I'm thinking about certing a heavy to be a storm trooper, with resist shield and nanoweave armour, what would be a good LMG for up close fights? I would probably use IRNV scope and a high capacity magazine is preferable, reading what people have said in another thread about 'an all around' LMG, i guess it's between the SVA-88, The Pulsar LSW and the Polaris for CQC?
^ The Orion is a pretty phenomenal weapon. There are better places to stick your certs than upgrading it. Though the true CQC weapon is the shotgun. Also, judging from your post I'm going to take a leap of faith and assume you're not terribly experienced. Read my "Why pull a HA if a Max is a available?" thread to see people's take on the HA. Taking resist shield & nanoweave armor will not turn you into tanky storm trooper. You will still be max fodder up close (unless you're NC of course). Lastly, Flak armor is far superior to nanoweave armor. With nanoweave, you're looking at a 25% upgrade to your health, which is 150 pts. The effect of a single bullet from an automatict, the effect is pretty minimal (even more useless at lesser ranks). On the other hand, 50% reduction to explosive damage can stop you being gibbed by tanks, aircraft, mines, grenades, and all other sorts of nasty things that go boom.
The Orion hands down, for CQC I'd go with a 1x scope and either a laser sight or grip. Pulsar LSW is ok, bigger mag but doesn't hold up on the DPS, same with the SVA-88 and that has significantly higher recoil and will flinch like a mfer, I've heard some people saying the Polaris with advanced laser is nice but personally the ROF is too big of a draw back for me. Would also echo the shout our for Flak, atm Nanoweave just straight up doesn't do much, even maxed out. I have Flak level 3 and it's saved my *** a few times now, can't say Nanoweave ever really did (level 4 before I switched to Flak). Resist is a good call though. Last up, get restoration or med kits certed, maybe C4 but go with med or rezz kits first..
I'd say go for the Flare If you want storm trooper style room clearing, then I'd say the Flare is better suited for it than the Orion Although Orion's ttk is faster than the Flare, it is limited by it's smaller magazine.
Seconded on the med kit rush. Early on you have to think about the effect per cert. Sticking a forward grip or laser sight on your Orion is nice, but the effect is nowhere near as good as sticking those 100 certs in a HR/NV scope/medkit, or buffing resist shield/flak armor. This follows with upgrading from the Orion, it's so strong, there are just more effective places to drop your certs.
I find the smaller mag isn't a huge problem, the reload speed is phenomenal. If you're good enough to be clearing a room with the flare, then you're good enough to be getting 2-3 kills per mag out of the Orion. Toss in grenade use & you should be able to drop a sizable amount in one clip. I don't think you'll get anything better than that (at least not in a world of balance). Sidenote: If you're a compulsive reloader (I know I am), the Orion is fantastic due to its fast reload speed. If you're a compulsive ADSer (as I tend to be, trying to break the habit), the .75x move speed on the Orion is a huge place. [If you can't tell I have huge boner for the Orion. Even if I didn't, I think it's beyond debate that while there might be marginally better guns, you'll see more improvement using those certs in other places.)
Thanks for the replies guys. I'm inexperienced with HA, otherwise i'm Rank 31 and mainly play Engineer and a bit of Medic. I already have the universal med kit, but flak armour over nanoweave in CQC situations? I have level 5 nanoweave on my engineer and ok there isn't a massive difference, but do you encounter as many explosions in CQC compared with bullets? Sylvan i read your thread on "Why pull a HA if a Max is a available?" and I have to agree with the guys that listed the cons, I find the Max a bit slow and clunky, I'm more accustomed to supporting Maxes rather than using them. Looks like i'll go with the Orion!
Orion. I like using it after using the Guass SAW for a while. Huge change up and it dirt naps everything pretty nicely too.
There are certainly more explosions in CQC, but you'll still primarily die to bullets. The difference is, 25% bonus health is going to make a difference a lot less often than 50% flak armor.
Best CQC weapon for a semi-new vanu heavy? Orion, no contest. Flak VS nanoweave: I have rank 4 of both and i run with nanoweave, since i for some reason very rarely get killed by explosives. But it does depend on your playing style i perfer smaller battles or flanking.
Granades, rockets, Maxes with the anti armour arm attached, C4, Claymours, anti personnel mines and depending on where you're fighting you could even run into rocket pods, zephrs & daltons, tank rounds... hell even anti armour base turrets. Flak won't let you survive direct hits from most of these things (basically the C4, Claymours and AP mines are the exception... maybe grenades, not sure though) but the splash won't do as much. It's up to you really, but since certing up to Flak 3 if I step on a AP mine or Claymour it takes me down to about 4 bars, I med kit and shield up, good to go again.
I prefer Nanoweave; The one strongpoint of Flak, outside of AT duty, is that it stacks additively with Resist shield; On level 5, that's 90% damage resistance to explosives, aka 10k effective hp; However, it depends on your fighting style. The faster you kill, the more susceptible you are to oneshotkills and being whittled down by indirect fire; On the other hand, Resist shield also scales with Nanoweave, if you take 45% less bullet damage, then level 5 nanoweave might help you survive another 3-4 bullets, instead of 1-2. There's plenty of Heavy Shield threads for that.
