I've tried using this once. Never tried again, since it's utterly useless. It runs out to quickly. It takes to long to recharge, and it doesn't offer nearly enough damage mitgation, to make it worth the trade off. What it is, is a extremely weak version of the Heavy Assault shield, that doesn't allow you to fire back when you use it, and doesn't absorb enough damage to stay alive long enough to reach cover. Once heared lead dev say that they don't want one particular cert to be used, because it's the best one to always be using, making it the default choice. Hence Shield Capacitor and Ammo suit slots got buffed making it more on par with Nano-weave, causing people to opt for these over Nanoweave, causing more variation in suit slot choices. (and it worked I might add, since I've noticed I am OHK combat medics especially more than I used to) I am really curious how many Infiltrators actually bother using Nano Armor cloak, and even more curious to learn why the Dev team has never taken this as a signal that Nano-armor cloak is not a viable choice. Hunter cloak is the suit slot cert that is the best one to always be using, making it the default choice. Why hasn't anything been done to change this for about 10 months now, and don't people think it's about bloody time the Devs, made Nano Armor a solid choice next to Hunter, before they start implementing new ones?
I agree that it could use an upgrade. I would prefer an additional feature rather than more damage resistance or such. I guess you first have to look at what the cloak is for. Is it for combat directly (like the heavy shield/resist)? No, because you can't shoot while using it. Indirectly you can use it to juke while reloading if the target is a bad shot and has a low ammo capacity. You can also use it for escaping combat. Is it good at these things? It is certainly better than nothing, but in my opinion, no - not really. The damage resistance is too small for it to make much difference most of the time, and it has no other beneficial effect (visibility reduction isn't great - especially when something is already shooting at you!). I would like it if they made it better at juking and/or escaping in some way. A speed boost could do the job. A more imaginative idea might be something along the lines of a "mirage" effect that actually makes it difficult to track the infiltrator by providing alternative targets. Or, maybe something else.
Well look at decoy grenade. Never worked properly, was all around a worthless choice compared to EMP's or even the default frag. And now here it is being sold to us as part of the Infiltrator update when its really just a bug fix that took them over 10 months to address. Its really no surprise this Dev team hasn't done anything to make NAC a more appealing alternative to the Hunter Cloak. Sad, but true.
Be careful what you wish for or they might end up nerfing hunter cloak instead of buffing armor cloak. Not that there's much to nerf on a 12 second cloak that's already rather visible. I suppose the armor cloak would be useful if you could actually shoot while it's active like the heavy shield but even then I wouldn't see myself using it and I'd rather wait for the stalker cloak.
Sorry for the length here but this is a topic I have a bit of a soft spot for as one of the few that actually makes regular use of the NAC, I would like it to be rebalanced to be more of a viable option to the average user. It's not terrible as is (at max rank anyway) but it doesn't feel very balanced either. The thing is, anyone can use hunter cloak to some degree of effectiveness at any rank, I won't get into the right/wrong ways to use a cloak but suffice to say there are ways people use it that end up being to their detriment. With NAC it's about a million times easier to screw yourself with improper use of the cloak. I've been fine with that for the longest time, I just looked at it as the cloak for the advanced user, for those willing to put in the time and deaths to learn how and when to use it, and how to change your gameplay to support it. But then that doesn't really fit into the side-grade model of how things are supposed to stack up against each other, and the cloak could definitely be made a little more user friendly. So as an fairly frequent user, here's what I see to be the biggest problems with the NAC: -It doesn't become truly effective until it's maxed. For ranks 1 through 4 it will typically only let you soak 2 extra bullets before death. At rank 5 this becomes 3-5 rounds soaked because of the extra 10% DR found on that rank. It's use is extremely limited unless one wants to make the full 1000 cert investment, making it a very much an 'all or nothing' cert. I maxed it right off the bat and that's how I learned to use it. I recently tried the lower ranks on another character... if I had done it this way on my main character I likely would have abandoned it like so many others. -The recharge to uptime ratio is particularly harsh. The recharge on NAC is a constant ~24 seconds regardless of rank. At rank 1 that's ~7 seconds recharge per second active, reducing to ~4 seconds recharge for every second active at rank 4. This makes knowing when to turn off the cloak as important as knowing when to turn it on, and results in an ability that's ridged and unforgiving to mistakes and new user.-The cloak's duration doesn't feel justified. Related to the previous point, the cloak can only be active for between 3.5 to 6.5 seconds from ranks 1-4. I understand the point of the short duration to structure it as a tool to be used actively to defend yourself rather than something to run around with to avoid taking too much damage, and I agree with this, but the prior two problems, recharge in particular, need to be relaxed for it to be justified. To put it simply, it's not very effective without a substantial cert investment, and with such harsh limitations on the cloak it's usefulness feels out of balance with it's limiting factors. But this is something that could be fixed by just altering how each rank benefits the cloak to make the cert progression much smoother, and the cloak itself become effective a little earlier on the way from rank 1 to 5. The only real 'buff' needed would be adjustments to the recharge times and a minor increase to duration. So: -Reduce base recharge from 24 to 20, with ranks 2-5 reducing it further by 1 second each. -Allow rank 5 to add an extra second to the duration like ranks 2-4, bringing maxed duration to 7.5 seconds -Divide the 10% extra damage reduction into 5% installments attainable at ranks 3 and 5, allowing more defense to be obtained earlier with less of an investment. Currenty: ___Duration___DR____RechargeRank 1__3.5 sec___25%___24 sec Rank 2__4.5 sec___25%___24 sec Rank 3__5.5 sec___25%___24 sec Rank 4__6.5 sec___25%___24 sec Rank 5__6.5 sec___35%___24 sec Proposed Change: ___Duration___DR____RechargeRank 1__3.5 sec___25%___20 sec Rank 2__4.5 sec___25%___19 sec Rank 3__5.5 sec___30%___18 sec Rank 4__6.5 sec___30%___17 sec Rank 5__7.5 sec___35%___16 sec
Rather than just adding 10% resist to the last tier purchase, they could also add an increase recharge rate, I picked up the whole NAC for kicks and giggles and it's sluggish on recharging.
Imho the idea itself of nano cloaking armor is quite crap. In order to have more armor (so that I can be barely equal other classes) I have to give up the possibility to attack, and reduce the cloaking duration so my flanking capacity is decreased as well. What the hell is that? A defensive tool to activate while escaping from combat? I don't want to say where they can stick that nano armor s**t!
What bothers me is that after having spent over a 1000 Certs in NAC, it's still being outpreformed by rank 1 Shield Mesh Generator on the Heavy Assault. The "cloaking" part is redundant. Since it doesn't last long enough to get anywhere without being seen, is still quite visible at the ranges NAC is supposed to be used, and takes a century to recharge. There really is little the NAC delivers over what the HA shields don't already deliver at the first ranks. So.... this means instead of wasting alot of Cert points, I'd be better off equipping my uncerted Heavy Assault with an SMG and get a similar experience, with a better survibility skill to boot! (no recon darts ofcourse) NAC is a puddle of smelly liquid poo. I'd like to see it upgraded to a more solid turdlike form, kinda like Hunter being a turd. (a turd that has been polished somewhat since release, but still a turd) We'll have a variation of turds to choose from when equipping our cloak.
There is no amount of buffing that would ever compel me to use NA cloak. My suggestion is to the Inf community to stop having faith in whoever designed NA cloak in the first place. Imagine the amount of drugs and alcohol required to justify it as being included as an option. Like flashlights, adrenaline shield, and ammunition belt for engineers, this is a non-ability. Forget about it.
The best buff for the nano armor cloaking is removing that crap from the game and replacing that with something useful. A shorter cloaking boosting running speed would be much more useful.
Hey, I use adrenalin shield on my heavy with a Lasher, you'd be surprised at how long you can keep it going while killing clumps of infantry with it.
You're right, adrenalin shield is the best one for a "last stand" scenario where you're almost certainly going to die but want to take as many of the bastards with you as you can. I shouldn't have compared it to flashlights.
Taken off the patchrealm test notes here: Might be arrogant to think that my starting this thread had anything to do with this.... but I like to think someone on the dev team happened to stoll along this post, and thought I might have had a point. Whatever the case might be, this is good news, the duration is still relatively short, but the recharge time makes reasonably usable in conjunction with SMG CQB play. Even if this is just in a test phase, I don't see how this wouldn't make it to live.
Yeah the changes are pretty much what I figured they needed to do. A little more than what I though they needed to do, but I'm hardly going to complain about that. I'm to going to feel a lot less special when every other infi starts running NAC, but you got to figure if only a tiny percentage of individuals (the smug, the spiteful, and the crazy) can work out how to use something effectively, there was something wrong with it. Ah well, at least I still have decoy grenades =P
Yeah, I noticed that. Your suggestion was pretty on the mark with what they've done. I'll have to wait and see wether or not the damage mitigation is worth losing the cloak time and regen rates huntercloak delivers. 35% I suppose is not too shabby, since it's 35% off each bullet means the avarage 143 damage you get, is brought down to 93 ish damage per bullet. On paper it's pretty good. Seeing as how without Nanoweave (900 health/shield) someone using a 143 damage carbine will need 7 hits to kill you. With your NA cloak, he'll need 10 hits. Adding NW rank 5 to the mix, you'll have 1150 health/shield. Same weapon, 8 shots without NA engaged, 13 with. Might only be 5 bullets, but this is quite a big diffrence, and will save me alot of time using medkits. Hell, it might even be worth getting shield capicitor.
You're absolutely right about combining with Nanoweave. Every NAC build I have right now is 5/5 NAC/NW at the moment. You genuinely feel it in game, and so does your opponents, and it's It actually gotten me accused of hacking on two hilarious occasions. One of the reasons I've kept plugging away with it in it's current form is because of all the times I managed to get out of fire, look at what I had left and say to myself, "I would have just died without it," and when I've been able to turn it around and pick up a few more kills, they're all the sweeter because of it. And nanoweave definitely makes those moments come more frequently. ASC works well with it too if you play more conservatively and stick closer to cover and can duck out before they even get through your shields, and the sooner they recover the sooner you can pull a switchback from evading to aggression. It's just held back a bit with the current shields numbers. Too much downtime so you lose your 'out' when you jump back into it. With the changes though it'll probably become a favorite for bio-labs and the larger bases and facilities where cover and corners are abundant. Personally though with the better uptime and recharge I can worry a little less about defense, skip a defensive suit slow all together and grab the new rank of grenade bandolier and throw EMPs around like rice at a wedding.
I run with hunter 5 + nano 5 with Artemis on a regular basis, I do a little hit & run usually trying to get 3 or so people down before I get noticed or have to recover, NAC + ASC might allow me to stick around a little longer, I know it'll take some practice though since I'll lose that extra health nanoweave has.
