The warp pack is calling my name, I've been trying to grind up some medals in spare time and almost have enough. Someone was kind enough to drop it in a match and it was so damn fun just zipping around. Not as utilitarian as the jetpack still but it's a lot of fun to fuck around with and counters with solo farming.
Variable is honestly kinda meh, I enjoy it but wish they would have at least given it medium pen. It's really good against bugs but kinda sucks with bots.
Laser sentry is disappointing.
I'm still left wanting them to bring back good offensive strats, give us a hellbomb orbital barrage for those moments when we want to just say fuck this planet and everything on it.
One of the best things I did for myself in HD2 is actually weaning myself off of Medium Pen. It's excellent and important to have, and a critical component of some of the game's best weapons, but if you wind up shackling yourself to it, you miss out on a lot of weapons that frankly kick ass. Further, once you've opened things up you will find that you appreciate weapons with it all the more for it. A lot of my favorite weapons I'd never have gotten to really enjoy had I not done this, and believe me when I say they've been worth it. I'd never have gotten into the Amendment or Plasma Punisher without it.
I think what really pushed me into being willing to use anything was the Double-Edge Sickle. The sheer volume of times I went:
"....Man I wish I was using the regular Sickle right now" so I could avoid the self-damage as I dragged that thing up towards max level was genuinely surprising.
As for our boi the Variable, its whole thing is that it's Captain Ubiquitous: No other rifle in HD2 offers the utility it does. By default it's got roughly the DPS of the Liberator Concussive, and swapping it to its high fire rate gives it better burst DPS than a surprisingly big pool of rifles, though it loses to many others in sustained DPS due to frequent reloading. Swap to volley mode and it functions as a shotgun with 7 shots per mag and slightly better effective range in return for kicking like a mule. Total mode is there for a few stupid tricks, including the highest possible burst damage the game offers (4165 damage in a single shot if everything hits) and both damaging and ragdolling your ass unless fired from a prone position.
There's tech to this: You can launch yourself with it when using the jetpack for a de facto second jump, use it as a boosted dodge to avoid something like a charger, or use it to set yourself up for the puffball mushroom express, but the main goal here is the sheer damage of that fuckshot.
Its whole thing though is that while it a ton of different things as needed, it doesn't do anything perfectly. Any other assault rifle handles rifle things a bit better in some fashion or another, every other shotgun has better sustain, but none of them can do both of these at the same time.
