If you boil a lobster slowly it will not scream.

It's technically immortal since it keeps on growing. Fun fact.

It's technically immortal since it keeps on growing. Fun fact.

Because they should be worth equipping, and the choice on whether sidearms should be powerful or not is a design choice, not a balancing factor.

Also, they still are weaker than primary weapons, by about 10-15%. They also shoot only 60-70% as far as their primary counterpart, on average.

Woo! Fundamentally flawed human physiology which leads to inevitable death! Woo!

Let's be honest, do you really want humans to live forever?

Let's be honest, do you really want humans to live forever?

EDIT: On topic: Side arms have some shortcomings, as IWS said above, that limit their ability in relation to light weapons.

Makes you wonder who the first human was to eat a lobster. Gutsy call, that one, seeing as how they look like giant sea cockroaches.

Delicious sea bugs they are! aaarrrgh

I like the bolt reload and pg buff, the damage buff wasnt quite needed since they fixed range hit detection they could either:
Keep the reload and pg and return the damage to old and revert the clip and capacity to old

Or

Mtl 160

Std 170

Adv195

Proto 220

And keep the guns new changes

Btw ive had it at proficiency 5 since release

who cares who had what first? your like a little kid "oooh i had that toy first but now everyone uses it so i have to not look like a copy cat I HAD IT FIRST SO MEH!" get a life bro.

Sidearms should be great enough back up weapons and finishers. Because they're not primary weapons they and currently do suffer in endurance and generally range. Most light weapons can go much longer in combat without ammo restocking than most sidearms as well.

Resorting to sidearms only should also only be a hallmark of skill. That you have given up quite a few benefits to put the smack down with the puny guns.

One more advantage side arms have is the damage modules being much stronger than light damage mods.

Now the bolt pistol may need a slight drawback but its goal should still remain the same.

It's the kind of pistol you'd want for accuracy target shooting tournaments.

Scramblers are like your 9mm
Ions are your 45 calibers with charge function
Flaylock is your 12 gauge multi round rocket launcher
SMGs are your spray and pray room clearers.
Magsecs are your urban spec ops weapon.
and Knives are knives.

It actually makes me want to cry hearing someone refer to the ScP as being like a 9mm... Why'd they have to ruin it, IWS, wai?

Ikr?
I'd been running Placons since 1.5, and I am nothing but happy that they are finally good. I just wish they would add a variant that works like they used to.

wtf is a placon?

Makes you wonder who the first human was to eat a lobster. Gutsy call, that one, seeing as how they look like giant sea cockroaches.

Delicious sea bugs they are! aaarrrgh

Edit: oh and my original thought for the OP, since DUST isn't getting any new content, think of the sidearm buffs as, well, new content. Mercs using sidearms as their main is the closest to new weapons we are gonna get. Glass half full and so on.

If i remember properly originally lobsters were fed to the help of the house and not considered a delicacy at all.

Bolt is a bit OP. But sidearms should be lethal. They should just not be able to serve as well in an active combat situation where you're contending with multiple targets.

Shouldnt sidearms be at least a little less powerful than other primary weapons?
It just seems weird to me running into so many people using the bolt pistol as their primary weapon.

Also as a side note the only reason the burst hmg is so awesome is because i seem to constantly run into newbs. It seems there are a lot of people that dont understand the role of a heavy yet. We are walking tanks, we have hps and dps, Running up to us to melee us dead is going to make you turn into a pile of goo in no time flat. Now i say this because after playing a few days in a row now i have had countless players actually charge me running at a sprint into me. I normally hold fire these days if a clone is sprinting at me especially if they have a rifle in hand ( NK'ers get sprayed will dead and a few extra in the corpse! ) then they stop like 20 meters out and decide to engage me. I cant even count how often this has happened but i have yet to be taken out in this manner.

So in all seriousness when i think of a sidearm i think of something that is more of a close combat weapon. I have seen the bolt pistol being used at 50-70 yard with pretty good accuracy which is where a rifle really should perform better.