[PSA] NC Max buff on PTS, is this what hope feels like?

ahoy gang,
in a shocking new PTS update the unthinkable and totally unexpected has happened,
NC max AI weapons have finally received a buff!

all of them are now becoming automatic, getting bigger magazines, more reserve ammo and less damage drop off!
some are also receiving fire rate increases!

this is fantastic, and it really felt strange having a smile put on my face by the patch notes!
a glimmer of hope has once again been sparked!

thanks devs, and...
GOOD JOB WREL.
yes i said it!

has anyone else tested them yet? what do you think?
personally i think they feel in a pretty good spot (atleast shooting test dummies)
Hacksaws once again feel worthy of their name!

(in other news orbital strikes now cost more than colossus tanks! another great change!)

Really looking forward to not having to clickety click my Mattocks every time I see a group of people.

The OS resource cost increase is great, as well as the obliteration of Ti Alloys. I'll be glad to see the back of it!

Reducing OS spam and giving the NC MAX much needed love. If this is a sign of times to come colour me hecking intrigued!

NC MAX WON'T BE USELESS ANYMORE?

Polystellarite cost on Outfit OS?



Okay, this is epic.

i miss TI alloys when the land bridge was there, THAT was a great fight and the source of some of my PS2 highlights.
but since they removed the bridge it has became so impossible to cap without a zerg.
the guys down the slope at Ceres have always been screwed, but with the land bridge the Crown guys had a chance of capping it.
but without the land bridge its impossible, there are no good angles of attack.

took a little while but here is how i'd fix TI Alloys

first the landbridge comes back (yay!)
second the slope up from Ceres moves further west (away from the land bridge.)
there are then several sunderer garages at the top of the slope.

a large rock formation blocks the view of the ceres slope from the landbridge guys
(and also blocks off the building entrances to the landbridge.) so land bridge guys enter east side.

the TI alloys spawnroom moves to the south side of the base, with 1 exit north into the base and two exits south.

there would also be a new road for folks approaching from Allatum (to the west) leading to a sunder garage.


the black arrows show how the new TI Alloys would work for the 3 factions as they converge.
a much healthier, fairer fight, and the base is easier to take.

i know right? whats going on!
i'm actually hopeful for the future of PS2! XD
i also typed the words "well done wrel" haha

Cats and dogs living together! MASS HYSTERIA!

I think defense could too easily prevent a force from the SW reaching the garages. Similarly from the crown bridge.

The north side is improved though.

The buffs are small but seem good.

I'm quite surprised! Pleasantly so for once, even.

Mostly small yep, and very welcome!
But the mattock buff from 3 to 4 pellets is a fairly substantial buff!
Expect to see every max running mattocks once again!

I miss the slugs on my Mattocks

I'm not that bothered about the Mattocks becoming auto, I don't think. I don't use the MAX as often as I used to. Perhaps it would be worth firing up PTS to see what it's all about.


Regarding the Outfit OS change. I suppose that will reduce the amount of OS spam... Or will it?

They should have never nerfed them in the first place and just started with removing slugs.

Pretty hilarious how they are essentially just going back.

I'll wait unttil I see some numbers. Does this make any qualitative differences in MAX vs MAX TTK? I remember when the nerf was announced and the DPS/TTK values were calculated to be severely underpowered at all ranges:

From the looks of it, adding 1 pellet to the Mattock, which already has a TTK twice as long (+6 secs) as the VS/TR counterparts, is not enough to make it competitive in a 1v1. But I have not crunched the numbers.

The DPS hasn't changed too much, but has increased (except for mattock getting a nice boost),
but the damage per reload has been improved, damage drop off has been halved.

I can crunch the numbers for us later, but just from PTS testing on target dummies
these new shotguns feel like I might finally be giving my Gorgons a well earned holiday.
Mattocks might actually be a little bit too good, though again, it was only on stationary dummies

I know that a large part of why nc max was getting destroyed in max v max
was because of the lack of sustained fire (damage per mag) compared to TR and vs,
But damage per mag has increased a decent amount since the first ridiculous nerf,
So perhaps the numbers will be more positive now.

ok lets do this! sorry brain!

current live stats, single arm, all pellets landing (within 8m):

Scattercannon:
125 x 5 = 625 damage per shot
120 RPM divided by 60 = 2 round per second
625 x 2 = 1250 DPS
rounds per mag: 11
damage per mag (extended): 6875

Grinder:
50 x 10 = 500 damage per shot
120 RPM divided by 60 = 2 round per second
500 x 2 = 1000 DPS
rounds per mag: 22
damage per mag (extended): 11000

Hacksaw:
75 x 5 = 375 damage per shot
209 RPM divided by 60 = 3.48 round per second
375 x 3.48 = 1305 DPS
rounds per mag: 11
damage per mag (extended): 4125

Mattock:
100 x 3 = 300 damage per shot
180 RPM divided by 60 = 3 round per second
300 x 3 = 900 DPS
rounds per mag: 14
damage per mag (extended): 4200

and the new PTS stats:

Scattercannon:
130 x 5 = 650 damage per shot
130 RPM divided by 60 = 2.16 round per second
650 x 2.16 = 1404 DPS
rounds per mag: 12
damage per mag (extended): 7800

Grinder:
50 x 10 = 500 damage per shot
130 RPM divided by 60 = 2.16 round per second
500 x 2.16 = 1080 DPS
rounds per mag: 26
damage per mag (extended): 13000

Hacksaw:
75 x 5 = 375 damage per shot
218 RPM divided by 60 = 3.63 round per second
375 x 3.63 = 1361 DPS
rounds per mag: 14
damage per mag (extended): 5250

Mattock:
100 x 4 = 400 damage per shot
180 RPM divided by 60 = 3 round per second
400 x 3 = 1200 DPS
rounds per mag: 16
damage per mag (extended): 6400

So the difference from Live to PTS:


Scattercannon:
DPS is going from 1250 to 1404 (12% increase)
damage per mag (extended) is going from 6875 to 7800(13% increase)

Grinder:
DPS is going from 1000 to 1080(8% increase)
damage per mag (extended) is going from 11000 to 13000(18% increase)

Hacksaw:
DPS is going from 1305 to 1361(4% increase)
damage per mag (extended) is going from 4125 to 5250(27% increase)

Mattock:
DPS is going from 900 to 1200(33% increase)
damage per mag (extended) is going from 4200 to 6400(52% increase)


so lets see how this will size up against maxes in 1v1
maxes have an effective healthpool of 10,000 against small arms.
firstly to note: with both arms and extended ammo, ALL of the shotguns can now kill maxes within one mag,
this was the big thing causing issues before hand and largely responsible for the baaad TTKs.


PTS MAX 1v1 TTK with extended ammo and both arms.
TTK = 10,000 (max effective health against small-arms) divided by DPS, divide the answer by 2 (for the extra arm).

Scattercannon- 3.561
Grinder- 4.629
Hacksaw- 3.673
Mattock- 4.1666

these TTKs aren't entirely precise (they imply that damage is a constant stream rather than coming in in bursts),
but as you can see NC is now a tiiiny bit ahead of TR/VS in the CQC max hierarchy,
(could maybe do with being nudged a little bit further ahead, but hey, atleast they're on the correct side of the scale now!)
again though this is all theoretical, assuming damage is constant and every pellet lands, and only within 8m.
but i like seeing the shotgun max on the correct side of the CQC scale for a change,
even if it is by less than a second.

3,673ms - Hacksaw
3,561ms - Scattercannon
4,166ms - Mattock
4,629ms - Grinder
4,880ms - Onslaught
4,935ms - Nebula
5,250ms - Heavy Cycler
5,250ms - Mutilator
5,340ms - Cosmos
5,350ms - Quasar
5,640ms - Mercy
5,740ms - Blueshift

time to give my poor brain a rest!

What irks me is the design choice behind this.

Shotguns sacrifice range and accuracy for high CQC power. But in effect they are barely any better in CQC than their TR and VS counterparts, especially considering that you have a massive basic COF that you can never compensate for.
The VS and TR on the other hand are barely worse in CQC murder-power. In fact the "hold trigger and look at your enemy" approach plus their deeper magazines allow them to more easily deal with CQC infantry trying to avoid getting hit than the shotguns that require much more precision to hit the target, as a fraction of a second too early or too late and all your pellets can fly off-target.

Then when you go to longer ranges the shotguns become increasingly weaker while the TR and VS remain accurate and effective much farther out. So basically the TR and VS barely have any drawbacks in the NC's prime territory but the NC can barely even attempt to rival the TR and VS in their range territory.

It's why I've advocated shotguns to have some kind of versatility attached to them so you can better deal with different ranges and allow the NC to at least do something beyond 10 to 15m range.

yep its pretty silly.
imho they shouldn't buff the range viability (which is still pretty bad on PTS but atleast its "half as bad" as on live.)
but they should make our max a CQC murder machine, its a shotgun max.

imho when the first abortion of a nerf happened all that really needed doing was the removal of slugs.

but hey atleast now they are sliiiightly better that TR/VS in CQC max fights instead of a good deal worse.
they're on the correct side of the scale now atleast!

i actually can't wait for the patch to hit live, getting a bit bored of Gorgons!

expect Mattocks to become meta once again,
33% dps increase, 52% more damage per mag, 50% reduction in damage drop off.
gonna be fun until it gets nerfed again

I feel NC MAXes are fine where they are. If anything they are still extremely potent in CQC.

-"oh but I can't snipe people 30 miles away like with blueshifts"
max weapons aren't accurate. There's no point in wasting ammo trying to kill/damage people at long ranges just because you don't have damage drop-off.

NC MAX is still the CQC king, the thing is a one hit kill! Shoots down ambusher light assaults before they even have the time to flinch.

Maybe replace the mattocks with some sort of em6 or gauss variant so nc have a mid range option but that's it. Considering 99% of fights are in CQC the NC have 0 reason to complain.

but they aren't though.

Here is the current TTKs in a max fight as it is on Live right now:
(assuming within 8m and all pellets are landing, and TR/VS aren't landing headshots for their superior headshot multiplier.)
4,000ms - Scattercannon
4,880ms - Onslaught
4,935ms - Nebula
5,000ms - Grinder
5,250ms - Heavy Cycler
5,250ms - Mutilator
5,340ms - Cosmos
5,350ms - Quasar
5,640ms - Mercy
5,740ms - Blueshift
5,831ms - Hacksaw
7,805ms - Mattock

not really seeing the "king" here.
and remember i granted you a ton of handicaps, no 2x headshot multiplier for TR/VS, all pellets landing,
all within 8m (after which NC lose 6% damage per meter to a hilarious -72% damage by 20m.)
hell i even gave NC extended mags to try to help Hacks and Matts, no luck.

It's literally number one. Keep in mind the other weps have terrible aim and practically spit just as much bullets onto walls as NC pellet spread. INSTANT ttk. You can clientside anything. People complain about pump shotguns? This is a walking pump shotgun with double the health and mag size.

Idk dude as long as you use the scattercannons you literally have an instant ttk. People can't even react. I feel people just don't know how to use it. I've nearly gone on a 150 streak as a (solo) scatt-max (died to 4 simultaneous tk nukes). Might also be a cool fact to point out I didn't even have tier 4 ordonnance because I didn't invest in my MAX. I can't remember when's the last time I even went on a 50 streak with the other faction MAXes.

NC MAX also is the most noob friendly because instead of spending 3k certs to get useable weapons, you only need to spend 2k, since the best weapon is given on one arm by default.