Aegis cuts our speed in half and prevents sprinting. Use that time to back up if you're at full health or fall back if you're coming into the fight damaged. If he is in a very small room, kite him out into a more open area. If you can do that, it's as simple as staying outside of his 20 meter bubble and just keeping constant fire on him. While he has aegis up, you can gain distance on him. When he has it down, you can outdamage him at this range. Even with ZOE active. This is because at 20 meters or more, half of our pellets miss with most of our guns. Meaning you'll be doing more damage than him while you're both magdumping. If you're strafing as well, he's likely to miss more pellets. Reload as soon as he brings his shield up. You will be done reloading before him. Frankly, the default charge ability is by far more effective and scary for Nc max vs VS ZOE fights since it allows us to rush and then Magdump with hacksaws. The shield on the other hand prevents us from playing aggressively enough to actually kill a ZOE and at best we can stall a lesser skilled ZOE with it or kill a stupid ZOE with it. If the ZOE has both skill and dual comets, the Aegis max is truly screwed. Comets with ZOE activated can outdamage the shield fairly quick.
I held off two entire NC squads at a base last night with dual comets. I had 3 Scat MAX's stuck inside of a building, everytime they poked their heads out they got shot in the face and died. There were some friendlies their too... but other than keeping me repped they didn't do much
Yeah, you vanu lucked out with your general-use AI launchers. The NC falcons' only use it camping one of the teleport bunkers with alternating fire and an ammo pack constantly feeding us. The funky convergence of the falcons make it awkward to actually use against infantry, since it takes two hits to kill a non-flak armor infantry....
Ehhh, yeah xD. TR are arguably even better though since it takes the same number of hits to kill and has a larger mag size. They're gonna all be getting nerfed soon though so I'm getting my farm in while I can!
I really don't . I only pull it out in mid-range fights or when there aren't many people, up close(towers) or with platoons plus the AI options are still better. But for mid range or for less than platoon sized fights Comets are just awesome if you can aim. Especially since you can quickly transition into a push across open ground to take out the enemies Sunderer. I'm surprised more people don't use it frankly.
Vanu have some odd habbits. The lancer is actually an awesome squad weapon, but I never see it being utilized like it could be. I can almost guarantee you'd be seeing a lot of nerf topics if it were. Your max actually always performed well, even before ZOE. But it took ZOE for people to start dusting them off. Now the VS max is being used more, with and without ZOE. Just for a few examples.
Lancer is very niche. You need chokepoints and a lot of open land for it to be effective. But yeah, mass lancer can shut down an area better than anything else in the game. Well, VS MAX was incredibly average before ZOE and the problem was that descriptions on weapons were switched so a bunch of people bought the worst weapon for it haha. ZOE just makes it so much fun
Same could be said for lock-ons about needing large open spaces and chokepoints. But considering Esamir and Indar are nothing but large open areas, it's not really a small niche, is it? It's basically the king of dumbfires. The only disadvantage it has is on the individual level. But it scales very, very well with numbers and coordination. Lancer also doesn't have a hard counter. If your squad can render it, you can hit it.
This is how you beat any MAX as ZOE. On the PTS we tried ZOE vs. Aegis MAX 1v1s with a whole slew of loadouts, the NC MAX won once. Once. There is absolutely no counter to ZOE if you're playing anything other than VS which is an impossibility.
My second comet was one of the first things I bought in this game (I was a MAX lover from the start, back in the days of the Vanu Phalanx ) and I use them extensively... For AV. Sure I will kill infantry with them, but I just can't get the feel for it as you apparently have. I hear all these stories of gloriously amazing infantry killstreaks with dual comets, and I have had a few small streaks of my own (mainly the old comets before the dual shot ones) but in the end I'm better at sniping tanks with them than people (gawd that convergence at range ). I had been planning on trying out our fancy hairdryers... Errr our Vortex, but as you've undoubtably guessed, I HATE the way they look. Whose idea was that anyway? Oh, let's completely change the design of the VS MAX weapons and make them into ugly hairdryers! /gag
I think my best killstreak was like 25-30ish with dual Comets defending a point. Took out a half dozen ScatMax's and infantry for dayz. This was all solo with only auto-repair and pubbies for reps xD. The convergence is also why they're so good at AI, I've sniped snipers at 100m+ with ease haha, They're not as good at CQC or against large numbers as AI but at mid range or against a few people at a time, they're deadly if you can aim. I primarily like them for how well they kill enemy MAX units.
Actually, the VS MAX was the worst until they fixed the weapons (when they fixed the Blueshifts and became the accurate weapon instead of the inaccurate one and slightly buffed the Nebulas), that was 1 month before ZOE iirc, during that 1 month the TR and VS MAX were pretty much the same thing with a different skin. I always used it anyway because even when it was the worst MAX it was still useful. The problem with the Lancer is that, opposite to the Striker, it actually requires skill to use it. Hitting tanks or sunderers is easy (unless they are pretty far and the icon overlaps with the actual tank or truck, thanks SOE for that, worst idea ever), but hitting Flashes and Harrassers at full speed from distance actually requires some aim, and killing ESFs with the Lancer is probably one of the most rewarding things in this game for me (and also really hard if the pilot is not stupid). Personally I'd never change my Lancer for a Striker, lock-ons are way too boring.
The reason I call it weird Vanu behavior is that it's a solid launcher that scales well with numbers. Even if it doesn't scale as crazily as the striker (I hate lock-ons in all forms, so don't get me started on it) it still becomes extremely effective once you get a few people using it in unison. I won't say it's broken like the striker. But it's a LOT more effective than most vanu seem to give it credit for. It's also dumbfire, so you have the advantage of being able to use skill to hit things are farther ranges and ensure a hit on faster targets. Which I'm fine with. You have to admit, the lancer is basically the annihilator of dumbfires for Vanu. Lower damage, but fast velocity and extreme range. The only reason I'd use other dumbfires as Vanu is for infantry work, and the flak buff will probably make that less effective.
ZoE Vs Aegis? If this is a compare thread, I find it simple. Which do you see more of then any other MAX? Oh yeah, ZoE, VS MAX, which one do you see only if the guy is a masochist? Yeah, Aegis and lockdown... There is a reason everywhere you see Vanu you see 12 guys, 4 of which are MAX, 2 are Engi, 2 are medic and 1 is HA and there is sure to be a shotty toting LA and a SMG toting, *** guzzling infil just for fun. Compared to NC, 12 guys, 8 are HA, 2 are medic and the rest are infil or LA. The engis are just the ones hoping that some pea brained fool goes MAX. I know i have very little confidence in the NC MAX. Ive VRd them and they scare me at how limited and poor they seem to be, this compared to my dual muti TR MAX and my time facing the insanely accurate VS MAX guns. No comparison.
If you take the just MAX vs MAX out of the equation, killing a ZOE max is not hard. Deci + ZOE MAX face = dead. MAX vs MAX, it's not as hard as everyone seems to think. NC MAX needs to bait the VS MAX into close quarters, which isn't hard to do with some, less experienced players. TR MAX needs to do similar, but has more of a mid-range option against the VS MAX, though i will admit the TR MAX will have a bigger issue (unless it's a fracture MAX, in which case TR should be fine) ZOE is a great offensive weapon, but it also kills us defensively, so you need to burst as much DPS into the VS MAX at once. This is also assuming there is not pocket engi.
You want to win against a NC Max? The trick is simple; Do not approach it on anything resembling it's own turf. I have no problems with you popping ZOE indoors at close range. It will simply make it easier for me to kill you. Remember, your losing armor for speed and mobility, which immediately goes out the window in a close range environment like a building. Draw the max out of close range where you can get 20-30m+ of range, and some extra support, and your clear. Now, if you have to push them indoors at close range, you have to acknowledge something; body count. Thing game thrives on getting back into the fight, and learning from mistakes. Maxes are the anti-thesis to that mentality. You cannot keep pulling out 350 resources every 2 minutes. Now, lets get back to the body count. When your dealing with NC maxes in close quarters, you need a 3 to 1 ratio to have a chance. If they even seem like they are really coordinated, make it 5 to 1. Keep your guys back and out of sight, and then push one spot. The reason why it is so high, is the fact that you need to accept that due to perimeter explosives and simply the killing power of the NC max, your going to lose something in the neighborhood of 1-2 squads just in the initial charge into the target.
