Advanced Shield or Nanoweave Armor

Which do you prefer? I have my shield stuff certed up to a higher level but I'm wondering if Nanoweave armor is worth certing into as well.

I rather have Flak, with all the C4, mines, grenades, lolpods, HE flying around.

Flak.

FLAK FLAK FLAK

flak for noobs, your gonna die anyway.
If you die to explosions as infantry, your wrong.
Nanoweave helps absorbs bullets better which is what you die from most of the time anyway.

Flak for the dumb prox mines and resist shield

Nanoveawe only saves from 1 bullet. 2-3 bullets if maxed. With current rate of fire... not pretty noticable.

Flak armor and resist shields. lol @ only noobs die to explosions.

Depends on the class & role, but generally I'd say flak for Engies and medics, nanoweave for heavies and LA (extra nades is also nice for LA). Not too sure bout Infil, think the lines more blurred there additional ammo can be better than nanoweave if you're lazy.

Nanoweave. Faster shield reg doesn't help if you're dead...

I'd advice you getting Rank 1 Nanoweave as starters for all your classes (except Infiltrator) since it's only one cert. Infiltrators have less HP so only the 4th or 5th Rank only make a noticeable difference in most cases.

Unlike Flak, NW protects against all damage, but to a lesser degree of course. A not-so-obvious feature of NW is that it also saves you from tanks' HEAT rounds. Those deal 1000 splash damage but even with rank 1 NW you'll be able to survive those with a sliver of health left.

Flak if you are in the mainstream
Nanoweave if you are not in the mainstream and you loose most one-on-one fights
Advanced shield if you are not in the mainstream and you win most one-on-one fights

I use Flak for almost everything, but on my Light Assault I use the shield one. This is mostly 'cause I do a lot of hit and run, and more often than not I need my shields to be back up quickly. I've found it to work quite well for me.

Of course, I die to every fricking claymore/bouncing betty on the map, so there's a trade-off

It depends on how you're playing as well as what class. I usually play engineer so for bio labs and other interior battles I use the resist shield. For outside flak of course. It completely depends on how you play though, if you find yourself getting shot up a lot and never able to find cover, go for nanoweave. If you're good at finding cover go resist shield. Get flak anyways as you're outside most of the time regardless, especially if you're a medic as you should be mostly dodging grenades when you're healing other players.

I actually run with Nanoweave for most situations. Haven't really run flak much, but I can say that nanoweave should get more credit than the forums will give it. For LA I'd agree with getting the shield, the hit and run nature of LA means you'll have oportunities to recharge the shield, and you'll want it back as fast as possible.

As heavy I run nanoweave, though flak would be useful. Flak might save me from the odd tank shell or c4, but I'm usually behind cover, and out in the open and extra tank round or two won't matter. The real helpful factor for Nano however, it allows you to survive 1 extra bullet. Doesn't seem like much, except to infiltrators. One extra bullet when dealing with snipers is the difference between you getting no warning and getting your *** back behind some cover. If you're cheap and haven't certed into C4 on your HA then you can run with the med pack and recharge your life without need of a medic. If you can get to a terminal, switch the med, heal yourself, and back to HA.

On my Engi, I run Nano, but I don't think it really helps all that much, I'm not sure how much flak would either though.

Wow, they must have really buffed flak armor. I just started playing again, but during the Beta and following release, both Flak and Capacitor armors were not viable at all, Nanoweave was the only armor anyone ever used. They must have changed a lot because now I come back and the "in crowd" is all using Flak armor...

I've found that Nanoweave Armor with Adrenaline Shield for my go to main HA loadout has been working good. I have NA at lvl5 and AS at 2 or 3. I die more by bullets than explosions on average, and I use my shield reactively as to maintain cover and concealment as much as possible.

For other situations I have different loadouts. For Biolab I'm more Flak and Resist, Engineers are often Flak, etc...

50% resistance to explosions.... Everything explodes in this game.

Advanced Shield would be really worth it if it took off about 4, 5 or 6 seconds at max but currently it just takes away 2.5 seconds from recharge. I've been contemplating it a lot, especially because the shield is 50% of your life (500 hp 500 shield).

AS would be perfect in you feel you get into infantry fights more often and then Flak would be for vehicle heavy situations. I currently have rank 4 Nanoweave but I feel like my overshield (which ever of the 3 you pick) takes its role better.

1 bullet

As everyone else here as said, Flak Flak and more Flak.

That being said, I prefer Adv Shield over Nanoweave for one simple reason. Time. I hate sitting around. It's good if I am shooting at someone. But usually if I'm getting hit hard, then I'm dead. Nanoweave's one extra bullet rarely saves me. However I get shot all the time and it drops my shield down to barely there or gone but I am not hurt. So I hide behind something and wait.....and wait....and wait some more. Dropping 2.5 seconds off that wait time is worth it to me.

Yes I know some people are gonna say "cmon, it's 2.5 seconds, what does that matter?" Well in a game were people go on about the HUGE advantage someone has when their gun reloads .75 or 1.25 seconds faster than someone elses, then 2.5 seconds faster shield regen is well worth it to me.