How do I gain certs reasonably fast?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Cozert, Feb 26, 2013.

  1. Cozert

    I am new to the game and I just cant seem to gain certs fast enough. I am looking at these 1000 cert guns and wondering how the **** do people afford these. any tips? Am I missing something?
  2. Paperlamp

    Yeah you pretty much can't earn certs fast unless you spend a lot of certs first and farm with an ESF, and you have to be decent at flying now to do that supposedly.

    Best bet for a new F2Per, other than finding a different game 'cause you're going to be behind everyone else considerably starting this late, is going medic and healing/reviving, or engineer and dropping ammo and repairing MAXes which gives you considerably more XP than repairing tanks. It still won't feel fast though.

    If you're TR you could farm with a prowler, the other tanks aren't great for farming until you spend 1k certs on high explosive but prowler does it well with stock HEAT.
    • Up x 2
  3. Jurav

    Just starting out, you wont gain them fast. the longer you play your character, the faster you will gain them. Keep an eye on your certs bonuses above the minimap and makes sure you constantly have all the bonuses you can get, like defense bonuses and such.

    If you pay for a subscription, you get a +25% boost to xp gain, and you can do other things like playing an engineer and dropping ammo packs or you can support the game and go buy a 1500 Statiion cash card from Wal-Mart which gives you 2000 station cash to buy stuff with.

    There are lots of ways to get what you want, but the fastest way is to pay for it.
  4. Chouheals

    Step 1: Play Medic
    Step 2: Revive people and heal
    Step 3: Watch them die and revive them again

    Seriously just cert a few points into nanoweave armor and try to get at least 3 points into your healing bar. You'll be reviving people in 1 ~ 2 seconds.
    • Up x 1
  5. Ash87

    Alternatively to the frankly killjoy response you received first: Join an outfit. Certs really do come rather quickly if you are in larger battles, and you can pick up XP pretty much doing anything. It does take a while to get 1000 certs, but you aren't going to be substantially bad off with the starting equipment.

    The quickest way I have found to get certs, is to get stuck into a decent bit of line combat as a medic or an Engi. If you are an engi, keep healing maxes. If you are a medic, just revive and heal.

    Other things that grant a lot of certs: Getting a spawn beacon in a big fight. Spawning a sunderer near a big fight.

    Something else, they will have the VR Training area soon. If you are trying to go for 100% f2p, I would advise waiting for that before making any purchases anyway, that way you can properly try out all the weapons. Also, if you are entering into combat somewhere and think you need greater firepower, try weapons for a half hour, that'll get you access to all the explodey toys you would ever need, albeit for 30 minutes.
    • Up x 2
  6. Kaindestroi

    spend certs to gain certs, upgrade things like your repair tool or buy things like revive grenades.

    my second tip would be - ride as gunner. find someone who got a nice upgraded liberator or tank and jump into the gunner spot as a engineer.

    and never miss chances for XP. even such trivial things like dropping a ammo box in the warp gate before heading out helps.
  7. Gavyne

    You have to put in your time, don't expect to get fast cert gains right away, or become Gods of planetside 2 right away. So with the right expectations, there are some ways that could net you certs faster.

    1. Do multiple things, don't just focus on killing infantry, or focus on killing vehicles. There are classes that allow you to do multiple things, such as engineers. Engineers are able to plant anti tank mines, getting you nice juicy vehicle exp, while at the same time plan prox mines to kill a few infantry here and there. At the same time the engineer can get out ammo packs to see a stream of exp flowing in especially during heated bio labs battles. And while the ammo pack's working, you could repair MAX's and other vehicles. Repair anything that needs repaired. Of course kill people whenever you get a chance, that's always a good way to keep the exp coming.

    (but remember engineers don't come default with all the tools capable of doing all of the above, this is where you gotta put in your time, and be able to get cert upgrades to get these other things such as anti tank mines, C4, prox mines, etc...)

    2. Play a medic, people are always dying, you won't run out of people to heal & rez. Medics also do fairly well killing people, so again, do multiple things, don't just focus on healing/rezzing, don't hesitate to shoot when you need to.

    3. When the place is right, spawn a HE tank or lightning, and farm the infantry using HE. Here's another thing you want to put in your time and upgrade before you get access to HE with a lightning. But given the right situation, you can farm infantry with ease using HE shells. I won't play the game for you so you'll have to figure out where & when to spawn these tanks. There are places that are perfect for these situations, and there are times when it's just the worst time to spawn tanks.

    4. If you see an enemy sunderer, it's a 1,000+ xp kill depending on your bonus. Work your butt off at trying to kill it, it's not only satisfying, but it's good cert gain.

    5. Join an Outfit, running lonewolf can work fine as I lonewolf, but you seem to not want to spend the money or put in the time. So for someone like you, an Outfit will work better.
  8. Paperlamp

    You misread.
    • Up x 1
  9. ent|ty

    How else, spend money.
  10. Hael

    1. Join an outfit
    2. Join an outfit platoon
    3. Ride along in a tank/Sunderer as they go around capping bases
    4. ?????
    5. PROFIT!

    That's probably the easiest way for a new player to get certs somewhat quickly. The only other thing I can suggest is:
    --take a plane and go blow up turrets at some undefended base back behind enemy lines
    OR hang around the warpgate and be some liberator's gunner
  11. Ash87

    Corrected, thank you for pointing that out.
  12. Ertwin

    Invest in ammo supply for the sunderer and sit in on tank battles. Also play as an engineer and deploy ammo in major battles. Being in the zone when your faction takes over a base also grants you large sums of XP.
  13. Vashyo

    Ways to earn certs the fastest

    Play medic, upgrade healing and reviving ability just stick back a bit and heal people as they go down and keep up that healing ability to gain some extra XP

    Play engineer, upgrade the repair tool. Drop ammo kits at places where you have lot of allies, also if u press B u can turn your turret into another ammo pack so put that other pack elsewhere to get even more XP.

    If you have friends that like to fly libs, gun it. This thing can get you +50 certs/hour if you are atleast decent shot and the pilot is good. Also you can fly ESFs and use rocketpods. Though don't hover around zerg, you will go down in no time.

    Play on a server that has lot of people, Miller is the biggest server right now but some of the smaller servers are gonna merge so I'd expect some of them to get even bigger. Definately don't come to Woodman, it's gonna be the smallest server most likely after the merges.

    Allways play on Indar, you have more people there allways than on the other continents. More people = More kills = More XP. Especially focus on the middle area of the map.
  14. Techup

    Really, the fastest way is to simply pick a class you enjoy playing and not think about gaining certs. Just go to where you can have fun the most and do what you want to do.

    Time will fly by and after a couple hours, you'll have a decent chunk of certs and you won't even think about it because you'll have been busy just simply having fun.
  15. Vertabrae

    Keep in mind when looking at those 1000 cert guns, they aren't always better. Most guns are sidegrades, instead of upgrades. Your default gun, when certed out correctly will do pretty well at all things. (Yes I know not all default guns, but most of them). That 1000 cert gun you want might be really good at super close range, but terrible at mid-long range. Or good at long range but terrible in close.

    Higher SC or cert value on a gun does not always mean better performance. Play a medic or engi for a bit. farm some certs. Experiment with other classes to see what you like. Once you figure out what you like, use the certs you farmed to start gearing up that class. Figure out your preferred playstyle. Are you a CQB fighter, or do you prefer longer range? Once you know that stuff, do a little research and find the guns that fit your playstyle. Trial them for free. Only then should you think about spending 1000 certs on a gun.
  16. Raap

    Play for fun, not grinding.

    Focus on a single role at first, get that to a good level to maximize your potential (which results in more certs gained), do not spread your certs into 5 classes and 5 vehicles and then complain the game is a grind (many people make this mistake).

    Playing a support class can be a decent way to gain certs but you will do just fine playing a light or heavy assault, killing people, blowing stuff up. I personally consider vehicle specialisation a step up from infantry, you probably shouldn't cert much into vehicles until you have an Engineer that is well certed, and you shouldn't cert into big cert-drains like main battle tanks unless you are sure you want to be a dedicated tank driver.

    Don't go for the weapons first, go for the ability, utility, suit and what ever unlocks first. The starter weapons are not bad at all, the 1000 cert weapons often aren't better, just a trade-off.

    But other than that, play to have fun, the certs follow. You can join an outfit as others mentioned, but you can do very well running solo too.
  17. Tigga

    As Raap said - play for fun, and the certs will come in. Most of the weapons are side-grades which make you stronger in particular types of engagement, but weaker in others. Most of the class upgrades you can get with low cert cost until right near the end of the tree, and the end of the tree tends to cost a lot for little benifit.
  18. Kasse

    Be careful with those tips. Don't even start grinding, it'll just make you feel like working, not playing a game. Just test everything, find out what you like to play and then start to upgrade there. You'll later notice that there are other things you like to play, because suddendly you certed into them and they are more fun than before. But that's fine.

    My point is, if you have fun playing the game certs will come. If you grind they will too, but ask yourself if it's worth it.
    Because i can tell you, it's most likely not.

    There aren't alot of things really mandatory. Sure, if you want to play a medic most of the time, you'll need those upgrades. But if you just focus on the things you like, you won't have to spend much certs. That's because most stock weapons are just fine and you'll find yourself mainly unlocking new stuff like mines and C4, because you go from 0 to 100 with those, while new weapons may just bring you from 90 to 100 for even more cert investment.

    Honestly, 1000 certs for weapons is a damn joke. As simple as that. But then again, you will most likely only need like 6 of such expensive weapons ever. Because you probably won't play every class and every vehicle equally often.

    So, if you don't intend to fly a liberator (in which case you are kind of ******, because those stock weapons really do suck) you should be just fine. Sure your K/D will suck, because everyone else will be superior to you. But if you can figure out what you'd like to play and invest in that you'll find that every little upgrade will speed up your cert gain. And a few days/weeks later you'll have a pretty solid class or a decent vehicle to run with. Just don't do the **** everyone does in the beginning. Do not randomly spam certs around. You will find that things you bought because they sounded fun are actually huge ********, because you end up not likeing them too much.

    To sum up:

    Yes, 1k certs for weapons sucks. Luckily most stock weapons are just fine or even "best in slot" in some cases, so you want need to many and can focus on certing into your favourite playstyle first.

    Then there is the weapon-test. I recommend using it before you purchase any weapon or the like. You could try A2A missles for your ESF and see how that goes. But never ever just buy something because it sounds fun (well at least not if you do have serious cert gaining issues - aka beeing very new to the game).


    Of course i'll tell you AFTER you read this pointless post, that this:

    pretty much says the same thing i said lol.
  19. GSZenith

    play tr, spawn prowler, oh i missed my target? np i'm not being punished for being bad, i got a second shot and fast reload time while anchored, the tradeoff? why would i have i weakness? would be antifun for me.
  20. TomoB

    And remember to login each day with all your characters even if you don't feel like playing, because they give you free candy (12certs/24h).
    • Up x 1