After recently jumping into T3, I now know the Truth ! :fed010:
T3 Guards specially The Crusader is more useless then Templar S which has increased rail speed + decreased spread , 35% or so …
A nice guard is Crus S comparing to the Tempalr but you must take into account that the fights are going to be with higher ranked ships … so the advantage of having the extra 10% shield resists will be lowered by the extra damage and overall power of higher oponents…
The guards will be more efficient not around T3 but from Rank 12 up T4 when you can put the Implant which gives a boost to damage or shield when the speed is lower then 50% … then you can say that guards will be more efficient … but untill then you have 9 ranks to go out of 15.
Considering that most of the player base is at lower ranks and the mojority dont play in squads or coordinate over voice over…
Guards are easy targets for any 2 small fast ships.
Furthermore – the missile interdictor is useless, as most players will fit shiedl regen, shield resist, and the second shield regenerator on most cases.
The only good weapon of a guard is the pulsar but this module also has its flows… as it reloads slow and deals small damage (thermal damage which most of the ships have resist agains.)
You forgot about the main problem of the guard: lack of mobility. It is not 0.8-0.9.5 anymore, where guards and frigballs were still undeniably powerful. After all the nerfbats struck, they are now a balanced class that is very hard to play well, but still cannot be as efficient as other roles in competitive play can be in this metagame. So, lack of mobility being the main problem, combined with lack of firepower compared to other ships. Guards’ utility is situational. It is not enough, and easy to avoid. Your slow movement will not allow you to cope against an efficient, fast moving enemy team with more agile tactics. Also, their firepower will be greater and more adaptable because their faster movement allows easier use of terrain. The theory you have about the R12 implant and guard staying still does not work in practice. You never stay still against good teams, your response has to be fast. Unless maybe it’s a combat recon - that could be the only situation, that this class could be useful in both defense or offense, but it is rarely seen used as offense (the only team ever doing this tactic that I saw was NASA). At least with the latest nerf to spy drones and healing, guards are at a little better place for now, but can still be pressured very fast under the power of a powerhouse killer/objective team. The guard’s modules are very useful, but they were nerfed too much to a point they’re almost useles, combined with their survivability nerf and slow speed, it is just bad right now, and I think both the modules and resistance needs improvement.
I still find uses for a guard especially against Fed heavy teams using adaptive shields to tank. I still prefer tanking with buffer/multiphase adapter over resists…that 42k of shields lets me shrug off some dmg while moving into module range.
Sometimes pushing straight into the middle of the enemy team who’s bunkered up behind an asteroid is the best tactic. It sends them running off in all directions in a crazy panic while your team mops up the enemies separated from the group. Blitzreig ftw!!
Also don’t forget proper use of the phase shield gives you a 25% dmg boost.
As I said, against average pilots without advanced tactical organisation, any ship class can work well. I am just doubting it has any kind of serious potential for high ranked competitive play. I, for sure, would not bring it in any of my setups as of now.
At this moment the main problem in the game is the huge survivability discrepancy between light attack craft (ie interceptors) and heavy ships (ie eng frigates and guards). When you die repeatedly to achieve an objective it is not fun. Not in the current game build where you are better off farming assists and buffs.
Although Star Conflict is a team based game the fact that some classes have 5-10 times the chance of survival over others is just plain wrong. Consider class based FPS games where you have assault, medic, engineer and scout. Each of these classes has critical team roles but any one of them could stand up to itself in 1v1. This is not the case in Star Conflict.
Further observations confirm the issue when you look at current PvE games where heavy ships are the preferred choice. In 10 PvE games I saw only 1 light ship (ie interceptor). That’s 1 out of 40 players which is 2.5%. Why? Is it harder to fly a light ship against the AI in PvE than it is against a real player in PvP? It all comes down to survivability and light ships are just too weak with the latest patch changes.
The problem with pve and interceptors is that the bots got perfect aim which is quite bad for your health if they also have lasers. Frigates on the other hand can shrug off the dmg and keep shooting their heavy blaster.
As for pvp the situation will clear up once they finally balance the hull tanking.
If a guard has super high passive resists for shield, and then activates the phase shield to the corresponding damage type, it gains 150 pts of damage. This much is very common knowledge. However, that 150 is made more and more useless the higher the tier, as each additional point means less. A guard with all 0 resists (pretty much impossible, but it’s an example) would perform quite well with the phase shield, as the ship is most likely flying with low-tiered, low resist enemies. The truth is that guards have over 100 pts. of resists sometimes, and the 150 buff makes the total about 250 pts of resist. This is nice, but it’s less useful than the 0 resist improvement.
I’d like to see a system that uses the power of the incoming damage to add shield strength/recharge the shields slightly. Right now, guards don’t have the weapon dps to take advantage of the damage increase. It helps, but it’s next to useless against the experienced player. Being able to tank more damage as a guard is immensely important, as they are a high-risk ship that is almost immediately focus fired from multiple ships of multiple damage types. I’m just tired of seeing guards be practically useless in the face of deathsquads.
Further observations confirm the issue when you look at current PvE games where heavy ships are the preferred choice. In 10 PvE games I saw only 1 light ship (ie interceptor). That’s 1 out of 40 players which is 2.5%. Why? Is it harder to fly a light ship against the AI in PvE than it is against a real player in PvP? It all comes down to survivability and light ships are just too weak with the latest patch changes.
Two PvE missions somewhat favor interceptors. Pirate base and Secret shipyard raid. You also have to look at DPS, and interceptors just don’t have it compared to fighters and frigates. Most of the PvE missions are smaller area, not a giant map where you need to travel 15km. The speed of an interceptor isn’t that much of a help in most PvE missions.
What isn’t useless in front of a deathsquad?
Covert Ops self destruct? It’ll take you like three minutes to respawn.
I remember a time where the Suicide module on a covert ops where OP if you knew how to use it. Back then I would kill a guard with over 45K survivalblity in less then 7 seconds.
I shall walk you threw what I did in the Stoned Assassins (STA) a while back. I was called the “Frigate killer”. This where I accidentally made the Covert Ops class at a time where there was no class distinction.
Swoop in there solo or with a buddy to distract while under Camo.
Once the enemy team blows up your shields or the frigate takes them down.
Your emergency barrier (which would last 3 seconds) would allow you to drop a minefield (or nuke) and self destruct right after. making the guard go down to near last bit of hull and then after his own EB went out, he would get hit with the mine or nuke. Thus I would do nearly 100% of the damage.
this technique worked nearly 98.9% of the time when I faced a frigate captain. Only 76.8% when facing a fighter as the captain.
