I used to play the game rabidly at launch and I used to do pretty good. I went through a couple months of not being able to win a firefight to save my life, but by the time I had to stop (after Operation: Make Faster Game, which made my computer incapable of maintaining higher than 20~ fps on the lowest settings) I was reliably getting 2.0 K/Ds. I had a lot of fond memories with the game. I recently got a new rig and thought I would try again. I've been playing for a few days, but my God. Some times I can maintain a .94 or so KD, which I'm happy with, and some times I just die over and over. Not counting the snipes and vehicle kills, I find myself losing a lot of shootouts that I would have easily been able to win before. I play an NC medic, and have been bouncing between the Tross and Gauss Rifle (I personally think the Tross is absolutely awful, but I've been noticing this on the Gauss, too) and I'm really feeling like the NC weapons don't have any sort of niche. I mean, yeah, I get the gist that they're supposed to have higher damage per bullet. But the recoil and spread (my recoil control is pretty good, I can largely mitigate it even though my wrist isn't what it used to be) combined with the low ROF produces a consistent result: I can't win most shooting exchanges, no matter how many rounds I'm putting on target, with the occasional headshot. I seem to remember the Gauss Rifle being one of the most consistent and reliable ARs in the game. Is this a phenomena with NC weapons lacking performance these days, or are my skills just that rotted?
There are a couple or reasons i could imagine beeing responsible for that. I came back after a longer hiatus myself and what I noticed is that a lot of the people that are still playing are vetarans who practices this game for literal years and it can be really hard to win a 1vs1 against them. Keep playing a couple days and try to improve. Most important thing for high damage weapons like Tross or Reaper is to always go for headshots, this way you have the advantage in every fight as NC. If youre struggeling with that I would suggest some weaopons which follow higher ROF patterns like GR-22 or Carnage. I really recommend the carnage, felt like a good and all around balanced gun to me. Or try playing some Heavy. NC weapons overall are fine, its your skills
The A-Tross is definitely not a weapon for everyone. It shines as a support weapon/long range but for the generalist approach, the Gauss Rifle is a beauty. Dat 167/600 damage model is near perfection. When returning and things don't feel right I've gone to the VR and tweaked my mouse sensitivity. You might have played another game, done something else IRL, or whatever it might be which has changed how harshly/carefully you move the mouse (like compensating for recoil, following targets, etc, etc). Can be a night and day difference.