What do you think about the ability, that the player could turn on or off, that would grant the TR MAX to have a 2-2.5 sec. "fuse" for the Pounders and that would give him more damage output (idk about the exact number here)? It would be make it more fun to use, more versatile and challenging.
Pounders don't need any buffs vs. infantry (since this fuse mode would be mostly worthless vs. vehicles, it is primarily an AI buff). They're already drastically overperforming in that department compared to the other factions' equivalents. If the fuse mode were the only mode, well, that might be interesting for AI purposes, but it would destroy the weapon for AV use. A better possibility would be to create an NS weapon with this functionality. It would only have the fuse mode, so it doesn't step on the Pounder's toes, and the purpose would be suppressing infantry (with vehicle damage being possible but not effective due to the way fused grenades tend to bounce off vehicles). This might also have the advantage of quieting complaints about the Pounder's AI capability, since other factions would have something sort of similar which would ideally do the job a bit better.
In my personal experience, this is just not true. Sure, you won't be able to stack up piles of corpses with each and every reload of either Falcons or Comets, but that's different from Pounders how? XXX On-topic: fuse-only MAX grenade launchers were briefly tested on PTS awhile back. Even if they had glowing grenade indicators on each and every projectile and essentialy made the user completely incapable from defending themselves, the stink people raised about them was quite high. And - much more importantly - the dev team suddenly got cold feet too. I can't seem to remember if there was any official explanation.
You don't have to take my word for it. Pounders outperform Falcons and Comets by about 50% in KPH (i.e., mostly against infantry). The real issue is not that Pounders are so amazing vs. infantry (they're really just okay, rather than bad), but that they're brutal against other MAXes without sacrificing nearly as much AI capability. This means that the Pounder MAX is the true master of the biolab, not the ScatMAX, as everyone says.
Well, the tables might say what they want, but, in my experience, double Falcon can kill double Pounder in a one-on-one situation even with the its really slow reload after each shot. I dunno, maybe that dude was just having latency issues or whatever, but last time I've ran into such a match-up as an NC MAX doubleshot-reload-doubleshot cycle on a double Pounder MAX with both of us facing each other at less than 10m distance left me with a hefty one-half of my hp and the enemy dead on the ground. Sure, the mechanical (and cosmetical too - the cool factor is very important!) changes to the Falcon were kind of a dick move on the dev team's part ('You have trouble seeing the projectile arc? Let's give you a super thick and fat smoke trail that will blind you! Oh, and some acceleration mechanic to make shooting squishies harder on top of that too.'), but it ain't nearly as useless as its low usage may suggest. NC, from I've seen in the game, usually don't bother packing anything but Mattock/Grinder these days because those guns can wreck a MAX no problem without sacrificing a yota of AI effectiveness, but for anti-MAX purposes I'd still suggest Falcons because a). two double hits - a dead MAX and b). the second arm is currently cheap to get, so you are not risking much investment in case you don't like the result after trying it out. As for Comets... They kill slowly only if you try to compare them to Blueshifts. I've not had a direct match-up with these on even terms yet, but they will certainly send you packing if you have double AI guns (as a TR, at least) on you.
I roll both pounder and fracture loadouts. Pounder is for close range AT and AM(anti-Max). I use in in very mobile fights where I will be fighting a assortment of enemies (since it can handle most things very well.) The reason why is would bring it over my Mercy-Mutilator combo is if I feel I'll find maxes during my onslaught. I normally get sprint as I use the Pounders to breach and clear focusing down MAXs while my team flows in behind me taking care of the low priority targets. But if the breach goes sour you can use sprint to dash back out of the room and get fixed up. Fracture is my long range "We draw the line HERE!" anti tank deterrent. Sit on a hill, lock down and just rain rockets on any armor that I cross sights with. Naturally as a max you're open to AP rounds so you shouldn't use this load out to try and pull a Gandalf. You use it when the lines have been drawn and you need to help keep a armor convoy away. You probably won't kill a convoy but you can hurt it enough to keep it at bay while you team comes up with a long term solution on getting rid of them.
