[Video] The BEAST of the BIOLAB | an NC Max montage | Slug ammo discussion

They seriously don't happen as often as you think.

I have an uncanny memory for times I had buckshot and died to someone who was 15m away because I couldn't do **** to them, though.

My Mattocks have 23 and 25% accuracy, which while not impressive is actually the best accuracy of every infantry gun I own and use. Their combined kills per minute is ~1, with my next highest weapon being a .6 (THE MIGHTY GAUSS SAW), which is impressive considering I'm often in my MAX suit running to other fights because I'm too cheap to just pull another one

They can be deadly accurate and has been mentioned, no other weapon lets you double headshot some chump who is just standing there motionless at 30m because "oh it's a shotgun max har har"

You never expect a NC MAX to kill you with slugs from 30m..... ;-;

One got me as a TR LA the other day. Should've seen it coming but it's hardwired into my head to see those shotgun arms and roll my eyes. I pressed 3 in preparation for a flyover and it just looked up at a me and BLAM headshot. I recommend you try it from the other side it's great fun!

Yeah if you're careful when you use them they'll have reasonable accuracy, but double heatshotting at 30m isn't something you can do skillwise, it's down to chance (unlike with say a normal shotgun with slugs and ADS).

Plus accuracy can be a strange measure because, for example, with Blueshifts you may well be much more likely to go for shots you wouldn't even consider with Mattocks due to the range.

As I've said I think slugs are the least worse option, it's just that they are basically a weak version of TR/VS weapons in most situations.

But it's so fun to remember!
That being said, having switched to slugs I cannot see why I should swtich back anyway: up close they still work great, and being able to do some actual damage when I manage to hit something from farther that 5m makes it up for the random element when shooting slugs.

I use them all the time and magdump constantly in any situation where I'm in no real danger e.g. sniper on the ridge 200m out. My accuracy being that high is honestly shocking to me but now that I think about it I don't really miss many shots in the 0-30m that most of my engagements take place in.

I'd love an actual machine gun option, I'd also love railguns and high alpha/high reload **** that isn't NS because it sells really well and a Mass Driver ESRL, but these things are never going to happen.

Honestly if the Mattocks were changed to slug only and had their mag size and ammo reserve boosted to 30-40 I'd be in love. 30 would match the damage per mag of the Cosmos and 40 would exceed it but at the cost of MUCH worse dps and ROF. Slow firing, low dps, but heavy hitting? Boy that'd be a nice faction trait to get back to

Sadly, I have better luck with 1 arm being slugs and the other being buckshot. As buckshot takes shields down pretty fast and I can place a shot of slug for the kill....

However....

Like I have said before, slugs hit everything but what you aim at. If slugs behaved like slugs IRL, you could kill people effectively at 40-60m with dead on accuracy.

I understand for gameplay balance this would be grossy OP, but I get so sick of hearing TR and VS say "Use slugs LOL!" "NC MAX IS INSANE LOL!"..... I play all 3 empires, I do well in a Scatmax when my targets are fodder that I could have killed just as easy as infantry.

The things I do in a ZOE I would be dead in an instant with a Mercy/Mattock MAX.

Honestly I feel the Mercy and Scat nerf was to quell the flood of VS tears and ZOE to make up for it, though the VS max has never been terrible. They just tried to play it like the NC Max.

Frankly everything feels pretty ****** after playing my Mutilator MAX for awhile, but slugs are at least unique and can be a ton of fun.

Plus, let's not fool ourselves, dual gauss arms are never coming. We aren't getting anything but what we've got until they decide to release NS-11C arms for all MAXes

to be fair if you want to kill anything more than 30 meters away you need to use some 3000 points as TR as well.(2x 1000 for the weapons and 500 for eatch extended mag.
and anything abovev 30 meters is pretty much spray and pray even if you got the weapon for distance its like 1 of 5 bullets that you can hope thats on target.


And then you get a weapon thats completely useless on anything under 30 meters.
Since an HA will pretty much do more damage than you.
And only time a TR MAX can supress is when you spray some door

Best ranged option for a TR max is fractures without compare
And they have just been nerfed as anti infantry........and isent really that good as AV, atleast a solid tank gunner will mostly have no problems with a singel MAX.
Were he can easy have problems with a HA

80% of my kill with a TR with some kind of minigun is within 0-20 meters
and i just gave up on the mercy....damnage just to bad for a max and its still a spray and pray weapon despite being a ranged weapon.
And damage output is rather bad.

atleast i like the mutilator or onslaught much better since mostly its cqc with a MAX anyways.
If you try and use it as a ranged weapon your probably doing it wrong.

Only time i want to be at range with a max is when i meet a NC MAX.
And any decent NC MAX will just seek cover knowing i have to come to him
And thats just a death sentence.

Mutilator a better deal to be honest since they nerfed the damage on the onslaught.
and the massive ammount of ammo and never having to reload and damage is pretty much the same if you got extended mags.
Since the RPM is not counting reloads as faar as i can tell.

I just can't believe they haven't at least narrowed CoF with Slugs. Or just added a PS1 choked mode to some of the weapons.

Well it's the 0m TTK which suffers, so that 0.3 second non-advantage becomes even less so.

But yes really you are still better off using slugs.

All I have to unlock for my max now is the final level of auto-repair and slugs. Wasn't planning to get slugs, though. I tried a slug on one of my dual Mattocks cannons, but wasn't impressed. I found that I killed more red/purple vermin with good ol' tried and true pellets.

Perhaps I'll give slugs on my Scatters a try down the road...

As for which are the best Max shotguns, I dig the Mattock and Grinder. I don't bother with Hacksaws or Scatters anymore. I'll come back to them once I've got auraxium on the others, I suppose.

Yes, we do need something for mid-range AI. Mattocks just don't have enough range. I hope SOE gives us some type of machine gun or... railgun?

However, the other day, I used dual Falcons in a tower defense. OMG did they ever kick butt. I kept firing those suckers into a pile of TR. All that splash damage really widdled 'em down. I was getting multiple kills with some shots.

wrong, you can test this, i actually did test it a couple of months ago.

Nebula/Onslaught/Hacksaws (the three empire specific fast weapons) they all share similar TTKs up to 30m and then NC fall well behind. at 40m the hacksaws missed every shot.

in total the only difference is that TR/VS have far larger magazines letting them fire 3x longer than the NC, and also have shorter reloads.
also the onslaught and nebula were entirely default while the hacksaws needed slug ammo or they'd have been far behind after the 10m mark.

TL;DR NC have the weakest AI

I love my Aegis, but ZOE is the best Max ability. They let the VS crush ANYTHING at any range. Only a heavily certed NC max can beat one (within 10m, of course).

The Fractures are the best AV (Ravens a close second). I've never used them but I've seen what they can do. They easily make up for TR getting shafted with lock-down.

Sadly the randomness kills NC MAX for me. I'd rather have buckshots have 100 pellets doing less damage, so the damage is guaranteed within the crosshair - it only needs to happen once when I fire blast at a stationary soldier and draw his outline on the wall for me to feel that it's not even slightly fun to use.

Slugs are even worse, in that the drawing effect takes the whole clip to be obvious. It's not likely, I know, and I never have a <1 K/D with MAXs, but it's still just boring.

Falcons were basically NC mid ranged AI weapons, they still are after a fact after their change (although they are getting an AI nerf soon), the problem is they simply don't compare AI-wise to say Fractures (or genuine AI weapons) in most situations, but you'll definately still get kills if there's clumps of fairly stationary enemy.

Never liked the slugs. If the first shot was center like the godsaw then they would be ok, but nope sometimes the first shot is outside the crosshairs. Shoot 3-4 times without a second pause and your guaranteed to miss.

I have done far better with Ravens, you can even hit the moving Infantry and behind cover. Sure it takes a couple shots with direct hits or half a dozen close hits but i have killed 10x the number of infantry with them as slugs. Some at 200m+ and on a biolab landing pad they are brutal as hell. Not to mention at the same time, out at open bases i can take out Armor rather fast and even hit lolpodders and lazy libs.

Remove slug COF nerf and they are viable. Or at least reduce it. Until then i will just keep using the Ravens. (which under 10-20m you have to aim slightly to side to kill infantry but if i expect a lot them to get that close its shotgun time). They are not Fracturers but they still work better than slugs.

A clip with all the reloads will be almost as long as this.

Slugs are too random to be any fun. I consider myself above average in skill and I always know when I can kill people with infantry weapons in games but with a NC Max equipped with slugs it's too much "eh?", "what the fuuu..", "come on!!", etc .

Ravens? Well i don't own them but seriously... whas trying TR 2 days ago, waiting for a good biolab battle to do the video of the TR MAX, and pulled a prowler.... Sorry but at least on my end Raves were a joke.

They are so slow that i could easily dodge them, and when the MAX tried to make the Ravens come to my tank with his aim i shoot and killed them.

A slow projectile with a somewhat slow RoF is so easy to dodge that unless the MAX where like at 5 meters always they never connected.

By the way i was surprised how much more easier is to be a tank as a TR. in 4hours of game play i lost only 2 tanks. whiile playing most of time with it.

Seriously it's not even funny to see how useless the NC AV weapons are.

Phoenix has limited range and since i'm a experienced user i know what they can do and what they can't do.
Ravesn are slow and very easy to locate the MAX.
Vanguard was a threat but wasn't even funny to see how the Strikers crushed them, at a point that in 5 h of gameplay i literally only had to deal with 4.
Reaver? They were more busy fleeing from striker then actually bothering me.

The only 2 things that could me give any problems were: AV turret outside the range distance and hotdroppers.

Both are a problem to my NC character too, and as a Prowler i felt like it was way easier to deal with it, since i had the speed to flee and a second shoot in case i missed the first.

PS: About dealing with VANU, nothing new: Lancers outside of the render distance still a pain, ZOE max still crushing you with his ADADADAD. But this time the sky was clear, WAY more clear.