3* Ribey.

The problem is Ribey herself is only borderline viable to begin with; she has some of the lowest DPS of any AR herself and almost completely relies on her buffs to make up for it, which usually works out to a net positive, but not always.

Vepr has both weaker stats and weaker buffs (both skill and tiles), and you won't get dupes of her. Really no point in bothering with her, the free SAA you get from career quests or any 4+ star AR will give better results.

After literally years, M4 demonstrates WHY SHE IS THE HEROINE and becomes METAL GEAR.

She keeps all her old benefits but has 5 star multipliers and better stats now. This gets even better when Mod3 when she gets a unique that ups her firepower and ALSO gives her armour, so she can kinda tank in a pinch. Her buff tiles are ALSO slightly improved. Her mod 2 skill also tags enemies and enhances the mod skills of other Anti-Rain units.

The big thing however is the desperation mode. At mod2 onward, when 3 or fewer allied dolls are in battle (you can retreat 2 units to force this, or simply deploy her with a partial strength echelon), she pulls out the portable cannon and proceeds to deal hilarious damage that makes grenadiers wet their pants, as huge AoE blasts firing from every dummy. The blasts are kinda 100% accurate (the main hit can never miss, even at night, but the splash damage can. Its weird), and can partly crit (its complicated), and is meant to be a last ditch thing to save a fight under dire circumstances (of course, we instead abuse it). This is however, a doubled edged sword, as her RoF also goes down, so its possible for some enemies to slip by if you havent taken this into account.

Basically, Mod her first. She's pretty much priority #1 for modding.

Aka StG 77, the ARMEEUNIVERSALGEWEHR.

Because Austrians are crazy and German is a meme language.

-Her tiles give slightly weaker buffs than Ribey's or M4A1's, but since she buffs all types, she'll also boost your SMGs. This unfortunately isnt as relevant as it once was.

-She was a pretty decent damage dealer vs unarmored enemies, but later enemies are surprisingly resistant and later ARs can punch through. She kind of cant, lacking any real damage increases.

-Her skill sets her RoF to 150 and basically turns her into an MG (sounds included. Yes, it changes her firing sound to match an MG.), with goofy targeting that you CANNOT CONTROL BY ANY MEANS (Including Contender). At level 10, it will have no accuracy penalty

At one point she was a centerpiece of many formations and things were good. Then the game powercrept the idea of raw aspd without damage increase. STAR at least got gear to keep her relevant and punch through armor. AUG has yet to get any love (her SPEQ doesnt help much vs armor and is just winmoar vs unarmored) and so currently has fallen behind.

When her artist read up on her, she was kind of horrified and drew a weak-bodied hospital patient who hates her defective form. In the actual game, she is a good performance AR-buffer. Her skill is somewhat peculiar, because she does not buff herself, but she more than makes up for it by turning the other two ARs into veritable murder machines. Presumably because the other ARs are horrified at the thought of her dying out with them and wanting to kill the enemy as soon as possible.

The cinnamon roll heroine. One of three ARs that buffs other ARs. A decent DPS who buffs other DPS. Later upgrades into a fucking metal gear. Which you should 150% get. So regardless of how good she is now, raise her anyways.

You can find her mod here