PP-19

Overview

PP-19’s Neural Upgrade comes out swinging. The standard suite of stat buffs, and increased multipliers thanks to her increased rarity offer just what PP-19 wanted, boosts to her Damage directly, boosts to her HP, and a sizable boost in her Grenade’s multiplier. All of these things go a long way to improve PP-19’s ability to deal Damage, putting her in a better position to try and compete with Vector and Uzi Mod for the AoE Offtank role.

Savage Instinct is a powerful tool for PP-19, provided the situation allows for it. Any surviving enemies after her initial Grenade are peppered with additional Grenades every second or so, up to 4 additional Grenades, determined by her remaining number of Dummy Links. These Grenades deal less Damage, and only continue while enemies that were ‘Marked’ by the first Grenade are on the field, but they do help to clean up whatever PP-19’s first attack leaves alive.

Visually, this is not intuitive. While the Skill text says, ‘remaining Dummies will throw’, in practice not all Dummies will throw grenades, and sometimes two dummies will display the throwing animation at the same time. Do not be alarmed if the animation is weird, you will get the correct number of grenades.

Accurately estimating the increased Damage output from these grenades is tricky. Because these additional Grenades are tied to enemies that are marked by PP-19’s initial grenade, it is possible, and in fact, likely, that you will not get the full 4 additional Grenades. Most likely, PP-19’s teammates will kill off whatever is left behind, or PP-19 will eliminate the remaining enemies herself, leaving some extra Grenades in her pocket. This does little to directly mitigate her issues with leaving enemies alive with low health, as it will take an additional second or more for the second Grenade to be thrown, giving time for enemies to chip away at the Maintank before they are finished off. This can cut the other way however, if PP-19 catches backline units in her initial grenade, she can take them out with her extra Grenades, before her teammates have finished cutting down the frontline enemies. 

The second part of Savage Instinct is a conditional buff for when PP-19 is equipped with her Mod 3 SPEQ. Namely, PP-19 will receive a buff to either her Damage or Evasion, depending on whether or not her HP is the highest in her column. While PP-19’s mod does buff her HP significantly, she still lags behind the traditional main tanks, meaning without either the main tank sustaining Damage, or time sensitive micro, PP-19 is not likely to get her Damage Buff.

Again the game is deceptive. The in-game description says ‘Row’ but the game itself checks against her column.

The rest of PP-19’s kit is a smattering of improvements, including a buff to her Tile Buff rounding up her Damage buff, and adding an Accuracy Buff, along with improved coverage. This does give PP-19 a small but noticeable edge over her competition, in the ability to buff more than 1 AR.

Ultimately, PP-19’s Neural upgrade is a luxury rather than a requirement. It certainly improves her abilities, and offers some interesting new functionality, but given the increasingly niche nature of AR/SMG Echelons and the specific enemies they face, PP-19 struggles to find her place. For her fans, it is a reason to be excited, but this upgrade is likely to be quite far down the list for most other players. 

Her Mod art also do away with her leotard, so this is a rare case that the mod art is not an improvement.

Strengths

Savage Instinct

Savage Instinct offers a solution to PP-19’s issues with under killing enemies, offering a respectable additional AoE to her Echelon to situational boost her general DPS. The stat buffs when using her Speq are likewise appreciated, if somewhat difficult to extract full value from. 

Buffed Tiles

While only a minute buff to Damage, and Accuracy is not typically considered a problem for AR/SMG, PP-19’s improved coverage gives her a way to stand out from her competitors, buffing the Position 4 and 7 ARs. 

Improved Grenade

PP-19’s standard Grenade Performance sees a sizable improvement thanks to the boosted multiplier and her stat increases. This helps to bring her into line with her competition for Grenade Offtanks, and begins to offset her lack of DoT.

Weaknesses

Lags Behind Uzi Mod

While PP-19 Mod makes serious strides in DPS, she will still have a hard time competing with Micro Uzi’s Neural Upgrade, and the viral burning Damage over time it provides. 

ARSMG is niche in late content

Meta shifts have continued to disadvantage AR/SMG Echelons, leaving them to handle particular types of enemies that don't favour using AoE SMGs. This makes it hard for PP-19 to find situations where she can be fully effective. 

Team Options

416

ST AR-15

RO635

PP-19 Mod slots effectively into most standard AR/SMG Echelons, and those the usual AR/SMG suspects as her teammates. M4, AR-15, AN-94, G11, and other strong self buffing ARs will pair well with her. 

Special mention to 416, who can exploit PP-19’s Damage tile for her own Grenade, if using an AR/SMG Echelon to clear out large hordes of ELIDS or Strelets. 

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