MAX weapons, effectiveness against targets

[phungus]

I fourth faction and play MAXes a decent amount, since that's the optimal thing to do when my ESF is down. I'm not a MAX expert, there are those with many more hours, but they've pretty much taken over as my heavy assault, so I use them quite a bit. I don't have any of the new AV weapons on my MAXes, but have been killed by them plenty to have a rough idea of how effective they are. Here is my general take on things:

NS Burster:
AI: OK (on the verge of being bad in light of GU11 changes)
AV: terrible (none to armor, OK damage to light vehicles)
AA: Good (used to excellent, but they clearly are inferior to skyguards and base turrets now)

---
NC MAX
AI weapons: OK (excellent CQC, terrible mid range and further)
Falcons:
AI - Bad
AV - Good
AA - terrible
Ravens:
AI - OK
AV - Good (maybe excellent?)
AA - Bad

-----------
TR MAX
AI weapons: Good
Pounders:
AI - Bad
AV - OK (on the verge of being good, can be situationally good)
AA - terrible
Fractures
AI - Good
AV - Excellent
AA - Bad

------------
VS MAX
AI weapons: Good
Comets:
AI - Good
AV - Good
AA -Bad
Vortex? (no one ever uses this, hard to judge it)
AI - terrible
AV - Good
AA - Bad?




My conclusion is the Comets are feaking awesome. Falcons could be awesome if their projectile speed was improved just slightly. Fractures are just too good, their velocity is too fast for how hard they hit.

[Chewy]

Even though it looks like NC MAXes got another nerf from just the lower numbers, I think something might be right with them. Or at least feels right for the Mattock.

Today was DVS "what the fuck did they do?" day. Basically mess around with the changes and see just how things work now. And my time as a NC MAX with dual Mattocks felt fucking great. I haven't done any of the tests or math yet but from just a personal feeling it feels like the Mattocks are damn weapons to be feared.

With the 350 res cost I played as smart as I could to keep my MAXes as long as possible. I had to think about if using a C4 or revive grenade was worth not being able to pull a MAX. What damage I could do against other MAXes and vehicles made an impact on the enemy. Don't know if it was just a lucky day, the changes, or a settings tweak I did today but my Mattock MAX kicked ass! Only pulled maybe 3-4 MAXes total and each lasted for MUCH longer than before.

Can't say anything for the other NC MAX AI weapons but the 2 meter shift in the Mattocks range feels like it did something. Even if they now do only 70*6 while limp now.

[MrMak]

Bursters......merley ok pre against aircraft pre gu11......imma stop you right there. What are you smoking?

Pre GU11 they were the single most effective form of AA in the god damn game. NOW you can say they are OK.

[PredatorFour]

The comets are great fun to use. I'd like to see more of the vortex tho like you say, hardly anyone uses them. I guess that's because they're crap against infantry (the reason i went with comets

[phungus]

Originally Posted by MrMak

Bursters......merley ok pre against aircraft pre gu11......imma stop you right there. What are you smoking?

Pre GU11 they were the single most effective form of AA in the god damn game. NOW you can say they are OK.

No I said bursers were "good" at AA duty, but they are also OK at AI duty.

[Rbstr]

The Vortex, being basically the lancer, can actually hit aircraft in a number of circumstances that regular rockets can't. Damage falloff, though, makes it much less effective than the lancer - which I often get a Lib or ESF vulture-kill with. The weakest by far of the new AV max weaponry (...Largely because the other two are AV+AI).

I agree that Comets are good, especially anti-max - maybe a bit too effective against infantry. And they do decent damage to close or stationary vehicles, it's far too slow to be effective at range.
But the Fractures are way better. Tons of AV DPS at longer ranges (Extreme ranges, with Lockdown), good AI damage that stacks with a screenshake which makes them an absolutely infuriating gun to go against.