M4 SOPMOD II

Overview

M4 SOPMOD II is a member of the Anti-Rain team and one of the story-locked ARs, obtainable only by completing Chapter 3 Stage 3 for the first time. She is not obtainable by any other means, so do not disassemble her or use her as enhancement fodder under any circumstances. SOPMOD is also a powerful AR choice for players at most stages in the game, as she has good stats and a strong AoE skill that provides significant damage in many situations. She may have a few weaknesses that leave her just shy of being the best, but overall M4 SOPMOD II has a strong kit as part of an AR/SMG Echelon. She is a solid choice to use from the moment you get her.

AR Chip

The introduction of #2 Chips flips M4 SOPMOD II’s main advantages on their head. Since she and ST AR-15 have a second accessory slot in place of a body slot, they are entirely unable to use this powerful equipment. Her base stats are still respectable, and she is still a strong pick for beginner usage when they are unlikely to have many chips, but she can fall behind other ARs that are capable of using the chip on end-game content.

Strengths

Unique Equipment Slots

M4 SOPMOD II has two accessory slots and 1 magazine slot as opposed to one accessory slot, one magazine slot, and one T-doll slot that ARs usually have. This means that instead of equipping an unimpactful exoskeleton that does not affect her damage output, Sopmod can instead equip another scope. This means she can equip an EOT and VFL at daytime to really boost her performance past competitors, or a VFL and PEQ at night-time to entirely ignore the disadvantage of night battles. 

Good AOE Damage

M4 SOPMOD II’s Anti-Personnel Grenade, while somewhat limited in range, deals high link-splashing damage to affected enemies. It is great for clearing small clusters of high-linked or evasive enemies in extended battles.

Above-Average Overall Stats

SOPMOD also has above average base Accuracy and ROF, which provide her with good base DPS in any situation.

Comes Pre-leveled

With the career quest reward update, M4 SOPMOD II is given to the player as a 3-link lvl 30 AR, saving the effort of raising her from scratch when you get her in 3-3. As new Commanders lack a consistent source of cores, saving up 18 cores in leveling her is a major difference.

Weaknesses

Only Obtainable Once

As an Anti-Rain doll, M4 SOPMOD II is only obtainable once. You cannot obtain dupes of her. So spending cores to link her to 4x and 5x is mandatory, although she is very worth the cost.

AP Grenade’s Long Cooldown

At 8 seconds just to start her windup animation, M4 SOPMOD II’s skill does not make an impact until almost 10 seconds of combat.

No Self-buff

As a grenadier AR, Sopmod cannot significantly improve her own damage output with her skill before her grenade goes off or during extended battles. This makes her weaker in fights that are short or ones that are not affected much by grenades like boss fights.

Full Analysis

Keep your M4 SOPMOD II please. If you somehow have managed to mistakenly discard her, you can retrieve her from the index at the cost of 9 cores.

M4 SOPMOD II has strong, relatively well-rounded stats, with her base Accuracy and RoF at nearly 10% above the AR class average. With proper Formation buffs she can output significant DPS even without skills activating.

SOPMOD’s main strength over most other grenade ARs comes in not her stats, however, but in her unique equipment slots, which allows her to have more consistent DPS in more situations. In day battles SOPMOD can equip an EOT sight to increase her grenade damage, and in night battles she can equip a PEQ to avoid the accuracy penalty, all while retaining the benefits of a VFL scope and HV ammo. This gives her a significant advantage over other ARs at night due to not losing the VFL scope that provides ARs with a significant portion of their DPS.

SOPMOD’s Skill allows her to effectively clear out groups of enemies via the 12x damage multiplier. Its 8 second initial cooldown is a bit of a weakness inherent to Anti-Personnel grenades as the skill often will not have the chance to activate in shorter battles. By the time her grenade lands, the frontline may have already taken a heavy beating.

Tough enemies that have low links and don’t group up such as bosses and doppelsoldners are also something grenadiers such as M4 SOPMOD II struggle against, as their single target damage is rather weak due to a lack of a self-buffing skill and reliance on splash damage. SOPMOD is better off than most due to her stronger base, but still the drawback is still there.

Overall, M4 SOPMOD II is a solid AR choice for most stages of the game due to her well-rounded stats and strong Skill. SOPMOD’s overall kit makes her more than good enough to make the cut in most AR/SMG Echelons for both new and veteran players.

Team Options

SAA

Vector

Skorpion

M4A1

ST AR-15

Grizzly

UMP45

Welrod MKII

HGs/SMGs With Strong Buffs

To capitalize off of SOPMOD’s good stats, add more buffs.

SMGs With Good Survivability

Since SOPMOD’s full contribution comes rather late in fights, a frontline that can stall well until then is a good choice as well.

Self-Buff ARs

Stacking too many grenades together lowers the effectiveness of each one. The AR that SOPMOD is paired with should probably be a self-buffing one to clean up the ones that she leaves behind or beating enemies that are not affected by her grenade much.

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