Weapons
Weapons are the primary means of damage that Guardians use to defeat their enemies. There are many types of weapons that each have a unique combat style.
Hitscan
Weapons that use bullets tend to have no projectile travel time: the bullet will "hit" the target immediately after firing, disguising this action with an illustrated trajectory. This is called "Hitscan", a common technique in shooter games that forgoes tracking projectiles due to practicality. Some powerful attacks use actual projectiles to balance out their power.
Curated Weapons
A curated weapon is a static variant of a weapon with perks that are not randomly assigned upon acquisition.
Weapon Statistics
A weapon's attributes are expressed in stats, not all stats are used on a given weapon. Intrinsic Weapon Perks such as Adaptive Frame and Aggressive Frame will affect the influence of these stats.
- Displayed attributes
- Attack: The rating of the weapon's damage ceiling. Higher attack allows a weapon to inflict damage to higher-level enemies.
- Rounds Per Minute: The rate of fire.
- Swing Speed: The speed of the weapon swing. This stat is exclusive to swords.
- Efficiency: The rate of ammo loss while maintaining a guard with a weapon. This stat is exclusive to swords.
- Defense: The rate of ammo loss when mitigating an attack while guarding with a weapon. This stat is exclusive to swords.
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Draw Time: The rating of a bow's draw time. -
Magazine: The amount of rounds that can be fired before requiring a reload. Swords have Ammo Capacity instead, which is the total ammo. -
Impact: Initial damage per round compared to the damage spectrum of the weapon type. Note that other factors will affect the damage dealt. -
Range: Effective range before rounds start to experience damage falloff, this also affects aim assistance. -
Stability: A rating of recoil after firing. Higher stability produces lower recoil. -
Handling: A rating of handling speed for the weapon (ADS, Ready, Stow, etc.). -
Reload Speed: Rating for weapon reload speed. -
Charge Time: The charge time to fire a round, this is applicable to weapons such as Combat Bows and Fusion Rifles -
Blast Radius: Projectile Explosion radius also influences the threshold for damage falloff. -
Velocity: Projectile speed.
- Hidden attributes
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Zoom : The magnification factor when aiming down sights. While aiming, the range is multiplied by this factor. -
Inventory Size: The maximum amount of ammo able to be carried in reserve. -
Aim Assistance: The strength of the game's assistance in path correcting aimed shots onto the target. -
Recoil Direction: An expression of the weapon's recoil path. Lower recoil direction tends more horizontal recoil than vertical recoil.
Masterwork
A Legendary weapon can be Masterwork upgraded incrementally up to a maximum tier to increase a single stat, thereafter becoming masterworked. The stat to upgrade is randomly chosen upon acquisition.
A curated weapon is already masterworked when acquired. Earlier curated weapons have a different system: they upgrade once into maximum tier, and have the option to reforge the masterwork to benefit another randomly chosen stat.
Weapon Perks
A weapon perk is a modification to the weapon that changes some of its attributes and functions. For each perk slot, there can be multiple perks with different trade-offs; all mutually exclusive options that can be freely switched around. The weapon manufacturer factors into the amount of perks available compared to weapons of similar caliber. Note that some exceptional weapons may not strictly adhere to the system.
A weapon is acquired with certain perks randomly assigned, a curated weapon has the exact same assignment of perks.
- Intrinsic: This determines the style of the weapon. Each weapon contains one Intrinsic perk. Exotics have unique perks which often behave more like Traits than like standard Intrinsics.
- Sights and Barrels: Sights and Scopes will also affect the stats directly associated with the firing experience. Barrels and Launcher Barrels augment both the firing stats and the projectile's attributes. Blades modify the Impact and maximum ammo of Swords.
- Magazines and Batteries: This either modifies the characteristics of rounds fired or the magazine (or the Sword guard), generally altering several stats at once.
- Trait 1: This perk has only a net benefit. There is usually only 1 perk per slot, but weapons forged from Ada-1's Research Frames have an additional Trait option.
- Trait 2: This perk has only a net benefit. There is usually only 1 perk per slot.
- Stocks and Grips: This perk modifies Handling, Reload Speed and/or Stability. It is available usually when the Intrinsic perk does not do this already.
Rarity
A weapon's rarity indicates both its acquisition rate and the amount of additional perks it contains.
This list describes the minimum amount of additional perks available in the rarity, in order from lowest to highest rarity:
Common: 1 Sight/Barrel perk (Khvostov 7G-02 has only an Intrinsic perk, being the tutorial weapon.).
Uncommon: 2 Sight/Barrel perks, 1 Magazine/Battery perk
Rare: 2 Sight/Barrel perks, 1 Magazine/Battery perk, Trait 1.
Legendary: 2 Sight/Barrel perks, 2 Magazine/Battery perks, Trait 1, Trait 2.
Exotic: 1 Sight/Barrel perk, 1 Magazine/Battery perk, Trait 1, 1 Stock/Grip perk.
Weapon Class
For each weapon class, a player can carry up to 10 weapons, but equip one to use at a given moment. In normal circumstances, the weapon equipped can be freely swapped with another.
- Kinetic — a Kinetic weapon's damage has no assigned element.
- Energy — an Energy weapon's damage is assigned an element. Some weapon types are only available in the Energy weapon class.
- Power — a Power weapon's damage is assigned an element. Some weapon types are only available in the Power weapon class.
Weapon Element
Kinetic damage is a basic form of damage.
Elemental damage deals 90% damage to health, but deals 200% damage to shields. Against a shield of the same element, this deals 300% and causes an elemental damage explosion upon shield destruction.[1]
Weapon Ammunition
A weapon's power is balanced by the type of ammunition it uses. For each weapon class equipped, swapping between weapons of the same ammo type will forfeit some carried ammo, switching between ammo types will not transfer ammo. Some exceptional weapons may use a different kind of ammo than what is commonly used for the weapon type.
Primary
Primary ammo is the most frequent ammo drop.
Special
Special ammo is an uncommon ammo drop. This usually supplies powerful weapons with a low rate of fire, such as Sniper Rifles and Shotguns, which are useful mainly in certain circumstances.
Heavy
Heavy ammo is the rarest ammo drop, supplying the most powerful weapons.
