Quicky Basic TR info for those w new alts

This is a quick bit of info regarding playing as TR to help those with new alts. It is an extremely rough draft, but I hope to save people certs and frustration scouring the web and friends for info only to find that most of it is dated(patched) or just flat out incorrect. I have highly ranked alts on all factions and in many cases am in the top 0.01% of players for weapon accuracy and kill rates so have a pretty solid understanding of game mechanics and practical implementation of them. For those curious




Please keep mind mind that many things in planetside DO NOT SCALE EVENLY WITH CERT INVESTMENT. The relative changes in things like composite 4 vs 3, vulcan mag size, tank buster mag size, reload speed, vanguard shield, etc can completely change the capabilities of a loadout!! TR weapons in general favor the lower skill levels because of the larger magazines and larger horizontal recoil and first shot multipliers send a lot of bullets out everywhere but exactly where the the pointer is. If your TR accuracy is much higher than your VS and it's not your first FPS...you're probably doing it wrong.

BEGINNING CERT INVESTMENT
Level 5 Medic Tool -> Dedicated medic revive grenades
Level 1 Tank Mines
Level 3-4 Repair Tool
Heavy Grounder G2A Launcher 250 Certs- This is the equivalent of the nemesis and its faster acceleration and overall speed make it much more reliable vs ZOE maxes, harassers, distant vehicles. It is essential when travelling in sundy/gal or holding points to be able to quickly deal with air threats and the rare instance that you had a bad zoe at full health standing close and still enough to 1 shot with a deci instead of grounder + gun to kill just isn't worth not having it.
AMS Sundy, Level 1 Mine guard
AI Harasser/Tank - Marauder 250 certs
Prowler Heat Ammo - easiest way to solo farm certs quickly, especially when attacking a place like regent rock.


Carbines -
faction specific trait +10 ammo - this helps greatly when hipfiring ADAD vs multiple people/shielded heavies
faction specific trait 0.75 ADS move multiplier - jaguar/lynx

The best carbine in the game for general purpose is the LC3-Jaguar and it's cheap(500certs)! Get it and enjoy! Adv laser(200 certs), softpoint(100), and your optic of choice(30) and you're good to go. The LC2-Lynx meager 50rof bonus is not worth the extra horizontal recoil. These two guns also have a faction bonus of 0.25 less starting hip COF.

Mid-long range specialty - T5 AMC.....but in most cases a jag with foregrip will still be more versatile and useful because the ranges at which the T5's differences start to shine the horizontal recoil is still too large to significantly reduce the kill time and sooner or later someone is going to pop up in your face where the Jag's superior hipfire will shine and at ADAD ads ranges the jag is ofc superior to all the other carbines.

If you want UBGL....then ofc all the usual UBGL stuff applies.

LMG - These are worse than VS counterparts, the tradeoff for having the above carbines.

General purpose - default Carv. Treat it like a SVA-88 that's a little bit worse(no ADS move bonus, more recoil).
CQB hipfiring - MSW-R. It's cheap! Adv laser sight and soft point. The advantage of this gun is the adv laser sight and softpoint ammo, however when ADS to the upper torso at midrange the much larger *random* kick to the right often causes 3rd and 4th bullets to be just to the side of an enemy's head. This is an Orion that's better from 10-15m but worse beyond.



Vulcan - It's a whole lot of fun!!!!!!!
It's also inferior to the Saron, Enforcer, and Halberd. Every good TR player I know prefers the Halberd for tryhard work but likes the vulcan for silliness and noob trolling. It is only forgiving vs single infantry being lazy spamming bullets in their general direction. A good player will kill infantry faster with a Saron/Enforcer. A while back the bullet type was changed to AP, nerfing it vs air and making it better vs armor and infantry. This change specifically makes magazine size a better upgrade than reload speed, even though it only adds 8 bullets on top of the default 60. If you hit all of your shots, it brings a non-blockade sundy kill time to 2 mags instead of 3, and kills armor from the rear in 1 instead of 2. If the armor turns at all or you miss just a few shots, you will have to reload and dump again, so it is often the case that you need to briefly pause to make sure that you're still getting rear shots to keep kill times as fast as possible instead of reloading with tank 3 bullets from death that kills you. The bloom is VERY LARGE. Unless at very close range or shooting at a fully exposed Sundy the kill times vs vehicles is quite poor because of the constant stopping and respinning.

Marauder 250 certs!- Great pure infantry farm with cover or friendly defense support. 3 hits to kill instead of 2 for Fury and half the damage vs vehicles(rarely worth bothering firing at them). It is a side grade over the Fury since the Fury/Bulldog can still beat lightnings, 1 clip libs and ESF, and kill sundy since the splash denies repair, but if you're ok totally giving up defenses, it's a lot of fun.


Tanks - Prowlers more than anything break SOE's 1+1 = 3 design balance. Lockdown and the increased dmg of AP in the last tank patch means two separate AP prowlers are usually much better than a single 2/2 tank. At high ranks of reload speed and lockdown, a single AP prowler will kill a lightning in 3 volleys. Accounting for server/client lag, the second volley is already in the air before the guy realizes he's been hit and to start moving and most can't retreat, even at max render. Add a second AP prowler, coordinate fire, and everything short of a fast reaction vanguard with shield available will be dead before they can do anything. The Prowler pro bundle gives AP and a Vulcan and is definitely worth the fun! Be mindful that the larger vertical hitbox makes it easier for people to shoot you in the back from awkward angles like AV harassers poking their gun over a hill.

The other large(and silly OP) difference with a Prowler is that with Heat(and HE) and lockdown, you can effectively solo shut down a choke point from infantry because the two shot splash kills infantry before they can try to run away if it was a shell from a Mag or Vanguard and high cert investment in lockdown and reload speed lets you spam it.

AP + Marauder combo is fun for dual roles, but HEAT + Vulcan is usually better because both still lose to dedicated AV tanks but the Vulcan helps you vs air and armor and most things the marauder can do so can the HEAT(though it runs out of ammo more quickly).


Mossy - the ESF have the same pitch/yaw/roll rates but the relative hitbox change when doing maneuvers is not the same due to their respective center axis and geometry. Twisting with all 3 axis whip the thin tail and body around to dodge people on your tail as you turn where doing the same with a scythe might actually give them the dreaded pancake hitbox. Avoid long range face to face battles with scythes because the smaller head on profile and rotary COF leaves you at a disadvantage, however the skill difference between pilots is usually so large this is rarely an issue. Reload speed is better than mag size for a mossy in the most recent game version.


Max - dual fractures are OP(so are zoe comets) but soon to be nerfed soon so I wouldn't invest in it unless you feel like blowing $14 for a couple weeks of luls. If going this route get the max bundle and the other arm so that you get 3 weapons instead of 2. 2 volleys of direct hit kill infantry and there isn't convergence/divergence so with lockdown you can snipe infantry reliably at max render(silly). The additional velocity of lockdown also makes it very effective vs air and it's better AA than bursters vs close/mid libs and gals.

The Mercy is the equivalent of the Blue Shift. Use Accordingly.

With lockdown dual pounders actually wreck close/mid range armor if you can compensate for the drop but they are poor vs infantry like the Vortek and diverge at longer ranges.

EDIT:

Sabre Medic AR- This is the AN-94 of BF3 where it shoots 2 shot bursts and the first bullet has 25% less recoil than normal. Clicking quickly this is the best AR in the game.........but it is broken with current game and FPS mechanics because if you click too quickly, it will skip a set so you only shoot 4 bullets instead of 6, and if you don't have extremely high framerates, the clicks stack inbetween frames/stutters and makes this more likely to happen. At ranges you don't spam click, it is still the best for controlled 2 shot bursts to the face.

 

Boss Mav. Thanks for this epic post.

For those who do not know- iLLmavic is UmAv on TR (his main). Check out his stats as credentials to see how dead on these tips/analyses are.

 

Amazing post, I'm this will help out a great deal of our members!

 

Great write up dude, thank you.

About the Prowlers.

I don't know if its a skill thing but I rarely get taken out by one even with a PC/Halebrt Magrider. I do dance around them quite a bit and most of the time I don't have Magburner because after all, TR=Strikers, so normally when I see a Prowler, I know that its free certs for me and my gunner.
Going head to head with one I would not recommend because I run Nanites and I am very squishy but still, with all that power, it doesn't seem like Prowlers are the FOTM type of thing.
What makes it worse in infantry fights is the fact that they're not as mobile as a Mag, but still maneuver better than the Vanguard.
It seems that a lot of TR players really depend on the deploy option that they have and tend to tunnelvision their targets without paying any attention to whats going on around them.
So is it TR = L2P or Mag > Prowler?

Good question isn't it?

 

I can't wait to start getting into the TR after I buy ALL the essentials.

 

Wait, are we playing TR now?

 

Yes

 

That means we must now get boners over the crown

 

VS standard IQ has lowered under TR level (hard to believe I know)

So we are taking a break

Edit: I hope this doesn't lower my IQ by playing as TR