Waifu Wars Polarized Light #2: Rifles

I'm no gun buff, so I'm not actually familiar with the IRL gun lore, but I can tell you that, in-game, C-MS and T-CMS are quite unrelated. C-MS is an SMG, while T-CMS is an RF, and the former is top tier, while the latter is mediocre.

Garand is even more mediocre because her skill is also useless on a doll that doesn't have the stats to back its use up. We'll get to Garand later, let's focus on T-CMS for now. She is a simple FP self-buffer, but it's important to remember that she's still a 3* doll, and a login doll, no less.

This means that her base stats and skill multiplier are significantly lower than what the KCCO camper echelons need. For instance, T-CMS’ 120 base damage and 60% FP skill multiplier compared to Lee-Enfield’s 135 base damage and 75% FP skill multiplier result in 30% less DPS. This lacklustre performance makes fielding her on a camper significantly harder than your life needs to be, so she goes to the Paradeus echelon, where the requirements are significantly lower.

Read: not good enough for ranking.
This means that her base stats and skill multiplier are significantly lower than what the KCCO camper echelons need.

Yes

Not sorry, Crally.

This stylish chick is, at first glance, simply an FP self-buffer RF, so one may be tempted to put her on a KCCO camper. However, it is important to remember that, as a 3* doll (and a login doll, at that), her base stats and skill multiplier are unfortunately significantly lower than what the KCCO camper echelons demand. For instance, T-CMS’ 120 base damage and 60% FP skill multiplier compared to Lee-Enfield’s 135 base damage and 75% FP skill multiplier result in 30% less DPS. This lacklustre performance makes fielding her on a camper significantly harder than your life needs to be, so she goes to the Paradeus echelon, where the requirements are significantly lower.

XM3’s story is similar to, but has subtle differences from, T-CMS’s. She is a 4* night-focused RoF self-buffer RF, which leads to a slightly different situation. As a 4* RF, her base stats and skill multiplier are indeed slightly better than T-CMS’, but more importantly, her skill is night-focused. Of course, this wouldn’t be a problem in a night ranking, but PL’s ranking map is a daytime map, which means XM3’s skill activation gives her a measly 32% RoF buff, a far cry from the 100% buff at night. Thus, her overall performance for PL specifically is also lacklustre, so she goes to the Paradeus echelon as well. Notice that both T-CMS and XM3 are self-buffers, which makes it easier to pick out the buffers that will go on the Paradeus echelon.

While bamboos are typically frowned upon for most general content, the KCCO fights this ranking have Doggos. Doggos have a special and extremely frustrating skill: for the majority of the fight, they hole up behind an HP shield that reduces all incoming damage to 1, which is why we typically bring high RoF or multi-hit ARs to handle Doggos.

However, the armored units being escorted by the Doggos makes it very difficult for ARSMG echelons to handle the KCCO spawns until the last two turns of the ranking. Consequently, we prefer at least one charged shot RF to quickly deal a very large burst of damage to the Doggos during the short periods their shields are down. Springfield is able to deliver on that in a timely fashion, which is why she goes on a KCCO camper.

Everyone’s favourite café bartender, Springfield brings something different to the table. As a 4* charged shot RF with a SPEQ that raises her base RoF (acquired from 1-4N), Springfield has respectable base stats (superior to even those of the renowned War Goddess M14). However, what really separates her from the mediocre self-buffers in this ranking is the fact that she uses a charged shot. 

While bamboos are typically frowned upon for most general content, the KCCO fights this ranking have Doggos. Doggos have a special and extremely frustrating skill: for the majority of the fight, they hole up behind an HP shield that reduces all incoming damage to 1, which is why we typically bring high RoF or multi-hit ARs to handle Doggos. However, the armored units being escorted by the Doggos makes it very difficult for ARSMG echelons to handle the KCCO spawns until the last two turns of the ranking. Consequently, we prefer at least one charged shot RF to quickly deal a very large burst of damage to the Doggos during the short periods their shields are down. Springfield is able to deliver on that in a timely fashion, which is why she goes on a KCCO camper.

Gepard M1, let's see. She's another 3* login doll, but this time, also a charged shot RF. Unlike Springfield, however, Gepard’s base stats are significantly worse than Springfield’s, which makes her unable to contribute significantly to the dangerous armored enemies hiding behind the Doggos, while her brutally long 8s initial cooldown and ridiculously long 7s full stack charging time makes her a poor choice for dealing with Doggos as well.

As a result, it would simply be too painful to put her on a KCCO camper echelon.

Regardless… different bamboos have different base stats, different multipliers, different targeting, different ICDs, different charge times, different aim times, …
And you expect them to all perform the same?

Indeed, Mosin-Nagant has an incredibly high Firepower stat, but it would be erroneous to say that she has the second highest FP in the game if you ignore her 5-4N night SPEQ. It's only after her Mod 3 and night SPEQ that she surpasses DSR-50, surprisingly enough, and just barely (ahead by 3 points before accounting for affection, and actually behind DSR-50 by a few points after 90+ affection). However, her incredible base stats and skill 1 are already justification enough to put her on a KCCO camper for essentially the same reasons as Springfield.

One would be remiss to forget, however, that post-mod, Mosin becomes a terror on the battlefield. At Mod 1, she acquires 5* status, giving her even better base stats and a higher skill multiplier, and at Mod 2, she unlocks access to her mod skill, which fundamentally changes how she is used.

Long story short, it’s an excellent skill that buffs Mosin the more kills that she racks up, snowballing her sustained DPS to levels that can rival 5* self-buffers such as Lee-Enfield and WA2000, while still keeping the charged shot that makes her so desirable for fighting Doggos. Her Mod 3 SPEQ gives a few extra points of crit rate and accuracy, but is not particularly useful for her performance in the grand scheme of things. For this, we only have even more reasons to put Mosin Mod on a KCCO camper.

Mosin-Nagant pre-mod is quite similar to Springfield, being a charged shot RF with similar base stats and a night SPEQ (from 5-4N), although Mosin’s stats and equipment are more focused on FP than RoF. This would already be sufficient justification to put her on a KCCO camper for essentially the same reasons as discussed for Springfield.

However, post-mod, Mosin becomes a terror on the battlefield. At Mod 1, she acquires 5* status, giving her even better base stats and a higher skill multiplier, and at Mod 2, she unlocks access to her mod skill, which fundamentally changes how she is used. Long story short, it’s an excellent skill that buffs Mosin the more kills that she racks up, snowballing her sustained DPS to levels that can rival 5* self-buffers such as Lee-Enfield and WA2000, while still keeping the charged shot that makes her so desirable for fighting Doggos. Her Mod 3 SPEQ gives a few extra points of crit rate and accuracy, but is not particularly useful for her performance in the grand scheme of things. For this, we only have even more reasons to put Mosin Mod on a KCCO camper.

This cutie unfortunately suffers from similar problems as Gepard M1. Pre-mod, she is another mediocre 3* charged shot RF. Her base stats aren’t great and her skill multiplier is relatively low, making it difficult to use her in a KCCO camper. At least her skill’s initial cooldown is reasonable, but that alone isn’t enough to save her.
And even though her Mod somehow manages to improve her art even more, it fails at the primary task of salvaging her performance. Her newfound 4* base stats are still below average, her mod skill gives a miniscule boost barely worth mentioning, and her SPEQ fails to fix the core problems that plague her for general use. As a result, both mod and non-mod SV-98 are assigned to the Deathstack Support echelons.

This cutie unfortunately suffers from similar problems as Gepard M1. Pre-mod, she is another mediocre 3* charged shot RF. Her base stats aren’t great and her skill multiplier is relatively low, making it difficult to use her in a KCCO camper. At least her skill’s initial cooldown is reasonable, but that alone isn’t enough to save her.

And even though her Mod somehow manages to improve her art even more, it fails at the primary task of salvaging her performance. Her newfound 4* base stats are still below average, her mod skill gives a miniscule boost barely worth mentioning, and her SPEQ fails to fix the core problems that plague her for general use. As a result, both mod and non-mod SV-98 are assigned to the Deathstack Support echelons.

Yes it does.
Not only that, but,  after being modded, NTW truly becomes a monster of an RF for these comps’ standards. At Mod 1, her 6* base stats bump her FP even higher than before while adding a bit of much-needed RoF. Furthermore, her skill 1 gets reworked, now with a highly valuable ICD reduction, a massive increase in the skill multiplier, and a change in targeting priority to the target with the highest HP that can be one-shot by the skill. Altogether, NTW basically becomes a permanent FP self-buffer, putting her sustained DPS on respectable footing, while her skill is now all but guaranteed to one-shot Doggos or higher priority targets.

But that would render all of our grape dupes useless.

NTW-20 is famous for having the highest base FP stat in the game, alongside one of the largest bamboo skill multipliers (excluding overpowered Grape). To compensate, her RoF is significantly below average, and her skill ICD is an atrocious 8 seconds, the same as Gepard M1. However, NTW’s ridiculous FP and skill multiplier is actually enough to make her single shot count and almost always guarantee the kill. The upshot is that pre-mod, NTW is usable on a KCCO camper, but the justification is on shaky ground.

However, after being modded, NTW truly becomes a monster of an RF for these comps’ standards. At Mod 1, her 6* base stats bump her FP even higher than before while adding a bit of much-needed RoF. Furthermore, her skill 1 gets reworked, now with a highly valuable ICD reduction, a massive increase in the skill multiplier, and a change in targeting priority to the target with the highest HP that can be one-shot by the skill. Altogether, NTW basically becomes a permanent FP self-buffer, putting her sustained DPS on respectable footing, while her skill is now all but guaranteed to one-shot Doggos or higher priority targets.

Then, at Mod 2, she gains access to her mod skill, which gives her even more capabilities in both general mobbing and taking out priority targets, namely by giving her a chain shot that makes her one-shot multiple mobs and by buffing the damage she deals to targets with at least 50% HP. And at Mod 3, as if she didn’t have enough FP already, she gets a SPEQ that gives her 10 more base damage. All in all, modded NTW is an excellent match for the KCCO camper echelons and probably the strongest RF that we have to field in Waifu Wars.

That's right, next up, we have Kar98k, the face of GFL. She is a unique charged shot RF: unlike typical bamboos with long charge times that can only kill one target, Kar’s ICD is a mere 4 seconds with 0 aim time, a scarily high initial skill multiplier, and not one but two separate charged shots. This differentiates her from the other bamboos by essentially giving her a certain amount of mobbing ability. The biggest problem with her skill is the unreliable targeting, which may cause issues when trying to kill priority targets, but in PL, there are workarounds for each target from stalling the enemy to holding on to her skill.

M1 Garand is yet another mediocre 3* charged shot RF. She is not preferred for KCCO campers for much the same reasons as SV-98 pre-mod, which leaves her to the Deathstack Support echelons, since the Paradeus team is already full.
She's so bad that I didn't even realize her targeting had issues.

Moreso that RFs have super low RoF to begin with, so a difference of one or two RoF is enough to be several frames of difference. 37 RoF is decent, though.
Her constant retargeting  might have made kiting the doggo fights a little easier since it's one less RF to retarget, but it's not like it's particularly difficult to retarget both RFs simultaneously.