Dual AI weapons do kill fairly quickly when near point blank. Unfortunately, no intelligent person runs headfirst into a MAX twice. Hence my point, yes you can farm stupid people for kills but you only kill a smart guy once before you die. That's nice. Why would I want to hide in the corner instead of pushing up with my teammates again? And do you really think that trick is sustainable? Two months down the line when everyone's used to MAXs acting like that, and they all have more health,better shields,more explosives,more specialized weapons, etc. do you actually think you'll be able to keep getting kills? And why would that even matter? Are you really helping capture bases by cowering in a corner? I'm not arguing that the MAX isn't usable I'm arguing that it isn't viable. CQC in a MAX means less than six metres. Bases and biolabs, while having an abundance of corners, are still mostly comprised of long rooms and hallways. As a vanilla infantry you can constantly flank a MAX from any position, or just move away from the MAX and shoot it if it pursues. If it doesn't chuck a nade in the room with it and wait. If it doesn't come out it's not much of a threat and if it does just shoot it. If any of these tactics aren't viable it's almost certainly because there's a small army accompanying it and the fact that it's a MAX doesn't really matter much at all. I don't know if the charge speeds are different between different faction MAXs, but I've been running a couple paces behind some infantry, activated charge, and ended up slightly closer but still behind them. If they keep shooting me there's a decent chance I'll die and if they don't they're either following me and are nearly touching me again or they've lost interest and left because they don't even consider me a threat.
Has anyone tried applying the extended clip side-grade to one of their cyclers? I'm currently using dual mercies on the TR MAX with each having 50 bullets in a clip. I was thinking that if I apply the 50% extra ammo upgrade to just one of the cyclers I will be able to hold down a position without reloading. So the one arm would be reloading while the upgrading arm still has about 25 bullets left. I was just wondering if anyone has done this yet and if they think the 500 cert price is worth it. Thanks.
I wrote this for people who want to solo as a MAX, that is in fact one of the very first sentences in the OP, MAXes who have support become instantly more survivable and deadly because they are near invulnerable with an engineer behind them and can be resurrected if they keel over, meaning that they CAN push hard, so I fail to see your point? I believe that is only a problem the NC MAX has, since I can engage people at much farther ranges without trouble with dual blueshift quasars. I also never had that problem in beta when I dual wielded cyclers. The only real problem is that you cannot engage people at range who are in heavy cover. (because you cannot aim down sights to shoot their face :-/) As for sprints, I can't confirm if some are faster than others, but both VS and TR are a lot faster than infantry when using sprint. If people are standing still/shooting you at medium range, you can easily close the distance before they'll even be able to turn tail and run. As for these strategies eventually becoming countered as people adjust, well yes.. it's a huge MMOFPS, no strategy is fool-proof work for ever when you get beyond 'throw enough zerg at them' and we'll just have to find more ways to utilize the MAX properly, hopefully when some actual side grades instead of just straight up upgrades are added into the game, then they'll become even more viable. Hey it was the developers not me who suggested splitting them in two. And yeah there is a reason to split them in two, they are simple just the most viable infantry class in the game currently. As for the MAX having no role if the HA is split? WRONG, see the HA would have to go to a terminal to get a AV or AA weapon, JUST LIKE THE MAX and he wouldn't be an AI powerhouse at the same time. That is a huge difference HA with medic as good as MAX? are you high? Last I checked HA could be one-shotted by a boat load of different guns which the MAX can very well soak up and keep going after, second the HA has an overshield that doesn't get healed by the medic, the HA also has a normal shield that doesn't get healed by a medic, the MAX can be pulled up to full strength in a matter of seconds by the engineer(s) while under fire. 'become worthless' This argument was relevant what, 6 month's ago? you can't really call it 'become' especially considering their previous state and their current, since the only time 'become worthless' was relevant, was back when they gave them an resource cost and cooldown timer, back then it was a valid point because it cost 200 MECH resources and couldn't soak a carbine to save it' mother.
The Max would still be worthless if they do spit the HA to AI and AV as the HA with the lmg will still be better in every way than the Max and the same for the AV version. HA and Medic is a great team you should maybe learn to play if you think its a joke when you take a Max Engi why it can not take as much damage its much faster and is more deadly to the enemy than the Max that can only just stand there and earn XP for the Engi. If i know there is a Max/Engi team i know there no danger and easy kills i know there is a Med/HA team i am much more carefull as there a much much bigger risk to fight since i know i can toss a grenade kill the Engi 9/10 and then laugh at the Max as i kill it. The Med/HA i know at best i can toss a nade and kill 1 unless there stupid and are real close to becoming one with each other if i kill the HA he will just be back up a half second later i kill the Medic the HA is still a danger unlike the Max would be. The Max is worthless there best role was to base rush Gens and blow them up now there unable to do that and as such become stuck to been question AA or been a walking easy kills for the enemy or nice walking chunks of XP for the Engi to mass farm. How ever you try to say the Max is good you can not back that up with any thing other than well with an Engi there not bad but HA can do every thing the Max can solo and they become great with support the Max only just becomes useable so they are worthless. Why not count how many Max you see in a day that are not dual AA you might be lucky and see 1000 but then when you stop and think you would of seen 10K+ of every other class in fact you will most likely see more Galaxies and there quite rare now they lost the AMS.
There's a difference between playing with the team and playing with a team. I'm talking about the former, you're talking about the latter. I've never been killed by a MAX outside of six metres. Then again, I'm almost never killed by a MAX to begin with. The NC MAX is definitely faster, just not by much. No real comment. They won't add side-grades. Because a couple of weeks/a month down the road nearly everyone will have stopped playing MAX, just like the late beta. Why work on a class no one uses?
I think Pyro is a good comparison. I'm starting to strongly consider higher ranks of charge integral to aggressive max play. It's crazy expensive unfortunately. Still, lower charge cooldown means getting around faster (as you can't use most vehicles), Flanking more often, escaping more often...ETC. The weird part of the Max is that it's both the slowest and fastest class due to charge. It takes awhile to reach a battle line but you can rapidly shift positioning with it. No other class can really match that. (LA have mobility not speed) I have found that using a Max like any other infantry to be really game changing. My most successful solo max runs all involve a great deal of movement. Ducking into cover, or around corners when reloading. Limiting how many targets can shoot me and killing people one at a time. Moving into a flanking position and hitting people from corners.... The only times I really get all out aggressive and charge straight up next to someone involve decoying for others, closing on a sniper/weak class, or I know I'm outflanked and want to bring someone to hell with me. That said I find charge hard to use. I know I've killed someone by hitting them with the melee off the charge but I can't seem to get it to work properly again. It's also somewhat hard to steer and I am unaware if there are any brakes. I thus tend to choose to go past a target to change angles. I want to say I think Max can use buffs but I think their survivability and damage is fine. I'd rather see Cert costs go way down and charge made a bit more responsive. I do agree that Nano-regen is pretty lackluster with the numbers it has. I'll be getting a different suit upgrade well before that one. Did some quick math. Takes ~ 4 minutes for the regen suit upgrade to fully heal you. That's 4 minutes outside of 15 sec taken damage window. To be fair if you are at 50% life it's only 2 minutes. It would likely work best when you are fighting intermittently and taking little damage per fight. Still doesn't sound great to me though.
