Weapon tier list
Ranked by what each weapon finishes, not by how it feels to fire.
The sighted rifle is the best general weapon because every pad has an engagement past thirty metres. The pump shotgun is excellent indoors and wrong on the dock.
This ranking is about what each weapon lets you finish, not which one feels best. Grades assume you are running the pad the weapon belongs on.
The tiers
| Tier | Weapon | Why it lands here |
|---|---|---|
| S | Sighted rifle (free roster primary + optic) | Covers every pad from a house stairwell to a forty metre dock shot |
| A | MP5 (Special Forces) | The best close-quarters primary in the game, pass-locked |
| A | Pump shotgun (M870) | The correct answer indoors and the wrong one on 80 per cent of the map |
| A | USP pistol | Semi-automatic, accurate, and always on your hip |
| B | Breaching Shotgun | Opens doors; not a room-clearing weapon |
| B | Beanbag Shotgun | Non-lethal authority, no range |
| B | R700 sniper | Dominates two pads and is unusable on the rest |
| C | Taser | A tool with a 5/100 stat card; situational |
| C | Full-Body Shield | 2,100 cash for a front-door tool |
Why the rifle keeps winning
Every pad in the game has at least one engagement past thirty metres — the bank lobby, the prison yard, the museum galleries, the whole port. A weapon that cannot reach that far forces you to close distance you do not control. The rifle is also the only free-roster primary that accepts a sight and a muzzle brake, which is where the accuracy actually comes from.
Why the shotguns are not a joke
Inside a house raid, a pump shotgun ends a room in a way a rifle cannot. The M870 the game gives you is genuinely good for Forced Entry and Locked Tenants. The failure mode is not the gun, it is the player who walks onto the dock with it.
Damage versus control
The stat cards are a warning, not a scoreboard. A weapon with high damage and low control will miss the second shot, and the second shot is the one that decides a firefight. Judge a gun on how many consecutive shots you can place, then look at the damage figure.
Common questions
Is the sniper ever worth it?
On the desert stockpile and the port, yes. It is a pad-specific weapon, not a general one.
What about the frag grenade in a tier list?
Throwables are covered on the grenades page. The short version: flash for rooms, smoke for open ground, frag only when nothing living is behind the wall.
Should I buy the shield?
Only if you already own everything that shoots. It solves one problem, once.
