Vanu nerf/buff discussion.

Lancer death squads are the only OP thing about Vanu. True fact: you can take out turrets at the Bastion from Lithcrop with a Lancer.

The only buffs I would like to see, is give all factions NS MAX options, to fill in for faction specific weapons. NS shotgun arms, NS Fury arms, and NS Meteor (Comet like missile) arm. Bam, playing field instantly leveled.

The Orion is quite good, but the Solstice? Really? It's far from amazing. And I'm speaking as someone who's completed his Light Assault and Carbines directives.

Here is where you show you don't know what you're talking about. It's just hard to take anyone serious who ranks weapons according to his arbitrary "noobness" scale....

The Orion is so overrated it's not even funny. The SVA-88 is better anyway. But when you look beyond those two, the rest of the VS LMG's are all different shades of mediocre.

Gause Saw, GD-22, Anchor. With an honorable mention going to the Gause SAW S. The NC have a selection of powerhouse carbines the Vanu can only dream about.

That would be the Falcon, which is already a more potent Comet than Comet. Fury ... you want Pounders?

I believe that discussions of whether an entire faction is underpowered/overpowered are pointless.

Honestly, the game as a whole is pretty well balanced right now. To the point where discussions on "faction balance" are outdated. The only discussions that should be had about balance are isolated to individual weapons these days.

Vanu's arsenal is in a funny spot for me. The TR are at the extreme end of the scale with RoF, NC at the extreme end with per-shot damage (with a few exceptions like Blitz, GD-7F, GR-22). A lot of VS gear just feels middle-of-the-road to me, with no real standout characteristics between one another. The few exceptions, however, are outstanding. The Eridani SMG being my personal favourite.

I've completed the directive too, though not with either of the solstices (i have between 450 and 700kills with either of the 3 for reference + very few with VE3A), so that's going to be a bit bizarre defending them as they're my only non-auraxed carbines!
I know i'm a bit alone in saying this but i think they're somewhat decent in their niche, accurate, stable (except the kick on first shot) and controllable, just that 698/143x30 is not all that competitive in itself, especially for a newbie (spray&pray is always better with more damage per mag and/or RoF).

But mostly the Pulsar C is so good, it just makes the 698/143 solstices look bad while it's not: barely worse off dps, more damage per mag, better ads accuracy, more stable, and very close in all other aspects. It's almost a no-match.
TR isn't all that different in that aspect, as the Trac-5's few advantages over the Jaguar seem dwarfed by the perks of the latter.

There's perhaps a specific issue with the "S" version as it compares very directly with the NS-11C on the damage model, which isn't the case for TR/NC, for which it probably would need some little tweaks. But honestly if they started by standardizing those weapons i listed, anything else would just be cherry on the ice cake.

I'm a bit surprised by that statement. Not that the Eridani is terrible, just that it's overshadowed by the Sirius: similar dps/ttk, but it's in a bit of a conundrum in my eyes:

• if you pick the extended mag, you just have an inferior gun than the Sirius at hipfire if ALS, or ads if grip
• if you pick anything else you're left with a crippling 25 rounds mag and a not-so-short reload (worse than fast reload carbines)

This right here is 1/2 of the argument and I've talked about it elsewhere so I'll just copy/paste what I've said before on the subject.

The other 1/2 that I mentioned above is the VS trait of horrific damage per magazine and only a very minor buff to our reload speed to compensate... again something I've mentioned elsewhere and I'll just quote myself.

The Solstice isn't Pulsar VS1 levels of terrible, but it's not Orion levels of amazing either.

Just reposting the first one for hoki, and posting the second one because people have been talking about harasser gunners lately.

PPA/Saron are finally getting buffed. Zeinith, Terminus, were the best weapons we've had in a long time.
But nothing the other factions had (not even the overnerfed striker) compare to the P O S that is ZOE.

Just saying PPA didn't need a nerf since the marauder was performing on par with it for months.

?
What does weaponry have to do with victory?
What does winning a lot of alerts signify?
Any way, the PPA is gone. If anything, it is because the VS faction has an obligation to win alerts. It's our planet, after all

Don't understand why you would get nerfed. The fam on the weapons I use is ghastly.

Tr may have some jumpy weapons but after the first shot you know where its going to go.

NC have all the 200 point killers so they have crazy bounce, but deadly.

I say that they are noob friendly because I was extremely successful with them in the beginning of PS2.

You or I could quote stats but ultimately what matters is how they are actually performing day to day.
The Orion isn't perfect at everything but its like.. the ultimate balance.

Doesn't have too many bullets, good reload, great dps, good to great control ADSing, good to good-enough hipfire.

Personally I was much more effective with Orion than the Carv. I had no problems at all with it, thats why I call it noob friendly.
HA is what every noob plays and if I had to pick a weapon to assign to squad full of new heavies that have never played before, Orions for everyone!

Thats why I also call the solstice noob friendly, I was incredibly effective with it when playing VS. Its not a 'best' carbine, but I think its a magical balance.
Turns out, I didn't need 40 bullets, and most people don't. Its that midway between a Jaguar and a T5-AMC, but most importantly, SO MUCH BETTER THAN A TRAC-5.

Don't get me wrong, I'm familiar with other weapons as well, and for ARs I feel similarly for the T1-Cycler. It is a truly awesome weapon, a really nice balance that is noob friendly and also a monster in skilled hands.


Why I mention the solstice and orion so emphatically, as I've said previously, the starter weapons and camos have more impact on PS2 than any of the other weapons or camos.
More than anything the HA starter weapons have the most impact out of all of them. And the Orion. Is. Amazing.

I have a BR100 on VS and a BR 65 on TR. So I can say maybe the ZOE since its a pile of crap. But everything else...NO. They have been nerfing for years and people still aren't happy. Don't let lack of skill compensate as an argument for more nerfs. It's the last thing this game needs.

Good point. The Sirius is fun and easy to use, but the way it wiggles under sustained fire just drives me nuts. I swear even the Armistice doesn't do it as much. The Eridani feels closer to a carbine to me, and as I use SMGs on infiltrators 90% of the time that could be the attraction.

*EDIT* I use extended mag on the Eridani most of the time. Hipfire within ~5m, ADS for most other things.

That is just wrong in so many ways...

He is right in terms of metrics alone. Or he is as right as the people who say the Vulcan Harasser is fine.

6 times the amount of PPA Harassers had a strong negative perception effect, similar to what 3 times the amount of Vulcan Harassers do.

TR / Harasser Vulcan Canon users should be made to pay $1sc per bullet in order to use that horribly OP weapon.

Additionally, players will receive $1sc for every bullet landed as reparations for being unwilling targets of this weapon in its current state.

Lastly, users of the Harasser Vulcan Canon will simultaneously receive 1 grief point per bullet fired regardless of targets missed intentionally or not.

Probably, finally, users of the Harasser Vulcan Canon must face the firing squad.

No exceptions, no mercy, no bs.

I dunno - I'm getting very different impressions for some of this...

Pounders are ok AI, but they take skill to land hits. It's really not easy, even at close range, when someone is strafing side to side. The rest of the AI guns are better, but they are still slower to kill than any NC or Vanu max gun. I often unload into guys and land all my hits but the damage is insufficient to prevent them from going under cover.

For tanks, NC and vanu both have abilities with no downsides, TR gets a big DPS boost but loses mobility, and it takes time to switch between modes. In terms of performance, the magrider is the top killer (http://ps2oraclestats.com/?stat=kpu&weapon1=3730&weapon2=3461&weapon3=4008), surprisingly the vanguard is the worst, which is odd because the shield is a better ability than lockdown.

As for weapon choices, I pay more attention to the specials: The minigun is ok, but extremely situational, and not strong at any particular thing. The Jackhammer is a boatload of fun and very effective, especially 1v1. The lasher is situational, but probably the best suppression infantry gun in the game. Vanu gets the most interesting specials: Lasers, hover tanks with afterburners, more lasers, berzerk-mode maxes (which are still awesome, but few seem to use). PPAs that are great at everything.

NC has a wire guided missile, an all-purpose, super-powered air mounted shotgun that instagibs infrantry, melts maxes, and is useful in the air. In fact, they have shotguns on everything that are very strong at close range.

TR has an auto-lock, multi-missile AA launcher. It's great, but never does much damage, and is very hard to hit things with. They have a minigun, but it's not much better than they other guns they have (in fact, it's worse than the carv in almost all situations). They have the vulcan, which has had it's ups and downs. They have the marauder, which everyone has forgotten about because it's really, very terrible.

It's like for TR they introduce a weapon, get the balance wrong somehow, it overperforms, so they nerf it to nothing, then forget about it.