The NC6 Gauss SAW, T9 CARV and the Orion - Replacing myth with facts

Not to mention walls of text saying we should ignore the gun recoil stats and attachments because it happens to make their arguments wrong.

K/D and SPH are meaningless.

Exactly. The TR shouldn't get a Gauss SAW equivalent, but instead have some of their current guns adjusted to be more viable for med-to-long range. The more uniqueness the better.

Though I suppose the irony comes from the NC's diverse weapon selection and VS's nearly identical weapon selection. Maybe give the TR even higher rate of fire/ADS movement guns? They're supposed to be the fast guys, not sure why the Orion would have the .75 ADS instead.

Good post OP, I agree with most of it, however there are a couple factors you missed. It's true that recoil can be compensated for, however recoil's influence has more effect the further away your target is. Seeing as the primary role of the Gauss SAW is long range, that means that the high recoil serves as an incentive to fire in bursts, and is a direct limiter to the gun's optimum role.

I'm not saying this makes the SAW bad, in fact it is still amazing at it's intended role, I'm just pointing out that recoil matters more for long range guns.

As for the idea of Gauss SAW winning over the Carv up close, that is HILARIOUS. I'm not sure if that was what you meant to imply, but if it is, that is very untrue. One doesn't even need to look at the stats. Go try to use a Gauss SAW up close in a head on fight. If you don't have the drop on them it boils down to pure luck. It's even worse if your SAW is set up properly with a compensator and foregrip and a mid-long range scope. Your hipfire is ****. I'd take a Carv for CQC over the SAW any day.

Now the Orion and Carv are indeed similar in that they are both close to mid range LMGs. Recoil and inaccuracy matter less in this arena, but I agree that the advantage goes to the Orion because of better ADS move speed and hipfire. Note that the Carv has a 100 round magazine vs 50. That's a pretty big difference. The verdict: Carv is easier to use because of a greater margin of error. Orion wins in mobility and accuracy.

I would point out that LMGs is part of Vanu's faction advantage (they have 2 fast ADS LMGs Orion and SVA-88), just as Carbines is TRs advantage (TR have the fast ads carbines, Lynx and Jaguar), and Assault Rifles are NC's (GR-22 and Carnage BR).

There is a common theme among the factions that isn't very well known. I often see people saying NC are the close range faction and that is a fallacy.

NC actually excel at long range and guerrilla warfare. This is because they generally have low rate of fire, high damage weapons with good accuracy that perform best when you get the first shot or out range the opponent. Their balancing factor is high recoil. Note that their MAX covers the faction weakness, which is CQC. Their new ability will reinforce this.

TR are the close quarters combat faction. They have higher rates of fire with lower recoil, highest DPS weapons. Larger magazines let you win those close engagements when it comes down to the wire and compensate for lower bullet damage and high ROF. The balancing factor is higher horizontal recoil. (Note that all of your Carbines except the Jag have unidirectional side recoil; they can be compensated for) Note that their MAX is set up for mid range dominance, although that may extend to long range once Lockdown is added.

Vanu are the all rounders with a focus on mobility and the quirk of no bullet drop. They have advantage over NC in hipfire in most cases. Advantage over TR in accuracy in most cases. No dominant weapons aside from no bullet drop slug shotties. Balancing factor used to be damage degradation at distance, although mid range damage was slightly increased. Overall, they were nerfed by the removal of damage degradation, but now can actually fight back at longer ranges without snipers. Their Max is also an oddball as it is good at a variety of ranges but not better than TR or NC at their optimum ranges. Addition of their new ability (extra dps + mobility at the cost of durability) will mean these Maxxes will be powerful in groups and when upgraded with armor and supported by engineers. Just my prediction.


Here are some numbers to look at for weapons. However, any weapon is deadly in the hands of a skilled player. No amount of theory is substitute for actual experience, and some weapons will seem OP in the hands of different players.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...LMG&sortcolid=28&sortasc=true&rowsperpage=250

https://ps2model-axiom.rhcloud.com/

TL;DR Recoil matters, Learn your faction, Knives are OP in the hands of 1337 players.

P.S. Best overall NC LMG is the EM6. Personally, I use the NS-11M for CQC-Mids because I like fast ADS weapons and it suits my playstyle (I've always like assault rifle style LMGs), and the Gauss SAW for long range and suppression.

SOE needs to hire this guy to handle their balancing, because they're doing a crap job of it at the moment.

He's explained something that every TR player knows is obvious, while many NC/VS players will deny it. But the proof is in the pudding -- try all three weapons out for yourself, fully certed, and it's painfully obvious what the rankings are on them from best to worst.

The TR have been at the very bottom of the LMG food chain since the Carv nerf in beta and the Carv-S nerf in live. The only problem is that the devs never revisited those changes.

The TR don't have a single LMG that can even come close to comparing with the LMGs the NC and VS have access to. The best they have, the TMG, is worse than a stock SAW.

The only 'proof' is the SPH or KPH/DPH numbers. I don't know what other metrics you can use, because the point of the guns in the game is to score kills and get points.

Wow I always thought the CARV was a great CQC gun. I had great killstreaks with it. now that I know its the worst of all factions Im gonna start sukking. thanks a lot.

why complain about the orion when you have the msw-r...

Having LMG's that are better at CQC isn't a faction advantage nor is it a advantage TR want adding to their faction. There is nothing stating that NC should have the ranged advantage with LMG's or any other weapon. If anything i would of thought that would go to Vanu. It just so happens that NC got lucky and ended up with the best LMG's for ranged combat as everyone else got nerfed.

CQC is the realm of Shotguns. No other weapons compare at their range. I'm not going to drop my 1 shot kill uppercut for a LMG. LMG's have been reduced to being used for medium and long range combat. Any faction that excels at range with their faction specific weapons now has a edge on the other faction with weaker ranged weapons.

I see a lot of "well differences in factions are a good thing" only if them faction traits are not trumped by common pool weapons such as the shotgun cut/paste job we have now. The only faction advantages that matter now are ones effecting range. The only faction weapons now that matter are the ones used at range.

pure bunk, especially from the OP. the stats don't reflect how difficult the NC6 is to use stock, how the slow ROF and piss-poor hipfire destroy it in CQC, and how much practice it takes to even come close to ideal performance under ideal conditions. ask a new player to cert the NC6 to usability and it will take them days. to everyone praising the NC6 offhand, come back when you've auraxium'd it.

Oh noes! lol

And it was my quickest auraxium. By far. Get some decent arguments, thanks.

Who would've thought that a long-range weapon is good at killing people at long range? It's extremely accurate when aiming down sights and standing still.

But if you fire while on the move, its accuracy is far worse than both the CARV and Orion, and if by any chance you need to hipfire, I suggest you pray to your deity of choice that enough shots connect while the crosshairs are trying to touch the sides of your screen.

You =/= all people. and nice cherry picking one statement and ignoring the rest. Get some decent arguments, hypocrite.

Nice post, too bad the Devs don't really care. This is pretty old news that hasn't been changed.

Has nothing to do with K/D or SPH. It has everything to do with performance of the weapon, as that is what balance is all about. Unless of course you believe that every single weapon should be identical in the game and we should be doing balancing off purely spreadsheets statistics before the weapon is even used?

This is basically the response I expected on the forums. Personally I think the Orion is the best of the three. The ADS movement alone makes it the best of the three IMO. But what people think is the best or believe is the best is completely irrelevant to the actual gameplay outcomes. Facts are facts, and this entire thread is about balancing of weapons. You balance a game on the results of gameplay and unfortunately for all the town criers out there, the three base LMG's are extremely well balanced.

The rest? You mean the bit about talking when you have an auraxium? Haha, compelling arguments you have.

Difference between 1st shot recoil is really tiny - SAW has smaller multiplier but higher base stats.
Difference in recoil recovery is what, 7.5%? You can't notice the difference in combat.
Forgrip is nice and useful, but it's more "quality of life" type of improvement.

About horizontal recoil - yes, it's an issue. But even while it's harder to do, you can partially compensate for that. On the other hand, SAW has larger moving CoF and you can't do anything about that.

That whole thing is complicated. I agree that Gauss SAW is superior to CARV in long range engagement. But in every other situation CARV is better. It's simply more versatile LMG. But all things considered, IMO both weapons have equally valuable pros and cons.

I think that large part of "CARV is UP" perception comes from the fact that shotguns and SMGs are invading CARV's natural habitat - close/mid range battles. But the problem isn't with CARV - it lies in inter-weapon class balace.

Performance based on K/D and SPH also has very little to do with it. For instance, NC perform worse with common pool weapons than TR or VS.

It;s an amazing weapon, the best CQC LMG default weapon of all the factions. I play it with TR, and it's a beast.

I just see a trend of trying to get it buffed when its not needed from allot of TR.

ALways said by an NC or VS player. THAT says it all now doesn't it

So you ignored what OP said? Well done. Give yourself a pat on the back with a brick.......really hard.