Is it just me or are NC infantry weapons bad ?

Hello fellow Gamers,

so I started playing Planetside2, 3 days ago. I have characters on all 3 factions with Level 10 or above. I think that i have a Basic understanding of the weaponery each faction offers. Now from the Looks and Music the NC is my favorite. The only Problem is that every time I play them I lose almost every gun fight even though i started Shooting first. I mainly play light assault and Heavy Assault and since i played BF3 CS:GO and Bf4 i consider myself capable of Controlling recoil. When i play TR I perform so much better and most of the time I get a Killstreak of 4-5. TR weapons are very easy to control and have larger magazines and higher RPM but do less damage. In my opinion the started NC weapons have low RPM smaller Magazines but hit harder. For some reason though NC weapons are rly fckn inaccurate to a Point were it is just frustrating to play them. My question is if it is only me that thinks the NC weapons are really bad even though they deal more dmg? What is the Point of having more dmg if you cant hit anything? Or maybe I am just a noob that has no idea what hes talking about xD.
Btw dont get me wrong i love Planetside 2 even though i only played it for 3 days now. The fact that this is a free to play game and still manages to kicks BFs butt is amazing. I really hope NC wepaons will get better once i Progress.

TR weapons in general have a worse horizontal recoil while the NC guns in general have a worse vertical recoil.

This is how you counter the vertical recoil of a gun: Pull the mouse down to compensate
This is how you counter the horizontal recoil of a gun: ????????

One gun goes ape-sh*t sideways and you cant counter it, the other goes crazy vertically and it's damn easy to counter... just learn how to compensate for the vertical recoil on the NC guns and you'll find that they are a lot more accurate than the TR guns because you cant compensate for horizontal recoil (unless it has a tendency to one side).

Or you could just stick to Vanu and you wont have to worry too much about recoil at all (also a generalization).

Some are better than others but i bet you havnt put any certs into upgrading your weapon yet, once you put a foregrip and compensator on itll be a different beast entirely.

NC starter weapons are 167dmg / 600 RoF or 200 dmg / 500 ROF and are considered "heavy" for this game. TR and VS weapons tend to start in the 143/750 - 143-698 range.

The latter tends to be a bit more forgiving because they bloom slower and you can simply hold down M1 earlier in firefights and do better. Overall though, weapon balance is done pretty well. The Starter LMG for the NC is a bad starter weapon but a great weapon within its intended niche. Weapons in this game pretty much represent sidegrades making them execl within certain situations to the detriment of others.

For NC, the Carnage AR is pretty much like a standard assault rifle with 143/750 profile. For LMG's the anchor is your friend, it has the fastest head shot TTK and some other great stats that leave it one of the highest performing in its class. For Carbines, I generally go with the stock Merc or the Cyclone SMG's.

Weapons don't really get "better" as you progresss though, you just pick different options for different combat roles (CQC / hipfire vs ADS, mid range, long range, and everything in between) The cool thing about the NC is they are the only faction who gets 200/500 and 167/600 weapons while all factions get pretty much everything else.

NC weapons tend to have have stronger vertical recoil while TR have more horizontal recoil. Horizontal recoil can't be controlled so TR typically get more rounds per magazine to compensate, they're basically bullet hoses.

There's a spreadsheet here with weapon stats. It's a bit outdated but I don't think much has changed since then. Just be careful to compare weapons with their actual counterparts, for example the T5 AMC, the Pulsar-C and the AC-11X are all the same 'type' of weapon.

Iridar also made a huge guide here with all kinds of info about how gunplay works in PS2.

Long story short, you can count on the infantry weapons (with maybe a couple exceptions *cough* 0.75 LMGs *cough*) being pretty balanced by now.

Hello LegionZ.

NC weapnos are the hardest hitting weapons in the game granting tyou the most Alpha DMG of all weapons. Means the most dmg on enemy targets before they even get the possibility to move or evade which is the utmost best trait of all infantry weapons.

This comes at the cost of a higher degree of inaccuracy as long as you have not invested anything in weapon upgrades such as adv. forward grip or adv. laser sight depending on the range for which the weapon is meant to be.

NC weapons received major buffs across the board to minimize these downsides in the past. Now a lot of weapons even got the best accuracy stats in terms of bullet spread when weapon upgrades are attached.

=> Highest Dmg weapons ingame
=> Given Dmg the highest Rate of Fire on their dmg tiers (600 round per minute for 167 dmg weapons)
=> Partly best accuracy in terms of crosshair bloom, spread and kick after attachments are applied to the NC weapons
(adv grip, compensator)

As a Beginner don´t let yourself get demotivated by the slight inaccuracy on blank NC weapons. You got the strongest weapon arsenal at hand of all faction as soon as you upgrade your weapons with the items mention in the paragraph above.

Even the ultimate LMG Godsaw received major buffs last patch making it the most OP LMG in the game in the DMG and now on top accuracy section.

As already said - High Alpha dmg is all you need to have the first shots advantages - as soon as enemies start to evade on low dmg per shot weapons - you will miss most shots on the target which TR and VS have to deal with - as NC you already took out their shield and about 50% of their health with the first salvo making the kill off a 75% win in most 1vs1 situations.

So upgrade your gear.

I appreciate your reply but how can you compensate for horizontal recoil when it jumps uncontrolably from left to right. You cannot compensate for random left or right recoil unless you have a crazy human reaction time of like 100ms. Maybe after i played over 2000 hours i would finally be able to control the recoil. I dont know the exact stats of the NC or TR weapons but if the NC weapons are more accurate then I would rly be suprised. @Kloz

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Those stats are outdated as SOE / Daybreak do not offer up to date ingame information anymore. The current ingame stats do not comply to the outdated datainterface API data anymore.

NC weapons received major buffs over the last patches making the even more viable than the TR and VS weapons in the dmg and improved (upgraded gear) accuracy section.

The Gauss SAW is one of the hardest weapons to use in the game because of its crazy vertical recoil, and its bloom is pretty bad too. Getting hold of the GD-22S is probably a good move if you like TR weapons.

The default carbine (Mercenary) is perfectly decent though.

Horizontal recoil can be countered with the (advanced) forward grib and horizontal with the compensator upgrade which is available to almost all NC weapons.
Btw. VS received major nerfs to the cone of fire accuracy and bloom for all their light machine guns of the heavy class 6 month ago.
So the statement that VS have the most accurate weapons is meanwhile wrong. Same applies to the only accurate longrange weapons which VS had such as the Pulsar C carbine.

Love NC weapons myself. I haven't used one yet I didn't like. Can't say the same for the other two factions.

Hmm okay seems like it is just difficult to use NC weapons and stats do not lie so I will give the NC another try and hope that once i get some attachments i perfrom better with them. Thnak for all your replies guys !

I also started as NC and I remember a bit how hard time I had with those guns. And I remember that I found TR guns much easier to handle too. The horizontal recoil can't be compensated for, but the low vertical recoil in combination with bigger magazine makes starting with these weapons easier.
Nowdays, at VS, I just stick to weapons with one sided horizontal recoil and I use reflex sight 1x only, or else I just can't aim well (I tried Pulsar C with 2x reflex sight and had the worst accuracy on it according to my stats, and we're talking about incredibly precise carabine here).

Fortunately, you can decrease the recoil with attachments, or don't mess with it at all. There are weapons which can be used effectively with hip fire or you can try out sniper or battle rifles, where you will practically reaim after each shot anyway.

The SAW is an easy auraxium once upgraded. Rapid short bursts at neck-level and watch the corpses pile up.

Just stick with NC and work your certs for the upgrades. Adv Forward grib is 200 certs and compensator 100.

True for all NC weapons - 300 certs invested and you have the best guns in their class ingame.

BTW.

Hint for the Gauss Saw - NEVER autofire it. The Gaus Saw is perfectly accurate on the first 2 shots - then kicks up and the next 2 are accurate again.

=> TAP FIRE - 2-4 shots - milisecond break for accuracy reset - but as Gauss Saw is 5 shot kill.

So after your 4 shot salvo, the enemy should be down to 20% health:
* 2 shots go to the body => upward kick
* 2 shots to the head

Here is a how to use video for the SAW:

The only reason the Gauss SAW seems bad as a starter weapon is because the VS and TR starter weapons have more DPS. 1787.5 vs 1667. Give the Gauss SAW a fire rate of 536 and watch everyone stop saying its a bad starter weapon.

Its all preference.

I find the tr guns more controllable...bloom for sustained fire feels less.

But all the guns have a crazy recoil pattern and variance. I don't have the link but somewhere I. This forum is a guide that explains it all.

Keep playing keep practicing...simply pulling down will not always work...and you need to learn fire control...birst a bit more.

Gauss saw and ac-x11 are awesome weapon, maybe less for new player since it become really effective once you get the attachment, but after that they are really great.

DPS has nothing to do with why it is a bad weapon for starters.

The weapon is simply to unwieldy in the hands of a new player who has no idea on how to compensate for its high vertical recoil and behavior. Once some certs are put into with attachments to help compensate for its downsides yeah it is a great weapon after you have some idea on how to handle it. For a veteran player it is a joy to use and for me one of my personal favorite weapons.

The better weapon for starters in my opinion would be the EM6 or even the GD22. They are much easier to start off with for a new player as they do not have such unforgiving behavior to an inexperienced player.

People actually understand how recoil works and able to explain it to a newbie player. Link my guide even!


My life is now complete.

I'm glad you're having fun in PlanetSide 2. Seeing as you're a new player, I recommend you check out the Beginner's Guide, link is in my signature.