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Tactics P90 vs UMP

Eight Foot Robot

Grizzled Veteran
Aug 10, 2014
275
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Both are very solid workhorse weapons for SWAT yet i never find myself seriously considering one over the other. and most of them feels like a coin toss in choice. since my SWAT loadout usually contains a MedSMG (if my team has an under lvl 25 medic) and the Scrake Eraser Kriss Vector.

Which of the two (P90/UMP) do you perfer to run? or are there tactics or something im not seeing right now? i usually play on suicidal difficulty and playing more HoE games.
 
Against medium/big zeds, UMP's 50% extra damage over the P90 is good. One and done on a gorefast head is nice. With a bit better dps, it's slightly more time efficient for big zeds.
But surprisingly, UMP's damage makes no difference in the shots to kill/decap for a lot of the common weak zeds, crawler/cyst/clot/slasher. So P90's capacity and rate of fire can make it a little more time efficient for the trash, and the cheaper ammo makes it more dosh efficient for trash.

Now we've got the MAC in the mix for the SWAT T3, too. But again, surprisingly, the extra damage, this time in the form of burning, doesn't make much of a difference against trash zeds. But since these burns don't stack, the extra damage also doesn't make much of a difference against medium/big zeds either. So for SWAT, the incendiary effects are mostly only relevant because of the zed reactions to the fire, and the vision obstruction of the fire. I see it as mostly detrimental, and wish that the MAC incendiary effects were firebug-only, like KF1.
For SWAT, MAC's saving grace is weighing 4 instead of 5 like P90/UMP. Otherwise, either of those is easily better.
 
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I crunched all the numbers and honestly the two weapons are very close in overall stats. The UMP has a slightly higher DPS and thus should have a lower TTK for medium zeds, and it has a potential for higher overall damage when accounting for a full ammo-pool, but the P90 can deal more damage per magazine and since it does less per shot with a higher ROF it's more forgiving of sloppy aim.

Honestly they're so close it may all just boil down to personal preference and desired role within the arsenal. The UMP seems to be the more efficient of the two vs any one single zed, making it a good choice if you have capable trash guns and/or a calm trigger finger, but the P90's capacity makes it more useful for groups, bullet-hosing, and panic firing.


If you've been selling your kit as you go to afford better guns sooner the P90 is overall the best single weapon SWAT has for handling everything. Just add a Kriss in a wave or two and you're good for endgame. But if you've been slowly adding to the arsenal and currently have an MP5/HMTech-201, I'd skip the P90 for the UMP as the higher DPS is handier vs big guys. Lately I've been digging the full H&K loadout with the MP7, MP5, and UMP all together. It's a capable end-game loadout, but I'd still advise selling something to make room for the Kriss.
 
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That's just a sign of good balance, ne? Same tier weapons shouldn't ever be a no-brainer choice without factoring in preference and the current situation. In this case it's kind of like the "more penetration" vs. 'tight choke' in the support's skill bonuses. P90 has more capacity and fire rate for spraying big groups of weaker zeds, while the UMP delivers more focused damage more slowly, making a more accuracy focused mid-range zed killer.
 
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gRim--_--;n2316020 said:
That's just a sign of good balance, ne? Same tier weapons shouldn't ever be a no-brainer choice without factoring in preference and the current situation. In this case it's kind of like the "more penetration" vs. 'tight choke' in the support's skill bonuses. P90 has more capacity and fire rate for spraying big groups of weaker zeds, while the UMP delivers more focused damage more slowly, making a more accuracy focused mid-range zed killer.

That's debatable. But I'd rather have weapons behaving very differently but being effective in certain situations/playstyles. Having weapons with very similar quirks is not that interesting...Simply because it's just a matter of personal preference in the end, and not how useful they are.
 
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Aleflippy;n2316035 said:
But I'd rather have weapons behaving very differently but being effective in certain situations/playstyles.

That's the essence of my previous post.

Aleflippy;n2316035 said:
Having weapons with very similar quirks is not that interesting...Simply because it's just a matter of personal preference in the end, and not how useful they are.

If they were so similar that it didn't matter which one to choose, then it would be a no-brainer again. "I pick the one that's prettier, because it doesn't matter anyway." like that.
What makes these two a tough choice isn't similarity, far from it. The reason one has a hard time to decide here is that they are evenly capable, but in entriely different applications.
 
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Tbh the nailgun just became the primary weapon for swat to get, while every other smg just became a main trash killing gun.
It just no longer matters if ump is better than p90 or kriss is better than anything else... you now have a freedom of using whatever you want without being at disadvantage.
 
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