I've been playing with the Breach missiles this past playthrough and I've been pleasantly surprised. No, they are not finishers but they are fairly accurate missiles and they do at minimum 245 damage to armor per missile (assuming the 150 is reduced to 15% of total by armor). In reality, they do much more than that and that's just the first missile because the second missile will have reduced 200 armor off that cell. The Small variant doesn't strike me as all that useful because of the smaller burst size and only getting 5 shot out of it. The Medium gives you larger burst size and 10 shots.
To put a Medium Breach into perspective, a 5-round burst that all hit one cell would completely strip any ship with less than 1425 armor. It would take an unmodified onslaught down to 440. Of course, the comparison would be against a Harpoon Pod which completely strips an Onslaught after the 3rd missile. However, you only get 3 bursts out of a Harpoon Pod and you get 10 out of a Breach Pod. If you fire Breaches right after the first shield drop, you can count on most ships being completely stripped of armor on that side. That pays dividends later on. Or to put it another way, Breaches are body blows while Harpoons/Torpedoes are head shots: the latter might score a KO but the former makes a protracted fight a lot shorter. I do agree that when you have an opening, you want to swing for the fences and finish the fight but Breaches allow you to soften more ships for yourself or your fleet.
I haven't played
that much with breaches, but when I did, it just felt like they really struggled to to get through PD, and they don't hit the same cell very much because they meander a lot. It just felt like they didn't do enough to justify the slot.
I guess a big part of the ratings was that I feel like annihilators are better than breaches, maybe I could bump annihilators to C+ or B- and breaches to C-/C idk. They just feel so un-impactful in comparison to all the other options you can use in the medium missile slot.
As for the rest of the list, the only S-tier weapon in my mind is the Cryoblaster. I don't think Sabots are quite S-tier, "A" to "A+" definitely but not S. There are "best in class" weapons that do what they do very well but because of high OP costs, short ranges, excessive flux cost, etc., I can't think of any that get into "broken" territory (which is kind of what S-tier is). Even the ones that I want to mention: Plasma Cannon, Heavy Needler, Light Needler/Railgun, Dual Flak, etc. all have drawbacks.
I think sabots are legitimately broken, not just best in slot. Zero flux burst kinetic damage is insane already, and you can't even drop shields without getting emp'd, the 2 stage deployment makes them mostly impervious to PD, and they have decent ammo. I don't see the downside. Sabots and cryoblaster are the only weapons I have rated as overall S tier so I'm pretty sure we agree on that. Cryoblaster is currently S++++ tier although that's a bit of a meme
.
I'm a proponent for the Phase Lance. Yes, it's wasted on shields but its murder against armor. I wish it was treated more like a Strike Weapon in the AI's hands but I don't complain too much. The alternative is a Pulse Laser and that absolutely will not hurt heavy armor. I rate both the Pulse Laser and the Phase lances very similarly, just on opposite sides of the same coin. Both are kind of generalists (Phase Lance is surprisingly effective against fighters) but one specializes in shields while the other against armor. Both are solid "B" options but overshadowed by the Heavy Blaster which is better than both if you can afford it. Ion Pulser is more specialized but its burst nature lends itself to some ships more than others. It's great on phase ships and Hyperions but I find its short range lacking for anything that lumbers. It also really likes to waste its ammo on fighters. I think "A-/B+" range is fair but it's not that much better than the Pulse Laser/Phase Lance, more of a different role than anything.
I rated pulse laser B+, phase lance B-, ion pulser A-, heavy blaster A, so I think we are on the same page? At least it seems like I could land on those grades more or less following your comments.
Phase lance has kinda low DPS, and I just find it tends to be more risky weapon since you generate a big spike of flux in your own ship when you use it. It always feels like it takes too long to kill things with it when I use it. All of that firmly bumps it to B for me (maybe B+ with pulse laser), and then AI issues get it to B-. I think Ion pulser is a clear step up from pulse laser/phase lance for me because it does so much ion damage, and then is still solid anti-shield and big burst damage too. Shutting down your enemies weapons is worth a lot in my book. Ion pulser isn't a gun I put in every slot, but I tend to have one in a majority of my high tech loadouts so I feel like it's gotta be an A tier. Idk, maybe I could see ion pulser at B+ with pulse laser, but I really think Ion pulser is at least a little better.
One observation: the highest graded HE non-missile is a "B-" (Heavy Mortar and Hephaestus). I find that pretty telling. Kinetics are valuable no doubt but there isn't a single HE option in the game better than a B-? Off the top of my head, the Heavy Mortar is an A-, the HAG is a B+, the Hellbore is closer to a B, Heavy Mauler is a B, LAG is a B-, Assault CG is definitely a C, and the Light Mortar is C-/D+.
I agree that it's telling, I think HE weapons are really lacking DPS compared to energy options (which also get some skill boosts), and Missiles do a ton of work now that you can get triple ammo, so ballistic HE is just less good these days IMO.
I could maybe give heavy mortar a flat B, but it's definitely not very good against heavy armor, and has mediocre DPS, I can't see going to A. It's just not that good of a weapon, no way it's a top tier choice.
Heavy Mauler I'm really not seeing the argument for higher grade. 137 DPS in a medium weapon is not enough for a B. It's a niche weapon that's only useful for 1000 range kiting builds, otherwise it just doesn't have the stopping power to kill things.
Hellbore has the same problem as Heavy Mauler: low DPS compared to other options. I also think about relative ratings: I don't think hellbore or hephaestus are as good as mjolnir which I think is no better than a B, and I'm not convinced hellbore is as good as hephaestus which has a B-. Idk maybe hellbore is better than gauss and haephestus. We are also talking about 'overall' ratings which are influenced by what ships you tend to use. If onslaught what the only ship with a large ballistic slot, then hellbore would be higher rated for me. At the end of the day, I think missiles + Mark IX and maybe mjolnir is most of what I use and gets the job done, but even more seriously, I'm using ships with large energy slots instead
. It will be interesting to evaluate next patch when low tech things get buffed.
I gave assault chain gun a C+ so we are on the same page there.
LAG does 40 damage per shot... Even with HE boost, it's not very good against armor, and then it's worse against hull. It's like barely even better than a railgun against hull/armor, I'm actually pretty sure railgun is better against very heavy armor since both will be at the max damage reduction and railgun has higher DPS. It also has terrible range. There's no universe where it's better than a C, and I think D is more appropriate. I think it's almost never worth wasting a small slot and 160 flux/sec on a 40 damage per shot HE weapon. At least the light mortar costs no flux giving it a niche. You will never kill anything with LAG outside of frigates, and low tech and midline definitely can't afford to spend so much flux on such a bad weapon.