Simple question. Which should I go for? Not interested in Vanu (sorry). Played both TR and NC a bit so i know about the different 'styles' of the guns etc, but I havent done any real Medic play. Decided to switch for that and get one of the directive guns (long term target). The little experience I have (mostly from VR) is that I really like both the cycler and the gauss...just...I simply cannot decide
Can only give you my impressions of the Prime, it's a nice enough gun, I don't dislike it but it certainly isn't some unbelievable awesome gun either. In the end I prefer the default a bit more over the Prime for the simple fact that I can slap a laser sight on it and have a gun that works pretty much decently in any situation, where as the Prime is locked to it's attachments and those attachments make it more geared toward a more mid range to longer range combat, but the weapon certainly is solid enough.
The Gauss prime does not feel good unless you're used to playing 24/7 with high velocity ammunition and have mastered the art of firing a rifle with enough kick to break your arm every time it sends a round down range at a target. I have literally come to enjoy playing with every one of the five assault rifles that I have the auraxium medals with to the point where this was one of the most depressive letdowns since the mass effect 3 ending. Yes, this rifle feels that bad to use. It does perform well at range, but if you're going for range, the DMR or the NS-11a are so much better to use. That being said, I don't even play much TR, but I'd love to get a crack at the Unity.
Yep. I main medic and I'm the gold NS-11A away from having auraxium on every AR available to the NC in the game. The Gauss Prime is a Gauss Rifle with all the down sides and none of the benefits of HVA. "But Khope, what about the extended range on the minimum damage?" some my ask. "Well random player, that would mean something if AR's had more than one damage tier's worth of loss over range. At 0-10m both the NC1 Gauss Rifle and the Gauss Prime do 167 damage (or 7 shots to kill). And at 11m and further, they do 166-143 damage (8 shots to kill). This means that although the Prime doesn't lose as much damage as fast on paper, both weapons still take 8 bullets to kill a non-Nanoweave armor target. So the Prime is no better than the NC1 as far as damage goes, and the NC1 is far far more accurate due to it's not having the massive downside of HVA bloom, and still kills in the same number of bullets at any range. On top of that, the bloom means it becomes massively less accurate after far less time and rounds put down range. This entirely negates the benefit of the Prime's pre-attached compensator, as the compensator decreases vertical recoil to make follow up shots easier. However, because of the bloom, follow up shots have a massively higher CoF than the standard NC1, meaning the compensator's benefit is null and void. So long story short, the Prime is a 100% downgrade to the NC1 due to the HVA adding massive bloom." I personally feel the devs need to do what they did for the GODSAW and remove the HVA bloom. I would like to see the Prime become a high velocity 167 accuracy based long range weapon. Sadly, HVA bloom means it's only real advantage over the NC1 is single round fire. Even with 2x bursts the Prime is significantly worse than the NC1 at even the outer edges of medium range, meaning that while it's intended for long range use, it's clearly inferior at long range use. Therefore, I suggest adjusting it's stats to reflect a cross between the NS-11A and Gauss Rifle S so as to allow the Prime to be suited for long range use. Imagine this: -Lower fire rate to 577 RPM. -Up the velocity from the NC1's base 650 m/s to 675 m/s. (A less than 3.85% increase). -Increase the movement ADS accuracy to about that of the NS-11A. (By itself this would be OP beyond belief, but this will be balanced by ammo capacity per magazine). -Lower the ammo per mag to about 25 rounds. (A 16.667% decrease, forcing the user to be extremely ammo conscious.) -Increase reload speed to compensate for low ammo capacity. -Decrease ammo pool from 180 rounds total to 175 rounds total. (This reduces it to the nearest full magazine.)
What's all this about HVA bloom? It only increases vertical recoil by 10%, and all the stats I can find on the Gauss Prime confirm this. That is, the Gauss Prime has exactly the same bloom as the standard Gauss rifle and 5% less vertical recoil (as expected, +10% from HVA, -15% from compensator). The stats also say the Gauss Prime has a 50 m/s velocity boost--in other words, HVA does provide a benefit.
Oh, this has changed. Sorry, I took a hiatus from PS2 not too long after I auraxed the thing, and back then it had a 0.074 (as opposed to the standard 0.06 of most 167 damage tier weapons) ADS bloom per shot. My mistake, it seems they've removed it after all. (I can't believe I missed that in the stat page on the wiki!) I'll take Prime out and run around with it to get a feel for the changes before commenting on it any further. Thanks for pointing that out! (Here's hoping it's better at it's range job than before! Though I still want to see it made into a high accuracy high velocity head-shotting machine to the point of needing to be conservative with ammo, but that's personal preference.)
After a bit of use, I must confess that the Prime is much more tolerable than it was in the past. It still feels inferior as far as recoil though, and I suspect that is due some hidden stat or another, but I can't quite place what the cause may be. Now that the VS weapons have had their max ammo before overheat upped (it may be lowered to from the current 32 to 28, but 28 is still more than it's previous 24 rounds, though I personally think the standard 30 is just fine). I would most certainly prefer to see all the factions get a nice faction flavor feature like the VS heat mechanic. I'm thinking TR could have FAR greater airborne hipfire than most other guns (say only 50-60% of what they are now). This would make them considerably more powerful on the field, but only in certain situations where airborne hipfiring would allow more of a leg up versus having to wait til you landed. (LA's would gain an immense benefit from this.) It's not super flashy, which fits the TR, as they are very utilitarian. It's very close range oriented (again, the Dakka faction specializes in close range sustainable automatic firepower). And it's a feature that's not currently seen in the game (a weapon that specializes in accuracy when you jump or while you're falling). The limiting factor, Each time you jump, or fall and land on a surface only to bound right back off it nearly instantly, your CoF does increase, and can reach up to the size of the maximized CoF on the starter weapon variant. (Meaning bunny hopping will not be effective past the second or third hop. This is actually a good thing for both TR and the other factions though, as if bunny hopping were allowed for TR alone, you'd see a LOT more shotguns and OHK weapons from NC/VS.) Last we have NC. For NC, I REALLY want to see piercing ammo. Ammo that goes through a target and does damage to all the targets along the projectile's path. It's limiting factor: The damage number of the bullet rounds it's damage down to the next damage tier after each target, capping at the weapon's minimum damage tier. So say you're using the Executive (NC aurax pistol). With piercing ammo, say there are 10 enemies lined up all in a 9m long line, and all standing just under 1m apart. You fire at the first target at point blank range, and it hits him for 200 damage. The bullet goes through his body, hitting the next target behind the first, doing 167 damage. The bullet again passes through the second enemy's body, and hitting the third for 143 damage. The bullet again passes through the third enemy's body, and hitting the fourth for 125 damage. The bullet again passes through the fourth's body, and hitting the fifth for 112 damage. However, now it's hit it's minimum damage tier, so: The bullet passes through the fifth's body, and hitting the sixth for 112 damage. Passes through the sixth's body, and hitting the seventh for 112 damage. Passes through the seventh's body, and hitting the eighth for 112 damage. And on and on til the bullet has gone through everyone along the line til it flies off into the distance and/or hits a wall. With the VS ammo per mag upped*, my suggested features for the TR and NC would not be out of line. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *It's currently at 32 rounds per mag til the VS heat weapons overheat for the AR/carbine, and all of them got an extra 3-5 rounds. But a dev stated it would likely be lowered to 28...ish. Though I feel it should simply stay at the standard 30 rounds, IMO! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They would be incredibly simple to code. And they would add a new and unique feature to make us all feel special, not just the VS.
VS heat mechanic on directive weapons and Phaseshift is negligible. All it does is extend operational range by removing reliance on resupply availability. Its not really that great. Just an interesting gimmick. Yet you suggest that the NC directive weapons get infantry piercing bullets. You want to give the Godsaw the ability to shred entire droves of noobs every time they fight around a corner, or fight around crates, or push into a hall, doorway, or staircase, or turtle up behind a rock midfield between bases. That would be ridiculously OP. Especially when all you suggest giving the TR would be some laughable hipfire accuracy mechanic on directive weapons that suck at hipfire to begin with.
In the hands of a skilled player, all of these are insanely valuable. The heat mechanic's least impressive aspect is it's infinite ammo. The amazing part to it is that you can swap to your sidearm while it cools down, and NEVER have to worry about sustainability. Airborne hipfire is more valuable than you think. This ability would essentially be like just handing everyone who ever goes into any fight under 20m with one of these an extra layer of nanoweave armor rank 2, on top of whatever armor they're already wearing. (Again, you have to actually be a skilled player to do this though, but in the right hands it would be exceptionally potent.) And finally, the piercing ammo would only go through infantry. Certainly not vehicles, walls, etc. And just like having the ability to: 1) Take on a person with your primary, take down another with your pistol, and go right back to your fully "reloaded" primary again. or 2) Use cover and dodge back out firing while midair after jumping, forcing the enemy's shots that would normally be aimed at your head to only do 90% of a body shot per hit thanks to leg shots (instead of 200% of headshots per hit) while having a very easy line of sight to their head (making dealing damage even easier on top of that), which only your faction could do... ...the piercing ammo is situational. It won't do anything for 1v1 fights, or fights where the enemy is actually doing anything other than function quite well against the unaware or fool hardy. It would certainly be incredible against those who're mindlessly throwing their bodies into your fire single-file (which any halfway decent player would already be able to mow them down with little trouble). But it doesn't provide an outrageous advantage unless you walk right into that situation. (And if you're fighting someone with, say, the Darkstar... you're not going to try to run them dry on ammo by peaking every so often or catch them while they reload, are you? Of course not. Similarly, when you find yourself up against NC, and there are piles of friendlies in a choke point, it would be logical to assume one of the NC or more have also taken note and have brought a suitable weapon. To escape this, flank them, pull an infil, use a light assault, hop in an aircraft if you think that would give you the best advantage. Don't throw yourself at a faction you knew would have piercing ammo!) But just as I said before, in the right hands, just like all weapons and faction trait advantages, they're just another bonus for each side to attempt to play on with their own faction flavor. (And to the guy who wanted to see all of these made into attachments for all sides: neither TR/VS faction traits have business punching through armored infantry, VS/NC guns have no call to be airborne CQC dakka hoses as they couldn't stand to miss nearly as many shots during this process, and the NC/TR have no business having infinite ammo heat weapons). I'm sorry to be so harsh, but if you can't see how very valuable all of these are, you're not yet complete in your training. I remember when I reached BR 100, and I thought I knew plenty, but even back then I was only just beginning to grasp the true concept of how deep the balance in this game runs. Here I am over a year (since reaching BR 100) later, with over 2.5x the experience it takes to reach BR 100, and I still have many things to learn. How many days play time do you have on your main character? Because, respectfully, if it's not at least 40-50 days, you're still just as blind as I used to be, and it's a long but wonderful road to understanding how to really balance abstract traits like these. (But I'll give you a small leg up: One of many key features is to give everyone something that the other simply cannot compete with in it's desired element while on equal ground; And by equal ground I mean HA vs HA, medic vs medic, SMG vs SMG, carbine vs carbine... you get the idea. This forces each side to play a subtle game of cat and mouse. Trying to lure each other into their advantage, while simultaneously removing them either entirely or even only partially from their own. While to everyone else on the battlefield who isn't skilled enough to doing so to the extreme that some are, said trait can easily look either: borderline to blatantly OP if they're on the receiving end, or only moderately interesting if they're just using it without the same highly refined proficiency.)
I haven't used the Prime, but the Unity is a beast. Feels like a straight upgrade to the default T1. Probably the best directive weapon the TR has access to.
