[Guide] Nanoweave Armor vs ASC Analysis

I can't live without Nano right now, I only take it off when I definitely need Flak for the next 20' or more. Any less, I don't even bother switching to that. I wish Nano buffed and regen your HP, while ASC should buff and regen your shields, and you have to pick one or the other. Something like that, haven't really thought about it. But as things are, I see no reason to use nothing BUT Nano5.

Not to derail the conversation but I find the same lack of options for tools equally disturbing...
C4, or MedKit... C4, or MedKit... Both are just over the top, at least in my opinion.

If your objective is to flee or defend rather than attack, then yeah I guess ASC could improve survivability. But that only happens when the opponent is forcing the fight on you by chasing you or cornering you. As LA/Infil, my objective is to do exactly the opposite, to force the fight on them on my terms. If I let them force it on me, I've already done something wrong. Nanoweave would thus be reduced to the role of training wheels that help me survive situations that I don't want to get to in the first place. ASC, on the other hand, emphasizes the strengths of LA/Infil.

If I viewed the comparison in terms of a player who plays a flawless LA/Infil game, where flawless means no mistakes with regard to positioning, being caught off guard or cornered etc. - ASC would do nothing to improve survivability (compared to no suit slot item).

I don't use ASC so that I can become someone's bullet magnet sooner.

The keyword in your sentence is "faster", not "survivable". Why? Let me explain via analogy.

Take two weapons, one has slow reload, the other has fast reload. (This is analogous to having a shield with slow "reload" versus fast.) Let's say you're HA and you can choose between a CARV with 5+ second reload and 750 ROF versus a Bull with 3 second reload and 652 ROF (ignoring other weapon stats, for sake of argument). It wouldn't be very truthful to say you choose Bull so that you can "have more DPS faster", and that therefore, reload speed is about having more DPS in the same sense as ROF is about having more DPS. Not really. The point with faster reload is to move out faster from your cover spot and keep attacking. Like shield recharge rate affects survivability, reload speed affects killing power only when you're forced into a fight at a bad moment, a fight you don't want to take in the first place. The rest of the time - when things go as you plan them to go - reload speed does nothing to improve your DPS, it sacrifices ROF in order to have lower downtime for attacks. And by analogy, shields recharge speed does nothing to improve your survivability, it sacrifices it to have lower downtime for attacks. Analogy complete, case closed, show's over.

A bit more about survivability... when I do decide to attack, I'm more survivable with Nanoweave. Nanoweave clearly improves survivability, irrespective of on whose terms the fight occurs. Compared to Nanoweave, ASC sacrifices survivability in return for lower downtime. ASC does not improve survivability, it sacrifices it - at least that's how I see it based on how I play. In the vast majority of cases when I take damage to shields, I will be able to stay in cover long enough for the shields to recharge, regardless of what suit slot I have equipped. The only difference with ASC is that I can move out of cover sooner.

Nanoweave will lag several seconds behind ASC even if you only recharge up to the point where your effective HP equals 1000. While that does undermine the uptime advantage of ASC somewhat, it doesn't nullify it, and the point stands that ASC sacrifices that extra HP in order to have lower downtime for attacks, not in order to be able to take more damage sooner.

my golden loadout for medium-ranged combat and closer:

Polaris
Resist shield
ASC

resist shield works great with ASC because you can duck into cover before taking ANY health damage, and after 10 seconds just pop back at full health again, with a full resst shield, too

for prolonged fighting, this is my golden go-to and works really great, also flick on resis shield for grenade spam sometimes saves your life

also, equipping res shield with nanoweave just makes you lose the nanoweave advantage when flicking the shield on

ASC must be: 3 sec after dmg need 3 sec to fully charge to be even competitive to nanoweave.
Now ASC suck like vanu ZOE.

I'm not sure you got 100% of what I was trying to explain about my thought process, but I don't really now how else can I word it, and you write good stuff so have a like. I'd send you one of the cookies my mom made today, but I ate all of them Sorry.

"Now"? It actually got buffed not so long ago, it used to be 2.5 secs at max rank.

Awesome analysis.

Thank you for posting this, I switched to ASC on my infli, light, and medic my playstyle has improved dramatically. I'm living a lot longer as I'm taking cover more often to let the shield regen, and with the medic kits its like night and day. I cant believe how fast the shield recovers maxed out. To anyone that hasn't given your light armored classes ASC you don't know what your missing. I combined the use of cover from Wrels video on hit detection and it comes together so nicely.

I think this is an excellent discussion as there are players who fall on both sides of the fence and are quite opinionated about which they prefer.

I find in most cases I lose is when someone gets the drop on me. I think it's likely that NW won't help me in those situations. Sure, it would buy me a bit more time to react but likely not enough to turn around, take aim at the target and then out DPS it and win. If it bought me enough time to get into cover, now I stuck waiting on a shield recharge with an aggressive opponent who knows I'm hurt.

I think ASC caters more to players who ambush their opponents a lot and have good positioning, leaving the emery at a disadvantage when it comes to dealing damage.

Nanoweave would seem to favor players who wade into the fray face first and need to be a bit more tanky to survive the chaos.

Personally, I find myself in a lot of situations where I'm missing my shield but little or no actual health, and ASC limits vulnerability.

I think of it like this: I'm facing a guy with a 750 RoF weapon. 1 in 4 rounds don't count with the 25% resistance. How much time does NW actually buy me in this situation? Is it even enough to make a tangible difference in survival? 750 RPM is 12 rounds per second. On a 143 damage weapon, that's over 1700 damage in one second. With Nanoweave that's 1340 damage and I'm still dead - in less than one second.

Right?

So perhaps Nanoweave benefits twitch skill players better, and ASC benefits thinking, plotting and sneaky players more.

Well, as a personal preference :

• Front lines HA - Nano all the way (especially when you have medics covering your back and healing)
• Anti vehicle HA - Flak all the way (explosions being the major threat)
• All rounder LA - ASC (especially for CQB) with extra mobility, LA benefits a lot from the faster recharge rate, allowing more frequent peek-a-boo shots
• Outdoors LA, Jumper, AV duty LA - Flak armor for safer C4 use on close ranges, and to gain additional protection from Vehicle explosives
• Support medic - Bando (more revive nades)
• All rounder medic - CQB - Nano (additional bullet protection)
• All rounder medic - outdoors, long range encounters - Flak armor
• Engineer - Flak (either pilot or support)
• Infiltrator - sniper - Adrenaline pump (greater distance covered while cloaked, faster positioning
• Infiltrator - close range - Scout - ASC (better for flanking and resetting fights)

That's something I'll never understand, just like using safe fall implant on LA. Out of all classes, LA *needs* ASC the least.
ASC is convenient and addictive, but far from optimal, *especially* on the LA. It's the class that can get away to recharge shields and reset a fight on his terms the best.

Good guide! You should also mention the cost effectiveness in terms of certifications of ASC vs Nanoweave, as the final rank of Nanoweave costs 1000 certs.

That 4 seconds has me back in combat and killing again 4 seconds sooner.

It's not 1000 vs 1250, it's 500 vs 625. I live on my shields, not my HP. Besides, I have 4 medstims anyways. Only time that 125HP would come into play is if I'm usually dead anyways.

You can't compare survivability alone and say NW is better. Yes, for a direct 1v1 confronatation, obviously NW has more benefit. That's it's purpose.

ASC's purpose on the other hand is to minimize downtime between engagements.

If you're playing as a flanking class, that's very important.

As HA I wouldn't take ASC, but on my LA and Infil I run nothing else.

My HA I'd use nanoweave... IF I didn't generally only ever use HA for AV purposes and so I run Munitions to carry more rockets for killing armor with less reliance on sitting on ammo boxes.

Engy and Medic I use Flak, because I take a lot of splash damage while playing support more than bullet damage.

It's not about compensating weaknesses, it's about maximizing strenghts.
my usual LA loadout is Safe Landing 3 and either ASC or Adrenaline Pump. AP mostly when using a Shotgun.
and then i will just spend my time running around like a squirrel on Speed poking into Windows, balconies, bathroomdoors, etc and annoy the **** out of People. and then when my ammo finally ran out i'll sit on a nice 15+ killstreak after 2-5 minutes.
and then i'll die 10 times in a row from a Banshee... in 5 different bases....oh and DIG... and KOTV... never trust allies....

For me, there is so much benefit to running safe landing while running LA (especially tower stomping). Not having to slow momentum when changing platforms is a definite boost, as is dropping past 2 floors of enemies onto a platform leg quickly without the noise/slow speed of a jetpack. The most noticeable benefit for me is when landing from a fall, inheriting standing/moving cof faster than stopping momentum from a fall with a jetpack. Not to mention the evasion options sl opens up. Only other class I would run it on is Engi if I were piloting as Engi, but most often I pilot as LA.