I think we don't play the same game... Right now it's like a VERY slow heavy with more health, without rockets, without abilities, with low acuracy AI weapons, low damage and big resurrection time. Strafing it's a joke. We cannot avoid rocket launchers or C4s, this is a shame. The ZOE ability says in teh description that it provides to you more damage, well, this is false, as the other thread says, the ZOE button is a "press to suicide" button. You don't obtain more damage and more speed, you simply become piece of metal with the resistance of a wooden chasis.
"Very slow heavy with more health" welcome to the world of other faction's MAXes "We cannot avoid rocket launchers or C4s" welcome to the world of other infantry and other faction's MAXes "The ZOE ability says in teh description that it provides to you more damage" it does, however it caps off at a lower increase. All that's been done is to bring the VS MAX into line with the other factions. The problem with yourself is that you aren't prepared to adapt to something when it gets balanced. You just want everything you use to be OP so you can take the easy way out.
""The ZOE ability says in teh description that it provides to you more damage" it does, however it caps off at a lower increase." ZOE: No difference against ordinary soldiers. You take down a NC max in 25 instead of 27 shots with blueshift, but are to weak to kill it if you use ZOE. No difference against tanks as I can find. So maybe a teoretical increase in damage, but in a real fight you are just weaker. Thats not balance, thats removing VS special ability.
Let me ask you something. Where in the VS lore does it say they are higher powered? I believe that's an NC trait (low RoF, high recoil, high damage) not VS. Your response is invalid.
You people say it like it suddenly became worse than Anchor. It still grants movement speed increase.
It is worse than anchor and Aegis shield(I also play TR and NC), the main problem is you can't toggle the overdrive, and it's mobility has been neutered, along with it's damage. VS have never had the power of the NC, or the speed of the TR, the VS is known for being more mobile. However, now we have neither, and a suicide switch that doesn't turn off. Once again, the whiners on the forums have ruined a legitimate ability.
Use charge then, ZOE should never have been an upgrade over Charge, it should always be a side-grade, like it is now.
It's not a downgrade, You can still shoot when using ZOE, you can't shoot when using Charge. The 2 abilities should cater to different roles, which they now do. Whereas a week ago, any VS player would have ridiculed you if you certed into Charge.
Well, any VS will ridicule you if you cert into ZOE now ZOE has no role. At any occasion that you would have used this new ZOE, you're better off by having no ability or using Charge instead.
Which is very much on par with the TR right now, I will admit, NC have the most flexibility when it comes to MAX abilities, the weapons just suck beyond 10m. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if SOE completely removed MAX as a class for an update or 2, just to fine tune everything across the board. E.g. bringing Lockdown into competition as an ability, Fine tuning ZOE so it's a feasible side-grade upon charge, working on the way Aegis works to block damage (my thought here would be a semi-permeable overshield that mitigates a percentage of damage, like a heavy shield) and a complete pass on weaponry. I'd love to see half the current AI weapons, and then add some role specific AI weaponry (short range, long range) etc. some laser guided AV weapons and some lock-on AV/AI rockets would be pretty awesome too.
You can still use ZOE, but it is way weaker than before. Has anyone found out, what the damage penalty / rank is now? And the damage buff?
Yesterday was the only day I really played (and even then I had login issues). The minimap changes made it very easy to see how many friendly MAXes are around you, so it was rather easy to see that the amount of VS MAXes pulled hasn't changed. Or at least it hasn't changed into a noticeable amount. What it did change was the amount of ZOE MAXes. The whole day I haven't seen a single MAX glow.
I keep seeing people say that the damage increase given with original ZOE was not useful or cared about. Having to be on the receiving end of that extra damage for 6+ months, I disagree. It was incredibly useful in both AI and AV purposes. And together with the ability to ADADAD strafe and move at incredible speed is what made ZOE so OP. I actually would have preferred if they left the stats exactly the same and instead just introduced the timer and cool down to make it more situational. In fact, a buff to speed and damage, and making them have even less HP may have balanced it out nicely. I haven't played VS since the patch, so I will need to use it before passing a judgement on whether it is as useless as many of you state.
Actually, you're talking about weapon mechanics... Our empire specific attributes when it comes to things like this are mobility, hence the Magrider and original incarnation of ZOE...both of which have been nurfed significantly. Well, I originally used duel Comets and maintain ZOE for the constant speed boost, didn't care about the damage as is the case with most everyone else. The only thing we really enjoyed about the ability was a constant watered down version of Charge that you could use whenever you wanted...but that was also what made the ability overpowered. Now, however, it's mobility has been drastically reduced to the point where Charge is an obviously choice. Furthermore, they didn't just drastically weaken the mobility through the three tier nurf...they also weakened the damage bonus so that it only works at close range and seems to provide little to no actual bonus of any real significance. Ultimately, if we only used the ability for the mobility and they made it extremely sub-par to Charge...why would we choose it over charge, especially when they destroyed the damage bonus we didn't even care about to begin with? I have Charge lv1 now, I only ever used ZOE lv1 beforehand...and I'm doing quite well, if not better than I had while using ZOE. The additional armor makes me feel like a tanky sniper with my duel Comets; took out a Sunderer from an absurd range today. We didn't need ZOE to be effective, we just liked the mobility. There's a video posted somewhere that shows what a VS Charge MAX can accomplish...and that extra armor goes a LONG way. What we wanted was an interesting and balanced alternative worthy of use...many asked for the jumpjets of old and we were given an overpowered ZOE. ...any faction would have used it just as avidly as we did. Now...it's worthless and a suicide suit which runs under the assumption that this mobility boost provided makes you a god in glowing tissue paper armor capable of taking out entire teams before you're reduced to rubble. It's a very silly concept for a MAX suit, something that costs resources and has a acquisition timer. It should have never seen live if this was what was to become of it............and it should be scrapped and replaced. Truth be told...all of the abilities should because none of them are all that interesting and most are niche oriented...which makes them inadequate as a side-grade, which would imply that they are on par with Charge. Also... To those who are saying that ZOE is still more effective than Lockdown: I absolutely loathe the Lockdown ability, but today I stood and tanked tank rounds and Phoenix rockets while an Engineer laughed at me repeatedly saying, "Ow" after each shot. I would have loved to have Lockdown during these situations...but I can not think of a single situation where I would ever want the new ZOE. Lockdown is trash, but lets not kid ourselves by saying it's more effective than Lockdown. ZOE was at the top, overpowered...but it's now at the bottom.
