How do you do it and what do you use. The GuasSaw is an unwieldy weapon but in the right hands deadly. How do you fight someone who knows what they are doing with it
Simple. You realize that its a Slower firing rifle, not only that it sucks shooting at distance. What I also suggest is to play NC and use the gun and gain the knowledge of the enemy. Depending on battles you can always out perform people by aiming better, using guns that make sense based on the faction your fighting. The T16 Rhino has good ROF and less recoil, aiming for the head or using a scope to see better target wise is recommended. Carv-s or Carv good ROF against any faction, you need to learn to move into cover or places were they can not return fire on you or take them out at distance.
Almost always ADS with it. Short controlled bursts. 1. x2 sight, helps for cqc 2. comp, helps for longer range, with how hard the saw kicks 3. adv. grip, again helps for longer range 4. hva, keep the dmg potential at longer range, but depends on your preferences here. iirc that's how I certed it.
From my experience as TR, you have 3 options. T32 Bull, TMG 50, and NS 15. Like so many NC weapons, they have range supremacy as well as damage. A good SAW user must have body/burst control. You will see many even kneel. My personal favorite is the BULL. SPA/FG helps to make you competitive at range while using longer bursts and strafing. The NS 15 is the same, but you won't get the velocity that The Bull provides. The TMG 50 is an odd beast with totally different discipline's.Its actually a lot like the SAW user's control. You must have body/burst control. Many outfit the TMG 50 for burst fire. This weapon really hates HVA as well. I only run with standard. Comp or LS is up to ones play style and how you deal with the hard vertical kick.
Take cover, a lot. In general, if you face off against a good SAW user, you'll be dead if they get you in their sights. But if you want to be competitive, don't ever engage alone and take cover a lot. Try to flank and get the jump or good firing lanes on them so you can land 2-3 shots before they land one. I've used SAW a bit, it's hit and miss for me. If I get the jump on a group of enemies I can mow them down fairly easily, especially if I'm behind them. Quite literally before they can turn around and get shots in on me. But I'm not good enough to consistently win frontal engagements. As has been said, use the Bull or NS-15. It'll give you the accuracy to at least be somewhat competitive against SAW users and get ranged assists.
Closest to SAW TR HA currently have is TMG-50. It may or may not help you against that one dude, but it's, IMHO, a nice gun regardless, so I'd suggest to give it a try and see what happens. My advice would be to try to avoid playing by the enemy's rules though. SAW can dish out some very serious damage, doubly so in experienced hands, so your best bet would be to counter it in an asymmetrical fashion. If the enemy is better than you at shooting people full of holes with an LMG, then you should try to avoid putting yourself in a position you'd have to compete with them in this discipline in the first place. Is it possible to get close? Shotguns and rocket launchers usually kill everything in this game quickly enough. Heavy Assault doesn't seem to cut the mustard? Then you can always try to draw them in your mines' killzone as an engineer or infiltrator (or just plain old pre-planted C4, for that matter). You could approach them from an unexpected angle or wait in ambush and strike the killing blow when they are wounded by someone else as a Light Assualt or Stalker Infiltrator (or not - close-range sniper rifles pack a very deadly punch). You could be a MAX. You could come as a Combat Medic at the back of a squad of buddies, your excellent TR assault rifle in tow (seriously, check those out if you didn't yet), and just plain dogpile them, concussion grenades and everything. In short, if you can't win in a direct shootout, fight dirty.
Get close enough and MCG+BRRT them. The other option is to put plenty of crazy distance ie. AMR-66 them from far far away. Anything in between those range-wise, you can try some ranged options like others suggest, but there's no guarantees you'll win that battle. The SAW IMO is the absolute best all rounder infantry gun in the game, and nothing else can touch its awesomeness.
IMHO SAW is the king of medium range, a large room, a long corridor etc in the open field the kick is too much (even with compensator) to be able to get off round after round, in CQC it is simply too slow, other weapons will kill by the time SAW has fired off 2-3 rounds. so try to make distance or close the gap depending on what weapon you're using.
Now a really hard question: How do you fight someone who beats you with a Gauss Saw if he takes a CARV?
The solution is simple: Aim better! You do 750x143 damage (= 107250) while he does 200x500 (= 100000). In reality you do much more damage than he does, because he won't get the last bullet in before you kill him. https://ps2model-axiom.rhcloud.com/#sttk/sh25-10-10/ha/1.25/23H/24 Since it all comes down to pure numbers, with equally skilled players, it is impossible for the TR player to lose or not to win for that matter. That's basically a flaw in the basic weapons-sheet, because the Carnage, which has the correct stats for Heavy Assault, is flagged as NC Medic weapon.
Good advice if you're fighting the SAW user at mid range (40-80m). To that I'll add the AMR-66 is also a good choice for anything past 50m. Just like the Bull and NS-15M, you'll want to constantly strafe while firing. The AMR-66's moving ADS CoF is .25, one of the best in the game, whereas the SAW's is .5 - one of the worst. So with any of these weapons you want to capitilize on that advantage. The AMR-66 in particular only gets better against the SAW as the range increases, so the further out you are the bigger your advantage will be. Anything past 125m and the SAW really can't compete with it. Also, for anything closer than 40m the CARV or MSW-R will generally overcome a SAW user..
I'm a little out of touch with some of the deeper mechanics these days, but could you just flinch the SAW user to death? Or is flinch not so much of an issue for NC as it once was?
The effects of flinch got reduced drastically and normalized across all weapons. Now the more damage you do per shot, the more flinch you cause with each hit. This was done in order to help out the high Damage, low ROF weapons. End result is that with the exception of a few outliers (like the Ursa or Corvus w/ their extremely low ROF for 167-damage weapons) what weapon you carry makes barely any difference as far as flinch goes. What matters now is who gets in the first shot. And of course there's the Battle Hardened implant which further reduces the effects of flinch.
Ahh good to know, thanks. I quit playing before flinch was adjusted but have come back to play some... haven't really paid much attention to mechanics changes, just been trying to play better each session and have some fun with it.
Excellent point about the AMR-66 and so true! Although NC tends to have better CoFs at range than ours, TR can exploit ADS CoF in many confrontations. Great point sir and I do love the AMR-66's moving ADS/CoF a lot as well!
Kill him like you kill any other guy,aim for the head.The default Carv is more then enough to take on any challenge (It also feels more accurate then the TMG,the TMG does hit nice and hard at range though)
