Heya guys! I'm really new to Planetside 2, and can't actually start playing it yet as to me having a Mac. ( Please don't turn this into a flame war about Mac's being horrible, I know, I'm getting a new PC in a few weeks | months. ) But I just wanted a little bit of help. What would you guys suggest as a starter class, and why? I'm personally thinking of going mainly as a Light Assault, but I wanted to know your opinions. If this is in the wrong place, I apologize, and if it could possibly be moved, that'd be great? Thanks, and I'm sure I'm going to love this game
Class choice is usually situational for me. LA is great outdoors where you have places to get up and hide/flank from. Indoors a heavy will likely stomp you. Try them all, see what works you. I find LA's are great for ambushing/medium range sniping and such, but for close combat the abilities of a Heavy or perhaps even a Medic is more useful.
Yeah it's not like an MMO where you have to 'pick a class' and then you're locked in. You can change on the fly more like TF2. To start out, I would say the light assault is a good choice. It's simple, and it shares carbine weapons with another good choice: The engineer, so unlocking a carbine (or shotgun) and attachments for it (or for a shotgun) will carry over between the two. I recommend getting the carbine for your faction with access to the advanced laser sight attachment, and playing that for a while. The laser sight improves hip fire and the special 'advanced' laser sight improves it more but not all guns get the advanced version. Once you have softpoint ammunition and the advanced laser sight on your weapon, you will learn to burst properly for the game'ss shooting mechanics because firing from the hip lets you see how your crosshair changes. You'll develop good habits that are rare in Planetside2 but common sense everywhere else like stopping just as you fire, crouching if you're going to stand still, or holding your shots while moving if the other guy isn't going to be able to kill you before he needs to reload, etc. etc. The majority of the game really never caught on to this, even in beta, and you'll see lots of people running around firing entire clips on full auto then coming to the forums to try and talk about gun balance, haha. Brief summary for a new player: Infiltrator: Class name is misleading. Using the stealth option makes a loud noise both on cloaking and de-cloaking, making real infiltration difficult. The class is more so a sniper first and infiltrator second. However, the starting sniper rifle has very low bullet velocity. If you play it as a beginner you'll get used to this and that's a trap. Eventually you'll get good enough that the low speed of the projectile will mean you need to lead targets so far ahead, many shots will be impossible like targets moving between two points of cover, or enemies who are zig-zagging. It is best to save this class for later when you have the certs to buy a high velocity sniper rifle, so you don't have to re-learn the feel of bullet drop and time to target. Light Assault: Very simple class to start with, with plenty of juice in the default jump jets to get on top of a building or hop a base wall, nothing fancy to spend certs on so you can focus on weapons. There is the opportunity to get C4 explosives, but those cost quite a few certs, and won't be immediately available. As your knowledge of base layouts builds, this class's depth increases dramatically. Their mobility lets them ambush, flank, and counter entrenched enemies who think they have the enemy in front of them or that they are not noticed, like snipers and engineers repairing turrets. Medic: Aside from the obvious support role, This is a fantastic soloist/lone-wolf class. It has unique acess to the 'assault rifle' class of weapons that has excellent all-round stats and high accuracy, can heal itself without limit, and can take C4 explosives (NOT shared with the Light Assault and must be certed separately) to attack vehicles up close or destroy objectives quickly. Although the medic has access to lots of gimmicks like healing and reviving grenades, most players don't find these attractive and stick to it's standard heal gun and frag nades for now. The medic is simple to play as infantry, but difficult to play as support because support in such a fast game requires great discretion that a new player won't have. You'll often see medics playing like it's TF2 and trying to out-heal someone shooting their team mate, or trying to revive people out in the open where they will just be killed again. Engineer: A rather mandatory class, because the game will constantly put you behind the wheel of various vehicles and aircraft to transport yourself or counter what the enemy force has brought to the battle, and only the engineer can hop out and repair his vehicle. There are no 'repair stations' or anything like that. You must be an engineer or bring an engineer with you to repair your vehicle or aircraft. The Engineer is a very diverse class with the ability to drop ammo packs for itself and others, set up turrets (that must be manned by the engineer himself, not automated ones) lots of unique options for the utility slot, many roles on the battlefield, and an unusually diverse selection of weapons. You will almost certainly play it your first day. From there it can remain effective just mooching off the Light Assault's carbine unlocks, or you could also play it as a primary class and not have certs to spare for anything else for months. Heavy Assault: Faction dependent. The heavy assault class uses the 'light machine gun' category of weapons and each faction starts with very different light machine guns. The TR have access to, arguably of course, the best of their line right from the start. The NC on the other hand start with a high damage, high recoil, low rate of fire weapon that is frustrating and isn't intuitive to new players who don't immediately realize the attachment upgrades available to it. Once you get rolling, the heavy is a valuable class in heavy action areas because it has a second shield it can activate to approach dangerous areas and rocket launchers to help contribute damage against any target. TR and VS have access to area denial weapons effective vs large groups of enemies if you can think outside the box and get an angle on them to fire freely, and NC gets a unique, three round burst capable, heavy shotgun which is considered underpar today but the devs have promised to look into upgrading it! MAX The MAX suit has that game classic of simple to play, and hard to master. The suit's high offense and defense make it feel very powerful, but It's slow movement, highly specialized weapons, and low anti-infantry effective range make it easy to trap yourself in a bad position. It requires team coordination both to help the user do things like heal itself, and because the MAX itself can not capture objectives being the last man standing doesn't work, so you must also support your team with your strengths. It's upgrade paths are VERY cert expensive, plus it costs resources to equip the armor and the armor is also on a timer! Yikes! Certainly play around with it when you can, but be careful about committing too many points before you can use it well.
Damn, you guys put a tonne of effort into the responses ( Especially you, VKhaun ) thanks a huge amount. I have been looking around, and many have said the same things as you: You can switch around whenever the situation demands. Again, thanks for all the help. Really makes me feel like this community won't be filled with arrogant, annoying, derps.
yep. i would go for the combatmedic. it´s very nice to play the combat more than the medic. so i´m fighting the most, and if i see a guy, who needs heal or revive, i heal/revive him and earn some extra-points
It really depends on how much experience you have playing shooters. If you don't have a whole lot of experience playing shooters, I'd suggest Engineer as a starting class. Carbines aren't bad weapons, but repairing things can still net you XP to fill the gap if you're not killing people non-stop. You can still net kills while shooting and with your MANA turret, but you can also do the support role and then use that to segue into a more straight combat role, if you want. If you do have experience playing shooters, I'd recommend starting out with the Heavy Assault. The combination of their shield and the LMG (Even if it is default) lets you function well in stand-up fights, which is probably what you'll be doing a lot of when you're brand new. Between those, and the rocket launcher to let you deal with vehicle threats, it'll allow you to learn the ropes and figure out what you want to do. I started out as Heavy Assault on NC, and while the recoil is particularly brutal, I think it helped me learn the mechanics of the game. But, of course, it's ultimately whatever you want to do.
You don't have to decide a class to main immediately. Starting equipment is adequate enough to let you practically try every class before making your decision. I, for one, wouldn't suggest Light Assault. Not without saying it's not a class that can just run into a fortified enemy position. That's for Heavies, Combat Medics, Engineers and MAXes. I learned the hard way.
Cheers for all the help. So what I've gathered so far, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong: Heavy Assault are good for general base assaults / defence, and will be a way to live longer. Light Assault are versatile units, which are very mobile and good with ambushes. Medics are support units ( Obvious ) Engineers are used whenever you are driving / flying a vehicle. MAX's are just beasts, but you should only use when assaulting or defending.
Yeah one of the reasons I play mostly LA is Tribes nostalgia. I am still convinced I can figure out how to ski in this game ;O. Yes heavies can take more punishment but I still prefer LA for CQC indoor stuff. I will feint one angle then pop in through an upper window or something and hit them from the side or back. Its awesome being able to navigate to the places that the enemy thinks they have secured. Free kills.
One tweek I would make is the engy; Another very important role the engineer plays is his ability to provide ammunition (which gets expended rather quickly in this game) to his allies. Also, his ability to repair isn't to be underrated, as he can repair allied vehicles, and MAX's have to be repaired as well. Furthermore, once a base is taken, all the consoles and generators have to be repaired by an engineer to get the base back in working order. I main LA, but the roles the Engineers play I feel are greatly undervalued and thankless in many circumstances. On another note, if you wanna save up for a 1k weapon that will work on almost any class very effectively (2-3 shots to kill), you should get a shotgun as 4 of the 5 classes can use them ( I count MAX's as their own special thing as you can't spawn as them... they're more akin to vehicles truth be told).
