I've had flak armour 4 for a long time now, and have never bothered to cert into the 5th level due to the high cost. (I've bought the commissioner and sabr-13 instead), but now I've pretty much bought all my medic gear I want, and am curious if flak 5 actually noticeably increases your survivability. My flak 4 has saved me more times than I can count, but has anyone actually been thankful they certed it fully?
VERY difficult to give a definite YES/NO. I use NW now, but i used flak when i started. Played with flak lvl 4 long time, then maxed it...and honestly i am not sure. I think it helps sometimes sure, but it so hard to say if i would have survived anyway with just rank 4. Sorry, bad answer :}
Moin First I'd like to thank you for choosing Flak over NW. I hate medics who survive a BASR headshot, you simply can't kill them beyond 100m. Second I think that it always pays off to max the suitoption for your most played class. Grüße, regards, the Toast PS: I've purchased some SC when it was on sale, so I can buy weapons (preferably when they are on sale, <3 my new Dalton) and have certs for upgrades.
Go with Flak 5 As someone who likes to rez everyone I see and maintain a 2.0 KDR, I find myself in the most heated battles on a regular basis. Flak 5 is the only option here. If you are rezing people on the top ring of a tower for example, you can just circle it rezing with impunity, shaking off all of the MBTs and lolpodders. The MAXs will love you. You will also rack up loads of kills on the losers that like to hide on the tower struts (fish in a barrel) thinking that no one can see them. After pod dropping and getting killed almost immediately by vigilant medics, they give up and go elsewhere. Nanoweave might help you if all you want to do is pretend to be a heavy assault with no shield and a small clip, but it is a severe disadvantage to combat rezing where Flak 5 is the only way to go
me uses Nanoweave on my Medic and LA, but i use Flak on my Engineer. I think it depends on what damage you mostly. In my case i have more Problems with bullets on the first both classes. For my Engineer i often get AOE Damage by flying objects, Grens or other Tanks, while i repair Vehicles/Max/Turrets. You chose Flak on the Medic, the benefits are the same as for my Engy. The last Level on the Armour is expensive, but on Flak it is very good. I had some Situations, that the ESF have to reload the lolpods and i could repair the Sunderer in this time. Some cover and you stay after and attack. If there is a nice CM next to you, then you will also be full of health and the next round starts On Towerfights as Kingside wrote, the Flak is superior. There is a lot of indirect damage and as long you stay in movement, the most sniper had a problem to hit you. In numbers, you will get addtion 11% less damage from Indirect explosions. As you chose your kind of armour, i do and would advise to max it out.
I don't use flak on my medic anymore, medic is usually sniper's first target and having nano 4/5 is a difference maker, I also have adv shield 5 but rarely use it because I haven't really found situations to where it helps but on PTS it kicks in much faster (7 sec on live vs 4 sec on PTS). Flak is good for when you're in a tight room such as in the second floor of the tower when people are tossing grenades left and right, but other than that nanoweave allt he way.
Support class don't stand a chance against heavies most of the time(nano+resist=op). Nano will help you, I find flak is better off on Engineer. edit. I main support class engi and medic, however I don't use boost. I used to have bandolier for revives and heals, but without nano on medic, you don't stand a chance against experienced shooters up close 1vs1(typically heavies and light assaults).
I think you bring up a good point about the bandoleer. I find that I am much more successful rezing people in the fray with Flak and I move too much to ever get sniped. I also dont square off with heavies if I can avoid it prefering instead to follow others into a room and clean up the mess so to speak. Nanoweave just doesnt help me in being a better medic. It could potentially net me more kills, but I would be much less able to go after those little skull icons that are on the font lines. I would probaly pursue the bandoleer option, especially now that people want to be rezed, but I just cant deal with the resource cost of revive grenades. I end up pitching them rarely and certainly not often enough where I cant get to a console/AMS to resuply. It also seems like whenever I pitch a grenate up on top of a building to get a Light Assault, they respwn, wasting my expensive revive grenade. If they lowered the cost a lot I might consider going with the bandoleer and spamming more revive grenades, but as it stands now it is more economical to just manually rez.
Nano is better for winning gunfights. Flak (imo) is better for performing the healing/reviving support roles of the class. Depending on your playstyle, one be more beneficial to you than the other. Plenty of HA/vehicles spamming explosives, along with standard grenades from everyone and their mother. Nano makes snipers rage (large part because of how fast damage falloff starts/reaches minimum damage)... but you're a Medic, so don't stand still? Flak 5 on the Medic is one of two 1k cert purchases I've made so far and I haven't regretted it. AI mines will only drop your shields instead of nearly killing you like with nanoweave (or mild health damage with flak 4)... just be sure to wait for your shields to regen so you don't just walk across the second one at the other doorway and die like a derp (totally don't have first hand experience doing that... totally). Flak 4 is perfectly serviceable, but the extra resistance for getting the final rank is fairly significant. Had plenty of times where a rocket, tank shell, or random explosive # 34984 would come flying in and kill the dudes standing next to me, but only slightly damage me. Rez 'em (thanks for the certs) and we're back in business instead of all of us respawning.
Flak 5 is definitely worth it. A 50% resistance to explosions means you have an effective 2000 health against all splash-based weapons compared to 1000. If some LA hoverthrusts into a room and drops a C4 surprise, it can kill a few people but you might be alive. The same goes for grenades and tankspam. Everyone else can live if at least one medic remains. Nanoweave is okay but bullets can't kill in large groups like explosions can. I have level 2 or 3 nanoweave on my medic, but I also have flak armor when I need it. I run with max flak on my Engineer and I can practically bathe in explosions before dying. In fact, I use myself as a minesweeper when entering a room with my friends.
My medic is Ouija on which I am quite accomplished. Perhaps you should focus on the merits of my arguments instead?
There is a difference between a main and an alt. There is a difference between using boost and without boost. There is a difference between not in an outift and in an organized outfit. There is a difference between playing with pubs and playing with your outfit during l33t operations. Good game bruh!
I've used flak 5 since shortly after they buffed it from 25% to 50%, and have never regretted it. I suppose it comes down to playstyle and individual experiences, as friend who also does medic swears by nanoweave saying that the 1-2 bullets make a difference. I personally love flak because it saved my hide during the dark days of lolpods and zephyrs, and it gives me a realistic chance to survive against C4 and explosive spam. As a medic, with lvl6 medigun out on rez/heal patrol what gets me most are explosives are BASRs. I find the former isn't as easy to avoid when rezzing, especially if in a small room or when clustered behind some cover. The latter can be avoided by always moving erratically and not staying in LoS too long, although the speedy rezzes at lvl 6 certainly help. So for me, flak is the surperior choice. just my two cents
It depends on what medic you are. You are either a frontline medic which charge at the very front of a platoon to kill enemies, or you stay behind and focus on healing and reviving the other squadmates. The first type which charge should switch to Nanoweave. You are more likely to be shot, you do it to primarily kill other players and do some reviving on the side, and you are going to need the Nanoweave. The other type which usually play a full-time revive/heal bot with some occasional kills, definately should invest in Flak Armor. If you do go Flak Armor, then I would advice you to go from 4 to 5. Is it worth the 1000 certs for 10% reduction? Yes, and no. Rank 4 already helps you to survive what you will survive with Rank 5, so you gain nothing from that. The benefit however is that you are guaranteed to survive over an extended period of time, letting you use less of your healing aura and fewer medikits in a battle to heal yourself up. If you are in any battle where a lot of soldiers group up, you can be sure there will be rockets flying, tank shells slamming against you, grenades bouncing in your proximity, C4 runs, mines and what not. WIth Flak 5, you are more likely to be left standing after many of these keep raining against you over the course of a minute. You survive to get the rest back up, and the amount of times where I've been the last man standing in a small area with 7+ bodies around me is more often than I care to admit. Some fast revives or a Revive Grenade (get these) and you get them all back up. I have never regretted getting Flak Armor 5, or Revive Grenades, or 2 blocks of C4, or even maxing out the Med Tool and the healing aura. You become durable, versatile and you start to feel that you actually make a difference in a fight. If you are the fighting kind of medic, then I have no good advice to give, really, other than to just switch to Heavy Assault and be a better Infantry killer or go SMG Infiltrator. There are, of course, the healing type of medic which will claim that "Hey, use Nanoweave to avoid being killed by snipers because that's better". Do not listen to those medics, they are bad players. Yes, I know, occasionally even the best medic will be headshot by a fantastic sniper or by a sniper that got incredibly lucky, but those times are rare when you know what you are doing. Are Medics a priority targets for sniper infiltrators? Yes. Should they be able to hit you? Uh, no, if you are being consistently headshot by snipers then you are performing terribly. A medic standing still is a bad medic. Whenever you heal or revive, you should make use of the mobility of your Med Tool and continously jump and strafe around so no sniper can get a headshot lock on you. You will still channel the revive and heal, and it makes it incredibly hard to burst you down. Even crouch-moving while hiding behind a rock is more useful than just being immobile while crouching. Medics are versatile, they have a wide array of abilities to use in many situations, and they are damn important in an infantry heavy fight. If you are a medic in the sense that you intend to heal and revive, remember that your first priority is to keep yourself alive. A dead medic is a useless medic, and an immobile medic is usually a dead medic.
It will help if you are one of those 'frontline' medics in a biolab that likes to walk in front of HA that are trying to kill maxes with rockets. That way, while you are protecting enemy maxes, you can maybe keep your med tool on the now wide open HA so they can soak up more bullets before they die. Then the max can shift over and kill you and deny the frontline a medic. Your job as a 'frontline' medic now being complete.
Do you play RIFT ?. There is a Guild called TPFR, joined yesterday, so I'm just curious. Guild master name was Ouija I think.
