I useless and cruel the the player base if you ask me.. However, since they over-nerfed NC Maxs, I'm hoping that pendulum swings back the other way, and they bring it more in line with the other maxs when commonsense is restored after re-reviewing the data.
Honestly, those numbers seem very odd. I don't remember the last time i saw a VS max without ZOE. It would be interesting to see "hours played/zoe active" stat rather then just loadout (if they have that) because those numbers seem skewed, probably by low ranks pulling uncerted maxes (which would be consistent with the vs pop explosion). Same thing with the aegis. I have it in my AI/AV loadouts mostly because i dumped so many certs into that crap and the feeling of all those certs wasted is eating me inside
I use the Aegis all the time. It's actually quite great. You can hit reload, throw on your aegis and be safe while reloading. You can run over any mines, if you time it right you can block an entire c-4.. To be honest, I feel the aegis is fitting just where it needs to be. The hacksaws were designed to shred at point blank, and they do. I just get frustrated when a VS/TR max can kill any infantry from 1-30 meters with relative ease. Some people use the mattocks, but you sacrifice king of close range for some extended range it just isn't all the great. I want my 12 rounds back (10 currently with extended), and 60 rounds in reserve, and I'd probably be happy enough.
What a dummy. A niche max with zero versatility having the same score/kd as a max with tons of versatility is NOT Balanced. You can't make the nc max only good at one thing and then balance it to have the same scores as the TR and VS maxes that are useful in almost every situation. And if NC maxes are only used in those situations, that means that even in their niche they're still only as good as the VS and TR maxes in that very same situation.
That is what we call preference, whether to have a mediocre weapon for several situations or a awesome weapon at one situation all comes down to what you prefer in what you think is best.
But it's not awesome, is it? It has the same score. You can have a mediocre weapon for several situations or a mediocre weapon for one situation and utterly useless in all the rest. It's also not preference, because there's no choice. There is no alternative to the niche NC max. It's balanced against the other maxes at short range when it's used, as in they all perform about the same at that range, but it's utterly worthless at everything else unlike the TR and VS counterparts. The NC max, IN ITS NICHE, has been balanced against far more versatile maxes while given NOTHING to compensate.
VS 3.2 difference .7 NC 2.5 difference .3 TR 2.2 ...and the conclusion they drew was TR need a buff? I thought the biggest difference was how VS is significantly better than the rest. I know NC has a 10m lethal engagement range, TR has 30m+ lethal engagement range. All I read from that is NC MAXes are ~ as good within <10m as a TR MAX is at <30m, not "TR are underpowered." This also ignores that NC MAXes will only be pulled in a very specific set of circumstances (biolab fights, tower defences, Vanu archives, etc), favourable to their operation. I'm level 54 MAX-user in both TR and NC, and not only does TR MAXes have a 300-400% better engagement range, but they also equal NC MAXes in close quarters, where you'd presume the scatmax would be superior, and are flat out better with Kinetic 5. The only thing that TR "lacks" is in its special ability - lockdown - as TR and VS MAXes are functionally identical except for ZOE, the "special ability" area is obviously what needs to be adjusted.
It has it's uses in <10m combat, small engagement (really small) situations. But like i already said, it's way to situational. I also prefer medic/HA/LA for infantry combat and don't even have kinetic so never really went that route. The best use i found for it was drawing attention to myself so my teammates can do something and mass spot. And even then, focused small arms fire takes it down in no time and 30ish % of it just seems to bypass it. What i wanted to do with it was use it for vehicle hunting since it seems to work best at blocking explosions. While it's completely overshadowed by charge for AA i actually had some fun going shield/dual falcon for ground vehicle fighting (contrary to most other people it seems). Problem with that is unless the terrain is very suitable, vehicles just run you over and because of that it looses all viability. So in essence, i have no use for the shield EDIT: apologies to the OP. didn't mean to hijack the thread with aegis whine. I just can't understand how anyone can think max abilities are balanced. To answer that you only really have to ask yourself one simple question: if they gave all 3 abilities to all 3 maxes, which one would you use for what percentage of max play time ?
I agree with your TLDR. ZOE was good enough for the VS max to come out of it's shell and to encourage more use and cert investment, while giving it a new flavor. TR's lockdown really didn't have this effect. Sometimes it's useful, but I usually don't use it. Either nerf ZOE to compare with the other abilities or buff Aegis and Lockdown (or strait change them) so they can match ZOE.
Oh and NC Maxes don't use Fascist shield? nuh uh! every single one of them i encountered recently was using it, causing me to wast a lot of ammo on the bastards, while one was uselessly camping in the corner with his Fascist Shield up.
Lol, I can't believe they keep asking for nerf to ZOE, it's clear that everything that VS has should be completely useless and nerfed into oblivion NC vs VS MAX balance is fine as it is, TR is the underdog there (1.05/1.05/0.9 are the respective K/D according to Higby), sure, the VS MAX is better against infantry than the NC (outside towers/biolabs of course), but if you nerf ZOE to make it on par with the NC against infantry then the NC MAX will obliterate the VS MAX as it did before GU09 in the MAX vs MAX balance.
So he made you waste extra of that expensive and hard to find ammo before you killed him ? We will have none of that! Let me be the first here to call for the Aegis nerf. If these shield wielding menaces aren't stopped we will have to fight each other with knives and stones. They are dragging us back to the middle ages i tells ya.
