submachines guns on the other hand are pretty good at killing heavies up close but you get owned by any assault rifle at mid range because the smg range is very short.

Oh? :-(

Man, that is depressing, if its true. I was really looking forward to using that thing, but maybe now i'll hold off...........dunno

Thanks for the replies at least.

i would try it, it's better if you try it and it's broken . then you can give feedback, and try and get the thing to work right.

Mass Driver is a cool sounding method of annihilation, it's bad ass to run with and usually takes Scouts down in one pop. In previous build I've ran it up to Proto, but I would advice you to get a good grip on standard level, just to be sure if this is really what you want to do. Because in DUST these babies need a lot more love.

What's the problem it solves? I really tried to, but I could not find good use for MDs in the middle of the battle, even when I took kills for 50% of my shots (I've got a good feeling with hip shooting + complex light dmg mod + relevant skills up). The issue here is that sometimes grenades would just go missing -- no splash, no nothing, and the guy would gun me. So you're dropping a pill in front of a campy scout and nothing happens. Literally nothing, like that 'nade was never there. Or, more painfully, I would get a direct hit face to face (heavies are easy for target practice dance) and... nothing would happen. Grenade connects, but no sign, no shield damage, nothing. Like dropped in a wormhole. You can always tell yourself "duds happen", but with blank ratio of 20% you start to wonder. This may be even more painful for those new variants that have reduced splash damage and require you to connect, but YMMV.

Aiming MD is hard. Precision shooting is a joke, it actually makes things worse. The faster you master hip shooting the better. You can really mix things up by spamming few 'nades into a group of dancing people or campers, but any AR on the same level will put you down. Getting the hang of the flight path is hard for your foes as well, but this give you an edge only for so long. So golden rule of combat applies here: be above your enemy & know your weapon. It may also work as support role, but the precision is really not helping with this.

So what I did: proto MD, advanced SMG, REs, Sleek AV and called him "Demo". Blew some serious stuff up, but fighting with ARs was hard. Only played with it to **** people off with rain o' nades. Now I'd probably put AR instead of that MD.

tl;dr Had loads of fun. Did not better my KDR.

They did buff the range of the SMG in this build........that is what perked my interest in using them

mass driver is good at extreme range also, that is what the sight is for.
line up elevation of sight of fixed point, fire, adjust elevation till range is set.
worked for taking drop ships off towers last build, and ones in flight with practice.
Could also be used to fire at snipers.
It arcs, so it can be used to hit enemies over a rise, preventing enemy having line of sight to return fire.
new breach would be good for tower campers, assault for anti-sniper since snipers tend to have weak tank and larger blast rof will aid in getting hits.

In mass driver/smg fits, the smg is the primary, the mass is a secondary special tasks weapon. Sidearm and secondary weapon are not always the same thing.

Love mass driver

It is an indirect fire support weapon. It is a mobile hand held mortar

If you max sharpshooter it can be semi effective at closer range

My#1 rule for employing the MD is: always hold the hi ground. Always

The dud/blank/misfire bug can be maddening. And it happens so often that it gimps the overall performance of the weapon system

I have found that the best way to somewhat mitigate this bug is to always be dropping rounds from a higher elevation. Even a small bump ( as in jump and shoot) can help.

I believe the angle that the round impacts the terrain or target is a big factor in whether it explodes

If your target is beyond CQC range then using the scope function can help

I often position the target visually in the notch below the pop up range finder and shoot

Depending on your elevation to target and optimal range of weapon this technique usually puts the round close to correct

I fire, pause to see impact then adjust fire

I am logistics so I am often just behind the assault push and dropping four fast rounds into or behind the enemy position is enough to disrupt there awareness in our favor

Here is something I noticed yesterday and need confirmed by other players:

I was running around in ambush yesterday when someone started dropping md rounds on me. They were offtarget and weak ( aren't we all ATM) so they didn't kill me but Wow! The noise and concussions and Smoke! The smoke thrown up completely obscured my vision for several seconds. If this is the close splash effect of md rounds I love it

Blowing guys up is good. But if you can't put the ammo on top of the guy then smoke, concussion and noise are great disruptions to have