Ive recently started playing the class and am wondering whether i should get one of the grenades, or just save up for bouncing bettys?
As a general rule, Frag is the way to go for this class. EMP is situational. It does nothing to aircraft, ground vehicles, or turrets. Nor does it do anything to a MAX (beyond the Note #4 vision penalty mentioned below). I think that's pretty dumb, but that's how it is. Here's a list of its effects. 1) Removes the Shield damage prevention bar from any Infantry class within the blast radius. This applies to enemies and friendlies. 2) Cancels any kind of Infiltrator stealth within the blast radius. Regardless of whether an Infiltrator was cloaked or not, it instantly empties their stealth meter (which will prevent them from immediately stealthing again). This applies to enemies and friendlies. 3) Cancels any kind of Heavy Assault damage prevent force field. However this EMP effect does not touch their force field meter. If they are paying attention, they can just instantly turn it back on again. This applies to enemies and friendlies. 4) Causes the screen of any Infantry to immediately go blurry and out of focus in a wave of static. It reminds me of trying to watch an old fasioned television station that's losing signal due to bad weather or that you can't get a clear viewing signal from. Basically this will partially obscure their vision for a few seconds while really messing with the player's head since most people are unlikely to have experienced this effect before (since EMP grenade use is so rare). This applies to enemies and friendlies.
Hehe, last time i used an EMP, trew at an A-point of a base and killed the guy who were in that room. 10 seconds later i get a whisper: "did you just trow an EMP grenade? why would anyone use EMP for god sake, l2p".. I told him he was dead and thus should not talk (as is the way with corpses)
That's all very true. You just forgot: 1) No grenade marker for EMP, so they will never see it coming. 2) Huge blast radius, more than normal grenades. Which makes very possible that you hit yourself. 3) Effect can pass trough walls. That's a good tactical grenades, very nice to open a fight, attack a well defended position and pave the way to a breaking assault (throw an EMP and let Max Units do the job, none will survive). Nevertheless it's incredible that EMP grenades do more or less 50% of what they did in Planetside 1. If we only could have to full original effect (on turrets, infantry, vehicles, terminals) then we would finally a decent disrupting weapon to cause havok.
Seems like a neat weapon if used right, but a frag just seems better unless EMP instantly detonates when it lands so enemies cant out run the range. Then again people rarely outrun a frag but a neat weapon none the less from how it sounds, thanks !
Bouncing Betties might be more useful, depending on your playstyle. You can pretty much drop them anywhere to deter people pursing you, or in entrances/on the tops of stairs, or to prevent engineers from repairing SCU's. They're a great way to earn certs, since it's a one hit kill.
A lot of great points made above. I just switched my infil to EMP w/ grenade bandoleer. I think it's an awesome setup. Frag is handy at times, but EMP is great for true infiltrating and conserving your ammo. bonk bonk bonk
I've only been hit by an EMP grenade once, and while disorienting, the effects really aren't that damaging and I'd stick to frags.
Points 2 and 3 combined make me cry inside a little. I'll probably try out EMPs for myself after I get an SMG.
as useless as the EMP grenade is compared to the frag, its always fun to confuse people that havent experienced it before.
Well, the frag MIGHT or MAY NOT get you kills. It's good in tandem with AP mines, that's for certain. I am currently making a direct combat infiltrator, I run the high-mag SMG and 3 medkits, will probably play with armor cloak. One thing I still lack in my arsenal for this build is the EMP. Frags can get your kills, EMP in a room followed by your SMG WILL get you kills. If only it wasn't so goddamn expensive. They realy need to re-evaluate the prices of many infantry utilities. IMHO, more killing power = more pricey (frags, mines, C4, stickies), more utility (decoys, smokes, concs, flash, EMP), less pricey. Also, it would be nice to be able to cert to 2 nades for the utility ones without the damn nade belt.
Depends on your playstyle personally. If you're A-OK with waiting for kills a-la 'place and forget' style mechanics than I would 100% advise you pick up the bouncin' betty. It's a sick sense of satisfaction to get '+100XP' across your screen from zero effort other than clicking 4+M1 on a doorway to a genroom. The fact most people prefer this style is half the reason folks prefer the standard frag to the EMP I feel (especially since the frag is free! ) You gotta follow up the EMP, where frag is toss and forget. Lazy! I've been using the much hated EMPs lately and I find them much more effective than the frag for my (my!) play style. Most people move out of the way of frags and I've had quite a few completely ineffective frags bounce away and go off barely scratching a room full of folks. With the EMP you're guarenteed to, at the very least, remove everyone's shields in the next room for 10 seconds as the blast radius is damn near one kilometer. Clearing a room of 3+ people with a hipfired 20 round SOAS will always bring a smile to my face. Something that wouldn't be possible if their shields weren't completely nuked half a second before hand. I eagerly await any future possible buffs that would remove other classes features. I've hit a shielded heavy with it before (disabling it) and I'm sure it was a surprise to them to suddenly get mowed down by a SOAS INF. Now if only we weren't so completely useless against armour...
Why hasn't anyone even mentioned the decoy grenade since the OP(it's on the threat title)? I haven't tried it myself, and while yes it's never going to give you direct kills, it should be possible to use it as a lure to get enemies to walk into an ambush so you can snipe them(or burst them in the back with your silenced SMG). Heck if you've got a squad it can be used for team play, throw out the decoy, have the whole squad in ambush, wait for enemies to spring your trap, profit. Or throw decoy one way, and take out a generator the other way, or use it as a distraction to retreat.
because decoy is atm quite useless and bugged. What it does: - it creates a weak sound, not really sounding like a gun in my opinion, for people in quite a small radius. - rolls down hills what it does not do: - give realistic gunfire, perhaps more kinds of guns would be great to - it does not show up on the enemies minimap as if someone was shooting (one of the bugs) also the fact that there is alot of "ghost' dots on the minimap nowadays, the decoygrenade will not be that much of a distraction
If you are sticking to frag just reroll LA, we got 1hit shotguns, allowed to fly all over the place and spray, c4, kinfing scattmaxs, smoke nades, flash nades, and when we are bored we fly up in a tree and play sniper with AC
I killed a guy with an emp grenade once. cant explain it it just happened threw it up a hill and it must have a small amout of damage if you stand on top of it. that said decoy grenades equallay hilarious, lay two mines and a decoy grenade and you get a couple kills. rage tells.
