Can we finally level NC to TR and VS standards?

Personal observation to be more precise, but yes.

And *all other things being equal* You would not factor in day/night? Why??

And no I would argue this is not subjective.

Pink glowing stuff aside, the vanu are *objectively* darker than the other two factions. A darker object placed in a darker environment is harder to see. It is *objectively* more difficult to acquire a more difficult to see object.

The degree to which this matters varies on more variables than I could imagine and I make no claim about what that degree it may be. It is non-zero though and the word "nudge" that I used will suffice for accuracy.

I'm constantly amazed by what degree internet disagreements go to. We'll frickin' argue about water being wet or not.

The vanu are harder to see at night on hossin. Holy crap man. How much do you want to devils advocate about this statement?

I just returned from Testing with NC and TR alt. So first things first

1.) The Phoenix range is actually only 300m, that's correct. However, it can be guided with much higher precision than an Engineer AV turret and it does more damage per shot than AV turret or standard launcher

2.) Just rechecked the place it happened, and you can do this test for yourself. Went to Esamir, Jaegers Crossing. The Spawn room there in the tower is about 244m away from the outside wall of Jaegers First. So if you have several NC Heavies with Phoenix launchers, they can bombard this base with missiles being totally untouchable in Spawn room. Surely you can find other places on the various maps too.

3.) Checked the Maxes. NC and TR Max can use their special skill indifenitely, whereas VS max can use the suicide function for up to 25 seconds. NC max shield works wonderful with MAX overall playstyle, since you have no zoom and most weapons can be fired with accuracy only on close to medium ranges.VS Max seem also to get the short stick regarding AV weapons

4.) Checked the Tanks. Vanguard has the highest health with 6000points plus damage reduction 67%/34% for 8 seconds every 40 seconds on top tier. It's clearly superior in dircet combat toward other tanks, and used in masses - as NC Zergs do - makes things even worse

Take yo butt back into VR and try this... 300m. Put a sunderer on fire with a phoenix. Count how many seconds it takes from first trigger pull to last hit.

Now run up to that sunderer (actually go ahead and let it explode, stand next to a new one and set it on fire). How many seconds does it take for an engie to repair it from fire to full?

Compare with the previous number you obtained.

Got it?

Now use this information the next time you're on the receiving end. Don't come whining to the forums.

Now try your strategy out in real live play, go next to the enemy sunderer and try to set it on fire. How long till you die from sundy crew and enemy players shooting ya? Then got to the tower along with 4 or 5 of your friends, select Phoenix launchers and let everyone go for the Sundy.

Demonstration over. Use this information next time that someone complains about your fav faction. And don't press your biased useless BS into others forum posts. Thank you sir!

A Phoenix deals 875 damage and a Decimator 975. Those things are no joke. Just imagine if NC ever got coordinated. 1 Phoenix won't kill a Sundy, but 6 coordinated HAs bouncing fight to fight could solve most problems. LAs often can't even get to the target, and if they do they won't sneak by a 2nd time. HAs with direct fire missiles get mowed down once they have line of sight on a problem tank or Sundy. That launcher with just a touch of teamwork is incredibly powerful.

Apologies for my wording. It's the only way I can think the point flew over your head. Which it did.

The point is not to stand next to an enemy sundy. That was merely a mechanism to obtain the tests in VR.

Simple take two numbers into consideration:
The time it take to bring a sundy down from 300m with a phoenix.
The time it takes to rep a sundy.

If you compare the two numbers you'll find the phoenix doesn't even have enough DPS to out damage a single repairing engineer.

That was the point. Hope you caught it this time.

I've been hit by enough phoenixes to confidently say a single rocket deals quite a bit of damage, and no they are not easy to shoot down/divert off course - perhaps to pingwizards whose bullets register more easily, but I've sat there trying to shoot them down a lot, leaves me a sitting duck, or revealing the location of other vehicles by shooting them to the point of running out of ammo.

To me, NC has some of the best gear. TR has some of the worst gear. VS is somewhere in the middle.

Every single weapon I've tested in VR carries across its good and bad properties, amplified, on the live server. I don't need to play NC to confidently say NC has some of the best gear.

Best =/= balanced gameplay.

It is frustrating trying to make TR gear work when it's clear nerfs long ago were overly-heavy handed. TR weapons are unreliable in how they come across after all the clientside2 nonsense comes into play.

Aye shooting them down is a very desperate and very temporary solution. TR's high RoF weapons help some, but not much. Getting a low deflection shot is best, and picking up the cadence of the reloads from the shooter also helps. Use this to buy some time to get a sniper on task. You only gotta shoot one of the launchers and the others are gonna get paranoid and disrupted.

The best defense though is positioning. Here is where I think it helps to spend some time in the phoenix. Yeah, they can do some nice trick shots. The vertical dive to get over cover is the most infamous. To the TR and VS it seems like these trick shots can be done easily. It's not as easy as it looks. Spending some time getting good at these shots will help know what will and won't work.

That vertical shot for example gets more difficult for ever meter closer the target is. Getting further drops the dps. Trees are almost hilariously difficult to get a phoenix through. Something that you could outright LoS kill with a Lancer can be almost untouchable with a phoenix if the stupid twigs align.


Teamwork though makes them deadly. Then again it makes everything deadly. Half squad of Lancers will single-shot blot a vehicle with no warning. The striker valk is legendary. If NC starts whipping out the teamwork it's gonna hurt. No doubt.

No problem then, but the thing I've experienced and pointed out: there was actually an coordinated NC Phoenix team, picking off vehicles with their Phoenix missiles from tower Spawnroom.Sure the DPS of 1 Phoenix is low, but 6 Phoenix striking the target at the same time followed by a second salvo of 6 Phoenix and you know what i mean. Since they remain in spawnroom there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, all they need is one guy calling out targets and an engi supplying ammo every 2 minutes.

Imagine this also on the offensive, when NC has their Vanguards out, exchanging fire with TR/VS tanks, so the latter ones have to seek some cover. And in this cover, they'll receive 6 Phoenix strikes.

This differs from Vanu Lancers or TR Strikers as in the moment they are shooting, they need to have direct sight contact and then are vulnerable to counterattack or flanking. The Phoenix doesn't require sight contact and you can stay inside safe rooms.

Personally, I would say the NC have a few area's of excess strength right now. Their MAX suit is the big one. The TR MAX is good when it's got enough engineers and ordinance armour levels attached to it. The VS MAX beats the TR MAX when these two factors are not in play, but the NC MAX just wins. Yes, I realize it's a complete black and white situation with its shotgun damage, but lets face facts. It's got an ability that's basically made to allow it to either get in close or escape to cover.

Granted, I don't want to be dropping nerf hammers on MAX suits yet. In general, they are under-performing and frankly, it's not hard to see the core source of the issues ( C4). I think start with getting C4/MAX interactions under control, then look into some buffs and nerfs.

Aye, the spawnroom thing ain't cool.

I'm pretty sure devs don't like the mechanic but their hands are tied. Blocking rockets from going through spawn shields will result in vehicle (think HESH) based spawn camping asap. We had this problem back in beta and early game release before the spawn rooms were redesigned.

And not to aggravate you more but they don't even need someone to callout targets. Phoenixes are self-focus firing. Just let one guy fire first and everyone else forms a "formation" behind him in-flight.

The spawnroom thing though... yeah I think it's just poor sportsmanship. Very cheesy. Best advice I can give on that: Mind your locations. The phoenix is tricky to get through the shield and direct upward shots are not usually possible (roof shield often blocked or a direct up isn't appropriate). Bringing the vehicle in close, and then right against cover can turn those trick shots impossible.

The teamworks aspect of it I have no sympathy to offer. Teamwork is OP and should be. If you are getting focus fire from phoenixes from the soft innard of an enemy armor zerg then... tough luck Try countering with teamwork of your own... Sick half a squad of snipers on stealth flashes, and go setup shop to the side of whatever hill the phoenixes are on. It's like shooting stationary fish in a barrel.

The problem with this is that the Phoenix just doesn't have the DPS for the damage to matter against targets with enough health to survive the first hit. One Phoenix at 250-300 meters lacks the ability to even knock out a shield on a sundy.

Sure, if there were six Phoenixes all flying at the same target (and no one tried to shoot them down) they could do some work, but so would six Lancers, or six dumbfires, or six lock-ons. And if your response to that is "the Phoenixes can hit something the other launchers can't see" I implore you to try the Phoenix out in live and try to hit sunders in various locations. The turning radius is a joke.

I never really noticed that VS is a lot darker than the others. And I have yet to see the TR red glow in the dark. There is usually light around the capture points...and if you are camping somewhere in the dark far away from anything then do not claim that has ANYTHING to do with a tactical decision by some halfway decent leader. That's egoistic K/D-whoring at best.

I do not like facing Vanguards and Scatmaxes. I have 45k kills. The difference between TR and NC is less than 300. I pick my fights based on tactical decisions...and that ends up with fighting both faction quite equally. I NEVER ever thought about "which faction do I want to fight now cause it's better for my K/D, cause I may see them better at night on some far away hill in the middle of nowhere...or cause I may hit on a weapon I do not like". There are dozens of more important tactical points before I would come to that. You say "if everything else is equal"....but it never is! I can always name you a reason why I picked a fight and usually have a priority list for another 4 or 5 fights that are going on at that time....all based on SERIOUS tactical reasons.

I can not imagine that someone really picks a fight based on whether he can see a player a tiny little bit better or not. That's bogus to me and all that claim that to be a serious issue these days are either liars, drama queens or stupid. Don't defend stuff like that a decent tactical decision...just don't.




About those that claim that a phoenix is easy to shoot down: That's a liar. It can't really be shot down. You can just make the player lose control over it...which means it will fly just where it was aimed at that moment. A halfway decent player has it on target before you can hit the rocket...and then you can't do anything about that anymore. Clientside hitdetection, remember? If you park your sundy behind a rock then my pheonix flies around that rock and before you can have a chance to even shoot I'm already on course for that target. And the rocket is small and fast enough that it's quite hard to hit when it's not flying right at you(in which case shooting at it is wasted time...cause it's already aimed at you no matter whether the player has full control or not).

Complaining that a phoenix can't take out a sundy shield with a single shot can just be a joke. How strong do you want it to be? I mean, a sundy shield is tough...it's not like it falls to a pistol or something. And yes, a lancer, dumbfire or lockon squad can do a lot of damage....but not behind a rock, a wall or any other obstacle. I'm sure they all would like to have that turning radius...from what I see it's better than that of AV-turrets...and they do not have a fancy camera that let's you aim even behind obstacles.

Apparently a lot. hahaha.

Apparently that ain't an argument.

Pretty accurate across the board here. Most smaller bases in game are fully susceptible to the phoenix from spawn tactic. The vanguard... yeah. Accurate assessment.

I'd like to invite everyone who reads this thread to try out the mentioned Phoenix issue:
1.) Search a base, preferably with tower which is within 300m range of another base
2.) Position a team of Phoenix equipped heavies in that tower behind spawn room shield
3.) Position your Sundies, Tanks and soldiers in and around the other base
4.) Then let the Phoenix team do their work and try to stop them

Meanwhile

5.) another team pulls some Vanguards and attacks the base and any vehicle in sight
6.) vehicles that search for cover from vanguard fire will make a perfect target for Phoenix strikes - just follow the smoke
7.) with some skill the Phoenix team will also kill enemy soldiers inside the other base and force them to stay inside buildings

Then

8.) bring your NC Shield maxes into the base and clear up the remainings

You'll notice that multiple mechanisms, which are hard to counter on their own, will work together here and leave you pretty much without a chance to fight back.

While this is all true, and for the love of Vanu don't be giving the NC ideas as then they'll start to wonder why they don't win more often as they really should, we can all rest assured that they will eventually start mowing each other down in a fit of jealous rage relating to who got the biggest bonus check.

'Tis the NC way; freedom, money and friendly fire.

Hi. Welcome to Planetside. You seem to suffer from Acute Victim Complex Syndrome. Don't worry, most new to the game does that.

Try shooting down the phoenix missile. Yes you can actually do that. That reduces the already lowest-dps-of-any-weapon-in-the-game to zero. Take gun, shoot glowy thing with bullets. Neat huh.
Now imagine that squad of NC phoenix heavies with strikers or lancers instead. That would actually be scary!

Now look up the stats of the tanks! Then you'll see that the vanguard and magrider performs equally while the prowler performs a lot better. That probably doesn't align with your narrative, but don't worry, you'll find some other thing to whine about.
Railjack vs. Trap perhaps?