Is this the emerging meta?

Given the fact that NS weapon performance is basically equal across factions, you making the claim that NC players are on a whole worse just holds no water.

Given the fact that I just listed half a dozen indisputable reasons that NC has extremely strong equipment, I'd wager to say that my claim still holds some water.

It's not that simple.

Prowler Lockdown AP is a great pure AV Damager. But it doesn't have the same type of impact by itself on the battlefield as other Extreme Range AV. I played a lot of TR/VS (and not much NC, which is why I am trying NC more now) before the Gatekeeper release and Striker Change, and TR frequently struggled with fielding good Extreme Range AV on the battlefield (had since the AV Mana Turret range was nerfed). There was no way for TR to reliably really push/poke a Vehicle Zerg to clear off a face of the base they were hitting, or knock out fallback/spare Sunderers at range. Whereas VS could always grab Lancer and push/poke the Vehicle Zergs off a face of the base.

When it comes to dealing with a siege. (For one good method) You generally want to start by pushing off enemy Air (if there is any, often there is none). You can typically do this with Annihilator pressure from a position outside the Zerg (adjacent base in some cases; but often just a Sunderer behind, outside-line-of-sight of, and usually elevated above the enemy Zerg). Then you want to push the Vehicles out of position and off a facing of the base (make manned stuff move to cover or to a different face; destroy non-moving Sunderers), with Extreme Range AV from outside the Zerg. Sometimes you'll use Snipers or Air to clean up problematic pockets of Infantry.

Prowler can be great range AV. AV Mana Turret can be great range AV. But both are just not reliable across engagements in handling that "push the Vehicles out of position and off a facing of the base" role. Prowler lacks certain mobility, is complicated to spawn, can't change battlefields quickly, is costlier in resources, has a noticeable (and double fire) projectile, is notably visible and vulnerable to air, etc. Prowlers do well in groups and if they can find (and get to) a good spot, but they were just not enough when I was playing TR to reliably crack all these enemy zerg sieges. AV Mana Turret doesn't have the range, can't aim down much, can't ADAD, has a projectile that gives its position away, is often easy to counter with shots from Vehicles, and sometimes has problems with needing a flat surface to deploy.

In contrast, 1 TR or VS HA with a Cloaked Sunderer (usually you want to move away from the Sunderer so as not to reveal its position) can do pretty much the Air and Vehicle clearing (getting them to move, not kill them). It usually helps if others join him/her (unless they draw attention to and reveal the Sunderer), but it's doable solo unless enemy Air or Harassers (or Mags, etc.) come hunt you down (which surprisingly isn't all that common really). Then that 1 HA can respawn as a Sniper Infil or a Engi ESF and do the Infantry pocket clean-up as needed. Doing this will both slow down the Zerg and soften them up, which makes them less impactful, slows them, and often sets them up to fall apart.

Now TR has Gatekeepers all over the place (and access to new Striker), this has made their Extreme Range AV poking much easier. Gatekeepers is point-and-click, it has faster projectile speed, the projectile isn't super visible, Harassers can get to more place and faster (and escape better), etc. A Faction just having more ready access to Extreme Range AV changes things, one player can just Q-Spot a target (from Infantry or an ESF), and Faction forces will push it back or knock it out.

Much of the application of all of the above is not being done consciously by players in game, but it is being done. Zergs are often not forming consciously (they are often just the leftover forces after a successful defense, that then surge in a natural counter attack to the the/an adjacent enemy lattice point). And application of Extreme Range AV is often just a player equipping/using a Weapon that is handy and will hit the target they want to hit, not them thinking about methodically breaking up unit types on a siege. These are all very, very common things happening in the game. The problems occur when 1-2 Factions lack the tools, and so they are not actually doing the same kind of very, very common things in game. This creates a warping imbalance that can magnify.

Another common thing we see is a migration of players *away* from things that are disruptive or just unfun in the game. Factions will have players choosing to face one specific enemy Faction either because it's easier or more fun, or because the other one is hard or unfun. Like Air avoiding TR due to old Striker, or Infantry avoiding VS due to old PPA, etc.

And another thing we see is players picking up on patterns and then joining in. TR becomes overpop or gets a new super toy, so many players move over to them as default. Weak faction makes a perfect target for new VP system, so forces start focusing on attacking them. etc.

You listed a bunch of junk with zero context. Why does the NC having the only 200 damage LMG matter when it's THE WORST PERFORMING LMG IN THE GAME. Where is the value in a 1v1 tank when battles have hundreds of players in them at any time?

To give context to that other guy's reasons

Concerning the Gauss saw: Highest damage LMG in the game that also has insane recoil can be turned into a beast if you properly control the recoil. This lmg is an absolute beast in the hands of a skilled player (few and far between in the NC). There is a reason why it's nickname and the auraxium version is called the "god saw".

Concerning the phoenix, jackhammer, and the ravens: As in the case of the Gauss saw, they do high damage and have the potential to become a serious threat but only in the hands of a skilled player. Ex: The Phoenix has a very slow turn rate and the camera Fov is awkward, this severely hampers it's burst damage output for someone who is new to the weapon, however for someone who can actually use the thing it allows them to safely harass vehicles from behind cover (an ability not many have). Ravens allow high av burst damage from out of infantry render range with 100% accuracy however this is only for people who can actually aim accurately, an ability most nc player seem to lack.

Concerning the vanguard: It's AA and 1v1 capabilities shine when camping air vehicle spawns and flanking ground vehicle zergs along with sundie sniping respectively. Taking a vanguard AV round right up the *** is not fun at all. However sadly us nc don't get the concept of flanking and most are to low battle rank to unlock the damn tank on ps4 (rank 20-30 it unlocks, forgot specific rank. Harasser unlocks at 22 and max unlocks at 15. Ain't that fun and balanced?).

Two things:
1) NC does have a lot of weapons with high power potential. But the physical skills floor to get that performance for many of then is much higher than the average player can access. It's not "brains" the players lack, but the high level physical skills (or hacks). Also, I wouldn't call lacking "obscure data mining/knowledge" the same thing as lacking "brains".
2) The NC Weapons you listed (and the ones you didn't) don't help the NC in engagement that need Extreme Range AV.

The bigger problem is not that the NC are taking their turn at getting double-teamed. The bigger problem is that the game's basic gameplay experience consists of rotating Factions being double-teamed. That's just garbage lopsided fights.

The game should push Factions to engage each other for domination, where each Faction is scraping with the other 2 to be king of the hill. Not where it's just farming or double-team steamrolling whoever is the weakest opponent.

I must say I have no statistics or anything to back this up, but my personal experience says double teaming only happens occasionally. On Miller at leadt I only rarely see double teaming. Be weary that it is harder to see opponents numbers, as they will all register as enemies, obscuring each faction their numbers. Is is more difficult to see where they are fighting.

I know that the NC weapons tend to be harder to use. I'm among the people who think the GD-22 should be the NC's starter LMG, even though I highly doubt they would do that.

I also agree that the NC lacks any real "Long Range" AV, but I also think that infantry-based AV has too long range anyway, so it's really a moot point IMO.

Clearly the Gauss SAW is going to perform badly. It's a highly specialized, difficult to control and expensive to kit long-range weapon that's thrown at players with no experience at the game, and expected to compete with the likes of the Orion and the Carv.

But, when used correctly, there is no weapon in the game that can compete with it. The Gauss SAW is the NC's Long-Range LMG, given to them instead of a CQC LMG for the sake of faction flavor. Ironically, this is a situation where more flavor is bad.


As an avid Magrider pilot myself, I envy the Vanguard.

Just like the Gauss SAW, or the Cyclone, or the Pheonix, if a player is smart with NC equipment, they will perform significantly better then a player with the inherently lower skill ceiling of the TR or the VS.

As a Magrider, your tank is the weakest in a 1v1. Both the Prowler and the Vanguard out-damage you, and the Vanguard is a lot tanker and the Prowler significantly out-damages you.

In order to compensate for this, you need to put yourself into the most advantageous situation possible for every engagement. And by conventional logic, being in a 5v1 doesn't seem very advantageous, does it?

Yet remarkably enough, a good pilot can single out tanks and make a 1v1 where there is a 50v50. Intelligently used, the Vanguard can single-handedly demolish an entire armor column. I've gunned for such Vanguards, I've fought against such Vanguards, and it's a terrifying experience either way. Whenever I'm flanking in my Magrider, I always wonder how much better I could be doing in my Vanguard. Or more often, when I'm dying horribly in my Magrider, I wonder how much longer I could have survived in my Vanguard.

I have seen too many braindead VS and TR players to think that it's an NC problem only. Certainly for the NC to be performing so poorly across all servers would indicate there is some sort of balance issue.

Personally and as others of mentioned I think its an ease of use/access issue.

NC has some strong weapons but they all have higher skill requirements than the other factions. Or require large amounts of investment which curtail general use.

You can compare the prowler to the dual raven max, they're both pretty potent. The difference is the dual raven max has a 2000 cert entry requirement while the prowler with lockdown is a mere 100 certs. I would say the reaver is the hardest aircraft for noobs to pick up as well since the other esfs have better strengths (speed and turn rate) that benefit low level play.

In the end it's the low skill players who make up the majority of the server, if all of the NC's weapons are either high skill requirement or expensive to access thats whats hurting the majority of the NC's combat power.

Ideally the NC needs a few weapon systems that don't make us OP but are decent and give good advantages that are easy for low rank players to harness and access. For instance maybe the MBTs could get new alternate special abilities, pretty sure all factions could use some alternate playstyles for their MBT's and if the NC got one that was simple for newbies to use that would be an all round help, so for instance:

NC Frontal Shield
Provides a frontal only shield which absorbs 50% of all incoming fire, activation cancelled while moving. This would instantly let the NC vanguards start going toe to toe against the prowler since you cancel out the DPS advantage. At the same time it would suffer from the same issue as the prowler, that you need to sit back and use it and cant use it to push or flank so hard. So it complements the existing shield.

TR Overheat
Allows for a short period of double fire rate on the prowlers main cannon, followed by a cooldown period where it is unable to shoot. This would match the NC's shield and let the prowler be more effective at burst alpha damage, it would be harder to use since bad timing would render the tank vulnerable.

VS Mag Cloak
Provides a temporary cloaking shield for the magrider, the vehicle cannot fire when the cloak is active, the cloak also would reduce its hover height, making it less capable at hill climbing. This would potentially let the magrider play about more head to head against the other tanks as the cloak would help to evade detection and incoming fire. It would let the magrider get the first strike in more often and when attacked cloak and then evade in a random direction to stand more of a chance when jumped.

I am not a fan of high floor, high ceiling guns being a Faction trait. NC should have access to low ceiling guns (and start with them), and TR and VS should have access to high floor, high ceiling guns. Some of the worst problems in the game occur because of intentional Faction imbalances that actually backfire and cut 1-2 Factions out of being able to compete properly in a basic engagement type.

NC Infil has a better starting gun than TR and VS. Although it's still only the 4th best Sniper Rifle for the NC. And Infils should really start with free access to a Bolt Action and a CQC gun.

I am not set against reducing the range of Infantry AV. But to keep it where some Factions have it and some don't is terrible.

I only play on Emerald and Connery, so I can only speak for those Servers. It's not something that is always happening, but it's something that I see develop pretty often. And it makes sense on a strategy level given the VP incentives. I've it happen to NC a lot, last night I saw it happen to VS, and currently (on Connery) it's happening to TR:

The times I see it there is very little doubt (I think people have posted screenshots of it in other posts). You see 48 and 96 fights on borders of the Faction being Double Teamed, and you see tiny 12 fights, 24 fights, and uncontested bases along the border of the other 2 Factions.

Double teamed you say?


This is what I've experienced more often than not since the construction update. That's 3 TR territories with 96+ enemy activity, and no enemy territories with 48+ enemy activity. Out-popped no matter where we go. That's double teamed.

Sounds more like emerging butt-hurt on the forums. Nothing new.

Nah, couldn't be Emerald. The NC/VS hex borders on Emerald are typically like the Maginot Line- a great duty station if you want extended periods of peace and quiet.

What I find mildly amusing is the multitude of players that seem truly surprised and infuriated that in a game with only 3 factions that they are always being attacked by the other 2...

So many victim complexes. When a faction is getting wholesale zerged why don't they turn lemons into lemon juice and strategically retreat as they enjoy the abundance of target-rich environments?