Are Rifles maximized by Engineers only?
There's been a lot of talk and topics on weapon choice, most especially Rifles versus pistol/class specific weapons. From a commando perspective and experience, I would say that Heavy Pistol > Rifle.
Numbers show that the Rifle > Heavy Pistol in terms of damage dealt in normal attacks and skill damage, but from overall actual playing experience, I don't agree with the numbers. Normal attack damage and skill damage 'gain' is so negligible that the loss of stats from a Pistol/Shield isn't worth using a Rifle. I know that DPS is the most misleading stat, I also know the argument between Base Damage > DPS, my bear lived on this knowledge in PL, however for some reason, what partially leads me to think that the Heavy Pistol performs relatively equal or better than the Rifle is the DPS that a Heavy Pistol gives. Although a small difference on paper and numbers, I somehow get the feeling that the DPS stat is underrated in SL. More specifically, I think the weapon speed is what makes more of an impact.
Anyway, back to the thread title. So from a commando, it's Heavy Pistol > Rifle. I would assume from an Operative perspective, Dual Pistols > Rifles as well? With the amount of armor reduction + damage gain + speed of Dual Pistols, I would think that they would outperform Rifles. I could be mistaken here, so I would need an Operative's opinion.
That leaves the Engineers. I know that Engineers can do damage as well, but from my impression based on observations and experiences playing with engineers, their damage comes from skill usage rather than normal attacks. Adding in what I've read that Rifles yield the highest skill damage among weapons, leads me to the thread title, are rifles maximized by engineers only?
I was talking about the same subject to a good friend in game earlier, commando too, and he agreed and asked me 'So what's the use of Rifles then?', I have the same question now too. Engineers only?
