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I love playing as Lilith, partly because I like her skillset, partly because I like her Action skill, but mostly because I love SMGs. I've been comparing the top-quality SMGs and Machine Guns that I find, since I often play with a friend who prefers Roland (I save good MGs for him), and I gotta say, the only thing that Machine guns beat SMGs on is clip size. The SMGs tend to have better accuracy, most I found between 78-90, while machine guns have around 70-85 for the most part. Damage wise, Machine guns and SMGs seem to me on about the same level, with a few exceptions. The problem is that SMGs have a hell of a faster fire rate, and have quick reload times, thus offsetting the magazine size issue. So, add this to better accuracy, and it's easy to see why SMGs have higher damage output.

Now, to top this thing off, Lilith can increase the fire rate of all weapons (the Quicksilver skill is only 1st level too!), and a skill for adding to bullet velocity and firepower. (I'm not going to talk about the +SMG damage Class Mod, since those exist for Roalnd's Machine guns)

To give you a base comparison, my lv40 character is running around with a SMG of 146 firepower, and 90 accuracy with a fire rate of 14!. True, it's only got a clip of 28, but so what? Reload is frekin fast (especially compared to Machine Guns), while my friend's Machine gun has about 150 damage, and maybe 8 fire rate, and 85 accuracy.

Yeah, I know I've only compared SMGs to machine guns. The problem is that I haven't found any really good assault rifles either (the burst or pounders). They just can't match the damage output. Revolvers usually are far more powerful, but fire too slow, and only have up to 6 rounds. Snipers face the same problems as revolvers. Shotguns just can't match the accuracy, and thus, range of an SMG. Rocket Launchers are more powerful, but with longer reloads, and rounds that move slowly and miss easily, they aren't as useful. And I'm not going to compare repeaters, they don't really stand up.

So, What I'm saying is, SMGs are THE go-to weapon of the game, and seem to be able to outdo damage from everything else i've seen. Anyone noticed the same thing, or am I just encountering some sort of a anomaly?ZenonSeth 11:22, May 29, 2010 (UTC)

The 3 god tier weapons in this game are the Maliwan Hellfire (smg), the Atlas Ogre (support machine gun), and the Dahl Penetrator (automatic sniper). That being said, consider the roles of the 2 classes, Lilith is not in any way a support character. The closest thing to a support ability Lilith has (save Class Mods) is the Intuition skill, and that "support" becomes useless in the endgame. Roland on the other hand, has a grand total of 6 support skills, 1 of which is actually completely useless for solo play!

Roland, being a support character, has weaponry suited for a support character, the Combat Rifle and Support Machine Gun are good all-around weapons. There's an old saying, "Jack of all trades is king of none!" Roland's weapons can almost be considered for self-defence, as the Scorpio Turret is where the real power is. Sreza 12:07, May 29, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it makes sense with Roland being more support oriented. SMGs still seem a bit overpowered to me. Yes, there are exceptions, like the Atlas Ogre, but I'm talking generally. And the Bessie is unbeatable, no doubt. I just don't think it's as useful as a fast firing good SMG. ZenonSeth 12:56, May 29, 2010 (UTC)

If you think SMGs are overpowered know, wait until you discover the unholy combination of a good mercenary class mod and a double anarchy. Willp602 11:59, May 29, 2010 (UTC)

I am not a fan of the Double Anarchy because of it's decreased accuracy. It's like a full auto shotgun, just not what I'm used to. With my current SMG at 90 accuracy, I can fire effectively at targets up to medium-long ranges. I also am aware of the effect that a good class mod has on damage, but that applies to all SMGs not just the anarchy, so it's not really a factor in comparing Anarchy vs Regular SMG.ZenonSeth 12:56, May 29, 2010 (UTC)

That being said, no gun in this game can match up to the sheer power of a Bessie. Nothing compares. If you don't have one... Farm Now. Sreza 11:38, May 29, 2010 (UTC)

The Bessie can outgun an elemental-spec Lilith with a Hellfire/Anarchy? --Nagamarky 12:50, May 29, 2010 (UTC)

a single headshot from a Bessie with a sniper-spec Mordecai does about 40k damage, I suppose if its a fast moving mob, spraying with an smg might get em all faster, but against a single enemy, Bessie reigns supreme. Sreza 12:55, May 29, 2010 (UTC)

@ZenonSeth - obviously you've not yet found a good Glorious Havoc or Ogre. The Developers seem to favor SMG's cuz they give them the largest ammo capacity (1440).
@Sreza - the Scorpio Turret is where the real power is - only at lower levels. Once a Roland's "team" skills are max'ed, the turret becomes nothing more than a "diversion". The power of the turret's gun does not scale well at all. Indeed, above Lvl30, I can't recall it capable of killing any enemy. I would recommend anyone considering a Solider to ignore Sentry, Barrage, Refire, Deploy.
A Hellfire is the only real "over-powered" SMG. I'm almost embarrassed to use one. -- MeMadeIt 16:49, May 29, 2010 (UTC)

Not to hijack, but the Turret can still be very necessary at higher levels. My Marine-spec(ammo regen) Roland: 4 grenadier, 2 cauterize, 3 overload

http://www.borderlandsthegame.com/skilltree/roland/#01505010055005555055005

with a level 58 Transfusion mod and a level 59 Rhino, the turret may not be what's actually doing the damage, but when you literally regen grenades faster than you can throw them, its still extremely useful. The Rhino letting you both heal your allies and harm enemies at the same time is just crazy fun on its own. Sreza 17:28, May 29, 2010 (UTC)

SMGS are completly amazing as litlth but can fall short on other charters. even though my hunter is never without one. if you truly think there overpowerd see if you can use only them on a non smg charkter. also how can you talk about rolands weapones all this time and not mention he is the only one who can increase shootgun range.

I must be the only one who can't stand the bessie's i have farmed 2 and just find them completely useless. But yea i agree with op smg's are very overpowered but only certain ones(maliwan hellfire) and the reason i hate bessies is for the fire rate. 0.4 to 0.5 i mean come on that is just stupid but then again the only snipers i use are ones with a 1.2 fire rate or higher.

There's a trick to using the Bessie, once you fire a shot, do a melee attack. The animation for a melee attack is much faster than the cooldown on the Bessie. Done right, you can speed up the Bessie's fire rate to nearly 2 bps. The thing about the Bessie though is, you dont need to fire a second time unless you miss ^_- Sreza 20:59, May 29, 2010 (UTC)

Quick off topic but the bessie is sweet. You dont need a fast fire rate when you one shot kill everything. "but what about when there are too many enemies, it needs to fire faster" then switch to a close range gun. Snipers are for longer range encounters. And I think the reason SMGs have the highest ammo cap is because they burn through it so quick, especially lilith. Hellz Lips 01:14, May 30, 2010 (UTC)

With the exception of the Hellfire, I don't think SMGs are overpowered at all. I have a Torgue Malevolent stinger with ~230 dam., 91 acc, and a 17.6 RoF, and even when using Lilith with all her skills geared towrad SMGs and a Mercernary class mod, it's still easier and quicker to take people down with a high-powered Masher, or even a strong sighted MG. Also, I agree with Hellz Lips that SMGs are not necessarily the developer's favorite type of weapon (as suggested above) but rather they chew through ammo. Now if only they had machine pistols in mind when using that logic to decide what the cap should be for each ammo type.GT: ConceitedJarrad XBOX360 16:26, May 30, 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I don't find SMGs to be all that, excluded the legendary ones. The physical element ones are totally beat out by damage.I've found an Atlas Brand machine gun with15.0 fire rate, around 90 acc and 290 damage, pretty much beating my high fire rate SMG with about 17 ROF and 202 damage. The accuracy is in the high 80s.The highest damage I've seen a non element SMG do is 261, no were near 300+ like light machine guns. And still can maintain a decent fire rate of 12.5.

I understand where you're comming from. SMGs have good rates of fire (Exluding thumpers) and reload amazingly fast. I don't use siren for SMGs so much though. While it's true that sirens have quicksilver, a good Soldier with a Heavy Gunner COM as well as a good Savior can get the job done. My heavy gunner has a good increase in fire rate and magazine as well as metal storm and overload at +8. Killing an enemy turns my Savior into a recoiless minigun. Soldiers with SMG's are amazing to me. K D L I 19:56, May 30, 2010 (UTC)