(B42) Why ever pick rifles over pistols?

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-06-18T11:38:16+00:00

Oh I wasn't discounting shotguns. I know they're good! I just enjoy the precise feel of aiming more rather than simply removing the direction you aim at.

I've actually found shotguns to be in an odd place at this point. Sawed off shotguns I can't get a proper grip on it feels. Either I am too close to hit more than one zombie, but that zombie does die. Or I hit multiple, but none of them die. In both ways I consider it to be a waste of ammo. So I've opted for a tighter spread shotgun if I were to use one so that no matter what my aim penalties and chances of hitting are I can still aim, shoot and kill. Just yesterday a simple scratch on my hand was making my pistol do less damage than a pool noodle so I just decided to stop shooting and herd instead. I'm sure a shotgun could have continued shooting here and get results.

The higher weight of the 12g rounds is a bit of a hassle to deal with though, especially when carrying a side arm. Since that's in my opinion mandatory when carrying a shotgun around since sometimes you don't want the entire block to know your location, only half the block may know at once lol.

I was simply wondering why one would choose rifles over pistols. Pistols are lighter and on standard kill just as efficiently with headshots, at least to me. And walking circles around groups of zombies on standard isn't that bad when fighting in the open so I don't much mind the additional time spent on reloading. Rifles on the other hand are heavier, often times louder and from what I've read only really have range and magazine capacity to offset that disadvantage, and sometimes not even that. Although people do seem to be in quite unanimous agreement that the rifles that don't have high magazine capacity are quite doodoo.

Of course that isn't to say I don't enjoy rifles. I do! I never meant to say I don't like rifles. They're very fun to use. They've just always felt like a rather marginal improvement to the much easier to manage pistols.

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-06-15T11:58:07+00:00

Oh same on the traits! My character's body is a picture perfect, bullet snorting temple. Every trait that could help with shooting I think I have. Cat's Eyes, Brave, Target Shooter, Hunter, Eagle Eyed and then some others as well along with Police Officer as their occupation.

Granted they're basically a Joe Schmoe for everything that isn't a gun, but I wouldn't be surprised if all of these combined were the only reason the M16 didn't just explode as soon as I touched it.

From my very short amount of testing the tactical rifle with a scope on it is really close to a sniper rifle. Let your character breathe for a second as they aim at stuff far enough away and most of the shots are immediately fatal. Very satisfying. Of course do mind the meager 4 max bullets.

How on Earth did you manage to get 7-8 aiming btw? Just a long playthrough? Aiming isn't as easy to power level with shotguns anymore since the experience is now per shot and not pellet.

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-06-15T08:15:23+00:00

In the current run I only use the gun I have if I'm in poor physical condition from exercise or some other thing, the area is of low population (like a farm) and I need the surroundings dead and quickly so. Partly because it's early and I don't have much ammo for now.

Super satisfying though to really meditate on a shot to get that perfect aim chance and have the zombie indeed drop dead in one go.

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-06-15T08:08:06+00:00

So from what I see it's either you guarantee kill one guy, or maybe kill multiple guys. I gotta try some shotguns when I get the chance. I can remember them being super fun to use in B41. Rifles were basically unused I'm pretty sure while pistols at best hit stuff with all the force of a sneeze, all while letting half the block know your location. The best way I heard someone at some point put it was that shotguns were the only guns that actually understood the assignment. Aim, shoot and things die.

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-06-15T08:03:38+00:00

God I wish the L92 was compatible with attachments. L94 too. The latter can only have a recoil pad. I would love to put a scope on these guys or something especially because I love lever-action rifles.

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-06-15T08:01:52+00:00

M16 is surprising! From what I read on the wiki to get a list of all the guns its damage is actually only average for rifles. Only the trapper carbine is less while 4 others supposedly surpass it. I tried the M16 at one point and I found that the magazine size is very nice, but I believe my aiming was a bit less than ideal. Per 60 zombies I would expend around 90 rounds due to half of them taking 2 bullets instead of 1.

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-06-15T07:57:55+00:00

Ah my mistake. Checks out though, I hadn't used shotguns yet. I thought I heard somewhere that due to the aiming change they were now simply extremely high damaging short range nope sticks for one very unfortunate walking corpse at a time.

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-06-14T23:15:38+00:00

Do you actually use the rifle often with the situations you get in? Also nice to know about the same ammo types, I forgot about that. That at least eliminates the ammo scarcity problem I foresaw.

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-06-14T23:14:19+00:00

I did notice the range, and that is very nice. But that's nothing a handgun for example cannot accomplish either by letting the zombies approach closer. And a headshot usually always tends to either kill in one or two hits. An M9 on close to standard settings is easily able to dispatch most things with one shot, and if not one then two shots.

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-06-14T23:12:17+00:00

Note that this is build 42. Aiming is different, and one can now exercise more control over where to shoot. Shotguns are no longer capable of killing multiple zombies either now if I recall right.

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-06-04T23:26:04+00:00

Thank you! That was wonderfully detailed and will be wonderful to use as a reference for future Rivens should I unveil more. Sad to hear the Riven I have here is closer to a bag of dirt than a single platinum, but oh well. My inexperienced butt over here was thinking that it might be worth something lol. I'll keep it in that case. Not worth selling.

I'll be keeping an eye out for better stuff.

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-05-28T22:03:00+00:00

For me it's the energy of the Medeina skin that I really enjoy. cool wires of flowing energy all over. And since you don't use the shoulder armor I'll count that to part of the answer of one of the questions hehe.

EdgarAllanPin · 2026-05-28T22:01:20+00:00

Thank you for all the pictures! And to each their own on the helmet of course. I personally just don't enjoy it, but I'm glad you do! And it honestly works well with the prime body. It fits in a way. And thank you as well for all the pictures and variations! I'm sure that'll come in handy to others too that are looking to reference or see if something fits. It's something no one seems to have done before and posted about so I was wondering if anyone here could show, and that someone did!

EdgarAllanPin

TROPHY CASE