We had a discussion a few months back in this post by our very own @simpliv about this exact issue that I thought was pretty productive:
Give it a read if you like, but the main takeaways were:
Advantages
- One of the best anti-flak / anti-scab weapons in the game
- Very good, reliable anti-shooter weapon overall
- Accurate and controllable hip-fire, especially during volley Fire
- Decent overall usability and ammo economy
Disadvantages
- Very, very poor maniac damage and hit-mass penetration
- Lower overall damage potential against other non-flak armour types than comparable weapons
- Difficult to meet specific breakpoints without a “god-roll” (especially on the Vraks VII)
- Overall a bit underwhelming before class abilities that give more power / accuracy
Both the Vraks III and VII are decent Veteran and presumably Psyker weapons, while really only the Vraks III is useable for Zealot. The Agripinaa is currently just… not worth using for a few reasons.
In that thread, I broke them down as such:
Vraks VII Single Shot: High Damage per Shot, Moderate DPS, Moderate Stagger.
The ultimate anti-infantry and anti-shooter.
Suggestion: Increase Unarmoured damage by 7%-9%, and boost crit/headshot damage to Carapace.
Vraks III 3 Round Burst: Moderate Damage per Shot, High DPS, Low Stagger.
The comfortable to use generalist.
Suggestion: Slightly increase total ammo pool to improve reliability and make up for it being more ammo hungry than its cousins.
Agripinna IX 2 Round Burst: High Damage per Shot, Moderate DPS, High Stagger.
The elite/specialist hunter.
Suggestion: Give the weapon more of an identity by drastically increasing stagger values and further increase it’s damage against Maniac, Carapace, or both.
The rational for why can be seen in the thread itself. It’s worth noting that I had a personal bias towards using the Vraks VII on Veteran at the time, so it has the more crunchy suggestions. I’ve since rolled a few decent Vraks III’s and tried both weapons out on Zealot as well, but in that thread the suggestions for the other weapons was based on others’ feedback.
I also broke down their Current Overall Damage:
From this we can really see how they don’t quite match up to comparable weapons. I’d personally like to see the damage shifted to look more like this:
Ideal Overall Damage:
Improving their ability to deal with Unyielding and Maniacs would better allow them to handle the new, higher difficulties in the game while not making them better or worse vs. comparable guns, allowing it to maintain it’s identity as an anti-flak specialist. I, at least, can no longer justify bringing these to anything with increased specials.
A slight boost to unarmoured would help the underperforming variants meet some breakpoints and solidify the weapon’s primary role as the king of the anti-shooters. I think it’s more than fine for it to be bad against hordes and carapace.