Should Nanoweave get removed from the game?

The title says it. Personally, I use this on 3 out of the 5 existing classes all the time and tend to use it on all of my classes, only rarely switching to something else if it happens to be better than straight-up survivability.


I wouldn't debate it's existence if it wasn't for it's immense popularity and essentially having a must-use status if you want to fight other infantry and win against anyone with similar skill. I remember someone making a poll once, and a whopping 50%+ people voted that their preferred suit slot is Nanoweave. The only other sane choice is either Flak Armor for fending off vehicles and explosive spam, which is mostly used by vehicle drivers, and grenade bandoleer, which is incredibly powerful in certain situations, but that's it.

And it's not like the advantage is small, using Nanoweave gives you a massive advantage over any infantryman that doesn't use it or has it at much lower rank. Weapons feel largely inconsistent because of it, sometimes I drop targets in an expected amount of shots, but then you need 2-3 more shots against certain targets. It's surprisingly huge, especially if you consider that often it takes 7 or 6 shots do down someone with an automatic or 2-3 shots with hard-hitting snipers/rifles, but with Nanoweave it effectively turns into 9-8 shots to kill, or 3-4/5 shots if you use a sniper/semi-auto hard-hitting rifle, which is roughly 25/50% more shots and time to kill.


I'd say that it shouldn't exist as a slot, but should instead be incorporated into the game by increasing the TTK, which a lot of players might want. It's very much a must-pick, and not using it is a massive handicap most of the time, and in it's current form as a slot it completely kills variety.

i use it rarely, most of the time its a ammo slot for me
the only times i use it is on my infill with smg and nano armor (to wreck those HA players)
so for me it can be removed except for my infill, we need something to fight HA's face to face
or give us that extra 100 heath when we use nano armor
and please don't tell me infills are suppose to flank, for flanking i use the regular cloak but that's not always possible
especially in biolab fights

The question is, if it was incorporated, what other slot would become the most used?
Specifically, with the effects of both at once.
I'd think the little shield booster, which might achieve the same effect but significantly less than nano-weave in increasing TTK.

And wouldn't every AI vehicle weapon need to be adjusted so infantry aren't automatically rendered harder to kill?

Nanoweave does not reduce headshot damage, the suit slot only helps if players shoot you from distance or if in close range go for the chest. I use ASC on pretty much anything, flak on vehicle enginer and nanoweave on infiltrator because there's usually some range in between so I find it usefull in that scenario and the other suit slots aren't that beneficial to an infiltrator.

I don't see why it should be taken out, it has it's use but not something extraordinary also a weakness regarding headshots make it totally useless in cqc against players that just shoot you in the head anyway.

Body Armor is a good choice, unless one is in a situation where it is not needed.

The gods of arbitrary chaos approve of this thread. The gods of reason look upon this thread with sad pity.

i only really use it on my heavy,
for engi i find sticky nades and grenade bandolier to be absolutely amazing,
for LA i run with either flight suit (i think thats the name, more fly time) if i'm using drifter or adrenaline pump if i'm using icarus,
for infil i don't snipe so it is usually adrenaline pump for speed while stalking so i can close gaps to enemies.
i dont play medic much but when i do then grenade bandoleer and revive grenades are the way to go.

i think when weapons are firing at 500-800 RPM the ability to survive a few extra shots doesn't make much difference,
especially compared to things like the ability to throw 4 grenades instead of 1.

that being said i'd be fine if they simply removed it and increased TTKs.

I use it all the time, and I would hate to lose it. On the other hand however, NC guns would largely perform much better overall, as would some other lesser weapons such as the Underboss...

I'd just jump straight to max rank flak and laugh at all the grenade-spammers, "AV" MAXes, and possibly even enemy MBTs that totally aren't just spamming at infantry.

It might be popular but Advanced Shield Capacitor is better for infantry fighting because no matter the source of damage or hit location you can be at full health and shields more often. 1000 hp is better than 500 hp with 20%/0% damage reduction from small arms. It also has synergy with heavy resist shield. Resist shield has 2* the absorb of nanoweave, also resists headshot damage and doesn't stack with nanoweave.

Tried it without Nanoweave and it s*cked. The only thing I noticed each and everytime I left Nanoweave was how fast and easily I die. I've had low BR enemies that, when attacked by me, died so easily and fast I wondered how. Must've been the same for enemies catching me without Nanoweave.

For me Nanoweave feels utterly mandatory and like a huge stone in my path, blocking access to more situational armor.
But that might just be me with my 100ms, fighting mostly Vanu on Connery which often means being outnumbered and overrun.

I'd make it baseline and then remove it from the game, refunding the certs.

I'd not decide so if armor types could be mixed to create one custom armor, like 2 ranks of Nanoweave + 1 rank of Flak armor + 2 ranks of shield capacitor.

Armor choices that offer neither offense nor defense seem just a little bit too underpowered to me and I'd add something like 5% bullet protection or shield regen equal to 1 to 2 rank of shield capacitor to it, just because.

Tooltips are also an issue. I think I read headshots bypass armor and damage reduction values. It's not in the tooltips, like so many other relevant information. For Infil's Chameleon armor I wonder if the enemy gains a hit indicator if shooting at such a cloaked Infil.

If you hit an infil, you get a hit marker even when they are cloaked, regardless of what they use.
Chameleon simply prevents the visual effect of shield shatter of the infil from appearing if shields break.
It use it, to estimate the general heading of enemy infils that are running while cloaked.

I try to follow the mantra of "engage when you want to, not when you have to." Sure, this doesn't happen 100% of the time, but I am usually quite successful at avoiding engagements while I'm at less than full health. ASC will allow me to get back to full health a bit faster, but I'd prefer to wait behind cover a few more seconds to have those extra 200 hitpoints. Then it's murderin' time! ;D

Fine, but you could probably get used to the ASC/Resist play style and do just as well or better which is what should be considered if you are working out if nanoweave is game breakingly good. Nanoweave is basically a second rate resist shield for non heavy infantry. Resist absorbs 40% of damage while nanoweave, assuming a fairly conservative 1/4 of landed shots is a headshot, is more like 12% resist.

I swapped NW with Flak a few years ago and never looked back.
When i die with NW i usually would have died without NW regardless, unless its a 1v1 situation where you barely survive.
But there are constantly situations where i get hit with random unavoidable explosives (grenades, C4 etc.) and survive because of Flak.

I guess it depends on what kind of battles you usually fight in. The larger the fight, the better Flak seems to become.
I wouldnt pick Flak in a 12v12 for example.

What i would like to see instead of removing NW, is to buff the other less popular suit slots and see what happens.

Dont use it, ever.

TBH i think the prevelance of NW armour is more proof that the general population is not playing the whole game, theyre not playing combined arms. Most players play infantry purely, so they pick the suit items that will give them an increase in their infantry killing / staying power without considering the other 66% of the game.
They dont consider the lib circling, or the ESF straffing, or the tanks shelling. Theyll happily spawn at a sundy in an open field (with NW of course) then moan that a viper lightning killed them while it was 'camping'.
Most players take items that help them do what they want to do, i prefer to take items that help when im forced into a situation i wasnt expecting.
I can control the outcome of most situations i choose to engage in, need all the help i can get on the other side of the coin.

I use Nanoweave all the time whenever I use a Flash to farm Infantry. I used to wear Flak but you're pretty much dead anyway if your Flash gets nailed with a AP round. At least with Nanoweave I can take some punishment when I get show by Infantry.

I think it's mainly psychology: more armor makes you feel safer. But the real effect on survivability is hard to measure.
Personally I use different types of suits and I feel they all have a purpose.

Nano armor cloaking obtained that, when the chameleon suit thing came out, i think anyway. Personally though, i dont think nanoweave is all that important, being an infiltrator i honestly never use it, as i find more use in i ether ammo pack or grenade bandolier

This.

It's no wonder players don't play combined arms but instead stick to one thing due to the cert system. I suppose if things wouldn't need to be unlocked but only upgraded so that people could at least select what they want to play with it would taste less salty for them to pick something else. Currently you're restricted from using stuff and that's a no to personal preference and situational equipment.

Questions:
Which infantry armor reduces area damage taken from ESF anti infantry noseguns ? (note: the area damage part, not direct hit damage part)
Does Flak armor also reduce direct tank shell hit damage taken and ESF guided rocket direct hit damage taken or simply not count ?

Flak armor atm stops a direct HE tank shell (if you didn't need more reasons not to use it currently) flak armor also reduces nosegun damage, thirdly direct hits from lol pods I'm on the fence. It stops the aoe making reaver pods an 8 aoe kill over a 4 aoe kill, but direct hits are 550 damage a pop, idk if its reduced or not.

Oh but next update, they will only do 167 on direct hit. So feel safe in that regard.

yes i know, it has a 100 health extra and with nano wave it's perfect for those encounters with HA's
love the thing in biolabs and 96+ battles, for all my other infill play i use the regular cloak
i can be wrong here but i think nano and armor give me a extra 4 to 8 bullets to soak up depending on distance
this can be a world of difference for the smg infill

before that update i also never used armor cloak but after the buff i tested a bit with it and liked it for CQC
the only negative is the duration of the cloak whits is hard to get used to after using the regular cloak for so long
it helped me a lot when i run behind that cover to bounce against that HA who was hiding there
or just when i get surprised in a 1vs1 front off
the suit can't be used to run and gun like other classes can, i still have to be that infill who uses surprise