This is for PvE: Which is better for all around usage?
I'm considering getting one just for the heck of it/ to try it out, not sure which one to choose:
-Neutralizer, being normal, works on everything.
-Biohazard, being works good on everything but fiends and undead. However, comes with poison, and I do have other pierce/elemental swords and guns (not a piercing gun, though)
Opinions plz? :D
Consier this:
Biohazard deals better damage against 2 types of enemies (Jellys and Gremlins), slightly lower damage on 2 types of enemies (beast and construct), and pitiful damage on the last 2 types of enemies (fiends and undead), while also poisoning things.
This means that biohazard has the upper hand when fighting 2/3s of the enemy classes in the game, unless you plan on using dread venom striker/venom veiler alongside it in a beast/construct stratum for some reason, or simply hate delivering poison status to enemies.
Of the enemies that biohazard is not effective against, undead consists of slags which are essentially walking treasure boxes with a large amount of health, and kats which dance about and make slow moving bullets hit walls. Fiends as a group consist of devilites which can zig zag around your bullets like its no ones business, trolljams which you must attack from behind, making the charge worthless, silkwings, which are already taken care of by your poisoning everything and grievers, which make gunners look [less awesome]. Why you'd want to fight any of these, other than "because I was bored" or "because I want to prove that I am somehow the best player ever with my neutralizer" is beyond me.
Biohazard is in turn good against slimes, which are all prime targets for a gun like biohazard, and gremlins, whom dodge bullets, but are expected to soon have a boss of their own, perhaps in tier 3.
I'd have to say that biohazard is hands down the better gun, and should be crafted first. T
Biohazard, because it has a definite role instead of trying a jack-of-all-trades approach.
@Fehzor how much more damage does Neutralizer do? Poison is a very mediocre status that really only shines when there are Menders in play. I'd argue that greater base damage is better than Poison. Of course I'd still agree that Biohazard is a better weapon overall simply because it is special typed, and Menders just happen to be weak to Shadow, but if you're using it on Beasts/Constructs Neutralizer is probably better.
Biohazard excels in RJP, and you'd have no reason to use a Neutralizer on fiends and undeads.
Note: The only reason people get normal damage versions of guns is to kill the enemies that their specialized counterparts can't touch.
Neutralizer: People get this to kill fiends and undead.
Iron Slug: People get this to kill slimes and constructs.
Supernova: People get this to kill gremlins and beasts.
I opted to start crafting up the neutralizer line first for one reason: messing with zombies.
The trouble with the catalyzer guns is that, while they're very safe to use and can be very effective, they're incredibly slow. By the time you've loaded up a jelly cube with a fun amount of biohazard charges, you could have liquified the entire group with an Acheron and moved on to the next room. As such, I don't feel that it's remarkably useful to try to evaluate the catalyzer guns from an optimization point of view.
From a having fun point of view, the slight edge in versatility makes the neutralizer a better choice, in my opinion.
idk, I've never tried it myself, but the whole "catalyzer" idea and mechanic seems to be very supportive of having multiple people with catalyzers. Unfortunately, you almost never see that. Now if you had 4 catalyzers - 3 charging and then having 1 detonate, I'd think that damage would be respectable for the time it takes.
In cases where there's only one catalyzer and one enemy, you're better off doing normal shots.
Neutralizer is better than Biohazard only for one enemy: Zombies.
But really, zombies are pretty harmless anyways (especially after the nerf), so I would recommend getting a biohazard.
And by the way, if you're not running solo, don't try putting a lot of charges on an enemy and then blowing it up.
The Catalyzer line is VERY slow, and teammates are likely to kill the enemies before you have a chance to do some good damage.
Just stick to regular shots with single enemies, and for crowds use one charge shot and immediately detonate (works great at close range; enemies will usually be knocked towards the right side of the screen).
Thanks for the responses all. I was thinking along the lines of what Nicoya said, since it's not really for legit use, just for the heck of it/ charge-explosion fun.
My next question: Is the charge time ok? (fully heated, no trinkets, no UV) As in, do i need to get a UV/ trinket to make it more useful? Or does the standard Med CTR work fine?
The damage on neutralizer is about 10-25% more than on biohazard (I haven't checked exactly, but I do have both of the four star versions, and that seems about right. 30% tops)... but poison stops menders, and makes it and other weapons deal more damage. So given a handful of random situations in any level, I'd rather have poison than the damage buff.
I haven't put any ctr on them, so I wouldn't know what about that, but from what I've heard, a damage buff would be more effective, as the charge time is already ridiculously fast.
Oh, and if you're going to make this, I'd recommend making a shivermist buster. It stops all enemies in their tracks, allowing you to fully set up charges, even on enemies like wolvers, gremlins, and mecha knights.
@Nicoya "By the time you've loaded up a jelly cube with a fun amount of biohazard charges, you could have liquified the entire group with an Acheron and moved on to the next room."
I'm assuming we would only be comparing a gun to a sword if we have 0 gun and 0 sword bonuses.
Neutralizer works on zombies while Bio doesn't. Zombies are extremely slow and weak and one of the funnest to watch big splosions on. And they are extremely easy to shield bump together to liquify 5 zombies at once. Zombies I am going to say are the one enemy that a catalyzer might even out-shine other guns, but not sure about that one.
My all time favorite gun is the Neutralizer for use on zombies because of how fun it is. Biohazard also sacrifices damage for poison, so Neutralizer works better on constructs.
So take your pic I'd say both are mainly for fun. Neut is my favorite gun of all just for screwing around.
@Fehzor "I'd recommend making a shivermist buster. It stops all enemies in their tracks, allowing you to fully set up charges, even on enemies like wolvers"
Not wolvers in tier 3 though. They will still burrow even while frozen.
A couple questions about these Catalyzer types: can the explosion that comes from detonating the detonation charges set off other detonation charges on nearby targets? Also, if one were to fire a detonation charge at an unaware Gun Puppy, would the attachment of that Det. charge be noticed by the Gun Puppy and cause it to start shooting (basically, could I use the Neutralizer to slowly take out turrets while out of their lines of sight)?
@Windsickle "can the explosion that comes from detonating the detonation charges set off other detonation charges on nearby targets?"
No :(
"Also, if one were to fire a detonation charge at an unaware Gun Puppy, would the attachment of that Det. charge be noticed by the Gun Puppy and cause it to start shooting?"
Yes :(
The lack of detonation chain reactions was my biggest disappointment with the catalyzer.
Drats. I think the Catalyzer types in general would be more commonly used if they could set off huge chains.
Double drats. I bet the Neutralizer and its variants would be more commonly used if one could destroy turrets without a scratch with them in such a fashion.
Am I correct in assuming that detonation charges don't break freeze?
Also, if one were to fire a detonation charge at an unaware Gun Puppy, would the attachment of that Det. charge be noticed by the Gun Puppy and cause it to start shooting
Yes, but if you detonate the charge during the attack, it interrupts it.
"Am I correct in assuming that detonation charges don't break freeze?"
When you detonate them yes. When you do not detonate them and just stack charges, then no it will not break freeze.
So shiver and neut is a nice combo, just that if you go solo it is easier to shield bump things together and not have to worry about a bad freeze where mobs are frozen far apart from eachother.
Thanks for all your responses! I'm probably going for biohaz first then.
Neutralizer's blast is also stronger, btw.
If you're only talking about between the two...
I feel like Biohazard is more useful because the monsters that are weak to shadow are gremlins and jellies, all of which are either slow or are desirable to keep at a distance (ex: in a challenge room, you can delay shots and send gremlins to the walls). It also shines in JK runs.
Other than that, there's not really much difference. I tried Neutralizer in FSC and it's ok, but people just prefer elemental/piercing guns there.
Honestly though, I think they're probably best if multiple people in the party have catalyzer-type guns, but you almost never see that :L
Heck, back when they were sort of the rage (aka just came out), I wasn't able to organize a catalyzer party lol.