While the repeater gun is a mainstay on my Mercenary and Footknight, I noticed that I pretty much never use the alt fire. I was wondering if I´m missing something here, so the question goes out to you, dear readers.
Winding up the rotation is kinda awkward and makes you vulnerable, and due to the rapid fire kickback its hard to keep the bullets on target while you unload. The normal fire mode is pretty fast anyway, while at the same time it offers you much more control over your shots and doesnt require any windup.
Sometimes the alt fire can be used to unload into a boss, but that´s really more for the effect only because I dont really think I would have been slower to unload had I skipped the wind up and shot normally.
Compare that, for example, to Victor´s brace of pistols. These also have a rapid fire mode that is noticeably faster, but requires zero windup and gives you much more control over your shots still. It can be pretty useful to quickly stop charging enemies dead in their tracks, clear out a path or unload into a boss. The long windup of the repeater, in comparison, makes it unsuitable as a reactionary measure, and I dont really see a situation where you wanted to keep your gun spinning in preparation, given how much that slows you down.
If the repeater gun´s alt fire
didnt require a windup, it would be fine
would shoot all bullets at once, like shotgun, it would be fine
wouldnt slow you down while rotating, it would be okay-ish
would offer some other advantage, like increasing damage per bullet hit, it woule be fine.
But as it is, I cant really think of a use for that alt fire. Or did I miss something here?
PS: I´m also slightly salty that Victor´s brace of pistols not only have the better alt fire, but also have perfect stabilisation while moving, despite the fact that Victor shoots one-handed. Kruber shoots two handed with that thing and still has to stop to let the reticle shrink, Victor can just jump about blasting away and still has top notch precision.
Keep in mind the wind-up is not as long as the animation makes it look. If you hold right click and then immediately hold left click, you’ll start shooting as fast as possible, which is about when Kruber first sets his fingers on the barrel.
That aside, the alt fire does indeed have a faster fire-rate than just spamming left click, and I pretty much use it to take care of a pack of plaguemonks or stormvermin charging my way. Norscan berserkers can sort of work, too, but since they’re so slim it’s easier to miss against them.
On merc and fknight I sometimes use it for groups of zerkers/monks. On huntsman I use it for everything, it just melts any crowd heretics you point it at. The gun might bounce quite a bit but it still shoots straight.
Using it often for blindstormer and leaches cause I always need two shots for them and the first to shots come out like at once and pretty close to each other by accuracy so I just tap it to get the first two out.
The full mag I just use for chaosspawn and ratoger. Sometimes I fire it into a horde when I know there’s plenty of ammo around…
The alt fire is faster and you can start it immediately, no need to wait for the wind up animation to finish. Of course, it just feels cool to go full auto
Lemmi teach you a bit of history, Son
Back in the day, in V1 you could get a proc of “shots not costing ammo” = many a rat ogre fell to the Mighty Imperial Alternative Gatling Gun.
Nowadays you might want to use in in ohshii situations as it does fires significantly faster and you might thin the pack or kill 3-4 black rats grouped close. In regular situations headshotting is the way to go.