What weapons or vehicles do the NC have that are "BEST" over other factions?

• I would take the default NC sniper rifle over any other default sniper.
• You can have my crappy, officially underpowered Claymore for your Bouncy Betty.
• And don't even get me thinking on trying to do tank battle on my glass canon Prowler with the sucky short range Vulcan against your Vanguard shielded monster with the uber Enforcer on it. I just get the hell out of there.
• Not mentioning the fact that all of my supposedly high ROF carbines are getting completely out-dps-ed by that 845 rpm bullet hose called GD-7F.
• And if I need to defend a point in a busy small room, I'll take the Hacksaws over any gun my Max can mount.

So stop whining mate, the grass is always greener on the other side.

This would be true except for one thing with the further nerfs on the PTS (or arguably even whats on live now). The TTK for VS/TR MAX weapons at these ranges is not that different to the NC's..

Current PTS test:

TTK with TR Onslaught at 1m = 0.65 seconds (no variance as all shots hit chest)
TTK with NC Hacksaw at 1m = 0.50 seconds (no variance as all shots hit chest)
TTK with VS Blueshift at 1m = 0.65 seconds (no variance as all shots hit chest)

TTK with TR Onslaught at 10m = 0.08/1.2/1.2 seconds (3 tests)
TTK with NC Hacksaw at 10m = 0.8/0.85/1.1 seconds (3 tests)
TTK with VS Blueshift at 10m = 0.85/0.8/0.8 seconds (3 tests)

There is an advantage to having an "instant" kill at extreme close range but it's fairly negligible when you are talking fractions of a second. Partial hits by the NC MAX weapons do not result in an instant kill so there is no argument to be made about an accuracy requirement hurting the TR/VS at close range. The Hacksaws take 0.8 seconds at 10m range because you now need to fire both arms 3 times to get a kill. When you get to 20m it's basically luck on how many times the pellet spread hits the head to get a kill and that is when you are firing all 10 shots from both arms (with ext mags).

When you see this you really start to think is this tiny difference enough of an advantage to justify the long reload times, low magazine sizes and awful ranged performance (which creates very poor versatility). Mattocks slightly improve this but at the cost of firing speed.

NC MAXes were certainly OP in the past but it's getting to the point where the unique selling point of the NC MAX has been so worn away you cant justify the trade off in ranged performance anymore.

How do you capture points and territories in this game? Close quarters. You will have hate crimes committed against you using any of the NC default weapons in close quarters against VS or TR default weapons. Sure, you'll get pick-up kills and whatnot but if you run around a corner and come face to face to with a VS or TR with a default weapon, any NC default of the same type will be ridiculously mowed down and pwninated unless you can magically land all headshots with the recoil firing bullets at the ceiling the second you hold the mouse button down.

Sure, they're not bad at mid-long range but again...you can't capture a point from long range. And as far as defending in this game goes, it's a joke. Skill or unique loadouts doesn't matter in this game. Zerg will win every time. Sometimes the zerg are on your side but more often than not they're on the TR or VS side. Depends a bit on the server, continent and time of day.

I know that MAXs don't aim very well. I also know that a VS MAX has 100% better chance of hitting past 50m than a NC MAX, no matter how hard it is to aim. I also know that the Blueshift has the best MAX AI weapon accuracy(link), and does the exact same damage per shot at 5m and 155m. I know that the MAX weapons are bad at accuracy to balance with other classes, but they also have to be compared to themselves. A VS MAX had a better survivability rate 3 months ago. Now the NC MAX has had two gun nerfs, and another on the way, and VS has been given ZOE. This is not balanced.

You had me until here. The NC MAX was never OP. It was the best, but it was never game breakingly over powered. In fact, the VS even had a better survival rate during the time when NC MAXs were at their best. I doubt the margin of NC MAX over TR and VS ever exceeded the margin of the Magrider and Prowler over the Vanguard, and Mosquito and Scythe over the Reaver.

Summation:
NC MAX has been brought down to a solid 3rd place of 3. This fits with the NC faction trait now: Never come in 1st.

I beg to differ Pen, there was a time where no VS ever used a max outside of burst. They were just that bad, what use is surviving if you couldn't kill anything. I can tell you this, storming a biolab back in the day there would be 1 nub in a VS MAX, you would run into a dozen TR shredders and VS shotty MAX all the time. We would all be the standard 4 infantry classes.

ZOE, the new anti vehicle arms and a few other patches seem to have changed it. I am now seeing a good healthy mix of VS MAX in the ranks. I see them more pulled for Bio then anything else but I wouldn't go and say a high population is using them, especially on the other types of bases. I see way more infantry than anything which has been the core of the VS forces since beta.