Rifleman is the Best Class (aka the Chad's Ultimate RS2 Guide)

Rifleman has the best guns in the game, flat out.

Effective at all ranges, especially with the capability for select fire. Naturally the assault rifles have the most potent combination of mobility/maneuverability, stopping power, and range. Plus, whipping out your two nades at the prime moment is like having another partner on the battlefield.

The other classes all have limitations and strengths, which rifleman compromises with unrivaled offensive potential.

SMGs are essentially limited to 100m, and snipers are imparied at close range. LMGs are potent, especially in the defence, but It's hard to say that there's any class more reliable and capable than the standard grunts.

This guide details the advanced strategies for mastering the core gameplay of rifleman, and thus the core gameplay of RS2.

Rifleman's strength comes from his role in the team, and versatility. People tend to LOVE their cheeky flanks with the mosin and double-barrel, but a rifleman bringing the sneaky-beaky bush hiding mindset and unrivalled trigger discipline could only be more successful.

He has no obligation like the radios and sappers/engineers to smoke up and provide auxiliary team support.

The rifleman can be a bush camper and run onto the cap at the opportune moment. And of course, with the great hit-power and automatic fire capability on the rifles they tend to storm the capzone like the term 'assault' in 'assault rifle' implies.

Furthermore, sniper LMG tryhard crybaby bois can camp in bushes and go dakakakdkakdaka all day long at people playing the real game on the cap, which is arguably the greatest reason to play rifleman.

Do you want to be clouted and goated? Play rifleman.

It's a hot take, but I only respect players who are capable with the rifle. I've seen dudes shoot the RPG into walls and get 3-4 kills, or spam willie pete for 2 free kills minimum. There's enough of that out there already.

Rifleman can hardly be accused of toxic or unskilled gameplay. Nevertheless, he gets the chad guns.

Play with the chad guns.

PAVN and NLF riflemen get the AK variants, and almost all southern forces are shoehorned into the M16. The MAS, M14 and the L1A1 have their place as the skillcannons, and players can get very reliable with the semiautos, especially for shooting targets at 100+ and wallbanging.

Nevertheless, the automatics are the preferred choice for noobs who are best to get aggressive, steal enemy weaponry, and put pressure on the frontlines with superior mobility.

Once you have a little map knowledge and gamesense (and are ready to sell your soul to the ancient Vietnamese blood Gods) it's time to become a one-hit bushhiding trollmaster with the skillcannons. While you can jump straight into them, using the MAS especially is a trial by fire. I didn't switch to MAS as my main gun for North forces, or even understand its potency, until I was already level 99. The following is a stats breakdown and commentary for the rifleman's viable weapons, starting with the AKs.

Note, all AKs, have 4 mags of 30 rounds + one in the chamber, with a weight of 0.9kg per mag.

Thanks to Lemonater for giving me good info and directing me on where to find the stats files for the guns. I originally had values for 'damage value' and 'energy impulse' in these sections. Lemonater told me that 'damage value' meant seemingly nothing, and the only stat that calcs damage is 'instant-hit damage', from which derivatives such as bleeding are also calced. On the other hand, 'energy impulse' was irrelevant because it refers to impulse applied to ragdolls.

Type 56 (folding bayonet variant)

Weight 4.03 kg
Length 874 mm

Rate of Fire 650 RPM

Recoil Vertical: 250
Horizontal: -35 - 135
Spread (MOA) 4.5

Instant-hit Damage 86
Penetration Depth 15
Ballistic Coefficient 0.138
Velocity 735 m/s

Type 56-I (Folding stock variant)

Weight 3.7 kg
Length 874 mm

Rate of Fire 650 RPM

Recoil Vertical: 250
Horizontal: -35 - 135
x1.5 with stock folded
Spread (MOA) 4.5

Instant-hit Damage 86
Penetration Depth 15
Ballistic Coefficient 0.138
Velocity 735 m/s

AKM

Weight 3.1 kg
Length 880 mm

Rate of Fire 600 RPM

Recoil Vertical: 240
Horizontal: 97 - 135
Spread (MOA) 5

Instant-hit Damage 86
Penetration Depth 15
Ballistic Coefficient 0.138
Velocity 715 m/s

Okay so that's a bit to take in. You'll see the 56 and 56-I are essentially clones, as you'd expect. Between them, the folding stock variant largely is the superior option, simply for the lower weight.

It's generally less useful to use the folding stock or the bayonet on the AK, since both adversely affect handling, and the AK has the poorest handling and recoil pattern of probably... any weapon in the entire game. Nevertheless, I've had some debate on this point that I agreed with. My mate Strayloch suggested the folding stock is genuinely worth using for rushing rooms. I'll agree with this. Killing guys who are in the same room as you is easier aiming down the barrel, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ around putting the stock up and down too much will just get you killed. Probably only worth ever trying it on maps like Hue.

Furthermore, bayonets for most guns cause a 5% reduction in recoil and a 5% increase in sway, according the Lemonater. I also remembered that I posted a thread on TW forums in 2016 literally recommending that bayos should cause recoil reduction and an increase in sway, with some high level mental gymnastics. Pretty based if they read my post. Somehow, I still tend to feel that bayos adversely affect the AKs the worst, even if reducing recoil. The increased length is a pain on all guns, and definitely makes muzzles pointing out of rooms noticeable. Prepare to have your hands shot. Stealth bayonet kills honestly aren't a bad idea on the dark maps, though. The darker the map or the more cluster ♥♥♥♥♥ the more likely a bayo helps.

Really what the stats don't convey is that the AKs are absolute trash and the sight jumps around worse than that KONY 2012 dude when he had a mental break. This tends to be the reason that I view the AKM as the superior gun.

It has the best weight by a long shot, plus the best recoil, and its only marginally inferior accuracy and bullet velocity aren't liable to be a problem.

Nevertheless, the AKM is still hardly different to the Type 56, and all AKs have ridiculously bouncy recoil, and tend to suffer the worst from the iron sight misalignment aiming mechanic of RS2. As I'm sure players know, fully automatic fire will tend to cause the front and rear sight to jostle, sending the bullets off kilter, and not directly down the centre of the screen. This means that your bullets will miss due to no fault of your own (at least regarding aiming). This is why it's important to make use of the steadying feature, and generally keep the AKs in semi, so they don't become uncontrolled.

I only switch the AKs to auto when I'm on the cap and expecting multiple dudes to run around corners, with intense firefights below 30m. Even then autofire can be a struggle, I've seen the most ridiculous jostling that deserves to be played back in slow motion, and which simply doesn't occur with other guns. At 50m, automatic fire from the AK is likely to rattle guys with several bullets without making killshots, due to the unfortunately bouncy sights.

The best way to make use of the AK, whichever you prefer, is to put bullets down range on target at a consistent rate in semi, while steadying and crouched. Once again due to iron sight misalignment, hitting the first bullet is important, and the AK's effectiveness drastically reduces with spamfiring, and the likelihood of hitting with later bullets in the mag is greatly reduced. With the AK, if you don't connect and kill with the first rounds, re-acquire the target.

It sounds like I'm ruthelessly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on the VC, but their guns aren't great. The PPSh is decent, and the DP-28 has nearly the same damage as the M14. BAR is solid. Definitely some decent guns, and the AK stands out as the most... decent?

AK penetration is good, goes through a lot of concrete walls, such as the A capzone on Saigon. AKM sight picture openness is supreme, but blocky. All the AKs have a great sight picture for firing automatic at close range, at least. The sights are lacklustre for 150m+ shots.

Let me address the elephant in the room for this biased guide, RPD and RP-46 are better for sure, at least stats-wise. Because the AKs suck so much. The RPD has a maximum of 220 vertical and 110 horizontal recoil, somehow less than the AKs. Although it has a longer recoil rate so sustained fire becomes much more bouncy and also inaccurate from barrel warping.

I originally didn't put the M1 carbine in here, which is only available to the NLF. You get to choose between 4 x 30rnd mags or 10 x 15rnd. Here's the stats:

Weight is 0.35 kg per mag for the 15rnd.

Weight 2.4 kg
Length 900 mm

Recoil Vertical: 185
Horizontal: -40 - 20
Spread (MOA) 3

Instant-hit Damage 75
Penetration Depth 10
Ballistic Coefficient 0.160
Velocity 610 m/s

Definitely worth consideration, but it has substantially worse damage and velocity, while only being more portable and having less recoil. I genuinely enjoy the M1 with the 30-round mags, cause the recoil is very controllable. Unfortunately, this gun tickles enemies at 200m, and even only likes to 2-3 hit kill up close. The AK has better sights. It's apparently more accurate than the AKs, so it must be missing due to bullet drop exclusively. By the way, I'm literally not joking that the developers made some of the North's weapons inaccurate because they have 'old and dirty barrels'. At least so far I only saw that note on the DP-28 (5.2 MOA) in the game's files. Is the AK really so inaccurate in real life compared to the M16 or even the M1?

Please buff the AKs. All North weaponry besides sustained machine gun fire really struggles to connect at 200m+

Further, the M1 struggles greatly at wallbanging anything besides thatch walls.

Definitely appropriate for CQB, but that's precisely where the lack of auto hampers it. I touch on the M2 carbine further in the next section.

Lastly, don't take the SKS or mosin as the rifleman, except for trolling purposes. As an aside, the main reason the SKS isn't great is because it's essentially a 10-shot AK with the same recoil and damage, but also because stripper clips suck, and the reload animation is slightly longer than it looks like it should be, causing the reload anim to fail if you sprint too early. M14 and MAS have this to a lesser degree, meaning I often have to load my gun twice. SKS is also a fundamentally glitched gun; you can just feed it clips without it ever becoming reloaded. If you run out of SKS clips you'll start reloading the bullets one by one, which is hilarious when it happens. Make sure to also avoid reloading the MAS/M14 with clips.

Thanks to anthony for revealing to me how great the MAS-49 is. I decided this guide needs an update to recommend how useful and important it is.

Onto the MAS...

HIGH PINGERS TAKE NOTE: Honestly in 2026 you should just take the MAS even if you're a level 1. why? The AKs are simply unusable on high pings and it seems like everybody in the game has like 300 ping these days. If you have low ping you'll be fine, but the slow and inconsistent bullets on the AKs and SKS will make you want to commit sudoku if you have to wait an extra 300ms to see if they landed. Even though hitreg is client sided, high ping really makes you prefer one-hit kills because it's like a set-and-forget missile and you can hit the next target. I frankly can't even really use the M16 on high ping.

Expert North player anthony revealed to me NLF's strengths. I argued PAVN was the better faction and should be voted in campaign solely for their hacktivated DLC uniforms and RP-46, to which he countered with the point that NLF gets the MAS-49, and also that NLF artillery wrecks house.

This is true. NLF should probably be voted over PAVN at all stages of campaign. PAVN only gets access to the MAS-49 in early war, whereas NLF can take the hackergun at any stage.

What's good about the MAS-49? The SKS and AKs simply cannot connect 200m+ shots, or reliably one-hit. While the SKS is a relative laser with 2.5 MOA, the AK's natural inaccuracy will cause shots to be missed at 300m. The main issue with the sights on the SKS and AKs is that they're just complete blocky pieces of ass with immense bullet drop. say you're aiming for a guy at 250m. if you zero at 200m your sight will completely obscure the target. If you zero at 300m you will have to aim hilariously under the target and will just whiff all shots. Trust me, MAS and Mosin are the only North guns that can connect at 200m+ without wasting half a mag just to thread the needle on the enemy's head. All this meaning if you take PAVN you have to hope your snipers and machinegun snipers can put in the work, because the ordinary rifleman will seriously struggle to connect 150m+ shots and will just get laid out by the enemy snipers.

I personally don't like the sights, weight, or gun length on the MAS-49 for close quarters, but it's the best gun North has for stealth bushcamping due to its incredibly weird and quiet sound, and also the only gun worth taking for a rifleman who expects to be shooting for 150m+ kills.

Here's the stats:

Rounds Per Magazine 10+1
Magazines 12 Magazines

Weight 4.7 kg
Length 1100 mm

Recoil
Vertical: 450
Horizontal: -35 - 115
Spread (MOA) 1.2

Instant-hit Damage 123
Penetration Depth 17.0
Ballistic Coefficient 0.407
Velocity 820 m/s

Just take the MAS and see what happens because the AKs are the most hernia-inducing guns in the game and deserve to be buffed/cast into an abyss of eternal damnation.

Update after over 1500 hours in game: HOT DOG, the MAS has some of the BEST SIGHTS in the game, disregard my comment about not liking the sights. You just need to GET USED TO THEM, the sight post is nice and skinny and comes to a point like the M16, and eventually you'll get used to it. As a result, MAS is the only gun besides maybe the L1A1 that I actually feel confident one-shotting enemies and waiting for the results.

The MAS hits like a truck so you know it's gonna one-hit if you can actually aim. Just vote NLF and take the MAS. Tell noobs to try the MAS, tell your dog to try the MAS, buy the game for your grandma and make her use the MAS. She will get kills.

Now for South weaponry.

The big daddy M16A1 himself:

Rounds Per Magazine 18+1
Magazines 8 Magazines
Weight Per Magazine 0.34 kg

Weight 2.89 kg
Length 1000 mm

Rate of Fire 750 RPM

Recoil Vertical: 175
Horizontal: -40 - 40
Spread (MOA) 1.5

Damage
Instant-hit Damage 95
Penetration Depth 10
Ballistic Coefficient 0.12
Velocity 990 m/s

Do you see that VELOCITY, MOA, AND COMPLETE ABSENCE OF HORIZONTAL RECOIL?

Welcome to the spamfire beast, the Noob's Delight, the digital genocide tool. God the M16 is the best weapon in the game.

The M16's bullet is like a homing missile with the ridiculous velocity, and the ability to get multiple rounds on target with semi-auto spamfire, even when out of stamina and not steadying the gun. M16 rarely struggles with the iron sight misalignment disaffecting the AK, and you can usually keep the bullets lasering dudes in auto out to 50m if you're steady or crouched, not even necessarily both.

Still, potent wielding of the American white hot anal destruction machine will require keeping the gun in semi at 70m+

Targets at longer ranges, and running targets, are also exceptionally easy kills for the M16, because of the superior bullet velocity and recoil, which means you can shoot a wall of bullets at a spot in front of the target and wait for him to run into it and die. Obviously this strategy is useful for any gun, and very useful for MGs wishing to conserve ammo, but the M16 has the best capabilities to take advantage of it. Often you can pop running players at 200m with only 2-4 bullets, with this method. But once you know the leading, you should aim for one/two round killshots only, trust me that saving your ammo and not reloading all the time is worth it.

The only downside is that the M16 is a little less reliable at wallbanging, and has less bullets in the magazine. That being said, I think the M16 is at least as good or better in close quarters combat than the AK, which is where the higher mag size is important. This is mainly because the M16 is SO much better in auto than the AK.

Once again due to the low recoil, you can also just keep on spamming bullets with the M16. Oftentimes I'll spam a whole mag down and only the last couple of shots connect, diametrically opposed to my usual experience with the AK, where later spammed shots don't connect.

I should emphasise once again that there's no way with mouse movement to counter the iron sight misalignment, you can only wait and steady yourself. Because the M16 pretty much has none, you can spam; you can also get super aggressive and shoot when out of stamina.

Since the stats speak for themselves as to why the M16 is vastly superior...

I'll move onto the M14.

Rounds Per Magazine 20+1
Magazines 6 Magazines
Weight Per Magazine 0.68 kg

Weight 4.1 kg
Length 1126 mm

Recoil Vertical: 450
Horizontal: -80 - 80
Spread (MOA) 1.25

Instant-hit Damage 123
Penetration Depth 17
Ballistic Coefficient 0.20
Velocity 850 m/s

Good hit damage, it likes to wallbang, and the ballistic coef lets it one-shot at 300m (which is a purely unreasonable range except for troll shots).

Nevertheless, it doesn't really have a leg up on the M16. No auto, less ammo, more weight, longer gun, more recoil...

Sure, it generally hits like a truck up close, and one-shots into the chest with some reliability, but the M14's unwieldiness means the M14 rifleman has one shot on target to the M16's two shots on target.

Further, the M16 performs just as well or better at range than the M14, when used in the 'wall of death' method I described earlier. I'll admit that the M14 is largely superior at hitting stationary targets for a one-hit-kill, but again, this sort of behaviour is mostly relegated to the 300m troll shots which the M14 actually excels at.

With the higher hit damage and semi auto only, these things are also preferred by the bush campers sometimes. But trust me dudes think the mosin is good because they hide in a bush and enemies can't pinpoint their location with their 3 shots a minute.

There's not much else to say about the strategy of using it. But you strongly prefer vertical rather than horizontal recoil, since horizontal is unpredictable and uncounterable. Vert can be dragged down reliably. Strong vert and absence of horizontal, and you still skillfully control any gun.

The M14 is preferable for bushcamping, but overall worse at all ranges.

Now, onto the Aussie M14 clone...

...the L1A1.

Rounds Per Magazine 20+1
Magazines 6 Magazines
Weight Per Magazine 0.71 kg

Weight 4.34 kg
Length 1143 mm

Recoil Vertical: 400
Horizontal: -80 - 80
Spread (MOA) 1.25

Instant-hit Damage 140
Penetration Depth 17
Ballistic Coefficient 0.20
Velocity 823 m/s

Heavier, longer, more damage. It's the M14 on crack, and the sights are a lot better too.

The L1 is what the M14 wants to be. And somehow, it's actually really good and reliable in my experience. The absurd instant-hit damage and great sights means that a square shot will one-hit enemies. That's the only reason the gun is good. Trust me that I can FEEL the length and weight of the gun through the screen.

The most difficult situation in RS2 is when multiple enemies are shooting at you at the same time. With the L1A1, I've had up to four enemies actively shooting at me at the same time and been able to kill them all with a single shot each to win the firefight. This sort of rubbish happens all the time in RS2, and you're most likely going to die when it happens. I regularly escape the most ridiculously overwhelming firefights like this with the L1.

See, the problem with engaging multiple enemies for a player with decent aim is not hitting them but killing them. Neither the M16 or AK can reliably one-shot, and you often don't have enough time to put killing shots onto targets when more fire is incoming. I haven't played nearly as much with the M14, but my experience has been that it rarely excels in this same field as the L1, due to the worse sights and slightly inferior damage.

In RS2 we never talk about time to kill, because it hardly matters, and people get one-shot by pistols all the time. But trust me, the L1's time to kill is yesterday, and it really is the skill cannon, because spam-fire turns into AA fire.

Australians get voted so this gun can be used. Use it.

Finally,

I'd like to touch on the M2 carbine, same stats as the M1. Although it obviously has different recoil characteristics in auto.

It's kind of a clean tech with 30 round mags, but it's usually a 2-3 hit kill, so I'd only use it to get aggressive and steal enemy weaponyry. The recoil is decent, and the sights are kind of meh. M16 seems more reliable, with overall better recoil and sights though. With the M16's very narrow sight that comes up very steeply allowing a great view of the target out to 250m.

The M2 carbine's sight is too blocky and busy. The ballistic coef of the bullet is also ♥♥♥♥♥, with a sharply dropping trajectory and steeply reducing bullet damage. At 200m it can still kind of hit... if you chuck the bullets out like you're shooting a 3-pointer... but it tickles. It's telling that the sights on the gun flip between 90 and 180. The gun drops sharply around 200, while being able to hit well at even 160m.

Definitely appropriate for CQB, where the 30 rounds help, but once again the M16 is much more reliable overall. I do like the recoil, and it seems appropriately used in 3-5 round bursts. My mate tungxeng also suggested going for critical hits, and I think this is an appropriate way to use the M2. Just spam bullets down towards their neck/chest and try to gimp them with quick kills at short/med range. For the battle rifles, shooting centre mass is always appropriate. But the assault rifles may prefer to aim a little high.

Still not really worth using.

ARVN can grab the M1 Garand too, which is a damn sexy trollgun... But don't use it.

For a more in-depth stats guide check out Jigen's excellent guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2525937833

Or do you grab the trollgun?

I stand by everything written in this guide and this edit is current to 2026... Although in some respects I wrote this guide badly...

What I mean is:

PRESS 1 TO INTERRUPT RELOAD ANIMATIONS. Why was this never mentioned? I'm sure I used this since RO2????

WHEN YOU GET IN A 1V1 FIREFIGHT you must immediately take accurate shots on the enemy until they die. The only time you should switch targets is if someone else is threatening to put more accurate fire on you. Don't go prone or dive more than a few metres for cover unless you have no ammo and you're CERTAIN it's safe cover.

In fact, if you DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU'RE BEING SHOT FROM you should RUN ERRATICALLY. Not even necessarily in the general direction of 'cover', since you could be getting shot from behind. Running to a bush is usually better anyway. If you still haven't located the shooter, don't stop running. You may want to do a 360, especially if you think the shots are behind. What I mean is... when someone is shooting you accurately and you run the worst thing that can happen is another person spots you. When someone is shooting accurately and you don't shoot back or run erratically you'll most likely die.

STANDING TALL AND RUNNING ERRATICALLY IS THE BEST POSITION. UNTIL YOU FIND A GOOD CAMPING SPOT. THEN START CAMPING. I seemed to forget this a little bit. This was just the expected way to play RO2 since you could dodge bolty shots easily like this. The prevalence of automatics makes people want to play really campy and I can see their fear of the firepower in RS2. The Americans have a lot of firepower. Noobs should play southern forces, experienced players will grow to love northern forces. The advice of running should work especially well for Americans, since VC firepower is generally a little less.

Your life ends in a lot of 1v1s and 50/50's (once you get good). As a noob, you may literally be getting killed by dudes under the map or outside the combat zone. But once you start noticing that you're mostly dying to dudes where you're both aiming and shooting at each other that demonstrates the beginings of mastery at the game.

I ♥♥♥♥ YOU NOT. UNDER THE MAP. this game is unfair. uninstall. i'M BEHIDN YOU !! {eye} {mouth} {eye}

Did you get killed by me? I might have been essentially invisible.

I remember one time harry420 the legend himself got a ban message that read something like 'running around invisible killing people with the pickaxe'.

Trust me, once you have 800 hours in the game you realise it's mostly a stealth-based game. you want to be in a bush and one-shotting people so they don't find you. As a player with 1500 hours, I realise the game mostly consists of me running to certain bushes, pushing certain lanes reliably, etc... Some things are personal preference, but getting behind and above the enemy is usually the best place to be. So the most basic advice for all players is that you should be pushing lanes that allow you to get behind enemies. If someone has you in their sights and you're not an erratic fast mover you're already dead. And people make the mistake of moving through the back lines of combat with straight running, making them easy kills to enfilade fire. Although I can see why players with 4000 hours just go full circle and play normally, or head towards the centre of the map most of the time. Being in the centre of the map or centre of the enemy mass gives you the highest chance of getting kills and the biggest rewards combined not even necessarily with the greatest risk, since you might be in the eye of the storm. Many locations may be very safe and surrounded by no man's land in all directions, meaning that the risk is all in getting to the spot. In general, attackers have the most to gain from pushing middle points between divided caps. Defenders have the most to gain from being in front of the cap, or staying on recon missions outside the combat zone after the cap gets taken. Plus, sometimes the best thing you can do is go to spots you think are bad.

Every time I get kicked for 'hacking' I'm simply behind or above the enemy, camping a common route where enemies will always appear without fail...

And once you become a one-hit trollmaster beasting it up with the Garand and MAS, this advice should benefit you more. Players in this game have a tendency to be totally invisible when they don't fire their guns; Muzzle flash and bullet sounds are usually the easiest way to locate enemies.

Mr. Garand Himself:

Rounds Per Magazine 8
Magazines 12 Magazines
Weight Per Magazine 0.71 kg

Weight 4.34 kg
Length 1105 mm

Recoil Vertical: 450
Horizontal: -40 - 40
Spread (MOA) 1.21

Instant-hit Damage 150
Penetration Depth 23.5
Ballistic Coefficient 0.20
Velocity 853 m/s

150 COCKY WANNA BOINGY 150. I only take the MAS. Fox Mccloud, final destination, wavedashing. WAVEDASHING. BIND THE CROUCH KEY SO SOMETHING YOU CAN SPAM AND start smhvooming rhythymically.

I'M WAVEDASHING IN 2025. I'M SHMOOVING. I'M IN THE TREES. I'M ON THE ROOF. I'M ON THE ROCKS. I HAVEN'T BEEN INSIDE THE COMBAT ZONE FOR THE LAST 20 MINUTES. IF you're not wavedashing, checking the map NONSTOP to see if recon is up or allies just died, JUST uninstall the game in 2025.

Also, MGs have a half-second ADS time and less zoom without the bipod whereas the rifles have a quarter-second. This is the real advantage for the rifles, you can be aggressive and don't have to stay ADS. Rifleman really is the best class because the SMGs have practically no advantage over the AKs or M16, since their ADS time isn't quicker and the reduced length never seems to matter. Therefore, AK or M16 rifleman is the best class to steal enemy weapons with. He's a fast running man who can steal an M60 or RPD then get into the right camping spots.

Whereas the M14, L1A1, Garand and MAS are one-shot bushhiding snipers that you may not even want to replace. Meaning that snipers don't have an advantage over you, and YOU are the original bushcamper who will never be spotted because you never shoot without killing. While still having the mobility and aggression you need for RUNNING TALL LIKE A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to your desired camping spot, one-shotting any lads you see along the way.

I remember I used this counterintuitive logic to justify rifleman as the best class in RO2... He's the best because his life is worth nothing and he can capture enemy weapons. In RS2 it was hard not to think that rifleman really does have the best guns. Because if I shortlist the best guns in the game the only rifleman weapons I'm confident to leave off are the AKs

The best and most versatile weapons in the game that I'm most likely to pick up for general combat purposes are the: RPD, RP-46, M16, L1A1.

All have exceptional ammo capacity, sights, and recoil.

The 'good but not great' guns all compromise on one of those aspects: M60, BAR, DP, M14, These guns are still a straight upgrade if I'm North rifleman.

The 'true skillcannons' must then be the MAS and Garand.

Basically, the only good guns North gets are the machine guns, whereas South gets great rifles, which is yet another reason why I recommend cutting your teeth with South team gameplay quite a lot for noobs.

Also most of these guide sections are full to the wordlimit already, so as another foreshadowing of the next sections, note that squad leaders have infinite, free, abusable smoke through marking LZs with the orders widget. It shows red if an enemy is within 50m, yellow otherwise. (To use this just go into the orders widget, and it's number 7 'Mark LZ'). I don't use the radial menu, but I assume it works on there too.

Another thing to note is that while I'm indeed pretty sure you can't reliably counter sight misalignment, you can learn to aim down the barrel. The consistent movement of the barrel when walking left or right can be learned and compensated for easily, for instance. This is easier with long-barreled weapons and MGs.

Very well, big daddy Butts, but how do I get gud and rek nubs pls, you might say?

Ah yes, now this is the section where I'm going to tell you about all of the outright dirtiest strategies possible to hone your rifleman into death-incarnate.

First of all, make sure you're always spawning on a good SL or tunnel, not at the back of the map. Get aggressive.

Use the spot function and get juicy +10 spotter assists but only for enemies you can't shoot, and when you need help with a swarm. If you have any chance of shooting just shoot and maybe try to get a spot when you reload. The spot indicator will just get in your way half the time, so really avoid using it on enemies you're actively shooting or aiming at.

Get good at shooting out to 200m, and try to kill enemies greater than 70m away. The threat of being swarmed by more enemies than you can handle always presents itself. Some dude called covfefe said that most engagements happens sub-50, but I literally saw him slap 3 VC at 150m with the Garand a few moments earlier, so I think he was trolling in general.

It depends on the map, but try playing Saigon, DMZ, NinhPhu, Resort, CuChi, BorderWatch, FIrebaseGerogina, Hill. Or literally almost any map in the game and dudes will at least be sniping and missing from 200. Even Hue on the first caps. Pretty much every map. Don't let snipers snipe when the rifle touches kindly at that range.

Flicking your gun into auto should be the panic/beast button.

Since you have two nades at least one of them is spammable, and the other can be saved for rushing.

Always make use of the cheeky flanks, and enemy weapons. Glorious PAVN and NLF chekkybois love this. This is where you can get really dirty, because some of the cosmetics help disguise you. PAVN and NLF get the green vest at level 70, and there are several DLC cosmetics that give a significant advantage, and will also get you teamkilled.

The green vest alone is enough... to get you teamkilled... I swear. But you can also purchase the smock and the dac cong uniforms. The dac cong uniforms are great with the camo pith helms. Combined with appropriate face, and grease and ash from the specialists DLC, the character resembles a black American.

USA and Australia can't really disguise themselves. The long hair cosmetics are unironically better camo though. At the moment for America I'm rocking the hispanic looking face with the specialists camo paint, since I think the colour is the best. Too many people fall into the trap of being black. Also, being black and shirtless may look gangsta, but it's high contrast. I've seen some crazy white shirtless hustlas out there too on the American side, but they need to be wearing the bandana for confusion. Tigerstripe is great, but also locked to high levels.

I would say you should wear tiger if you have it.

For ARVN, beo gam camo is excellent, and looks similar to the PAVN's dac cong.

Also the Aboriginal character is definitely the best.

In RS2 I think that you like to be brown, grey, and tan, maybe even green. Not black. Not black hair either. Some guy once told me that my 'dark headgear' gave me away, but no idea what he was smoking cuz I had black hair, but yea bro those 7 pixels on his screen were too dark for his liking.

It's that grey man ♥♥♥♥ you read about. Just look unnoticeable. Is that an enemy combatant or some random old ♥♥♥♥ just smoking a cigarette? Dude the cigarette cosmetic is the best. No way someone who's a smoker wouldn't get sussed if he could see the ciggie in your mouth at extreme close range. I haven't smoked in years and I know I'd be distracted. Misdirection, indecision, and you can click faster than the opponent.

I just say the word 'smoke' and there you go, you already want to light one up. Always bait people and be aware they're baiting you.

Bear in mind I once had a glitch as NLF on Long Tan where I was wearing the white shirt, and there was nothing I could do to change my cosmetic. I just teamswitched. I was getting clapped. I'm fairly sure that your cosmetics reliably appear the same to you as to your enemies. It was a rare and obvious glitch targeting me because I'm a dirty bushcamper.

These strategies apply very well to a number of classes. Pointman and scout classes have great character models, whereas radios and machine gunners are obvious. Since rifleman has the best aggression (next to scouts) he's the most likely to pick enemy weaponry. The scout class is significantly better for not having a bandolier on his model though, trust me it makes a difference especially for the Vietnamese with the green vest on.

Okay, so here's something great for rifle, turn you into a beamerboi. Put the steady (focus hold breath), whatever it's called... secondary button onto something besides shift. A mouse button if possible.

So normally holding shift steadies your weapons right? Just making sure.

If not, there's a setting called enable non iron sight zoom. Toggle that. No idea why that setting just entirely disables the shift button from steadying you. Really poorly named.

But you also have the capability to bind another steadying button besides shift in the combat subsection of the controls menu. I have mouse button 5 on my gaymen mouse. get a gaymen mouse kids. I mean you can put it on the keyboard, or mouse 3. Melee on mouse 3 is not super important, and having 3 fingers on your mouse is goated.

Which is why you must have the ideal keybinds and settings, my friends. All graphics on lowest for the scum out there. I used to think that ReShade wasn't legit, but I'm playing with it and the game lets me. Eye adaptation, vibrance, sharpening, yum. RS2 is really blurry. My monitor also literally has a setting called nightvision which is blessed. Get a gaymen monitor bois. The reason I'm using ReShade is because my monitor has the same nightvision and image enhancement settings. I can see this is the reason the program is allowed, because monitors do the same thing.

Last important ingame setting is aiming settings. You want to have normal aiming. Not boxed free-aim or RO2 style. It definitely gives you an advantage.

Sure, it'll all give you an advantage. I was better in RO2 and I didn't have any of this on, but I can't compete with the kids without crutches in my old age. I mean my PC at that time lagged on some maps on minimum graphics anyway....

YOU need to buy the $200 chair and gfuel.

ngl tho if you take preworkout or drink coffee your reaction times will be better. Reaction time matters a lot due to client-sided hitreg. For real tho, do a lil shadowboxing and some pushups to get the blood pumping before playing. Don't play when you're drunk, I used to do that a lot. And I always kept telling the story about the homeless man I met in the park, it's not a good look.

Make sure you turn prerendered frames to 0 in NVIDIA control panel or AMD equivalent. I don't know what program AMD users have nowadays. In mine we had Radeon Pro as the best. AMD really needs better programs for the users. Make sure you're running at max fps and with 0 prerendered frames your aiming will be the most responsive.

That being said, for competitive gameplay, I think there's a solid argument to play on medium settings. You can really easily see punji traps on lowest settings, and the lighting is kinda weird. RO2 official ladder required medium settings.

Again, twitch players get the advantage, and not the corner or long range campers. Rifleman benefits from the jank readily.

Finally, if you're real dirty start saying 'cancel arty' in pub chat, taunting enemies in local chat or with the in-game taunt. Or yell at somebody in local like a bat out of hell to 'STOP SHOOTING FRIENDLY FIRE'. I've only ever taunted in local. I'm really going to try to do the ultrachad move of telling somebody to stop shooting me. All I've ever done is look the other way to make them think I'm friendly.

Alright that's enough of the dirty strats, let's talk gamesense.

Rifle is janky in the best way. Spawncamping, ridiculous angles, the glitch that happens 99% of the time where it looks like someone's gun is blocked but they can actually shoot.

Yeah, for some reason in this game it seems that if you can see someone's head they can usually shoot you, because the character model has little to do with where the guy is actually looking and shooting. This seems partially to be lag, client-sided hitreg, and the outright fact that the characters just seem kinda glitched and janky. I'm sure you've seen dudes stretch their arms out in weird ways too.

Just gonna complain that RO2/RS1 wasn't like this, and it was only like 1% of the time that a guy's gun would look blocked for you, but he could shoot. In RS2, most of the time when you see guys in wallbangable windows the gun is glitching. It's basically the norm. You basically regularly get shot when you can actively see that the gun isn't aimed at you, at least not directly.

Certain terrain just reliably does this, and that includes (and is most prominent on) almost all wallbangable walls, when the guy is close to the window. Luckily that also means the rifle benefits cause you can just spray instead of aiming for the single pixel of the dude's head.

Overall, rifles seem to benefit from this in the best way. SMGs are so short that they're rarely in this glitched state, and snipers don't benefit because they usually are camping back from the wall, or quickly dying from a wallbang against overwhelming firepower.

Jank is your friend.

On the other hand, MG aiming on sandbags and terrain is often utterly ♥♥♥♥♥♥, whereas rifles only suffer from bullets awkwardly blocked by terrain, which is why it's usually better to be crouched than prone if you can't decide which is better. And if you're worried about terrain you can always test it before and try to remember and master the glitchy spots on the map. On the other hand, MG handling crappiness can't really be outskilled, aside from avoiding buggy spots, but practically all sandbags in the game cause really weird handling.

That's why rifles benefit the most from 'jank, reactivity, gamesense' as I titled this section... Aside from using the MGs with crazy trigger discipline like a semi auto rifle, but we don't talk about that around here. Have you ever seen someone do that? Kids always spam and whiff all shots. That's basically how you'd prefer to use the MGs, only deploying the bipod on known good spots.

The rifles have substantially more zoom for normal shooting, and the MGs only get the additional zoom when pressing the steady key with the bipod up. This might be the only real advantage for the rifles, because there are so few spots where putting the bipod up is good, and the extra zoom is fairly necessary to shoot at 150m+

I'll roughly segue by saying that almost no matter who or where you're coming under fire from, it's usually a better decision to shoot back than run. Even if the proest MG is bearing down on you running and hiding will just get you wallbanged or sprayed in the bushes, unless you can dive behind proper cover.

It's always situational, but shooting is the best 99% of the time. That MG dude spraying you is probably not hitting because he's janking out on the wall for a sec, struggling with the gun. But he'll just keep spraying if you run away.

You should also shoot people until you see them die, and shoot anybody that your allies are shooting. Just steal their kills, because no allies or enemies can be trusted to behave reliably or get kills reliably. The literal best player I've ever seen playing this game (named [Twitch]XXX at the time) got 229 kills over 2 rounds and claimed to have a best killstreak of 70-130 (on a separate occasion), but he's still going to be unreliable because he just wandered up next to me in the bushes one time and didn't see me, and because I personally killed him heaps of times as he was just running around like a lunatic rushing into my spawn repeatedly on the 229 game.

RS2 is not necessarily a game that will reward you playing smart, as much as it will reward you playing exploitatively and reactively. Not illegitimately, but simply by abusing the maps and players as much as possible. You don't need plans, just knowledge of routes and broken spots you can switch between when one of your lanes starts taking fire.

That's why playing reactively and using the knowledge you gain from deaths and failures is all you can do. I stopped XXX from running away and getting nearly 300 kills, I'm sure. He hardly even attempted to kill me back because it wasn't worth it for him. It was better for him to just slip past into the spawn and get cheap kills.

And of course XXX was the most reactive, just avoiding me completely, attacking where the enemy is vulnerable. Just read Murphy's Laws of War, since it's more applicable than Sun Tzu's Art of War to RS2.

Yeah so anyway he either has ESP or he's just good. That's gamesense. You'd swear I have ESP hacks. I once ran onto the capzone and said 'guys are about to come out from behind this wall', and 3 guys came out a few seconds later, with more streaming over. The wall was about 30m away and I had no way of observing the other side. I just looked at the position of friendly units on the map, considered the shots I heard, and considered what I observed on the previous life.

I then told everyone I'm ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pro. Now I do talk on mic a lot, but I've never heard any other player say that there's about to be enemies in a certain location, and that we should camp a specific area. I say this all the time, because people need to know that they must camp specific spots, reacting to enemy movement, and not randomly camp in areas where they see one guy run past the whole game.

You should basically be camping, roaming, and rushing, in that order. Whether attackers or defenders.

You should predict where enemies will appear and camp the location, instead of running after them.
You should move into roaming positions where you can get cheap kills and observe the battlefield.
When the coast is clear you should blitz the cap or rush the enemy position.

Repeat.

Not saying you shouldn't get on the cap. Just saying new players need to slow down and stop running. Especially stop running when shot at. Delayed killfeed and they won't know what happened. Humans see movement.

In a game where you can only shoot or run, you want to be shooting. I mean you need to push the cap but dude unless there's smoke, nades, arty, MGs spraying the front... You're better pushing the side or rear. Value your life on the offensive and you're more likely to actually get onto the cap. But sure, rush on when appropriate. The game gives you score as an indicator of teamplay.

Oftentimes you can do more damage by camping in front of the cap as defenders, or remaining in the cap and hiding then trying to shoot guys in the back, after it has been capped. People say this is dirty and QQ, but running back just gets YOU shot in the back. Plus attackers almost always have an easier time of spawncamping or gimping reinforcements running onto the cap.

Gamesense is estimating the position of enemies. It's knowing to keep the gun towards the enemy and always make use of sideways and diagonal running on the retreats. But then it's knowing that all out dashes, melee attacks, and grenade suicide runs sometimes are the best idea.

If you are out of ammo and can't find a gun honestly it's your only hope. You should consider ammo though. Value your life and not your ammo. Spam your first mags down in semi on anything that moves, don't leave half empty mags. Leave your last mag or two as a contingency to push the cap hard (with nades) or make it to the ammo dump.

If your main goes click click and you have a pistol try to get into the habit of dropping your main rather than switching. Some mains have really long putting away animations...

Let's try to conclude.

idklol just keep the guns in semi and have good aim.

As defenders, hide and camp, be a chekkyboi, steal enemy guns, hide and camp in a tree. Being on the cap is literally unimportant until it starts falling, but you should get on when you see it going. Being in front of the cap or in a spawn camping position is better.

As attackers, slow down and try to gimp the enemy reinforcements. Roam around and control portions of the map that make it hard for defenders to pinpoint your location or get on the capzone. Bumrush the capzone through unexpected flank/rear lanes to drive out squad leaders and kill tunnels.

Seriously guys just camp and don't run. I once saw this dude jump when I started shooting him. That guy was mentally playing Titanfall or Overwatch or some ♥♥♥♥. BUT THEN, AND THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, DON'T JUST CAMP NONSTOP. CAMP WHERE YOU EXPECT ENEMIES, and stay on the move trying to anticipate their positions.

Then as soon as you get your cheap kills you need to move on, or at least watch a different lane, because enemies won't keep pushing the lane where they just saw three dudes get killed.

You win in RS2 by having your gun up and shooting running guys who don't know where you are. In fact, it's one of my least favourite things about the gameplay of RS2. I mean that's pretty much how all milsim games are. Nevertheless, I'll have another short diatribe by mentioning that players in RO2 had a much easier time dodging bullets due to the overblown vert recoil, (and lack of horizontal) and the fact that half the players had bolties.

Being spotted by a player, or even multiple players, was much less threatening. On the other hand, RS2 is much more a game of stealth. Because the firepower is so great even players with crappy aim will spam you down. Hide in bushes, take it slow, kill or be killed, don't be spotted, hit your first shot. (Although you need to stay on the move while hiding. Hide in a bush but move around so you can reappear from different angles and confuse the enemy).

The strategies I have described are by far the most reliable strategies for individual and team success in RS2, and the common rifleman/grunt has by far the most reliable guns. Sure if you love spamfiring, rushing, grenading, etc... then some of the other classes might be fun and suit your playstyle.

But for objectively great and high-skill gameplay the rifles are better. Plus you can never be called toxic or scummy, because all of the strategies I described are legit, in my opinion. Or at least we can play some whataboutery and say that other classes are scummier. And none of the leet setting hax will replace skill and learning the game. Rifle is also the best to teach you the game, and will help newer players perform at a high level.

Rifle relies mostly on the sort of skill that is player psychology, aiming ability, and only a slight bit of map knowledge and general bush-hiding dickery.

Whereas players performing well with the MGs, RPGs, willie petes, etc... Mostly just revolves around map knowledge and continuously shooting the RPGs into static positions where enemies cluster. This is why they're unreliable, because level 99s play those classes the best. I tend to see a lot of lower level players around the 50s-70s beasting it up with rifle, but performing worse with those other classes.

They don't know which bunkers to shoot the RPG into and get 4 kills everytime, but they do know how to still predict enemies on the map.

And sure, those level 99s probably have better gamesense and predictive abilities, but there's a slight difference between gamesense and game knowledge. Rifle will develop your gamesense. RPG just lets you get the game knowledge of which rooms on the capzone have 4 people in them at any given time. Not knocking the big pimp RPG gods tho...

Update for 2025: Just a final note that anyone is welcome to add me and ask for personal advice on the game. The most important thing about this game is really map knowledge. You will eventually learn all the lanes and sight lines. I'm considering to make guides on spots and lanes to use, let me know in the comments if you want to see that.

Become the Rifleman. Become the Destroyer of Tryhards, Become Death Incarnate.