NC MAX post-nerf thoughts?

what freaking game are you playing were NC maxes are currently "in line" with the others...
"similar" (generally less) CQC dps to TR and VS maxes,
but with VASTLY inferior range potential, and VASTLY inferior sustained fire.
go ahead, explain how the fk that is "in line"...

YES, they have, everything about the "oneshotting" has changed,
for starters only 2 of them even have the potential to do it now.
and the chance of pulling off a oneshot with the only 2 that can now do it is now EXTREMELY unlikely.

Grinders went from 1560 damage spread between 10 pellets so you could miss with 2 of the pellets and still get a oneshot
to firing TWENTY weak *** pellets to deal exactly 1000 damage, requiring every single one of those 20 pellets to oneshot.
how is that not a MONUMENTAL CHANGE to the ability of these shotguns being able to oneshot?!

It was twice a nerf too far. Took away both ranged options and nerfed their CQC abilities way too hard.

Only way you see things different is if you're blinded by faction bias or have the ridiculous idea that the NC deserve it because it was too powerful before. The latter is not only petty but also directly harmful to the game as a whole.

I tried to be optimistic and find a way to make it work but nope, NC MAX is significantly weaker now. The increased mag size was a wet band aid prone to falling off when you need it the most. It works in some cases but so does the Lasher and I'm not exactly seeing any VS players rushing to praise it.

Agreed, i've said over the years that slugs were giving NC too much range potential,
A slug removal and refund was the right move,
But then they went and made them terrible at cqc too...

NC maxes should hit like a freight train in cqc, be terrible at range and have no sustained fire.
2 big downsides for 1 big upside, and if they'd just removed slugs that is what we'd have.

Instead we have weak cqc, nonexistent range and terrible sustained fire.
Worse than TR and VS equivalents in every single way.
Is that well-balanced? Nope it's wrel-balanced.

@Toppestofkeks
Already after the first two sentences one could ignore this comment and all further comments.
The NC-Max is now as strong as that of TR and VS, ever used a MAX? Or just angry, because some NC-Max has finished again your great kill series?
The NC-Max was strong in all tight-quarters battles because it killed faster and more safely than the TR or VS Max. You do not even have to aim big, it's usually enough to keep the gun in the direction of your opponent.
The larger magazines, or the greater effective range of the VS or TR-Max were not so crucial, just the most battles in PS 2 play in any rooms. Fights outdoors or over long distances are the exception rather than the rule.
The NC Max have effectively patched the DEVS out of the game, now it's time to make the NC Infantry a pleasure and take the TR and VS Max out of the game

I think most people who want to flame others because they've received grief from NC Maxes from launch to now are nothing but childish and detrimental to this conversation. As someone who has been a member of the NC for the past 6 years i can agree that the Maxes were broken with slug rounds, and they needed to leave or be toned down. But you cant just take away its one signature purpose which is cqc combat.(Which they did) If anyone has been playing up until now they will realize how much they really undershot the max because no one on the NC is pulling them anymore. If they were "in line" like how some would put it, you would still see them being pulled, but you dont. Im not saying you arent entitled to your own delusional opinion but if the equivalent happened on your own faction im sure you would be just as outraged.

But i will say this, as a member of the NC we are adapting to a max-less style of game play, when before we put it on the forefront of our assaults(we kind of piggybacked our wins from it). If we can still kick yalls sorry ***** without maxes just imagine what well do when the devs fix it. If i was VS or TR id be scared for when NC maxes come back, they didnt need to adapt, and well keep that style of play even when they come back.

we should nerf vs and tr maxes too ... so they all will be at the same level.

they cost 450 nanites...
people hate getting killed by maxes because they don't look like a tank,
they cost as much as a liberator, galaxy or Vanguard but look like infantry, so all you people see is infantry...
"herpderp my free infantry stood no chance! maxes OP!"
well yeah, try soloing an MBT with your medic, see how well that goes.
Ooh but an MBT looks like a tank, so that's fine!

fact is for 450 nanites maxes are FAR slower and more prone to C4
FAR less durable, taken out by a single c4 or a couple of rockets/AV nades/archer shots
deal way less damage (no HE spam here!)
have far less range (no HE spam from a mile away.)
and i can't hop out to repair it myself.
but hey, they don't look like a tank, so they're still soooo OP.

i curse everyone who QQed for nerfs when they ran directly at an NC max and got melted.
thanks for making NC max now the "Gorgon Max" because everything else is f%%ing useless.
and DBG don't care or have a clue how to balance this game, they just roll with the "nerf!" QQ.

NC maxes had 2x KDA of any other max. This mean that when tr and vs in a continent had something like 2.5 KDR , NC maxes had 5. They were absolutely OP.

I'm pro to balance tr and vs maxes to the level of nc, I'm against restore the nightmare of NC maxes sitting in 5 inside a room farming anything, unkillable but with an orbital strike.

and there we have it "unkillable", meaning you didn't do it correctly.
i've played since march 2013, never had an issue with the maxes of any faction,
you know why? because i bring the correct tools for the job.
i'm not even a great player, i just bring the right tools.

you say there is 5 450 nanite units in one room and you're complaining that you can't solo them all with your free infantry?
how about you grab a few guys with nade bandolier and AV nades, i assure you it'd change your mind about their "unkillable" status
or hell, even if you're solo, a flash nade for cover, ambusher jets and c4, done deal.

even before this abomination of a nerf i found that i lived longest and had most success with Blueshift max than my NC,
the greater range led me to put myself in dangerous spots less, why go to the doorway when you can kill from across the room?
now that the NC shotguns are borderline worthless NC has become nothing more than Gorgon max in my eyes,
bad at everything.
hell i don't even know if they've fixed the Aegis bug that DX11 introduced that has made it do NOTHING, block nothing.
thats how long its been since i've bothered wasting 450 certs on an NC MAX MIN.

and i still haven't given them a single penny since i cancelled my sub over the nerf,
the reward for their moronic decision.

If I may offer an unpopular opinion... I may not use NC MAXs but I've fought against them for years.

Your MAXs are a joke now. They are BY FAR the least threatening things on the battlefield. Your AT weapons are marginally effective against infantry, but hit like daisies against vehicles. At range, I can just hose you down with my LMG and likely get the kill.

Your tanks are a joke. I see that shield pop up, I just keep hammering because I know I'm going to win in my Magrider. They're too slow to get away from me, or to do anything impressive with that shield.

Your infantry weapons are kind of interesting, but NOTHING compared to Vanu's arsenal. Do you guys have an LMG or a sniper rifle with infinite ammo? I didn't think so.

Point is, I sympathize with you. I really do. You've gotten the nerf hammer repeatedly and now you're nothing more than targets. You have no real tactical options, and what "strengths" you do have are so minute and insignificant that they will never help you win a battle.

Fortunately, I log in almost nightly to help put you all out of your misery. Watch your back, you cargo pants packing shotgun obsessed walmart vest wearing bullet magnets. I'm coming for you

Its really not an unpopular opinion, playing nc for this long ive been on the receiving end of this since CAI and its only gone downhill from there.

I would not call a Vanguard a "joke"... but I agree that currently Vanu is in a good spot.

#1 Post nerf thought:

Ahhhh, this is much nicer. Still have max crashes from all factions. Still have some nasty max driven point holds from all factions. All are tough and challenging, no-one is impossible any longer.

The game really was broken. We kinda knew it I guess. Should have done it sooner.

NC maxes are trash now. I can get far more done with a heavy assault.

Just call it what it is. The NC Burster platform.

and gorgons!
while gorgons are pretty weak AI, atleast they're better than the pitiful state of the NC max shotguns.

hey DBG, it'll take a hell of a lot more than a small mag change to fix your mistake...

You know as soon as I saw the patch notes I bought gorgons and tried to get the hang of them, even when the shotguns were still good. I wanted to get a jump on the meta. I just couldn't get them to work in an AI role. In fact the only thing they're good at is killing other faction's MAXes.

Not that killing MAXes isn't handy. You can't have a 1-12/1-12 fight on the map without TR pulling at least one or two MAXes, and VS isn't far behind.

Ditto! Ive never bothered with gorgons, i never saw the appeal of being bad at everything,
Terrible AA terrible AV, bad AI
Better to be good at one thing than bad at three!

At first I thought there was no way that such abysmal "balance" patch could go live,
But then I remembered that it's DBG, so like you I decided to finally grind for gorgons,
I wasn't going to buy them with cash, no way I was paying money for DBG to neuter our max.
So while I still had my membership I grinder for gorgons, and then like you I forced myself to use them,
Even when our max weapons weren't useless I'd pull gorgons.

Patch drops, max neutered, subscription cancelled.
Totally agree with you that they're bad, but if we're going to be doing terrible damage anyway
We may as well be doing terrible damage but with range capabilities, sustained fire and the
Ability to tickle vehicles, and yep, they dominate in max fights,
So congrats DBG, wreldone! You've made NC max the Gorgon max.

So In the end it was a good decision to grind for Gorgons,
Because while there always been terrible, DBG has made our max weapons even worse.

Seriously DBG don't let this be yet another one of your mistakes that you utterly ignore.

The reason why the KDR was twice as high is also obvious: TR and VS MAX's can be used with some effect outside of their effective range, an NC MAX can't and couldn't. So NC MAX's take less risks and try to get fights to be inside their effective range more often than the TR and VS MAX's, and therefore have a higher KDR. Not because they are better, but because they are forced to play at maximum capability always and never outside of that perfect range.

Now I've been monitoring the NC MAX against the other two factions during prime time using the same data that was used to nerf it. Now the NC MAX has more often than not half the KD of the TR and VS (and those times it does keep up with the KD, it has half the amount of kills and deaths meaning it's used more sparingly). Yet this isn't a problem for them. People go "nah it's fair now because I can kill an NC MAX". But that's like making a gun that fires OS strikes with 120RPM or something and saying "it's fair because I can kill my opponents".

With buckshot, sort of, since it had quite a lot more range outside its optimal range than often professed. In addition, slugs were in wide use and exceptionally effective at that. Plus, the access to buckshot was also very powerful when doing MAX crashes as you didn't need the sustained fire due some serious shock and awe.

Also, it wasn't just the KDR which were higher but the sheer amount of kills which put the other MAX units to shame. This would suggest that TR/VS MAX unit wasn't terribly effective at all in other areas. Now after the nerf, it is the other way around where the NC MAX is falling behind in both kills and KDR. Clearly something went wrong here. I mean, reducing buckshot effectiveness AND removing slugs... Before it happened I expected some new perks to be added but instead it was just a straight up nerf in all areas.

TL;DR: NC MAX was over-nerfed and is now behind in both KDR and amount of kills. Fix it, DBG.

What do you mean? That it could do damage outside of it's effective range? Yes it could, but it couldn't do this effectively. "hurrah a single kill by unloading both my arms on a target! My VS and TR counterparts would have gotten that kill faster and be able to kill 3 more dudes before reloading at that distance!".

It's not exactly a good example of damage outside of range. It's like the people who go "but mah Harasser/ESF/Valkyrie can be damaged by a pistol! Oh noes everything can kill me!" while ignoring that it takes a ludicrous amount of people wielding small-arms to actually finish you off.

Slugs did extend the range, but were an incredible RNG system. Also the fact that the NC MAX was considered the best when it changed it's shotguns to non-shotgun status is a big red flag that the problem wasn't going to be with the shotguns, and that the VS and TR weapons who also aren't shotguns would be a fair bit more effective than the wet paper tissue throwers they have been claiming them to be compared to the old NC MAX.

Ofcourse most of the complaints weren't about slugs, oh no, it was all about how shotguns were supposedly OP.

While I did see the KD, I don't remember the kills being much higher.

Also we can discuss the old stats all we want, currently the NC MAX using those same stats that got it nerfed is obviously overnerfed. It has half the KD and often half the kills. Some people have claimed ridiculous things like "now we see MAX crashes on all sides!" but I have yet to see the NC MAX being used with any numbers or even effect. I've tried Mattocs for a while but switched to Falcons again, because the AV weapons of the NC MAX are more effective for any range AI other than within 10m than the actual ranged AI weapons...

Yes that was my first reaction too. "They removed Slugs, we are getting something to compensate". Well we did get compensation, but it was of the nerfbat sort.
The VS had their ZOE nerfed into the ground long ago. This was their ability slot, which isn't too great but the VS MAX's weapons are still more than capable (in fact the VS MAX outstrips the TR MAX on most fronts in AI combat, but everyone seems to ignore that). But the NC MAX now has had it's entire AI capabilities nerfed just as hard, making it virtually useless. It's best role is now bulletsponge, rather than hardpoint that murders enemies while moving up.

Yes please.