Okay, so I've been playing a lot of LA lately, tending to be fairly lone wolf, going off on my own to grab objectives, cap points, etc. And since there's little in the class left I want to cert into, I was beginning to wonder about the alternate grenades. Now firstly, I will disclaim that I know they are not as useful as a frag in many situations - what I want to know is what situations you have had where Smokes or Flashes have pulled stuff off you would not have been able to with a Frag, and I want to see if these situations might be applicable to me (and by extension other LAs). I would make heavy use of VR to test this, but resupplying nades you have not bought seems to be bugged for me atm.. To characterize my play: - I end up in a lot of duels with one or a small number of players where I use my mobility to gain the upper hand - one player I almost always take out, but several can prove an issue (that's where the nades come in). - Frags are honestly, something I rarely use to great effect the way I play. They bounce too much to be able to reliably fling them at anything but inattentive foes, especially with the indicator. - C4 I tend to use sparingly, to kill MAXes hanging around cap points stopping me achieving what I want to, or blow up threatening vehicles, as opposed to sticking it on groups of infantry or any vehicle around. Being able to better down MAXes is a prime concern. - I run with NV scope Jaguar, typically suppressed given the type of play I enjoy. (I don't want to swap to the TRAC 5-S for underbarrel smoke given how inferior it is close up). My dilemna is that both grenades seem to give me something good and somewhat cover the same role. Both can allow me to storm a room with relative ease (though storming a room with more than 3-4 people in is not too common for the build I use). Flashes more heavily disable the foe and do so regardless of graphics settings, whilst smoke allows for escapes and isn't gonna fail me based on short duration/self flashing, but also unless I'm scoped in it may be hard to use well. TL: DR - which nade would be best for a lone wolfy LA?
Can we please, please, PLEASE come to an agreement on these forums that "vs" = "versus" and "VS" = "Vanu Sovereignty"? That said, I'm pretty sure smoke is rendered useless by low settings, so until that is fixed (hopefully along with Infiltrator's cloak), flashbangs would give you more bang for your certs.
Flash bang will probably give you the best results if you're (pardon the pun) flying solo. It will blind your opponents while still letting you see to shoot them down. Smoke grenades are handy for causing confusion and hiding your entry- excellent for taking down sundies and camped-in enemies. It syncs up really well with C4 and grenade launchers. Honestly you could get both at some point, but for your play style, flash bangs probably work best.
Anyone ever try testing whether or not flashbangs affect those in vehicles? Might help The C4 whack jobs who insist they are meant to blow up tanks... No self respecting tank is going to purpose drive into a smoke cloud, and it doesn't last long enough or hit quite so suddenly as a flashbang. Which illustrates an excellent advantage flashbangs have over smoke for that matter. Smoke gives warning and takes a second or two to get to full effectiveness, flashbangs hit like a rock and last about as long.
Currently IMO neither are worth the certs to unlock them at this point. I've been desperately trying to use either of these grenades effectively for a while now and have been mostly unsuccessful. There are multiple posts on this so I won't go into detail, neither grenade performs the way it should. Smoke- low texture setting renders it useless. In addition the area for the grenades smoke is for some reason smaller than underbarrel launcher and doesn't cover enough horizontal area to be useful in most situations. Flash- especially after the recent nerf is too short a time to be useful. By the time u enter the room most of the time it has already worn off. Also, since it doesn't inhibit movement in any way the enemies will often spray fire and run hitting you quite by accident.
Considering how small the blast radius is on normal nades (not to mention about the indicator) and how many are using flak or high level nanoweave + most people playing heavy assault with their shields it is very hard to get kills with frag grenades. I have been using the grenade bandolier for a long time on my light assault and dispite having three frags its hard to get kills with them. However flashbangs have proven to be quite deadly combination with C4 when chasing maxes. Yes its very expensive but also very effective on certain places. Smokes are very cheap to use and they can help your team advance over open ground or distract enemies so I think even they are more usefull than frags. I have unlocked special grenade for every class since I think they are all superior to the standard frag.
i've unlocked smoke nade launcher on my t5s and flash grenades, but with GU11 i've noticed the flash to not give any effect at all (yes, i tried to flash myself on purpose and it didn't work). if they are working they both have their uses in different situations. when trying to c4 a vehicle i use the smoke launcher. when i try to charge a room full of enemies i throw in a flash (if i still have it, otherwise smoke launcher). the flash has the benefit of totally blinding your enemies with no way out, while smoke still lets you being visible to those with irnv scopes and is therefore inferior to flashes in that certain scenario. tl;dr: <if flash/smoke is not bugged> room full of enemies -> flash > smoke anywhere else -> smoke > flash
Flash nades are worth it imo. They take a while to get used to in terms on knowing how far to distance yourself from the blast and how much time you have to get into the room you flashed without it wearing off before you get in there. Flash nades aren't insta win like conc nades but they're definitely better than frags and way better than smoke nades. Take decent amount of practice to get used to but they're worth it once you know exactly how long they take to detonate, their range, weight and effective range.
They do work, confirmed today with a friend of mine. My bet is you tried it on yourself in the VR, where they indeed have no effect at all, cuz the friendly fire for players is disabled (or it may be something else entirely, who knows...). Also, they didnt work in the VR pre-GU11, so its not like this "bug/feature" is something introduced in the last patch.
Last time I tried this test was in the normal world, pretty sure it was outside a warpgate too. Didn't blind me, stopped using them since. I did this test after I noticed that enemies didn't seem affected by the grenades even if I toss em next to their feet.
i really like flash granade the problem is you don't know who is affected... and that is very dangerous... while concussion give you a feedback ( how the enemy moves while affected) flash don't! 1 enemy not affected is enough to kill you while rushing in a room, and you have no idea who that might be. a small white "aura" around the afflicted head would be nice
i was at a tower at indar and it didn't work 3x at all. then i just switched to frags. could've been that it lagged so hard cuz of the alert, but i'm certain that it just didnt work.
Flash are sort useful. If you are leading a team and toss one then everyone rushes they help. The main issue with them is that you need to be close enough to rush in but far enough to not blind yourself. At least they are more useful than regular grenades.
Why not both? If you can get use to the "S" variant or the BURST variant of your empire's main gun without a rail attachment, then i would strongly suggest buying a smoke launcher, flash granade and grenade launcher with an IR/NV scope. you get 2 grenades that do not cost resources, and the gun is pretty good as well. You still can carry a flash, and quite frankly, the combo covers just about any situation. Flash/Nade launcher takes out a group. Flash/smoke renders them unable to see for much longer. Smoke/Nade is great to AoE an area and reposition to counter their attacks. You also get the side benifit of using the launchers on the engineer, which is amazing for team play. Smoke = help team (best thrown on an enemy position flash = helps you (best used to clear a room) Nade = helps you (best used to bounce off a wall or limit enemy movement)
I use smoke nades a lot now, they distract people and make them run forward in choke points = easy kills. They are also cheap. I wish they fix them for low settins :/
i'm going to go with the frag grenade, the other two bug out, not gotten a kill with the use of the flashbang, gotten some 700+ kills with the frags. good luck
Thought they had them. I never bought one, but i'm pretty sure they where in VR.... though VR does have a lot of attachments you can't buy in real game, like the BR grenade launcher.
Strange, I did the test again, after reading your post, just to be sure. Spawned at Biolab, ran out of spawn room, tossed nade to the nearest railing/fence thingy, so it bounced back to me, got blinded. Also, later, I flashed myself accidentally when I ve tryied to throw it into generator room at the Amp Station, and it bounced of the window (my throwing aim sucks, I know ). Well, maybe it could have something to do with graphic settings (I play on max settings, more or less), like a Smoke nades, or Infil's cloak have different effects? I dont really have enough Infantry resources to do larger number of tests (and I doubt that any LA has...), so it is really hard to say why we are getting different results.
i've tested it yesterday later myself in a biolab again. turned out that the radius of effect was like the size of a peanut and that i basically had to stare right at the grenade under my feet to have a meaningful effect. still better to have the chance to control the enemies than just a frag where they run out of its effect :/
