Shocklance

The Shocklance is a short-range hitscan energy weapon available to all classes in Tribes: Ascend. It can be unlocked for 420 Gold or 37500 XP.

"Almost considered a melee weapon, the Shocklance fires a short but very high damaging beam of energy. Hits to the back deal bonus damage."  In-Game Description

Operation
The Shocklance fires a hitscan beam of energy that draws on the players energy pool. Contrary to popular belief, the Shocklance does have ammunition, but it is not displayed on the weapon (instead, it can be seen in third person view). This is most likely due to the fact that a normal player will not live long enough to use all the ammo. The weapon has a very short range, just a bit more than a melee strike, and deals 700 damage. If the Shocklance hits an enemy player in the back it deals double damage, enough to kill any light or medium class in one hit.

Tactics
The Shocklance is an obvious choice for Infiltrators who prefer to backstab their enemies as it effectively doubles the melee range. It also has the double-damage benefit of the Close Combat perk built in, allowing the player to choose another perk and retain the ability to backstab.

The Shocklance can be paired with a normal melee backstab for 2300 damage almost instantly. Previously, there was a bug causing the upgrades to also drastically lower the energy consumption for Stealth Pack (rather than just the Shocklance itself), so a player could stay invisible for much longer. However, this bug was fixed in the most recent patch.