With the Buried Debts event we also get the Thermia Fractures grind that awards us the new Opticor Vandal. Normally Vandal weapons are direct upgrades to their normal counterparts but in this case, we are looking at more of a side-grade.
The weapon has received buffs to fire rate, charge time, critical chance, critical multiplier, reload speed and magazine capacity but also received a massive sixty percent base damage nerf.
Considering all of this many players are wondering if this is an actual upgrade or not. From a DPS perspective, it is an upgrade but it comes at the cost of personality since what made the Opticor infamous was the huge amount of damage it can deal with a single shot. Perhaps the damage cut was a bit overzealous or we are missing something.
At the very least we now have an option to the weapon. You can either stick with the normal version of the Opticor and its iconic one-shot damage or you can choose the Vandal for its agility, both weapons having the same mastery rank fourteen lockout which further confirms the idea of a side-grade rather than an upgrade.
Availability for the weapon is also iffy' since so far it can only be obtained during the Buried Debts / Thermia Fractures event but at least it comes with an Orokin Catalyst Installed by default.
Taking a more objective look at the weapon, it does pack one serious punch and it's fully capable of demolishing high-level targets. In tests, a Hunter Munitions base build has performed slightly better and now is more viable since the Opticor Vandal has a slightly higher Critical Chance.
What can I say? It's definitely not what I expected and perhaps that's a good thing but somehow I'm still conflicted about the idea of a Vandal weapon being a side-grade. Perhaps if I had not used the normal version before the Vandal I would have thought differently but as things stand now I want to see a base damage increase on the Opticor Vandal. It needs to be an Opticor.
