I've got a thread about Max's now, has ideas for making Lockdown and Aegis Shield better, has ideas for improving NC Max (mainly through buffing slugs, increasing mag size and ammo capacity), and also attempts to balance the Max AV weapons unlike what was on PTS, which was just nerfing every MAX AV weapon vs infantry except the Vortex.
maybe have a engineer back up you...use teamplay? or just plainly avoid the max if you cant handle it...
NC max is great at what it does. Close range 1 shot 1 kill with dual scatcannons. What the hell are people complaining about. Use your head when playing as a max, play to its strength that's all. Really annoys me when forum warriors who seem to have L2P issues come here and start whining.
Another NC scrub who hasnt played the other factions. NC max is good, it will DOMINATE any other max up close. The ZOE is better, but NC will even kill that up close. NC has best ESF and Best MBT. I can go into reason why they are the best, but I cant be bothered. Just play the other factions and realise how good you got it. The game is pretty balanced right now.
Unfortunately using and engineer and teamplay aren't faction specific. Standard MAX vs Standard MAX = 3 out of 4 NC AI weapons always lose. KA5 + extended Mag MAX vs KA5 + extended Mag MAX = 3 out of 4 NC AI weapons always lose "DOMINATE"? Only if you think losing 75% of the time all things being equal is "dominating".
It kills 0.3 seconds faster than the fastest TR/VS TTK weapons. 0.3 seconds that's it. Average human reaction time is 0.15 to 0.3 seconds. Then there's lag. Then there client side hit detection which means your opposition sees a "ghost" of you back in time from where you actually are (this also buggers up the Aegis Shields blocking of stuff). All of this means 0.3 seconds and 0.0 seconds is functionally the same TTK-wise. Not much of an "advantage" being the same at 0m and worse everywhere else is it?
sounds like some people here should CHANGE faction since their not happy were they are...thats the simple fix for those few that really cant handle it...
Maybe if you are bad. If you turn a corner and an NC max is there with dual scats. You are already dead. You might aswell just type /scuicide. Thats assuming you get long enough to type that, which you wont.
This is mathmatically, the NC AI MAX doesn't carry enough damage per clip to do it without a reload, in which 4 seconds worth of time it is dead. If you're talking about AI MAX vs infantry the TTK is 0.3 seconds, which as mentioned above with human reaction time, lag, and client side hit detection is functionally the same as a 0.0 second difference (i.e. no difference at all). So I'm unsure as to what exactly you're talking about. Bad has nothing to do with it.
metalwolf have you lost you reason ? YOU REALLY HAVE BALLS to act like NC maxes are FINE? compared to TR/VS ones now ? WHAT ANNOYS ME EVEN MORE ,is that seasoned planetside veterans like you come here and act like its "l2p" issue when the issue is that other 2 empires maxes are too versatile/powerful closerange to mid range, while NC maxes were "onetrick ponys" from the start and now after several nerfs they have basically lost even that one trick. NC maxes do not underperform badly compared to TR/VS but fact is that NC maxes are forced to use REAL MONEY/THOUSANDS OF CERTS to be competative. nc maxes would fine with few changes: 2-3 shots more little faster reload severe improvements to shield (for example make that shield shield you" if NC AI maxes are doomed to be onetrickponys who cant fight outside at all THEN ATLEAST MAKE THEM DECENT enough to play even that one role (camp doorway)
(tl;dr at the end) Okay so rather than devolving into l2p and all that jargon; these are my observations, little trials and opinions, I don't consider myself a pro max user or anything like that, these are just thoughts available to dissect and take what you deem of value; Try slugged mattocks. Certing into magazine size too is well worth the 500 cert/per arm for keeping your uptime consistent while keeping enemy downtime.. consistent. They're AI weapons too so you'll also be very effective against the infantry supporting the opposing max. ZOE max's apparently take 20% additional damage and are pretty much hitscan when using mattocks in their effective range anyway (10 metres for full damage), so from the 80% default kinetic resistance and if my math isn't terrible which it probably is and going off in-game testing with shooting a VR max; Mattocks (ranged option) Scattercannons (default) (10 metres taken from standing on the bench, if standing behind the bench its something like 10.5-11 metres) When seeing the range in the pictures.. 30 metre range, about the length of a vehicle gateway ain't half bad for a shotgun and is sure to surprise some people. // I cannot seem to find a reliable source that states the actual HP of a max, there's a few old ones and others from other peeps mathcraft stating between 2000, 2500, 5000 and even 10000+ but for the hell of it; <10 meters with a Gauss SAW, AC-X11 and NC4 MAG-SHOT takes 50 body shots or 25 head shots(2x multi) consistently @ 200 damage per bullet for all 3 weapons. 50x200=10000-80%(res)=2000. ..Im probably doing something wrong or that doesn't make sense to me if it requires 2688 with the mattocks. All shots were fired at the front of the max and in the chest area (not the legs or head). Sooo I don't know whats going on here, maybe I need to try another few rounds of shooting. The shot count was derived from me shooting at a max at the specified ranges, however since I had to go out of the vr building for a max the numbers may vary a little, but I don't think enough to explain the weirdness going on with the scattercannons 7500'ish unmitigated damage being able to kill a max over a mattocks 10k unmitigated damage yet also requiring 1 more shot in point blank than mattocks unless again my numbers are derped.. // From mattocks # of shots to kill; 2688 / 1881.6 is around 1.43, I think that would be the headshot multiplier? but its a weird value for a multiplier (full # is 1.428571428571429), its the same for the scattercannons.. could be a different perhaps additive figure that i'm not sure how to find instead? or devs are using floating point number sliders to adjust their values ... So with all that in mind, the (hopefully) useful stuff; Slugged mattocks and eventually upgraded with magazines are pretty reliable in downing a ZOE max at 30 metres considering they're AI weapons, yes they move fast, but its a hell of a lot easier hitting em with those than trying to lead with slow moving falcons and getting horribly punished for missing em, whereas with mattocks you get punished a lot less, can hit more consistently thanks to mattocks inherent accuracy bonuses over other scattercannons, and even get rewarded for the occasional head shot which may allow you to one-clip the max at 30 metres and not have to reload to finish off. Aim for below the neck and avoid legs, the center mass is easier to hit while still allowing the occasional shot to stray to the head, you'll hear a audible clunk when you score one. Assuming you fired both arms - you'd kill any infantry in one go at 1344 damage total within approx 14 meters, a nano'd HA with NMG shield on maybe would need one-two more slugs though IF he had time to turn on his shield and is at full health. 10 meters as you can see is already about the size of most indoor areas, with extra workspace for 4'ish more metres. By the time of copping the first two rounds most will run for distance to pull out a deci/explosives, fortunately by the time he even gets to 30 metres another body salvo at 840 ought to finish him off, so a possible tip to TR/VS HA's: with this in mind if you're within 10 metres, just pointblank that deci, getting distance is likely futile if the max is already looking at you. Otherwise if you hear the really loud footsteps that an NC MAX makes let him come to you with that c4 on the door, don't go to him, seriously don't especially if its not important, hes waiting there with the finger on left click, if you somehow find yourself next to one, you're very likely going to get popped the moment you're somewhere between 1-2 and 10 metres since it doesn't really require snap shotting in that range (the closer you are to him the greater the turning he needs to make = a better chance of over/under shooting, the moment you enter that median range the less likely the player might over/undershoot their aiming), so go out with a bang and drop a c4 by your feet while running in tight movements around the max if you can afford to or use it take the chance of sprinting to cover that's within the median range. As an engy with tank mines, drop one at your feet then crouch > knife it, its pretty quick to pull off and will likely kill him too. I think this is a pretty big area where most complaints come from, if you're within 10 metres to a VS or TR max, you may get a stroke of luck to get away quick enough just by normally sprinting away/zig-zagging, with an NC max, if you find yourself in that range and the max is looking at you you're really up **** creek without a paddle even if you were going to sprint, you'd have to be behind something in half a second or hope he WILDLY misses you. So like with any shotgun user, approach corners with caution, conc nades work wonders here BUT seriously try to find a way to get behind or to the side without walking in front or put some distance between you and the door as you pull out your deci or to throw a c4 their way - just don't make yourself visible too close, since even if you conc nade one by a door/entrance way hes already facing that direction and will just unload a few slugs point blank into you as you run passed, and as pointed out above it really doesn't take much. Considering the amount of loaded damage in each shot, it would probably be worth investigating if kinetic armor makes enough of a difference that it takes 1 shot less or more or so to justify sinking so much certs in lieu of a soon(tm)-to-be-much-better flak armor. For ZOE max's users; if you find yourself within 10 metres get some distance/cover as you fire, its a toss up between taking an extra 20% damage or moving faster, don't try to stand toe to toe and rely soley on moving around in that range, your acceleration when changing directions is slow compared to regular infantry movement and becomes a big problem the closer you are, use 'dat range' to your advantage, I think it would be really worth learning to micro ZOE so that while the NC max is firing, at least have it off for half his shots (~3-5 shots) so you're not taking so much damage if you're not able to avoid it, off for his whole firing time, and chuck it back on while hes reloading, if you're scoring consistent headshots he'll go down just the same otherwise you're just opening yourself up to an alpha that will bring you pretty low, to one that'll absolutely guarantee that you die. If you find yourself walking right into one, decide for yourself whether you think is it worth taking 20% more damage, dealing with the slow acceleration to move a bit faster, or just hold off until hes expended his ammo (most maxes still don't have full mag-certed scatterguns either, watch out for the ones that do though) THEN get some distance. If the NC max pulls out a shield you don't have much to worry too much if you find cover - just keep that distance.. if he doesn't appear to be pulling one, he may have charge - in which case its very likely he'll charge you into close range and kill you before you can kill him so stick with support/near other infantry to dissuade him from rushing blindly at you. I haven't used ZOE max a lot, just a little experience and a lot of messing around in VR, so perhaps other VS dudes could offer some more specific/better tips here, but beyond that, a max shouldn't be caught alone, seriously, stick with your support and even if you might feel the pubbie engies around you are useless or something the opposition may not be banking on that assumption enough to go for you, you have bigger things to worry about at that point like decis and LAs with c4. tl;dr try slugged mattocks, get the magazine upgrades asap - for any scattergun really, the ammunition nerf really kicks us in the balls and its mandatory to get those to be in line with other peoples view of it decimating other maxes, without em its just too unreliable. I reckon the mattocks are currently our best option available for upto 30 odd metres which to me is pretty damn decent, and is also often the semi-effective range of the other maxes, aim below the neck, head shots count, stop going by yourself and stick with support, use charge to close in on ZOEs (you can cancel it early by firing - instantly - ZOE's if you see an NC max charging you consider turning off your ZOE so you don't get unloaded with +20% damage taken, guaranteeing a quick death, take advantage of that toggling function), aegis doesn't get too great till higher cert level and at that point its a bit niche in its role that often gets circumvented by conc nades, it is however hilarious to take repeated tank shells like a boss while spitting falcons at the source of the shells. and a side note, if im correct in the observation that to TR/VS it would appear like huge chunks getting shaved off from your hp/shield bars, medkits may prove more useful in those situations over rejuvenation sticks since its a 'you need health NOW' moment rather than over time when versing NC.
Kinetic 5 is a roughly 40% buff to bullet resistance. Having it means surviving a clip dump from all but dual extended Grinders*. This is a massive increase to survivability. The MAX with the highest level kinetic is probably going to win a MAX vs MAX. Sure it means that you might get popped by C4, but that is the trade off. As for your advice to ZOE users, I have different advice. Don't take ZOE if you want to win against an NC MAX. Just don't. The 20% damage taken is catastrophic and you give up charge, which would have almost certainly saved you from the NC MAX. I feel that the problem with the NC MAX is the binary nature of fighting with it. Either its in range and mag dumps, killing you dead or it didn't have extend mags/you had flak 5/it was more than 10 meters away and you killed it while it had to wait for its 6 hour reload. This is a terrible place for the NC MAX to be in, its frustrating for everyone. *Assuming body shots because at anything other than hugging range the fact that it takes two headshotting pellets to compensate for one pellet missing is going to mean that it averages out to bodyshot most of the time.
Get all pellets to hit that's funny. Getting accurate shots with slugs that's also funny. VR and reality are 2 different things. Try comparing a Vs max with full Zoe against a duel extended mag max and see who comes out on top. Just get a buddy and try it. The Zoe will be adadadad all day you will miss half your pellets and during the atrocious reload you will probably be dead. Not even a comparison.
I only wanted to confirm a few things in VR but I do not soley rely on it, I wouldn't be recommending it if i didn't actively use it myself, I also never said it was perfect, didn't say to use pellets and stated that I felt it was our 'better' option at this point. A small magazine boost is really needed but im not sure I agree with an accuracy upgrade on top of that since its often the reload that really kills us. I do however think you're skewing your view a bit on its accuracy with not being able to hit, from what ive experienced it's been pretty reliable on fast movers at 20 metres, and bigger targets like MAX's at 30'ish. If you continually fire/try to semi-full auto it you wont hit a thing, if you allow for a brief moment before refiring its much more accurate, and with its small magazine capacity its even more important to take the time to fire careful shots.
1) Don't call someone L2P when you have no idea what your talking about, saying L2P doesn't make a argument but simply makes you seem like an idiot that has no idea what your talking about. 2)Misunderstanding of the NC maxes, CoF is horrific on the maxes so you'll be landing 1 maybe 2 pellets at ranges so don't say that we can dish out that 6 pellet 113 damage per arm because we're are not at POINT BLANK, shotguns can only deliver their full damage potential at point blank, 3)Don't say use slugs, each arm requires 500 certs for slugs I think, we need to dump 1000 certs to make us a little bit competitive at range, that's just not even as 1000 certs can buy you a lot of other things like KA or Flak. Slugs also have a tighter CoF then NC max shotguns but still have a decent CoF which makes landing them against moving targets a pain. 4)Ask yourself this, when was the last time you killed someone with a shotgun at 30m, your far more effective with the bursters then the shotguns since your at least able to aim where you want.
The TR and VS both can kill infantry at range with their MAX while getting repair from engineer, seriously the NC max is more of a suicidal gameplay and getting the team killed. The nerf is really uncalled for.
It would be nice to use MAXs outside of BioDoms and that is why the TR/VS MAXs are better. It doesn't matter what base you are attacking/defending, it doesn't matter what the combat situation is, you are useful in your MAX. You cannot say the same about NC MAXs. In fact there was a thread that showed just this. Out of all 3 factions the NC MAX was used the least, by an extremely large number. The reason for this is the NC max has a very limited use. But when used in the proper situations it is extremely deadly. Frankly I would give up some of that CQC just so I can use a MAX in other situations. Increase magazine size. MAXs are a huge machine with massive guns, they should have a larger default magazine size then 6. Increase their effective range Decrease their CQC damage
1) I was only expressing my aversion to simply saying l2p and instead trying to give a constructive post with reasons for my opinion to someone who was clearly frustrated with his available weapons for an NC max, so you're having a go at me for something I didn't do and intentionally avoided doing, please get off your high horse. 2) I think you misunderstand me; I said try slugs, I never said use pellets for that reason - I mentioned this as well to rogviir because you will rarely even land half your pellets beyond its effective range. If a slug hits the target is receiving the combined damage of all 6 pellets in one shot, along with the small accuracy boosts it makes sense to use slugs for extended ranges beyond the shotguns maximum damage range whilst still retaining the same damage up close. The difference of the accuracy modifier in degrees of the round exiting the barrel between 1 and 10 metres on a slug (let alone 1-20) is really not that bad in terms of cof, without slugs? sure I can certainly agree with that since every individual pellet missed takes a chunk from your overall damage. 3) You're saying I have no idea what i'm talking about when you cant even look up the cert cost of slugs, its 150 per arm. Hence why i'm saying to TRY them, if you find them effective THEN get the extended mags, you may not be as effective against maxes until then but not every max you run into is at full health either. Getting slugs, KA or Flak is only a difference of do I want to kill them quicker or do I want to tank them more. You aren't removing immediate threats any time soon just by tanking them more. and KA/flak themselves are heavy cert investments just as well and you should be with other infantry to support you. 4) What is the point of this question? I wouldn't even be bothering to post here if I wasn't finding it reliable to use slugged mattocks for 30 metres? and 'aim where you want' with bursters? You make them sound like laser beams, they're anything but. I've tried them as well as an AI option but trying to make the 10 consecutive shots versus an unshielded/non nano'd infantry at 10-30 metres in what is often a very small time window when fighting fast moving infantry is way less effective than slugged mattocks which if you hit 2-3 to 4-6 of the total 12-20 shots available to you. Out in the open then perhaps bursters with controlled fire would perform marginally better where targets have limited cover and are exposed for a longer time in order to get those 10+ shots in, any closer than 20 metres though slugged mattocks would quickly take over versus infantry and 30 for maxes since they are generally bigger and move slower, clipped & slugged with controlled fire will still do enough to either seriously damage and potentially kill an enemy max at 30, whereas you need EIGHTY rounds total from a burster at any distance below 50, which means a 3.5 second reload is involved anyway (mattocks @ 3.8).
I have slugs in my max I use mattocks and and I have extended mags on both arms. even stand still and firing you still watch your slugs zing left and the other one up. its so frustrating to roll the dice with slugs especially because you have to wait to take another shot just to get your cof back down. slugs are ok at range I get that, but they are extremely frustrating id rather only pull my max in a bio lab cause they are useless anywere else.
