Cease
2003-08-11, 06:45 PM
I've picked up the Pounder cert, again, recently and thought I'd post some of my thoughts. You can agree, disagree, or whatever. Im by no means an expert, but I thought I'd share.
A max pounder is hands down one of the most effective Anti-Infantry weapons in the game. But a Max is not a solo machine. To maximize your potential, you should have the proper "support" grunts with you. Not just enigneers, but you'll see what I mean as I explain.
Locking Down
I'll probably start off with the tip that will garner the most disagreements. My view on locking down, is unless you have a dedicated engineer behind you, locking down isn't a really good idea. You're just too easy of a target for anyone with any sort of AV. Not to mention its pretty easy for someone to surge out of your locked down firing arc. You are severly limiting yourself if you lockdown, so make sure you got someone who can keep your armor in shape if you decided to do it.
Enemy Maxes
Despite what the enemy will say, the Max Pounder isn't good vs enemy maxes. You have 30 rounds. If you face off vs a full health Max, you will go through a reload or two to take them out. And most enemy max users know that the Pounders biggest weakness is its own splash damage. So they will make a beeline to get right in your face. Depending on what Max you face off, and what sort of support you have with you, will depend on what you want to do.
As a general rule you want to leave the enemy maxes to your AV guys. In the common scenario of a Max with grunts following them, just ignore the max and concentrate on wiping out the grunts. Classic examples are in tower battles and trying to get into spawn rooms. Do what your best at... taking out grunts. Plus a grunt with a Decimator can take you out faster than any enemy max can.
Grief
Before I picked my Pounder cert back up, I had gone on a little TK binge on someone that liked TK'n our Outfit members. After I was all said and done with him I had about 600 grief. My grief is now down to about 65. You can use a Pounder and not be a grief machine. You just gotta let those idiots that cut you off to get in the room first get killed by the Jackhammers and Lashers... let them die to the enemy and then go in behind them and clean up that they left off. You will get grief from time to time, but just use your head and you won't have any problems.
General Tips
- Audio Implant is one of the best compliments to a Max Pounder. With the ability to see the enemy coming, and good use of the secondary fire mode, you can often kill some enemy before they even see you. If you use the Max Pounder a lot, you really should pick up this implant.
- One trick I really like to do is clearing out base spawn rooms being camped by the enemy. You need to have a tower nearby for this to happen. And since you probably died once or twice in the room, you should have a good idea of what sort of numbers are in there. But what I will do is spawn at a nearby tower, grab my max, and then de-con and re-con back to the base spawn room. Come out of the tubes firing and keep moving. Don't make their job of hitting you back easier. And again, if there is an enemy max in there, ignore him till you take out all the grunts 1st. A good compliment to this trick is having a support grunt doing the same thing as you did, but have him about 10 seconds behind you. Clear out all the grunts and let your support guy come in and take out any maxes(that will most certainly be concentrating on you) and also repair you. But you have to know what your going up against. This works great when for those times when there are like 5 people camping it and one max. This doesnt work when you got 15 grunts and 4 maxes in there.
-Be careful when firing down hallways, and especially if you got grunts following close behind you. The Max Pounder can get flaky in hallways and you can end up doing a ton of damage to the folks right behind you. Its not wise to spend much time in hallways anyway. Just makes an enemy grunts job easier to hit you with AV weaponry.
- Dont be predictable. I really don't like the typical spots maxes stand. A good example of this is the base CCs. Many maxes stand right in front or next to it. Doors are generally right there, making it pretty easy for a grunt to duck in and out, or run through while hitting you with an AV weapon. Often times you can catch them off guard by not being the the predictable places most maxes post themselves. And I might add that this is another handy thing about the Audio Amp. With the Audio Amp you dont have to be sitting on the CC in order to know someone is trying to get in there.
A max pounder is hands down one of the most effective Anti-Infantry weapons in the game. But a Max is not a solo machine. To maximize your potential, you should have the proper "support" grunts with you. Not just enigneers, but you'll see what I mean as I explain.
Locking Down
I'll probably start off with the tip that will garner the most disagreements. My view on locking down, is unless you have a dedicated engineer behind you, locking down isn't a really good idea. You're just too easy of a target for anyone with any sort of AV. Not to mention its pretty easy for someone to surge out of your locked down firing arc. You are severly limiting yourself if you lockdown, so make sure you got someone who can keep your armor in shape if you decided to do it.
Enemy Maxes
Despite what the enemy will say, the Max Pounder isn't good vs enemy maxes. You have 30 rounds. If you face off vs a full health Max, you will go through a reload or two to take them out. And most enemy max users know that the Pounders biggest weakness is its own splash damage. So they will make a beeline to get right in your face. Depending on what Max you face off, and what sort of support you have with you, will depend on what you want to do.
As a general rule you want to leave the enemy maxes to your AV guys. In the common scenario of a Max with grunts following them, just ignore the max and concentrate on wiping out the grunts. Classic examples are in tower battles and trying to get into spawn rooms. Do what your best at... taking out grunts. Plus a grunt with a Decimator can take you out faster than any enemy max can.
Grief
Before I picked my Pounder cert back up, I had gone on a little TK binge on someone that liked TK'n our Outfit members. After I was all said and done with him I had about 600 grief. My grief is now down to about 65. You can use a Pounder and not be a grief machine. You just gotta let those idiots that cut you off to get in the room first get killed by the Jackhammers and Lashers... let them die to the enemy and then go in behind them and clean up that they left off. You will get grief from time to time, but just use your head and you won't have any problems.
General Tips
- Audio Implant is one of the best compliments to a Max Pounder. With the ability to see the enemy coming, and good use of the secondary fire mode, you can often kill some enemy before they even see you. If you use the Max Pounder a lot, you really should pick up this implant.
- One trick I really like to do is clearing out base spawn rooms being camped by the enemy. You need to have a tower nearby for this to happen. And since you probably died once or twice in the room, you should have a good idea of what sort of numbers are in there. But what I will do is spawn at a nearby tower, grab my max, and then de-con and re-con back to the base spawn room. Come out of the tubes firing and keep moving. Don't make their job of hitting you back easier. And again, if there is an enemy max in there, ignore him till you take out all the grunts 1st. A good compliment to this trick is having a support grunt doing the same thing as you did, but have him about 10 seconds behind you. Clear out all the grunts and let your support guy come in and take out any maxes(that will most certainly be concentrating on you) and also repair you. But you have to know what your going up against. This works great when for those times when there are like 5 people camping it and one max. This doesnt work when you got 15 grunts and 4 maxes in there.
-Be careful when firing down hallways, and especially if you got grunts following close behind you. The Max Pounder can get flaky in hallways and you can end up doing a ton of damage to the folks right behind you. Its not wise to spend much time in hallways anyway. Just makes an enemy grunts job easier to hit you with AV weaponry.
- Dont be predictable. I really don't like the typical spots maxes stand. A good example of this is the base CCs. Many maxes stand right in front or next to it. Doors are generally right there, making it pretty easy for a grunt to duck in and out, or run through while hitting you with an AV weapon. Often times you can catch them off guard by not being the the predictable places most maxes post themselves. And I might add that this is another handy thing about the Audio Amp. With the Audio Amp you dont have to be sitting on the CC in order to know someone is trying to get in there.