Assault Rifles - G&M's for high damage, good range and low damage drop-off are generally the best—some even penetrate. Special 1-offs like the MXR Sirius are aight. Blazer is Ranger's best weapon in the game but it's DLC mission pack weapon. Most assault rifles are pretty garbage, you should favor shotguns more. A lot more.

Shotguns - This is where it's at. Ranger's bread and butter. 90% of the missions you should bring a shotgun. Slaughter series is your all-rounder with great range, hard to go wrong with one. Monsoons can be useful in crazy-ass swarm missions like Brutal Battlefield cause they reload so damn fast you can always be shooting. SGN is niche but does amazing burst damage and can be good for nuking froggie boys and greys. Some like Breachers for the big bois like king spiders and the kaiju. Did I mention shotguns also penetrate through multiple enemies at closer range? Yeah, use shotguns.

Snipers - the NP3/4 burst fire snipers are solid—great damage if all shots hit. Ptarmigan and Dunkels have the highest DPS but their per shot damage suffers so no 1-hit kills. Lysander is fun just cause that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sound effect when it fires is good. Nothing really jumps out here—snipers tend to have low DPS due to slow firing rate or long ass reloads but they can get the job done. Mostly anti-air for drones or shooting off frog heads.

Rocket Launchers - Yeah, no. They got smashed with the nerf bat coming from EDF 4.1 and are all pretty garbage. Maybe the higher end Hornets and the Leopards? Don't use rocket launchers.

Missile Launchers - Solid anti-air combined with the rapid lock-on support equipment. Emeralds are good all-rounders. MLRA's with the all-lock-on-same-target support equipment can see some use or try to stunlock lots of bees with it. Some guys might get some use with FORKs against frogs/greys but I don't buy it. The Prominence and Air Tortoise attempt to act like a mini Air Raider Tempest...and fail. Really, you want the Emeralds—with the lock-on speed/range boost equipment they can even be viable primary weapons on bug heavy missions and ARE primary weapons on flier heavy missions. Lock-on speed is super critical for most missile weapons so hopefully you get upgrades for that stat.

Grenades - Hand grenades are all pretty much memes but you'll see some white knights trying to defend them by pulling some niche use out of their ass. What you're looking at here is basically Stampedes for mass, almost Air Raider style bombardment when fired upwards or better-than-rocket-launchers Grenade Launcher UM series (NOT the timed detonation ones).

Special - The Super Acid Gun is like a mini-blazer, most don't even notice or consider it but with decent upgrade level this thing outputs an asston of damage. The c-bombs are niche spawn-camping weapons for when you know the missions like the back of your hand. The Reverse Shooters (NOT the other Reversers that shoot a stream) are on-demand healing and are as great as they sound—hard to go wrong with a Slaughter series shotgun and Reverse Shooter combo. All the rest of the junk like the Impulses are for memes.

Most of Ranger's vehicle choices are for memes and you're better off bringing an armor that makes you walk faster. A shout out to the Brute series helicopters though, (not the flame thrower one) for being stationary turrets that you don't fly. but instead hop into a gun turret and snipe teleportation anchors with.

Ranger without a Blazer is the worst class in the game, easily. Hopefully he gets buffed in EDF 6. Until then one of his most powerful combos that doesn't rely on DLC weapons is the Slaughter EZ shotgun and Reverse Shooter X. The Slaughter EZ can deal with almost anything and the Reverse Shooter X gives you like 8 extra health bars when you aim at your feet and shoot it.

Short Range - Wing Divers best weapons, easily. Wing Diver is an agile assassin that can dodge even in the air, and the super powerful 1-shot short range weapons play to her strengths perfectly. There are three different weapon series under this category that are so good that they deserve their own paragraph:

Phalanxes do insane damage, and will shred ANYTHING up close. Use them to point-blank destroy teleportation ships and anchors in just a few seconds. They also stunlock and shred frogbois and greys in a blink of the eye. The strongest weapon in the game is the Phalanx ZAT that does over 100,000 damage PER SECOND. Rapiers just don't have the damage and focused firepower to match.

Power Lances/Double Lance/Triple Lance series of weapons also do great damage, charge super quick and cost so little energy that they may as well be free. You can easily keep mobile and 1-shot most enemies while not worrying much about energy. Also great for popping drones.

Dragoon Lance's longer range makes them a bit safer to use + they do insane burst damage. Pop all the frog heads or 1 shot to remove the armor and then a second shot to kill a grey. They also penetrate, lovely. Since they do such high per shot damage you don't need to fully charge them to kill weaker enemies like spiders which of course saves you energy.

Kinetic - uhhh, no, not when playing online. Magblasters are garbo. Maybe, MAYBE the Magblaster "D" series do enough damage to bring for kicks and giggles but otherwise avoid these. They suck—the damage loss at half charge remaining is just retarded.

Energy Weapons - not near as good as they were in EDF 4.1. The Lightning Bows also suffer from degraded performance at lower charges. Still, they aren't as bad as Magblasters as they can damage multiple enemies at once. The Thunder Crossbows are an okay-ish longer range option if you're bored and wanna try something new.

Pulse Weapons - the Stardust Cannons have their uses, basically energy shotguns. If all pellets hit they do really solid damage and they also have viable anti-air capability thanks to no damage drop-off at long range and sheer number of pellets. The Pulse Machine Guns are straight up TRASH TIER, for real, they are hilariously bad. Want to knock ants up into the air every which way and not actually kill anything? Bring a pulse machine gun.

Long Range - your snipers. Most cost too much energy and do too little damage. Shooting drones out of the sky or popping bees maybe? For those couple of missions with nothing but Deroys, bringing a Big Bang Core and a Raijin can be good for some laughs.

Ranged Weapons - why not call them Plasma Weapons? Anyway, two that really jump out are the low level Plasma Heavy Cannon and the mid level Plasma Great Cannon. Both of these weapons do crazy high single shot damage that is useful well beyond the weapon level you get them at. Plasma Great Cannon truly is great, and paired with a Big Bang Core the Wing Diver turns into a long range super artillery that can put the Air Raider to shame in some scenarios. All of the other weapon types are pretty meh, except for maaaybe the Plasma Burst Cannon 4D (NOT the 4Z).

Homing Weapons - Not great. Geists kill you and your teammates as much as they do enemies, Psi Blades would be good if they didn't cost so much energy and the Mirages do pathetic damage. Now, the high level Mirages that attack like 15 enemies at once do have a purpose in stunlocking swarms of bees and knocking tadpoles out of the air but they still take ages to actually kill anything. Ghost Chasers have a fairly similar role to the Mirages that attack many targets at once—stun locking bees and tadpoles. It has a lot higher DPS than Mirage but also much faster energy drain. Pulsing the trigger to fire in bursts to keep enemies stunlocked and not drain your tank is a good idea.

Special - The only commonly used one here are the Gleipnirs whose homing attacks are basically like a Mirage that you fire and forget. Poor damage unless hitting only a handful of enemies but they can still stunlock large numbers of bees. Good anti air and pair with a core with very fast weapon recharge and bring TWO Gleipnirs and you'll be able to have 3-4 of them out at once putting on a real light show for the memes. The rest of the weapon types here are pretty lolbad except in rare niche scenarios.

Don't play Wing Diver as a back row floozie sitting up on a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ skyscraper, get up close and 1-shot everything while using your speed and dodges to avoid projectiles. You'll almost always want to bring one of the three Short Range weapons and fill the other slot with something to deal with the rare few things that a Phalanx or Lance can't.

Artillery - so, yeah. Some of them have pretty impressive stats but you wanna know what makes them garbo choices for the vast majority of missions? First, the call-in time takes an eternity. Second, the smoke grenade targeting is terribad. So not only are they a PITA to aim where you want, but then it takes ages for anything to happen so often times enemies have moved out of the area. NICE. Not. Don't even bother really, there are much better options.

Gunships - lots of a good stuff here. You're looking for the Miniguns/Vulcans, Single Barreled/Lapis, Neutralize Cannons and sometimes one of the Rapid Fires/Consecutives for heavy targets like frogbois. The thing with Gunships is they are snappy, fast to call-in and you can quickly use them to take down single enemies—they also shred stationary things like anchors and wreak the kaiju monsters which are so big that almost all Gunship shots will hit them. Best of all they reload even when not selected and do NOT cost credits. They each have their strengths, for example Neutralize Cannons are good for taking down flying enemies so defs experiment—Gunships are worth it.

Bombers - what Air Raiders are most famous for. You basically want the KM6 and Phobos. Phobos for mass annihilation of fodder enemies like bugs and KM6 for being hella cheap, fast to call in and being more multi-role—line them up right to pop large heavy targets like big anchors and surprisingly, anti-air role. KM6 have no area effect on their machine gun strafing so 95% of the time you can safely call them in right over you and your teammates and no one will get hurt. Vesta's are great for blinding your teammates and making it harder for them to move around and doing ♥♥♥♥ all damage against anything but fodder enemies like ants and spiders—if you're fighting fodder bring a Phobos. Oh, I guess Vesta has one niche: green ants...but then you have flame turrets don't you?

Missiles - if you're gonna use missile call-ins the big thing to remember is that once you activate them, they take awhile to reach the battlefield. Don't just keep the laser pointer beeping for 15 seconds straight, swap to another weapon while you wait for them to fly over and then swap back to them to aim them in—don't waste DPS time. Tempests cost credits and take ages to call-in but being able to 1-shot or nearly kill a Death Queen or Silver King can take a huge load off. Lionics and Cruise Missiles cost no credits and reload on their own, but aiming them all into targets effectively can be tricky and you often end up wasting multiple missiles. Nothing amazing here.

Satellites - Spritefall and Bulge Laser. Of the two, Spritefall is superior. Spritefalls are great and can be used in many situations and only really struggle against heavy, high health targets like armored greys. The early Bulge Lasers are garbo that deal pitiful damage but the higher end ones can be used to assassinate heavy targets and anchors. Spritefall Shooting mode is fairly memes but if you are fighting enemies that give enough credits to instantly recharge it (like type 2 drones) it can be funsies.

Limpet Guns - only for those who play solo and not online. Other players can deal with teleportation ships for you while you bring much more powerful weapons (or use a Nix). Buster Bomb is a standout weapon for underground tunnel missions though.

Stationary Weapons - Robot Bombs are memes, don't bother. Turrets though, are not. Turrets can be great, even when playing online with other players. A bullet turret and flame turret combo for underground missions is a go-to. Bullet turrets (especially Zera and Zexr) are excellent anti-air and personal defense options when you don't bring a Gunship. The rocket turrets do heavy damage but have a very high risk of friendly fire—only use on open, flat maps for the most part. The flame turrets can stunlock bugs and damage multiple at once, great underground and against frail green ants but friendly fire can be a problem as well.

Support Gear - there is a time and a place for power/guard posts. Mostly on missions where you stay in the same place like when fighting along side big NPC armies. +50% damage and -50% damage suffered is no joke. Guide Beacons are for other players, like Fencer players so they can use their super missile options like Leviathans.

Special - Suppress Guns are rofl-tier shotguns meant for basically killing a red ant that has bitten you. Decoys are not worth a slot. Shield walls, sometimes. The big long walls are great for messing with greys and frogmen by blocking their shots, or for laying out a wall to protect your big NPC armies of tanks and Nixes.

Vehicles - Air Raider has many. Barga is for punching frogs and greys and surprisingly tadpoles due to how they dive bomb into it. It is not for punching kaiju like the game leads you to believe (bringing 2-3 gunships will take down the kaiju far faster). The low-end Nixes are pretty bad due to how slow as hell they are, but the higher end ones become far easier to handle, have tons of armor and in the case of the "RED" series mechs can haul ass by spamming forward jumps. Nixes can also take out teleportation ships effectively. Depth Crawlers are a given for underground missions. The rest I haven't mentioned are either niche (niche doesn't mean useless) or just plain bad.

Air Raider is a fun class that plays best when other players can keep stray enemies off him so he can go balls out damage. Or, he can play more of a support role, buffing his team and protecting them with shields. Playing solo is possible but you're going to run into some headache missions for sure, his lack of mobility early on makes him super vulnerable to enemies that get past his bombers and other mass area weapons—Gunships, turrets and a vehicle can help here but even so, some missions will be rough alone.

CC Strikers - hmmm. Well, they are there and they are options. I don't use them, and in 500 hours of online playtime it is very clear that no one else uses them. They are too slow, too clunky or have too low a DPS—the damage mitigation bonus becomes less viable on the harder difficulties and you have better options for AoE killing fodder enemies. If this entire weapon category was cut and replaced in EDF6 I would not shed a single tear.

CC Piercers - oh yeah, THAT'S THE STUFF. Everything but Flashing Spears are very solid weapon choices. Blasthole Spears are your all-rounders that can pierce through big swarms of fodder enemies and even pop drones—they have a longer range making them easier to use. Blast Twin Spears are your balls out DPS meta that require max Swing Speed stat and backwards dashboosting to offset the charge forward from each swing but they can obliterate frogs and greys in a blink of an eye. Jackhammer's true strength lies in the fact that you can fire another weapon while firing the Jackhammer (pair with Dexter Shotgun). Spine Drivers are better than Flashing Spears but not by much, they are simple to use with longer range though and can 1-shot 1-kill most things. You'll almost always want 1 set with a CC Piercer and then something else that gives a boost so you can dashboost jump.

Shields - my advice on shields is to not use shields. They are noob traps. They give you the impression that Fencer is suppose to slowboat around and take hits on the shields. He isn't, at all. You can go the entire game without ever needing to use a shield, and you'll be the better for it. LEARN ABOUT DASHBOOST JUMPING and never consider shields again outside of super memes or rare niche scenarios.

Autocannons - Gatlings are there. Just there. Overshadowed by snappier, higher DPS weapons. Galleons aren't great either but the multi-burst ones or the rapid fire ones output decent damage at longer range—I've used them against fliers time to time. Flame Revolvers can rapidly mow down almost anything but require you to dedicate a bonus slot to a Muzzle Stabilizer and the spin-up time if not upgraded can be a deal breaker. Disrupters are niche but a twin set of them can slaughter anchors/frogs/greys crazy fast—make sure you swap to the other weapon set to stop them from firing when done. What you're really looking at is the DEXTER AUTOMATIC SHOTGUNS. These babies ♥♥♥♥ out tons of DPS at a shorter range like any good shotgun does. Now, they don't pierce like Ranger's shotguns do but you can easily pair them with a weapon that does such as a Blasthole Spear. However, the JACK AND DEX combo (Jackhammer and Dexter Shotgun) is some of the highest damage a Fencer can do since both weapons can fire at the same time, combing their DPS. Jack and Dex stunlocks almost any heavy target like frogs/greys/mother monsters/kings and shreds them hella fast too. The cherry on top is you can still dashboost jump with the Jack and Dex. Great stuff.

Cannons - The Hand Cannons require a Muzzle Stabilizer which hurts them but when you have a twin set firing they are okay-ish, they compete with their heavier brothers in the same role which is basically long range sniping of heavy targets like anchors/frogs. Gallic Heavy Cannons are Hand Cannons writ large—much slower RoF but much higher shot damage. I prefer the Gallics as the highest end ones outclass their little brothers and excel at destroying anchors and teleportation ships at very long range—Gallic's rate of fire is slow enough that you don't need a Muzzle Stabilizer. Canister and Cannon Shots are rarely used but not useless, not much to say about them other than they have terrible reload times. Light Mortars are bad since they ragdoll enemies around w/o killing them, stick to the Heavy Mortars for AoE killing stuff mainly in underground missions. DISPERSAL MORTAR = GOOD. Dispersal Mortars are basically shotguns and you should treat them as such—they can deal insane damage if all "pellets" hit the same target. They suffer from few shots per reload and longer reload times but the YH3 Dispersal Mortar in particular is so good that you can use it even into early Inferno.

Missile Launchers - You're looking at the High Altitude Impact Launchers (HAILs). HAILs are superb all-rounders that are great against fliers and swarms of fodder enemies. A twin set of them has massive damage potential that can be output from halfway across the map and are one of Fencers best options for kiting deathballs of enemies some silly ass Air Raider created when he pulled the entire ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ map. They are not to be used against heavy targets like armored greys and mother monsters (unless you are kiting for your life) and DEMAND that you have Lock-on Speed stat maxed. Arm Hounds are memes and Arcanes are too slow and prone to friendly fire. For the Air Raider only weapons that require a Guide Beacon you are looking at the Haytal Multi-Missile Launchers (highest overall DPS due to rapid lockon-on time and okay reload speed) and the Leviathans (insane single shot damage and massive blast area but super slow lock-on time and reload speed). You need to ask an Air Raider to bring a Guide Beacon for you and then actually use it on the right targets for these weapons to be effective so sadly they are used quite rarely, meaning they are for niche and memes.

The #1 rule of Fencer is to learn how to DASHBOOST JUMP—bring 1 weapon with a dash and 1 weapon with a boost and then equip the dash/boost cells or a multi-charger. Next you dash forward and then immediately boost up and you'll go flying forward at high speeds—you can chain them together before you land thanks to the cells/multi-charger so you can literally fly around at high speeds. Once you learn how to chain dashboost jumps you'll realize Fencer is best played as a hella fast and mobile class that dances around the battlefield slaughtering everything with the high damage CC Piercers + a Dexter or Dispersal mortar. The second set of two weapons covers whatever the first weapon set can't—usually twin HAILs, Gallic Cannons or Heavy Mortars.