The Silvered Dread hails from an archetype that, prior to this IB, was severely underrepresented in year three.
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The Silvered Dread
- Pros – Very high range, reload speed, and inventory. High recoil direction.
- Neutral – Average mag size.
- Cons – Below average aim assist and stability.
Recommended Perks:
- Linear Compensator
- Perfect Balance, Braced Frame, Smallbore, Hammer Forged
- Field Scout, Extended Mag, Speed Reload, Quickdraw, Single Point Sling
- Hidden Hand, Rangefinder, Life Support, Counterbalance, Grenadier, Army of One, Spray and Play, Persistence
The Silvered Dread might be on the of the best weapons to come out of this year’s IB. One of the first things you need to know about the archetype is that increasing the impact stat by any amount will allow it to do enough damage to kill in one less bullet with either critical or body shots. Thankfully, this machine gun has Linear Compensator by default! What makes Linear Compensator the optimal choice is the improvement to recoil direction (which determines how the horizontal movement). Really, the only two drawbacks to this weapon are below average aim assist and stability, but both of those things can easily be improved by appropriate perks.
In the second column, prioritize stability then Range. Perfect Balance is the best perk here, although Smallbore and Braced Frame are also possibilities. The Silvered Dread comes with a very fast base reload speed. Range is the stat that determines, among other things, have far out the gun will do its maximum damage, and with The Silvered Dread only just barely being able to kill in 4 crits or 5 body shots, once the damage drop off starts you’ll lose that ability.
In the middle column, we come to the perk that truly makes this weapon unique: Field Scout. Below is a listed comparison of just how much Field Scout can help you.
Although FS does not increase the magazine size, it increases both the amount of ammo you pick up per brick in PvP, and the total amount of ammo you can hold at one time. For comparison, Extended Mag increases the mag size but does not increase the amount of ammo you get per brick or how much you can hold total.
Perk – Mag Size / Ammo Per Heavy Brick / Max Ammo
Without any armor perks:
- Default – 39 / 47 / 125
- Extended Mag – 48 / 47 / 125
- Field Scout – 39 / 68 / 180
With Machine Gun Ammo perk:
- Default – 39 / 55 / 147
- Extended Mag – 48 / 55 / 147
- Field Scout – 39 / 70 / 186
With Heavy Ammo perk:
- Default – 39 / 60 / 159
- Extended Mag – 48 / 60 / 160
- Field Scout – 39 / 70 / 187
With both Heavy Ammo & Machine Gun Ammo perks:
- Default – 39 / 68 / 181
- Extended Mag – 48 / 68 / 182
- Field Scout – 39 / 70 / 187
Field Scout basically acts like a free Heavy and Machine Gun Ammo perks combo. You can use it in place of armor perks (no need to stack them).
If you only can get Smallbore or Braced Frame in the second column, Extended Mag or Speed Reload can help you offset the need to reload more often.
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PvP
The ability to pick up nearly 70 shots per heavy ammo brick, while killing people in 4 to 5 bullets, means you can easily go on rampages. With the barrel perk dropping the times-to-kill down, it’s tied for the fastest possible optimal TtK. Combine that with the high inventory and larger magazine size, and you’ve got the best combination for PvP. Everything about this gun makes it easy to use and a blast to play with, from the high recoil direction to the very high base range and reload speed, and the opportunity to get one of the best heavy weapon perks in the game in Field Scout just pushes it over the top.
However, without a stability perk, even with the help of Linear Compensator, recoil is erratic. When using my Hammer Forged version, the gun seemed to want to randomly kick down, which made it slightly more difficult to maintain consistent accuracy. The below average aim assist also means that the gun is less forgiving of being off target than say, last year’s IB machine gun, Bretomart’s Stand. As was mentioned in the previous section, those two things can be easily fixed with perks, but they should be noted.
While the gun is a king among its own class, it does fall pray to rocket launchers quite often. Needing to land multiple shots on target to get a kill isn’t as easy as locking on, firing, and forgetting, and capable Truth users will make it their mission to shut down any roaming machine gunners. In reality, machine guns trade ease of use for the ability to get many more kills, so you’ll have to watch out for rockets immediately following heavy ammo drops. The best strategy seems to be playing cautiously until your opponents are either killed or run out of rockets, then pushing with the knowledge that you have a power weapon and tons of ammo.
PvE
In PvE, this weapon sits in the perfect sweet spot where it has a high enough impact to do significant damage per shot, while still having large magazine and inventory sizes. Being able to hold 180 rounds with Field Scout, it’s definitely a capable weapon to bring into end-game content. Is it better than the raid machine gun? Probably not, but that weapon has its own unique perks that make it function unlike any other legendary machine gun.
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Conclusion
The Good: Excellent stats make this gun a fantastic tool for PvP, and the possibility of rolling with Field Scout is just the icing on the cake. High inventory, range, recoil direction, and reload speed are countered only by below average stability and aim assist, both of which are easily improved with common perks. Optimal and body shot times-to-kill are among the best in class, and the massive amount of rounds picked up with Field Scout combined with the low bullets to kill enables extremely long kill streaks in PvP.
The Bad: Probably not powerful enough to compete with raid and exotic heavy weapons in PvE.
TL;DR: If you’re looking for one of the best machine guns in PvP, look no further. The Silvered Dread has everything you need to dominate. In PvE, it’s still a very solid weapon, and dependent on the activity can be considered top tier, but it won’t replace your Gjallarhorn, Sleeper Simulant, or IF MATERIA~.