User blog comment:Slacker Anonymous-X/Which weapon has the highest DPS this time around on GER?/@comment-1419424-20151217033613

There is absolutely zero doubt as to LB's supremacy in GER, because, yes, IE is absurdly busted here. Which is a welcome change, since they were the only weapon without a BA capable of 100k damage or at least damage in the tens of thousands (i.e. Astral Dive, CC The End, and Evolution.  You could still pull off absurd numbers with BH's God Killer and VS' Execution). Hell, it sure didn't help that IE was locked to an unchainable bomb type without BA modification, so if you wanted to use a different IE type you were locked out of any sort of damage modifier. The only way LB could output decent damage reliably was through Unconscious Katana: Black (or situational use of Roaring Katana: Gold), but even then it couldn't begin to approach what the other weapons could put out.

I for one welcome this change (along with the removal of BAs), because it lets me put together a dedicated support set for online play while still letting me put out the highest damage numbers in my team thanks to liberal application of Tombstone IE.

EDIT: And of course it doesn't help that the removal of BAs pretty harshly gimped the usefulness of CS and SB to a degree. SB's focus on pierce means it has little in the way of unbounding capability, mobility aside, and Charge Glide is far less useful without Charge/Ray Driver or Evolution to back it up. I used BH pretty heavily in the demo to compliment a particular Assault build involving infinite firing of a low-OP bullet, so I have experience on that front, and I can safely say that BH is still very usable due to the Boost state's versatility and the natural high power of the Boost Impact granting options for high damage output, not to mention that the BH now has TWO (!!!) air square hits. As for Buster, it really comes down to Charge Speed Up + CC being your best option for high damage numbers, but IE still eclipses that in terms of deployment speed and ease of use, as well as being easier to cancel out of. And as for Scythe... I'm on the fence about it, honestly. Of course Round --> Vertical --> Cleave is still your bread and butter, but without the damage benefits of BAs like Execution/Mortal Divide or Savage Bite, the stamina cost can be troublesome and still make it not worth it with regards to sustained damage output.

Either way, though, IE still reigns supreme.