Claymore OP as hell

I would prefer the mines from NS.

But that works only against blind ***** ingoring 3 uniquely looking lights or a glowing ring so no, you cannot plop them anywhere. They have a rock bottom skill floor, but there is also a low skill ceiling, once the enemy is half competent they become flat out ineffective. You can do only so much with a mine that glows "helpfully", has pathetic range and a delay.

Remember that they got blinkenlights to equalize them with claymore lazorz? Where are the lazorz now? TR raged about claymores in the past but now we are supposed to accept this blatant disparity?

Is cheese the primary purpose of everything in this game? If somebody lets infil run into the crowd, decloak and drop **** with a 2 second arming delay or so, they are flat out bad. You could drop c4 flavored pizza as an LA with more dmg and splash if farming clueless people is your gameplan.

The problem is that claymore is a total ***** to defend against even if you are very cautious, while caution works just peachy against NC/VS mines. I do expect AP mines to be viable defensive measures if they cost me resources.

OF course you're going to die by them if you're running and gunning all the time without looking down. All can be said for Proxy Mine. Remember "face towards enemy", one direction, that's it.

The Orion. I would take the Orion HA, the NC MAX and the TR claymore...

Statistically the claymore is the least used prox mine (only 22% of prox mines used are TR) but results in 36% of prox kills. So it is hitting above its weight. In fact the TR faction trait should really be explosives (the NC get instakill MAX and the Orion get HA).

You do know they stick up like a flag? You can't put them up against walls because you have to be facing the direction you want them to detect.

The range is the same across all three AI mines. They have a 6 m blast radius with a 3 m max damage killzone. They only detonate when someone enters the 3 m zone. Also - BBs blend exceedingly well indoors due to the chosen colour scheme. Claymores are bricks - you can spot them fairly easily due to their height. Pay attention.

We raged and all we got in return was this: "enjoy the uniqueness of your AI mine, get creative and L2P". You know what to do.

That aside - I believe the lasers are there. Will check.

They may be flat out bad, or maybe - just maybe, there is a lot of confusion. As for C4 (pun!) - I don't even have it unlocked for my LA. Every C4 run I ever did was as CM - less "cheese", far more risky and quite satisfying.

To wrap it up - If the BB/PM had their delay removed they would be perfectly fine in my eyes.

This is simply not true in the slightest. Sometimes you do not have time to stop and check a corner for a mine, especially if you are trying to run from death trying to lolpod you from the safety of his sky chariot.

That's true as well, for all three mines.

Claymores aren't OP at all.

If they are killing more than Proxies or Betties its because of the placement requirement. People throw down their first Claymore and go.. "derp, that won't work." Where as the ones placing Proxies and Betties place it and go about their merry way not realizing no one's gonna step on it.

Besides, here's a guide showing a major difference between mines as well as the most likely location you will encounter them:



As a primarily NC player, I can honestly say that I have avoided Claymores more easily than Proxies. However I can see the tactical use of the Claymore over the Bettie and Proxie and sort of wish I had it too. But.. faction flavor has to prevail here. Bouncing betties have some interesting uses.

Also to those that say these things glow. They do, for you. Not for your enemy. The glow I've seen on Betties is NOT showing up when I do play TR or VS. I'd assume the same goes for the other mine types.

Instant detonation (claymore) or delayed detonation (proxy/betty).

Take your pick on balance and then stick to it. That's not fun to mess with for faction balancing.

Or read FateJH's list and don't blindly run through doorways and around corners.

75% of the game is thinking with your head, the other 25% is twitch shooting. For instance, sunderers are so reliably predictable on where they will park that I will drop tank mines with a high level of accuracy before they even get to the base. I'm not talking about mining obvious roads, I'm talking about mining exactly where they plan on parking and deploying.

Make little mental notes as you play. The last base I mined last night, we had been pushed off of it once before that evening and I made a note of where the snipers were sitting, so instead of dropping clays in obvious doorways I put them right behind where they were sitting. The base gets attacked and seconds later I got two cowardly weasel snipers within seconds.

I also will pre mine hallways for NC max charges. I will drop a claymore with a tank mine in front of it, and then about ten feet back I'll drop another set. The max will set off the claymore which will explode the mine and bye bye OP scatter max. The first two NC maxes that charge up the stairs can hang up their spurs cause they're done.

THINK and you can overcome. Charge in like a CoD monkey and you'll die repeatedly.

When mining a room... place down a spitfire.

When someone enters the room, they here the beep of the spitfire and fixate on its location and step on the mine. You'd be surprised how many times you can kill someone in a row like this.

Actually they do glow for your enemy. Just FYI. Well... except the claymore.

Calm down people, you clearly don't know how to use your mines.

Against my better judgement, here is a guide to placing NC and VS mines so they are near undetectable:

This does not always apply to claymores, but they can probably use more than a few of these locations.

1: When spotted, if you accidentally scroll to the mine, throw it and run away, you'll get them 8/10 times, because dogs chase things. For similar reasons, throw them along a path you'd like to use as a method of retreat.

2: Think outside the box; throw mines in the middle of bushes and patches of grass just outside building doors and along pathways. some poor sucker will trip that mine, almost guaranteed.

3: If there's a stair case going down from the perspective of the enemy, place one just off to the side of the bottom, it's almost impossible to see from the stairs, and most people try to cut the bottom corner of the staircase. Bonus points if your mine lands on it's side and becomes a stair claymore.

4: This one takes practice; Try to throw them in the door way, so they land on their side against the door frame, on the side the enemy approaches from, if possible. People are looking for mines on the floor, not the wall. Failing the viability of the door frame method, if you're defending a point and know the door in question will be some part of the defensive surge, place one against the inside wall, or the wall at the top of a stair case.

5: Some stairs have a little platform half way up, if it is at all possible to hide the mine on this platform, do it (these are everywhere along the outside wall of larger bases, and you can hide them directly on the inside corner, just behind where that wall begins); people look at the two stairs cases like they are one, and don't check the middle platform for mines. I have never had this one fail me if the mine is placed right.

6: You can't place mines on most inertia dampener pads anymore (landing side of a jump pad), but you can place them either on the platform, or just to the side of the stairs that lead up to them. People are in a hurry to get on or off this platform, and rarely check it.

7: Ceiling of the bottom of the elevators outside a biolab. Get your mine as close to the edge as possible, and people will trip it on the way up.

8: If you're on top of the bio lab sniping, place a mine behind you. That pesky light assault will trip it.

9: Actively counter light assaults. If an LA would boost up there, it's prime territory for a mine.

10: On enemy landing pads. It's not as likely, but engineers do occasionally trip these when landing for repairs, but plenty of people will trip them on the way out to the pad if they're just out of the way.

11: That shield doesn't have a pain field? place a mine just a little ways out on your side.

12: Any elevated point you would want to use as an infill, might just catch an enemy infill off guard. protect your assets. On that note, throw them at your feet if you have a nice perch, your dead body will cover it in time, or some poor stalk-knifer will blow you both up.

Keep in mind that as VS and NC you need to stand back a little bit from your intended placement location, and remember: keep your eyes open for new insidious places to hide them. I've gone a full half hour without a trip sometimes, and then giggled madly when someone finally hit a mine I'd assumed was gone a long time ago.

If any one has difficulty with placement, just let me know, I'll post a screenshot.

Claymores are fine.

Wear level 5 flak armour and you'll barely take any health damage.

Not wearing flak armour? Too bad!

Claymores were a tad lack luster when the lasers gave away their position, but now they're practically invisible. Claymores are tiny, don't light up and don't beep before they detonate. You can still claymore doorways and corners by placing them against the frames/walls and the lack of a reaction warning garauntees a kill when detonated by proximity. Betties and mines are easy to survive even without flak and are easy to spot, especially when placed on stairs because the silhuoutte stands out.

Claymores are now over performing, but i wouldn't really say nerf their damage, just bring their lasers back and i'd have no problem with their insta-death mechanic.

Wear flack armor and about 80% of the OHK mechanics of this game become trivial.

But NO, people gotta have their nano-weave so they can survive 3 extra bullets in a gunfight

i dont see a necessety for es mines... dont get me wrong - i like to have diversity between factions ... but mines... no

think of c4 - one faction gets c4 with more dmg, the 2 others get some with more radius ... good idea ? ...no

...and think about av-mines ...not empire-specific - why ? -> reasons

whereas you often get two kills by placing 2 claymores at different places, you mostly have to place 2 bouncing bettys/proximity mines at the same place to get one kill... make it so, that all ai-mines act the same, just with different animations (like it already is with bouncing bettys and proximity mines...)

They are not bricks. They are small flat boxes with an extremely narrow profile from the side and for half the game time (night) they draw zero attention as people generally tend to notice movement and lights.

Also higher max damage means their effective lethal range is further away and with no delay there is no chance to outrun the blast. If it goes off, you are done no questions asked.

That's a load of utter bull. Everybody knew claymores sucked *** and nobody was going "teehee serves your right for picking TR" nor defended the state of affairs. Obviously TR players had way more interest in voicing their complaints, but it's not like the other 2/3rd of the pop was actively fighting a balancing pass out of spite.
Uniqueness is one thing but the strong lasers that the claymores had. visible from a mile away were simply indefensible.

Also the sorry state of claymores did buy us the blinkenlights on the other 2 mines, which was supposed to put all mines on equal footing when it comes to early warning signs. That was ok-ish, but when claymores for whatever reason lost their lasers either due to some bug or a harebrained dev decision (WE DON'T SEE THEM AT ALL) - that's nothing but a BS reversal of the roles.

Dont forget to switch factions.

on my comp i get this:



not this:

I'm tempted to dig out an old thread or two concerning this topic just to prove my remark true, but that would do nothing for our current debate, so I'll drop it.

I'm not defending the supposed lack of said lasers. The Claymore should have a visual indicator (aside from the model itself) same as it's counterparts. I *am* defending it's increased damage potential, however, due to it's directional nature and more predictable placement which it tends to force.

What graphical settings are you using?

On my screen, I can see the green lasers but they're faint. Even when their at their most visible, as they seem to be pulsing slowly, they're fairly faint. I don't know what graphic settings actually affect the visibility but it's a matter that should be addressed.