I know everyone swears by Autorepair but I find it too Cheese so I've always run Stealth instead b/c I like to RolePlay that everyone and their grandmother can't actually see me. And constantly landing to repair has become a ritual for me, I tell myself it's the one thing that keeps me from being a total dbag when it comes to Airhammering poor lost confused BR10's and still using Tomcats in general. Infact all that landing has really helped me learn to land in a LOT of tight spaces including right between the HORRIBLE KITE EATING soul devouring MONSTER COLLISION HULL despair inducing CTHULHU TREES of Indar. So would I be a good candidate for that Armor upgrade or is there just too much stuff these days now that will go right through it when I'm likely spotted sooner by ground forces?
Or, rather than buffing stuff on-par with the cheese stuff, we could downgrade the cheese so the other stuff becomes more viable?
I do not understand all the junk in your post, OP, so I shall simply answer the thread's title: Technically, to each his own and depends on your own personal playstyle. Sure, you may be able to take maybe one extra lock-on or 3 extra Skyguard FLAK bullets with maxed out Compisite Armour (numbers not exact) But to remain viable you would have to be Engineer and land-and-repair. In many situations, you may be followed by an enemy ESF or that Skyguard out in the wilds which can easily wipe you out while you're vulnerable, because in those situations you likely do not have a huge armour column with lotsa AA to hide behind. The further out you go, the less vulnerable you become, but the longer it takes to return. TL;DR Compisite Armour givesProtection from Flak and Lockons, but does ****-all in a Dog-fight and leaves you vulnerable while repairing. Perfect for strafing runs with a Zerg to hide behind, but not much else. Nanite Auto Repair may be the better choice, and I usually pair it with Fire Suppression for maximum survivability. With this, you can remove the vulnerability of landing to repair, and hopefully enemy air will break off when you get so far out. Assuming you're not taking any shots, you will begin repairing automatically as you leave the battle and be back in action only a few moments later. TL;DR Nanite Auto Repair Helps keep you in the air longer, especially between battles. It can help during a dogfight, but only if you manage to avoid fire long enough for it to activate. Perfectly paired with Fire Suppression. Stealth is also a good choice, but it seems like it'd be much better for ambush types of Gameplay, like suddenly appearing behind that armour column and taking out half of it before they realize what all's happening, Like composite armour, though, you're still limited in terms of survivability. TL;DR Vehicle Stealth Rewards hit-and-run gameplay, or even when flying alone without backup. Might be your best bet when Dogfighting since it limits ground anti-air, but being spotted will nullify your advantage, making you a ded pilot. Your defensive options are greatly limited, meaning you're about as hard to rip open as paper, so mind where you fly.
This was exactly what my original post stated actually. Landing and Repairing is a Ritual to me at this point.... exact words. I don't Dogfight. Dogfighters exploit bad physics and imbalanced Airframes purposed around 1v1 fights. -- and then They lecture the rest of us non-stop both in game and on the forums about how we're having "Fun" the wrong way because we don't have fun their way. I used to look up to them and flew with some of them. Until their rhetoric started affecting the game patches negatively. Anyone who installed Planetside to get in 1v1 fights, doesn't understand what the words "Massive Multiplayer" means. What they seem to want, is a Lobby. What I want... is different but balanced loadouts for different Zerg situations. Fun to me, is flying straight through the middle of a Zerg and barely coming out alive FireSupression & NAA pretty much nullifies the entire thrill of that
I'm very confused about NAR being cheese and stealth being honorable. Your very much underestimating how good stealth is. You probably don't realize that its the most cheese upgrade in the game. But it is. Your killing BR 10's when they can't even see you on the radar. At least with NAR they stand a fighting chance. I'm not kidding. Go ahead and use NAR. You'll probably do worse. You just don't realize the power of the upgrade your using. Would I take armor over stealth? No freaking way.
I took Stealth on every vehicle from day1 when the game left beta in 2012. How was I supposed to know? In most MMO's the stealth class in general is a gimmicky Role-Playing character, not a fully thought out combat platform. This is because it's NEVER about how good of a player you are, but how bad the players are you're fighting against. Luckily I have a good rank Spotted enhancement doohickey so I can go test this theory of yours.... But after 2 days of running this armor (rank 3?) upon the first responses I saw, I can't tell a difference except that I no longer frequently die to flak 50ft from that next Ridge. The only thing that's killing me now at this point is SkyKnights & crack-shot AP tankers. And frankly, that's what I deserve for running a G2A loadout /w dogfighter frame (I can't roll turn well enough for Racer when it comes to ground-hugging ... my wobbly wireless laser-mouse from 2005 can't interpolate fast enough. My CPU struggles too)
Armor is not worth it. If it protected against ESF noseguns, then it would be great, but it doesn't. NAR is pointless unless you play a bailout assault, then you need it to repair. I think a lot of experienced pilots love NAR because it supports their bailing out strategy. But NAR does zero for you during battles. It's less convenient, it doesn't help your KDR, and landing and repairing does the same thing as NAR(plus you'll get a ton of XP from it). Stealth is godlike. Combine it with fire suppression and play engineer to drastically increase your survivability. Use it to engage air and ground targets from their blind spot. And you also get 1 extra second to run from lock-ons, reducing your need to use flares. I understand why people play bailout assault, but if you're trying to be as effective as possible stealth is the way to go.
I dunno. I don't think NAR is worth it at all myself. In combat only a total noob will let you go an entire 6 seconds without getting at least 1 nosegun round on you. And if you're escaping combat to repair while flying, I don't find landing for hot repairs to slow me down at all compare this to either significant reduction in Flak damage that easily dwarfs the NAR repair or stealth which can let you avoid radar detection and adds a second to lcoks (and I think it still hard-counters Coyotes... I think the change with the Striker to not be affected by Stealth is Striker only... and still on PTS in any case) Screw NAR. I just don't get it. It's not like landing is hard (harder since the flight mechanics change on PS4 merge but not by much). It's a VTOL ffs. I've landed burning on fire with a sliver of health and saved my craft more often than I've burned to death.
Eh, Composite has seen me survive many flak bursts that would have killed me without it. (I operate in heavy AA areas pretty often though) Stealth > Armor >>> NAR
Yeah you've got me there.... I didn't even think to go past Stealth Rank 1 until earlier this year but I *think* it's making a significant difference? It definitely feels huge when I'm the one trying to get a lock on someone with full stealth.... look, If I'm playing an ground AV ESF... my personal opinion is, I'm SUPPOSED TO die to A2A ESF's. That's R.P.S. threeway design for you. I'm Paper... I cover Rock... yadda yadda no regrets Also .. dude ... I main AA / Flack ... MOST of the ESF I shoot down, no meat inside. They'd already bailed. Esp when it's Lockons that finish their ESF off. Maybe it's just a connery thing but like half the ESF's I see are DonAlfrago types. The only way to guarantee a kill on the meat instead of just their plane is with AP Vanguard round or Dumbfire Shrike.... which I've done to Don. He spent the next halfhour hunting me b/c he was so mad about it.
Dude, I tried killing Don for like an hour last night. I tried AP Vanguard shots (I am very good at hitting ESF's,) I tried ESF's, finally pulled a Skyguard only to have him bail out right before he exploded and C4'd my Lightning. Argh. As for the main question, I don't think armor is worth it at all. I'm no ace pilot, but stealth all the way. Against moderately-skilled pilots, I can get in an extra lockon before they can react to my presence. Plus, you can lose enemies faster once you decide to retreat, due to dropping off the radar quicker. I used to run NAR, but after flying with Ghostdjinn, he had me switch to stealth and I never looked back. Like others said, stealth>NAR>armor Even if you're going for ground targets, being able to sneak up behind them and get the jump is everything.
For dog-fighting/A2A composite is a complete waste.... you're right there. Against ground however, unless you're going to cherry pick where you operate only where there's no flak, Armor is quite good. I can tell you as a survivor of MANY narrow escapes from multiple flak sources (doing hit'n'run attacks into 96+ fights) that composite most certainly DOES have a place. It's STRICTLY in working around AA flak sources of course, which is dangerous in of itself and many pilots just avoid them. Auto-Spot on radar is only 100m, and G2A locks are enough of a non-issue that a 1s lock time difference is not a big deal. The time Stealth is nice for A2G is when you're rockin hornets ganking out of position tanks.
Yeah, in my limited A2G farming time, I'm much more worried about someone hitting me with an AP round than I am about flak, so I still like to keep hidden. Armor doesn't do much against AP rounds. I generally bug out every time I even hear a skyguard.
most V4S'ers Stream or VPN packetmanips or something weird b/c they hate dying so much :\ ... You won't find me in his h8'er camp tho, ppl like that aren't worth the effort. I think it helps if DON'T spot him first... or even allow more than half a second of your Traceline being on him. He seems to know either way I'm still running Stealth for everything else so the topic really doesn't have to obsess too much about that...
I agree, but I don't see what that has to do with my post. I just threw in the part about NAR because you said people swear by it. That's probably why they swear by it, because they bail. I can't think of any other reason besides laziness, that someone would hinder their ESF by using NAR.
This isn't WoW In combat the element of surprise is probably the biggest deciding factor for victory followed by skill. Taking you off the minimap is one of the strongest abilities in the game. All the spot enhancements only work after combat started. TTKs in this game are fast enough where that's not gonna matter. The stealth user has already unloaded all of his alpha damage.
Not to go rogue, but I never played WoW, so I wouldn't know I've gotten all of my Alpha's off before everyone notices me and shoots (unless someone was actively Spotting me on my path in in which case Stealth wasn't helping to begin with). ...A lot of my time on stalker Infiltrator has just been sitting on a ridge above Spawn spotting all the Podders who think they were sneaking up on my Allies. ...I did it out of spite back when I didn't understand A2G meta
