every second. You are massively overestimating its dps.

 

If my Vectis fired 1 shot per second without wasting two mod slots and reload cancelling, it would prolly be my favorite weapon in the game.

 

With only maxed fast hand you can reduce the reload speed to 0.7, that means a shot every 0.7 second if you reload cancel.  And not wanting to reload cancel while it's easy and very beneficial means the problem is completely on your side.

[Jelan]

I spent quite a bit of time gathering the materials needed for it, it was so expensive, but so very meh.

Shots are slow, damage is so so. My snipetron vandal beats it by a mile.

Should I sell it?

It's a sniper, you want to get rid of it asap.

[Eirshy]

Fire rate does literally nothing on the Vectis. Want proof? Run maxed Speed and Shred, then run neither and maxed Crit Delay.

 

I'll put up a video of this before tomorrow.

 

 

 

Also, you know how you reload cancel?

You press R right after you fire.

 

That's literally all you have to do. It's INSANELY easy.

[Crewell]

I'm surprised no one has asked the OP if he has the Primed Chamber mod or just the normal Charged Chamber mod. It makes a big diference with Vectis.

[(PSN)Count_Dante]

I dont use the Vectis but keep it around as the best of the sniper guns at the moment, since you never know if sniping get a buff or the like and I want to try it more. 

[RuFi0]

Jesus Christ you guys, use what you like. If you find your weapon struggling to kill things, switch to your sidearm, play a lower level, or find a different weapon. It's that easy. You are completely overdoing it arguing over percentages, burst, sustained, crit rate, blah blah blah blah. You're completely missing the point of playing this game if you have to explain the difference between weapons down to fractions of a number.

[Dwagon]

Outside of the numbers game, I like the feel of the Vectis since it's a bolt-action weapon similarly to how Bows work.

Which is why I haven't sold mine yet even though by the numbers, I have something better already.

 

Inside the numbers game, the Snipetron Vandal outperforms it on account of sustained fire, which matters when enemy bulk can scale up to the point where OHKO doesn't apply anymore.

 

If the purpose is to run a sniper in high end content that ISN'T "crowded" (most missions outside of Defense, Mobile Defense and Survival), a fully tuned Vectis gets the job done just fine.

[Wolfstorm18]

Yes, its worth keeping. 

[Eyeless]

It's quite good when you mod it properly with the basics;

 

Serration, Split Chamber, Shred (so you can kill multiple enemies with a single shot, this conserves much ammo if you can aim worth a damn and does let you get shots off faster) 

 

Point Strike, Vile Precision, Element 1, Element 2, Luxury mod. 

 

Consistently high damage even for a decent while in high level gameplay, I don't see much of an issue with this gun in comparison to other Sniper Rifles.

 

However...there have been rumors and much hype for a Vectis Prime (Hopefully with a Loki Prime inbound?) 

 

If you aren't feeling it and don't have fun using it, trash it when it's rank 30. Best advice I can give ya.

Edited May 20, 2014 by Hastur609

[Eirshy]

Alright, video demonstrating exactly how much Fire Rate doesn't do on the Vectis...

http://youtu.be/2a3mJZhYAWI

 

As for how this exploded, this is what happens when someone makes a claim based on statistics that both don't make sense in context, and are incorrect.

 

 

Inside the numbers game, the Snipetron Vandal outperforms it on account of sustained fire, which matters when enemy bulk can scale up to the point where OHKO doesn't apply anymore.

 

If the purpose is to run a sniper in high end content that ISN'T "crowded" (most missions outside of Defense, Mobile Defense and Survival), a fully tuned Vectis gets the job done just fine.

 

At that point you leave the small fries to the people with AoE or Saturation weapons, and you focus on taking down big things like the Heavy Gunners, Napalms, Bombards, Ancients, Techs, and Fusions.

 

Also I seriously *just* ran the numbers showing that the Snidal's "advantage" in sustained fire situations is dependant on the other sniper weapons being freshly over their reliable ohko threshold, as its DPS is lower than the Vectis and both high-end bows.

 

Sure if you're using it to pot shot the zerglings it gets an advantage, but then you're using a chainsaw to cut a piece of paper. Not exactly practical.

Edited May 21, 2014 by TheBlueJelly