VS already have more vets on both servers. What do vets most likely have for hallway fights? The Fire launching AOE guns the Helios. VS = more vets = More Helios. VS = more vets = More Lashers. VS = more vets = More Thumpers. So for a Nasons tunnel farm that happens everyday or a Ascent cave tunnel farm that happens everyday? What does the NC do for these? They are mostly medics, since they have less vets. So what does 20+ NC medics at a Nasons tunnel room, doooo when VS lobs 10 Lashers & 4 Helios fire balls down a hallways? What does NC do? They just freaking stand there twiddling their thumbs, bekuz their ain't jack to do. Not even a sniper rifle is able to counter Lashers, you die before you even scope. When we were stuck at a Ascent A room tunnel west side tunnel door from the grass hill. No progress. Lashers shooting down hill at the entrance to the cave. Stuck at the right side door to the cave too, also downhill. So the right entrance to A cave, is to run UP a hill, while lashers fly down. & the left entrance to A cave, is to run into a area, that has a hill path on the left side with lashers shooting down it. So were stuck there for 30+ minutes dieing on repeat trying to make progress to get to the cave with no luck. Else stuck at Nasons tunnel which is fine, Since nasons tunnel is a glorified farm room, yet not able to score any kills, while vs is able to score kills, since our medics don't have lashers and just wait to ress. Most people don't want to buy, nor have the certs for a Thumper either. What do NEW NC players the faction with the most new players do against LASHERS? What are we suppose to use our shotguns to deflect lashers? is that the trade off? that trade off sucks. Shotguns don't come into play that much. Most NC don't even use the NC's jackhammer or whatever that much. IS it really that much better than regular shotgun all factions have? No. Does it compensate for how often Lashers are used? No. Ultimately what I'm trying to say. Is Thumper wasn't good compensation. That the trade off to lasher, HAS to be a weapon ALL NOOBS are able to equip, already have equipped, and are reminded to use the aoe weapon every single day. So if 20 VS vets have lashers and 20 NC noobs do not, guess what? You need to give all the 20 NC medics, something AOE that shoots down a tunnel FOR ZERO CERTS. For free. Since buying a 1,000 cert thumper doesn't work, won't help noobs buy the thing, and even thumper isn't as good as Lasher is for most situations, since Lasher shoots faster than a sniper does. So thumper is countered by snipers for tunnels, but Lasher isn't. TR probably has the same issue, tho they have less noobs. I just find tunnel fights super lame these days, I still like tunnel fights for the firing line, tho standing there with no counter is the lame part. I'm not able to stealth down the tunnel to knife or mine people, even if I ran on the wall the lashers would still get me. Even if I engi wall and engi turret the lashers still get you. Even if you smoke the tunnel the lashers just fire blind and kill you. Even if you use a sniper they kill you before you scope. It's just a deathzone, while my guys on nc stand back and ress everyone who's died and have NOTHING to counter with for an entire hour if we stay there. Free lvl 1 noob AOE guns almost as good as Lashers are given to NC and TR. I'd give AOE guns to noob medics at this rate. Obviously HA too for free, not a single cert spent. Just given freely, then told to equip from missions. The issue isn't just NC doesn't have aoe guns, the issue is also that new players won't spend 1,000 certs on a aoe gun. So both require a solution. I wouldn't even make the aoe gun given to nc be even 300 certs to buy, has to be free. The fact is Nasons & Ascent are your biggest fights for the longest amount of time and only vs gets a weapon to do dmg at the main farm lanes of these bases.
If you don't want to give lvl 1 noob nc medics free AOE tunnel guns. Then we'll be needing engi walls that are x2 taller. For free also, since most noob medics don't have engi walls either. The short walls engi's have now are useless verse lashers for the most part.
its not just the lashers, my favourite VS spec at the moment is "Lash-erta", medic with Lacerta and lashing ammo. you just spam fire down a hallway and a squad of enemies die. VS have so many easy weapons, every class has access to something far easier to use than NC and TR equivalents. heavy has Lasher and for 1v1s the hilariously easy lasersight Unstable Maw LA and engi have Horizon (one of my alltime favourite guns, when i touch horizon my K/D triples.) Medic as said has Lashing ammo Lacerta. Infil has Unstable Canis (and a bunch of sniper/scout rifles with no drop) even max has Cosmos with built in Unstable Ammo, walk into a room and fire massive bullets...for 21 seconds without reloading. VS are just exceptionally easy to play.
I play HA on all factions with mostly ES stuff and the game has clearly asymmetrical balance here, each faction has a niche where they win: Lashers gonna lash and dominate small corridors, phoenix RL will cut corners and dominate vehicle pushes on the open terrain where there's blind turns. TR has nothing aside a bad RL that flaks air but is far worse than lancer for AA, which is better also for ground targets
When striker actually reliably tracked your target it was easily the best infantry AA in the game, you could hipfire it at an esf 100m away and all missiles would hit, now its like playing D&D, you roll a dice to see if any of the missiles will track or just go flying past the ESF...wrel broke it when he messed with tracking trying to get water/rocket physics to work for the map noone even wants. But hey you still have MCG The God of BRRR.
For every 40 Lashers their's one guy with a Phoenix. I don't think that's a good trade. Not to mention the phoenix is only good if 2+ or more people are using them, which 99.99% of the time isn't happening. Lasher is good solo. Also Lashers are mandatory to farm infantry tunnels, doors, hallways, and downward slope trails. Phoenix isn't mandatory to farm vehi fields. I've played NC on US east for 3 months now & I've seen like 3 people use Pheonix's this whole time. Seen about 200+ Lashers. TR tech has Brrrt gun, which is used more often then the NC ha's special weapon. Ultimately it doesn't matter what TR & NC have, they both don't have hallway AOE guns for their noob low lvl medics to use or switch to. So you just stand around Nasons tunnel or Ascents dying, then ressing, and aren't even able to shoot down the hallway at all without a plasma ball making the whole door frame a death zone. So TR & NC just throw grenades and use medics. Maybe use 1 max. Everything else dies as soon as you peek down the tunnel for 1 second. It's not even a close fight. No way to even make progress with Ascents cave, just is a stalemate with only vs having entertainment. If anything makes the NC pop lessen, these cave hill stalemates. With mostly just NC dying. They have to compensate for the fact that some factions stack vets & they compensate by giving lvl 1 tr & nc noobs the same gun type that these vs vets have. People can kill tanks without phoenix's, they can't farm tunnels, hallways, and door frames without Lasher equivalents. Why would anyone want the new player experience, which is the nc, to die to Lashers without some obvious counter that's free to obtain? NC doesn't buy thumpers, most people don't buy thumpers, 1,000 certs for a gun needed to farm tunnels? Even tho farming tunnels is gonna happen at every Nasons and Ascent farm? & you'll probably die trying to use the thumper anyways dueling Lashers, if you're engaging from the lower ground hill trail. Is some BR 40 medics gonna buy Helios? no. So just don't factor 1,000 certs into the equation when speaking about anyone who's below BR 60. Else below BR 80. Has to be a free AOE guns while the game highlights " equip now " " is able to be used by medics " " is given free to engi's " " is given missions for noobs to remind to equip ". Doesn't cost 600 nanites either is free aoe.
Helios and Thumper are both NS weapons, not VS specific, and therefore are available for NC. The only one NC don't have access to that you have listed is Lasher. For every VS equipped with Lasher however, that's one less equipped with Thumper or Helios - so NC could just equip more of these two to even the odds. Also - none of these weapons are restricted only to Vets. Each costs 1000 certs, which is well within reach of even a newbie after a few weeks playing. I have been playing since 2012 and have earnt more than 283,000 certs over that time (an average of almost 26,000 per year - or 500 certs per week). I am also just a casual player - so only dip in and out from time to time. A hard core or dedicated player could probably earn 10 times what I have in the same time period.
Having a Thumper or Helios is based on if you're a vet or not. Dude most of the playerbase don't even have Ambusher jets for LA for 150 certs, least they don't jump enough, and you expect them to have thumper a niche weapon for 1,000 certs? My NC is BR 60 & I have had to buy more useful things, like a better shotgun for LA, a better assault rifle for medic, some turrets for my sunderer, and so on. I wouldn't have certs for a thumper till BR 80. It'd def not the first thing someone wants to buy and most won't. Even for VS who have the most Vets, most VS vets don't buy or use thumpers. VS wins the most, from stacking vets for both servers. Vets buy thumper and helios. Therefore VS have more Thumpers. VS have more Helios's. & VS have Lashers too. Then you have MAW with unstable ammo a vet was using for the Ascent tunnels too. Half the NC army is below BR 60. They shouldn't have to buy a thumper before they even have certs to buy their first turret for a sunderer. Even if they buy a Thumper it won't be good enough for the door frames where the lashers have higher ground via stairs and trail hills. Ultimately if 80% of NC are medics, fighting 40% of VS vets who are HA, for Ascent cave and Nasons tunnel, what are the NC suppose to do? Just pray someone buy a thumper? Die a ton & sit on the sidelines of the door frame? Yes they just do that. Nothing else. I can't even get these guys to use Caltrops which are free, use 200 cert smoke barrel attachment, or buy 100 cert squad shield markers for the map. Yet you want them to save for 1,000 certs? It all sounds ez on paper, yet half of them are medics. You'd have to give them a free medic aoe gun or free engi aoe gun with a ton of ui highlighting the fact they got given one. Theirs no room for just " get good and wait to lvl " for the moderate player. " ooo nc gets a better version of a shotgun " " ooo tr gets a chaingun " meanwhile neither of those 2 guns dominate one specific environment so much so that the other empires have to buy a 1,000 cert gun just to be able to simply return fire. TR gets a free shotgun. VS gets a free shotgun. They all get free machine guns equivalent to a weaker version of a chaingun. NOBODY gets a weaker version of a aoe gun for free.
That's your choice though - you could buy lasher with your first 1000 certs if you so wished, but as you say, you have chosen to spend those certs on other things.
Took y'all long enough to call lashing ammo on other weapons as OP, I personally find the Godsaw OP with it's ability to find and keep cloak sunderers uncloaked forever, and console has a bunch of people who unlocked it just for it's ability to destroy sunderers, which is literally the only vehicle that can keep a fight alive. The unstable ammo isn't as strong as you'd think, the lack of headshot damage makes you extremely susceptible to heavies, and the ammo itself is nowhere near game changing. Pretending Blueshifts aren't the best for nearly all situations on VS is downright laughable, Cosmos is a terrible weapon. Horizon's no spread is pretty strong when you're able to use a drifter LA, outside of that, it's not that strong given you have to land all 3 shots consistently to out-dps any other weapon in close range, and it's lack of headshot damage, headshot accuracy, and slow bullets make it pretty hard to use at range.
There are other places to fight than hallways guy, and Lashers, Thumpers, and Helios all cost 1000 certs, and you're not buying a Thumper or Helios to counter this gameplay, personally I'd like a wall ricochet on the Thumper but it seems pretty hard to code in... (although Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64 had wall ricochet on grenade launchers) Lashers have small AOE and are laughable in face to face combat, especially on PC, just eat a shot or two and mow them down.
read carefully, i never said it was OP, just that i was using it, its one of my new favourite weapons and firing into a choke point will get you a lot of kills. (it has more splash DPS than lasher, but way less sustained fire) again, read carefully, i was talking about EASY weapons, and cosmos are far easier and more forgiving than blueshifts, you walk in to a room, hold down the triggers for 21 seconds and pelt everyone with cannonball sized projectiles, they're far more forgiving than blueshifts, and if you aren't going for headshots you will do better with cosmos in most situations. give a new player cosmos and they will do far better than with blueshifts, i'd take that bet easily. as for your point on unstable ammo again i was talking about ease of use, and if you don't think its strong you haven't tried sticking it on a maw with shortbarrel and lasersight! you just ADAD and slaughter your enemies! try it if you haven't, its funny as hell. so my point was that VS just have a lot of easy toys to use compared to TR and NC who generally just have guns that do ordinary gun things. the lasher is the perfect example of that. i still have a video from years ago in which i ran into a hallway and massacred everyone without even really aiming.
