My thoughs on ZOE

[Badjuju]

As a TR player, ZOE is not OP in my opinion. The damage increase is a direct trade off for the decreased in durability. Yes they put out a ton of damage, but you can also burn them down quickly. It is the speed increase which really makes the ZOE shine, and provides a legitimate trade off for giving up sprint. This is something I cannot say for any other ability, which I believe is the problem.

The NC shield is ok. There is some tactical use to it but I can't justify giving up sprint for it. Maxes biggest vulnerability are their lack of mobility. Because of this, sprint is an incredible defensive ability which you are gauranteed to find a use for in any fight. Whether you took an unexpected rocket, over extended, or your getting the call out for a pesky LA hovering above you, it will save your hide time and time again. It also is a very strong offensive tool for NC, allowing you to instantly close a gap and dish out the pain.

I think we all can agree that lock down is laughable as predicted. It compounds a maxes biggest weekness and leaves them begging to be dismembered by any method the attacker chooses. It doesn't matter how much damage you do when you can't escape the death constantly being hurled at your face. I actually had a similar idea to evil pig here. Instead of lock down it may be interesting to play with an ability which gave the TR max a several second drastic increase in ROF which cannot be stopped once activated. If necessary maybe slow the max during the process or slow it during a spool up (which would be loud to give it away) and have it briefly stop to brace itself at the peak of the burst to add a timing element. Just an idea that sounds more useful and fun than lock down. Back on track, the issue with lock down is that you not only give up the incredibly underrated ability sprint, you are immobilized even further on top of that. The damage increase just does not make up for your succeptability to death.

It all comes down to a lack of options. VS has two very effective abilities to choose from, one which is very shiny and fun to use. NC and TR on the other hand have sprint, incredibly effective and underrated but shared by all factions so no shiny factor there. Their unique abilities have some shiny factor but they are simply sub par to sprint.

Two great abilities give the VS max versatility, making it the best max right now and most fun for me personally. But I wouldn't go as far to call it OP. Instead of changing ZOE, I would take a look at improving the other factions max abilities.