Wow! A lot has changed for Infiltrators since I started playing. For those of you who didn't see it originally, make sure to check out the first installment of this series: 20 Ranks of Infiltrator, a review. Ch-ch-ch-changes: The first major change I should mention is that my infiltrator playtime has dropped from roughly 95% to merely 80%. Since the introduction of the engineer's AV turret, there's simply no denying the jawdropping XP gain ability of the engineer vs sunderers, particularly on double XP weekends. If I see a sunderer that I think I can get to, I switch to engineer to either suicide run it or use my awesome firebending on it. Likewise, it's hard to say no to the XP fest of being a medic in a biolab. These were forbidden fruits unknown to me at the time of my last posting. Recon dart XP has slightly reduced my desire to play Medic, but there's still no alternative when it comes to vehicles. The second major change is my playstyle. Gone are the days of sniping; and, oddly, my overall k/d has slightly improved (from about .7 to about .8). I really struggle to ever find a reason to pull out a Bolt Action rifle anymore. The parallax (tier 3 BAR) used to be the only way I could get kills consistently, but with the nanoweave issues, it's just not worth it. After watching Mustarde kick *** at close ranges, I even tried using the Ghost (short range BAR) and the Nyx (Semi Scout). I just have not been able to do the headshots reliably anymore. On the bright side, I've noticed two major benefits. One, I feel like I can win 1-on-1 engagements even when the enemy has time to pull the trigger. It used to be, CQC for me was limited to situations where the enemy was totally oblivious to my presence, such as being at a vehicle terminal or scoped in. Moreover, I can even go 2 or 3 to one when I get the drop on people. I finally feel CQC capable. The Sirius (2nd SMG) lets me face small groups of people when I get the drop on them and the Commisioner (NS heavy revolver) lets me consistently win 1-on-1 fights so long as I manage to close the distance before the enemy starts firing. The introduction of the SMG actually made me feel like I could be useful in squad play, so I finally got to join an outfit! Awesome! I'm not stuck being a lone wolf anymore! People actually use the terminals and turrets I hack! It's great. The last major change is to prox mines. They've always been my highest kill weapon, but they've really plateaued in the last few updates. Between cert bloat, the fact that nanoweave can now protect against prox mines, a period of several weeks where prox mines did zero damage, etc., prox mines have lost a lot of versatility. To be perfectly frank, having only one proximity mine is useless 9 times out of 10. Two prox mines will usually be sufficient as a drop and forget defense of a door. If you want to properly protect a room, particularly a shield generator, you need one on each door AND stay put AND hope that you aren't going to face more than 2 enemies. Generally, my main use for prox mines these days is clearing out MAX support teams. Got a nasty max with 5 engineers? I suicide run in and drop my two prox mines. That's usually enough to kill all the engineers and, if the MAX was hurting to begin with, him too. Again, this is becoming less effective over time. I have dabbled with being an engineer and doing the same thing with two tank mines, though that requires living long enough to shoot the things. I suspect that a light assault with two C4 probably still wins at this. What works: I'm still absolutely in love with the sense of "I outsmarted you," when I have a good streak. Additionally, I really feel that the infiltrator playstyle encourages me to go resolve chokepoints in major battles. Also, the recon dart gives XP, huzzah! What could work better: Just about everything else, sadly. There's very little that I can do beside cross open terrain that other classes can't do better. However, that is frequently shortchanged by the return of the white ghost infiltrators on low settings. Likewise turret hacking often provides a free kill to the person who was inside the turret. Even hacking terminals isn't very rewarding anymore. I can hack a terminal and put two proximity mines on it, and it will still be unhacked in less than a minute in many situations. In general, the only things that work consistently on our class are the SMG and the Commisioner, both of which are available to every other (non-MAX) class. Certifications are still lackluster (foregrips on BARs but no high velocity ammo?). What doesn't work: Avenues of entry. By and far, this is the number one problem with the class. There was a delightful two week period when it was discovered that we could jump/climb the corner towers on base walls. Just not having to go through the bullet/shell spam of the main gates of a base was sufficient to make me feel like I was really sneaking in, even though it was only a difference of about 5 meters. Sadly, jumping was nerfed because of this. I'm not asking to fly over walls or onto roofs. I'm simply asking for a route only (or primarily) for infiltrators. Personal shield diffusers, ventilation ducts, or....since we are in the future...
This, uh... still works, dude. The herculean leap which occured when running up a slanted surface is gone, but you can still climb those towers. I can't explain it without some visuals. Allow me to return with some screenshots.
Okay, I'm back. The old path is drawn here in glorious Sovereignty Purple, while the new path is here in Enlightenment Cyan. In the second image, the section highlighted in Blind Obedience Red represents a surface which is too steep to climb on foot and too long to jump over post-nerf. It is easily surpassed. One problem does arise when you're standing on the section I'm looking at here, however. As you can see, the surface is slanted, and a single jump pre-nerf would easily get you properly into the tower because of that. Now that we no longer have this luxury, a physics-glitching double jump is required. To my knowledge there's no way to reliably produce this, so you essentially have to run into the corner and spam your jump key while sliding down the wall until the game forgets that you lack a proper foothold and allows you to climb up. It goes without saying that this takes longer, and you can't be sure of when it will work, but I imagine you aren't trying to enter towers from the outside just because it's faster anyways.
Great post Giltwist. I reached BR60 today and I'd say my experiences read very similar to yours. Having started off with the sniper rifles I find myself using the SMG most of the time as well. My infil time has reduced to 80-something % as well, as the bursterMAX is great revenge on all those lolpodding radar ESFs! When its a double XP weekend I like to go for auraxium medals in my paper tank (the Prowler). Your 'what doesn't work' paragraph though is exactly what I'm hoping will be improved in the infiltrator update. I've been mixing in a bit of light assault play for exactly this reason. I don't want or expect the same ability obviously but some improved mobility would make the class in my opinion.
I've tried arguing in favour of increased avenues of entry before - the problem is a lot of the playerbase associate height with Light Assaults, rather than the true association of speed. Hence, anything that gets you over things are seen as unfair (even if it was extremely slow to do). I doubt people would have changed since I last argued in favour of it, which leaves me thinking wall climbing (in any form what-so-ever) is unlikely to received well. Still... Vents would work, but would require some reason for only infiltrators being able to use it, and preferably with multiple exits. Maybe something like lasers that kill anything that tries to pass through them - infiltrators being fine because the cloak bends light around it. Hackable doors are another option - again though, the problem is putting in a way that only infiltrators can use them, otherwise they simply become another regular entrance to a base which needs to be defended with a constant stream of projectiles. Shield diffusers could work, and are already in the game in some form. Still require base redesign, but quite feasible. Matter diffusers could work without requiring any base redesign. Well, some walls would have to protected in some form (SCUs, etc), but would otherwise greatly increase the avenues of entry. Speed might be increased a lot though if we can diffuse through obstacles - a long recharge and/or very slow movement while activated would probably be necessary to offset this.
Or maybe something like metal detectors or somesuch lore reason why people wearing armor can't go through vents without tripping some sort of alarm system and suffering instant death. Infiltrators, who lack the armor of the other classes, can safely evade these alarms with our wonderful, armorless skinsuits.
Great post and a fun read! Out of sheer stubbornness, I've maintained an 87% infiltrator profile this entire time, although certainly it is hard to stick to your guns when nanoweave essentially neuters your most valuable killing abilities. I don't quite agree with the cloaking and visibility issues, as I have always tried to think of our cloak as an additional layer of camouflage, rather than a "cloak" of invisibility. I know it was easier to see on low settings and to a degree, still is. It never really stopped me from functioning as an infiltrator. Hacking terminals has always been a convenience issue for me. The only times that it really matters in a fight is when you secure vehicle terminals for your outfit, and/or pull a sunderer in the middle of the storm. I do miss the super jumping physics, not only for scaling the walls of amp stations, but for climbing hills on the goat trails all over amerish and indar, to reach some really nice perches. I really miss those days... I still swear by the bolt action, nanoweave be damned. When it comes to CQC, I just rely on the pistol and knife. It's mostly a personal preference thing, and a pathologic habit that I need to be able to hit long range targets, because YOU NEVER KNOW when the chance will arise, even in a biolab! One thing you didn't mention was the wraith flash. This has been my favorite addition to the class since release, and turns me into an infantry farming ***** on a scale I couldn't dream of accomplishing with just a rifle. See you on the battlefield! Or will I see you.... ?
@Dr. E. I'll give that a try. ANYTHING to not get instagibbed just because I have no option but to run between opposing heavies to get into bases. @Aim I hadn't really thought about the justification for non-infiltrators. Possibly just make crouch-walk into a proper crawl and only give infiltrators the cert tree that lets you do it at a reasonable speed? @Mustarde I'm still convinced we're going to see a wraith-fury nerf of some sort. SOE was already going to do it once but accidentally pissed off everyone else by focusing on the fury side of it. I would not be surprised if wraith module flashes couldn't equip weapons.
Oh the flash <3 Enjoy the good times while you have them. We have to wait until August for the infiltrator class update so I am dumping all my certs into the fury and flash to have a bit of fun. I really like your post! A friendly tip! If your learning CQC try mastering Juking. Flanking and coming from behind is one thing, and its really important but learning to deal with people face to face or unexpectedly is also important. Juking with hard cover. Example hiding behind an object so they look to the left, and then poping right back out and nailing them with a few extra rounds in the face can really help alot. You can also learn to juke with the cloak too, making enemies lose sight of you and over compensate giving you an edge. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M87VXU8ZWpE (medic pov) using hard cover. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NuI3SIzkQ6k (infiltrator pov) Middle section of the video shows cloak jukes.
Dr E, I did not know we could climb over the outer walls of the Amp Stations but I've just followed your instructions and it was a piece of cake. This is very useful tip - thanks for the post!
It'd give me a great feeling of 'actually being part of and useful' within my squad or team aside from killing, which somehow LA's are doing a better job of than we are. especially when it comes to the 'oh ****' moments of accidentally running into a max or enemy armor. And that useful part being infiltrating, going in their base. through some sort of unique pathway that is solely accessible to us and us alone. Causing chaos by jamming radars, throwing devices on tanks that makes them not operate well or slowly get damaged over time, Booby trapping entrenches and consoles and of course collection intelligence for the team! scouting and (silently) being able to spot enemies, Laserbeaming targets, making it easier for liberators / fighters to take them out and getting points for it. There's just so much we could be designated to do within PS2 yet we don't really have any other purpose right now than to get behind enemy lines and try to take out a few targets at a time before relocating again.. nothing but killers -_-;;
SO TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT....... NOTHING WORKS BUT CLOAK N KILLS WITH A SMG>>PLANT CLAYMORES.....ya we all knew that since they let us get smg...sniper rifles sucked.
@Effect: The problem with that method is that it's very difficult to show you a counterexample, because it doesn't really track all the times I actually hit people in the head but it didn't kill them. If you look at my player stats and really explore stuff, you'll begin to see a larger picture. For example, with the Parallax, I have a 41% accuracy, and of those hits 25% of them are headshots. My XM98 stats are very similar. I'm no Mustarde, but stats like those are not bad, in my book. But if you look on my timeline, its been absolute AGES since I've actually killed anyone with a sniper rifle. How both my Sirius and my Commisioner heavily outstrip my sniper rifles in kills per minute. And my prox mines are leaps and bounds better (although its why I never have any inf resources laying around). If you read my first post from 30 BR ago (when neither of these weapons existed) you can see that basically all I did was snipe. Sniping is dramatically less effective. This decrease is at the very least in comparison to other infiltrator weapons and the power creep in weapons in general. However, the dramatic uptick in users of NW also creates a practical (rather than perceptual) decline in power.
However, with my screenshot, I basically killed all of those people in the span of 9 minutes, with mostly headshots. They were a mix of pretty much all classes minus maxes. None of them took more then 1 headshot. NW is not as prevalent as people believe it is. Do some people have level 5 nanoweave? Sure, I have it on my infil. But not everyone is going to spend points on it. Looking at my stats my accuracy is at 47% which isn't much higher then yours (41%), till you look at the other numbers. You have 472 kills with the Parallax, I have 466 with the longshot, you have 343 HS, I have 360, your shots fire/hits count is3,247\1,342 to my 1,773/841. You see the difference? You have almost 1500 more shots fired then I do, of which you only hit 500 more times. But I have more HS's and nearly equal kills. Do you wish to know the reason? Because I know when it's time to switch to a different weapon or a different class. I don't sit in a fight trying to take pot shots with a SR in a situation where it can't be used efficiently. Sniping is always going to be a situational weapon (The SMG was a fantastic buff to infiltrators, giving them much needed close in power for fighting inside bases), nanoweave ultimately has nothing to do with it. What infils need, is not improvements to sniper rifles or nerfs to nanoweave, but (and these are my only complaints) a way to deal with vehicles, even if it's just a buff to EMP grenades to disable or slow vehicles down. Armor cloak could use a serious change to be viable, and decoy nades are kinda why botherish. But that's about it.
Another option you should've added is to move on to another fight. I'm going for the Auraxium medal for my Longshot and I can't spend any time on a fight that has already passes or the smaller skirmishes where sniping is useless if I am to achieve my goal.
You don't need nanoweave 5. You need nanoweave 2. That's a whopping 11 certs. Please consult the other threads on this subject. Mustarde's demonstrated some very close range sniping not working. Vaphell's made graphs. First of all, when I started playing, there was no effective alternative. I had two loadouts, one with a supressor and one without. I spent over $100 in station cash, and I tried darn near everything that the VS has to offer infiltrators. Nothing was effective in medium or CQC ranges until the SMG (unless your name is Mustarde). Moreover, the number of effective situations is on the decline. More walls and dome shields are coming. That all but eliminates long range sniping (if the hard limit of 100m for top tier BARs didn't already). Especially with a supressor, you need to be about 30-50m away from your target to get a OHK, which is the only reason you'd use a BAR in the first place. The problem is that literally every other gun in the game except maybe the Beamer outclasses sniper rifles at these ranges in terms of ADS time, flinch, TTK (assuming you miss the first shot), COF, hipfire accuracy, etc.
Then plenty of people don't seem to use nanoweave because I can count on on both hands the amount of times I've failed to kill someone with a headshot while sniping. Guess what, now there are effective alternatives. Actually I think walls will increase sniping opportunities. Dome shields not so much. But people are going to be getting on top of walls to shoot out of (you can as well!), or in the case of smaller/thinner walls, funneling players into smaller areas to get in or out, making it easier to snipe people going through those areas. as far as 30-50m ranges only depends on who sees who first.
