What’s up guys, Rogue-9 here and in this video I will be taking a closer look at the guns in Apex Legends.
We have run some tests to determine their individual damage capabilities, rates of fire
and reload times to help you make better informed decisions when it comes to looting.
Which guns are worth picking up and which ones are best avoided unless you have no other choice?
Let’s go and have a look!
As always, you can access the spreadsheet I have created via a link in the description
below if you want to follow up on any of these stats for yourself and do keep in mind that
these stats are for the basic guns without any attachments.
Weapons in Apex Legends can be grouped together in two different ways.
We can group them by their ammo types: Light, Heavy, Energy, Shotgun and Legendary or we
can group them by weapon class, i.e.: Pistols, SMGs, assault rifles, shotguns, marksman rifles
and machineguns.
There is no damage drop-off over distance in Apex Legends, so your guns will do the
same damage at all ranges and the general rules of thumb are that Light ammo weapons
do the least damage, then Heavy and Energy guns, then shotguns and finally the two legendary weapons.
At the same time, within those ammo types, pistols and SMGs are weaker than assault rifles,
then machineguns, marksman rifles and shotguns.
And single shot damage is definitely an important factor, especially in close quarters combat
when there is cover to use.
Jumping around a corner and being able to get off up to 110 points of body damage or
165 headshot damage in a single shot with the Peacekeeper can be a massive advantage,
especially if you can pop back into cover to stay safe while you prepare your gun for the second shot.
In the right circumstances, single shot damage trumps damage output per second (or DPS) but
only if hitting your shots in a frantic gunfight is feasible, so with that in mind, let’s
look at some of the close range powerhouses first.
The stats you will see on screen for each gun will be their names, ammo type, magazine
capacity, body shot damage, headshot damage, rate of fire, reload times broken up into
full reload from empty and tactical reload with at least one bullet remaining and last
but not least, the body shot damage output per second.
Top of the list here, with the highest damage per shot and a very respectable fire rate
as an added bonus, is the Mastiff legendary shotgun.
Quick tip here: for a couple of the shotguns (the Peacekeeper and the EVA-8) the spread is fixed.
That means that aiming downs sights will not affect your spread pattern and you will have
an equal chance of hitting your targets while shooting from the hip.
But for a few weapons, aiming down sights will improve your spread which on the one
hand of course means that you will need to be a little more accurate with your fire but
on the plus side, it means that you have a greater chance of landing most if not all
of your pellets on target.
The Mastiff legendary shotgun will get a 50% spread improvement when you aim down sights,
as will the Mozambique shotgun pistol.
The Triple Take three shot marksman rifle spreads quite a bit when you fire from the
hip but gets an impressive 80% spread reduction when aiming down sights, allowing you to do
full damage even at long ranges.
So with the Mastiff, it can definitely make sense to ADS, especially if you need to reach
out to medium distances although of course like with all shotguns, close range is where it really shines.
The reload time for the Mastiff depends of the number of shots you end up adding back into the gun.
If it’s only a single shot, you will take just over half a second and then and extra
half a second for each further shot until a complete reload which is 4 shots, which
will take around 2.7s.
The Peacekeeper comes in at a relatively close third spot in terms of damage per shot before
the pack starts to separate out a bit more.
EVA-8 shotgun is the fifth most powerful gun overall and its improved fire rate compared
to the Peacekeeper can definitely make this another decent choice in close range peeking battles.
And after that, the single shot damage of the remaining guns is nothing really special.
The Wingman heavy pistol and Mozambique shotgun pistol still do 45 points of body shot damage
but the fire rate of the Mozambique and the controllability of the Wingman make these
guns challenging to use in frantic gunfights and I’m not really a fan of either of them.
But with the hardest hitting guns out of the way, let’s now move on to the DPS because
in theory, the faster you can dish out the damage, the more likely you are to win your gunfights.
The Devotion energy LMG is easily one of the best weapons in the game despite having a variable fire rate.
This odd machinegun starts off shooting quite slowly but then the rate of fire speeds up
as you continue your burst.
The average rate of fire across an entire 44 round burst is around 700 RPM and that
means that you can do almost 200 DPS to the body and 397 to the head of an opponent.
The fire rate from around the 15th shot and onwards maxes out at around 816 RPM which
can give you an even more impressive DPS value of 231 and 462.
Long story short, in terms of putting out the pain, the Devotion is one of the best
guns in the game, especially if you find a turbocharger attachment which reduces the
spin-up time of the gun and allows you to shoot at the full fire rate sooner.
Next up we have a pretty surprising entry with the R-99 light SMG.
In terms of its damage per shot, it is almost the lowest in the game but the excellent fire
rate of almost 950 RPM more than makes up for this and results in outstanding damage
output per second.
SMGs have amongst the slowest muzzle velocities in the game which makes hitting shots at longer
ranges quite challenging but at close to medium ranges, this little SMG can absolutely shred your opponents.
A capacity of only 18 shots and the 1.5 headshot multiplier are weaknesses of the gun but all
in all, this is not a bad choice to run with.
The Mastiff’s fire rate might not be in any way comparable to some of the full auto
weapons but combined with its power, it still results in one of the highest DPS values you
can achieve with any gun in the game.
Unsurprising really, considering that we’re talking about a very rare legendary weapon.
It’s meant to be OP.
Not far behind this though is the Prowler Burst PDW and this is a bit of an odd gun.
Many websites I have seen giving their opinion on the guns in Apex Legends will rank this
SMG pretty low but at this early stage, the Prowler is one of my favourite guns to use.
My fire rate and DPS calculations here are for the burst mode, so if you can add the
select fire attachment to this gun, you will be dealing with a seriously powerful firearm
(definitely one of the best in the game) and it is absolutely deadly at close to medium
range and can even be a nuisance to your opponents at longer ranges.
Just make sure you don’t go overboard with the covering fire because the heavy ammo tends
to be a bit challenging to get a hold of.
If you have the chance to grab a Prowler, I recommend you do so at any opportunity.
The Spitfire heavy LMG is another excellent choice.
One of the few weapons in the game with a decent capacity of 35 shots and very good
damage and fire rate stats give you a lot to work with at most ranges, as long as you
have some semi decent optics to allow you to reach out a little further.
As a machinegun, the Spitfire also gets the full 2 times headshot multiplier which will
make accuracy extra rewarding.
The only weakness you will face is relatively long reload times, so it will pay off either
have some cover to work with or to carry a decent backup weapon.
And the list goes on in that way.
I would say that down to around the 150 DPS mark for body shots, you’ll be working with some decent guns.
The R-301 Carbine, the Hemlock Burst AR and the VK-47 Flatline are all very reasonable
choices with all-round decent damage and fire rate stats.
The only remaining gun that stands out at the top of the list in terms of DPS is the
Wingman heavy pistol.
On paper, this gun should be great.
It has high damage and a very decent semi-auto fire rate which both result in a very good DPS stat.
But I personally really find this gun much less useful in practice.
When aiming down sights, the gun model (and its sights) will whip upwards with every shot,
making it difficult to track your targets while firing at the maximum fire rate.
And in my personal experience, hip-firing even at very close ranges is not really all
that viable either.
I have had engagements where I put all six bullets from this damned gun straight at an
enemy, basically at touching distance, and nothing hits.
Maybe I just need more time and experience to figure out how to properly use this thing
but so far, I have been left disappointed after literally every gunfight.
But like I say… maybe that’s just me because on paper, this thing looks great.
Once we go to the bottom end of the table in terms of DPS, ironically we will find some
of the most powerful guns, including the legendary Kraber .50-CAL right at the very bottom.
The fire rate of the Kraber is so slow, that it takes over 2s to load the gun in between
shots and even though each shot will deal a massive 125 points of baseline damage to
the body, the DPS still only comes up to a laughable 58.
At long range fighting, this sniper rifle is unmatched.
You can really deliver some pain with this gun, especially if you catch an opponent standing
still and you can deliver a headshot.
But in close ranged, frantic gunfights?
You either need a serious dose of luck in terms of delivering a headshot on the move
or some god tier skill because every shot will count.
Slightly better in terms of DPS but even harder to use at close ranges (IMO) is the Longbow heavy DMR.
Damage per shot from this gun is very decent but while the fire rate is quicker than for
the Kraber, it is still painfully slow with almost a second between each shot.
Once again, this gun is a dedicated long range weapon and as long as you keep your distance,
this rifle can be an excellent tool for you.
But if you end up fighting up close and personal, you better bring a reliable backup gun because
this one won’t be of much use to you.
And finally, to round out this list of great guns that end up with low DPS, we also have
the Peacekeeper towards the bottom of our list.
This doesn’t mean that it’s a bad gun.
You just need to make sure that you land your shots and that you have cover to work with.
The Triple Take energy marksman rifle is a little higher up the table when we sort by
DPS and it is a very good choice at longer ranges but just like with all of the other
marksman rifles, the short range utility is limited.
Firing three shots at once and being able to take advantage of larger spread when hip
firing plus a fire rate that isn’t completely terrible make this gun a little more balanced
and therefore probably one of the best marksman rifles overall.
It does more damage than the Longbow for each shot (as long as all three bullets hit) and
it has a higher fire rate and faster reload.
As unimpressive as its DPS stat may be, the Triple Take is a great long range weapon that
isn’t completely useless at closer ranges.
With that, we’ve now discussed almost all of the guns in turn with only a few mediocre
and less desirable specimens remaining.
The G7 Scout is not a bad gun at all, it’s just not really a master at anything.
It’s ok at long ranges but not nearly as good as the more dedicated marksman rifles
and it’s ok at close ranges but not as good as many of the high DPS weapons I listed in the beginning.
If you don’t manage to find one of the other marksmen rifles, it can definitely pay to
pick up a G7 alongside another weapon just to give yourself a little bit of reach but
all in all this gun is just a bit too “middle of the road” to really allow you to dominate.
The RE-45 full-auto light pistol is very weak and even though it has a pretty respectable
fire rate, this gun is really only good at relatively close ranges and even here, the
damage output does not really impress.
And the same kind of goes for the Alternator light SMG.
It trades a bit more power for a slower fire rate and ends up with the lowest DPS for any
fully automatic gun in the game.
During early parts of the round when any gun will do, these choices are better than nothing
but I would definitely recommend trading up to a different light ammo gun or even a different
gun altogether at the earliest opportunity.
And last and IMO also least, we have the Mozambique shotgun pistol and the P2020 light semi-auto pistol.
These weapons really are two of the bottom tier guns in the game and should only really
be used during the early stages of a match when you need just any gun to be able to defend yourself with.
Once you’ve survived the initial drop and the early engagements, you need to switch
to more useful guns ASAP.
The P2020 does not convince at all with a small magazine, low damage, low muzzle velocity
and mediocre fire rate… this gun really has almost nothing going for it except for
a very quick reload time for both full and tactical reloads.
The Mozambique may have a bit more power for each shot but you only have three to go with,
plus the fire rate and reload times are pretty abysmal.
Yeah, the only way in which you are winning a gunfight against a competent player with
the Mozambique is if your opponent has no gun at all.
So there you have it, each and every gun discussed.
To summarise: Obviously the two legendary guns are great in their individual roles and
you should use them whenever you can but apart from them, the Devotion energy LMG is definitely
one of my overall favourites.
For heavy ammo, the Prowler or Spitfire are definitely top contenders although the Hemlock
and Flatline are very good options as well.
Light ammo guns are all in all the most common but also the weakest weapons available but
in terms of DPS, the R-99 or even the R-301 Carbine can definitely hold their own at close to medium ranges.
The marksman rifles are worth picking up for some long range capability with the Kraber
at the top, followed by the Triple Take, the Longbow and then the G7 as an all-rounder.
At close range the Peacekeeper is absolutely devastating but the EVA-8 is also ok.
What are your favourite guns in the game so far?
Let me know in the comments section below and with that, as always: thank you for watching,
I hope you enjoyed the video and I will see you in the next episode!