DUST Search - Diary of a Novice Forge Gunner

DJINN Riot wrote:

Piercing Serenity wrote:

I was actually inspired by Maken Tosch's journey from a novice ninja to the shinobi (I guess?) he is now. Which is rare. I'm not easily moved by words, and even less so from someone who I know so little about. But Tosch's posted hit a DUST nerve and convinced me to do a little refocusing of my own.

Just for the record - I'm *really* not trying to steal any of Maken Tosch's thunder or be some kind of wannabe groupie. I just though the idea was very elegant and personable. It reminded me that there are still regular people out there in the forums outside of the trolls who like to make a mess of things. I respected that, and wanted to give it a shot myself.

After watching Noc Tempre and his squad go 121 - 0 in a match and the resulting thread leading to "Skill more heavily into AV", I figured it was time to Put up or Shut up. Maybe Noc was right. Maybe it is really possible to fight vehicles on even terms with some focused skills. I might even owe him an apology. At any rate, I created two new fittings - Piercing Blast for my forge gun and Piercing Gaze for the sniper fit that *might* see some action.

Day 1:

So I just got signed in and got through all of the pop up screens (there should be an option in the neocom to skip the tutorials) and started spending some skill points. I'm only interested in the forge gun because it's the counter I've heard so much about, so I got weaponry to level 5 and forge gun operation to level 2. I'm starting out with a basic forge gun and a sub-machine gun fitting.

This is SO different from the assault rifle I use with Serenity. The range and splash is nice. It feels good to one shot people milling about instead of fighting to make every bullet count with my AR. This forge has so little ammo though. I don't know how you guys make it without any equipment.

I took out my first LAV today. i think it was militia grade, so no big ups yet. Still, it felt good to see that explode. Dropships are coming up next.

I'm planning on sticking to the basic forge for a while. I'm hoping it will force me to get really good to squeeze in he kills, and it will save me a lot of money. I'm only making 100,000 or so a game, so I need everything I can get. I also don't know how heavies fill up their CPU and PG. Even in this militia fitting with mostly militia gear, i still have about 40% of my total space left.

That's it for now. I'm about to sign on and do some for work with this. Wish me luck

PSN: PiercingSereniy
Country: U.S
Class: Assault, Heavy
Corp: Shattered Ascension {SH4T]

From an advanced forge gunner to a fledgeling, dont waste your points. Invest your points in a Rail Tank, they are much more effective at taking out vehicles and surviving. A suped up tank will one shot you, regardless how many points you put into defense. At least will be able to one shot the tank, if you are driving one yourself.


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Piercing Serenity Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 181	Posted - 2012.11.16 18:29:00 - [1] - Quote I was actually inspired by Maken Tosch's journey from a novice ninja to the shinobi (I guess?) he is now. Which is rare. I'm not easily moved by words, and even less so from someone who I know so little about. But Tosch's posted hit a DUST nerve and convinced me to do a little refocusing of my own. Just for the record - I'm really not trying to steal any of Maken Tosch's thunder or be some kind of wannabe groupie. I just though the idea was very elegant and personable. It reminded me that there are still regular people out there in the forums outside of the trolls who like to make a mess of things. I respected that, and wanted to give it a shot myself. After watching Noc Tempre and his squad go 121 - 0 in a match and the resulting thread leading to "Skill more heavily into AV", I figured it was time to Put up or Shut up. Maybe Noc was right. Maybe it is really possible to fight vehicles on even terms with some focused skills. I might even owe him an apology. At any rate, I created two new fittings - Piercing Blast for my forge gun and Piercing Gaze for the sniper fit that might see some action. Day 1: So I just got signed in and got through all of the pop up screens (there should be an option in the neocom to skip the tutorials) and started spending some skill points. I'm only interested in the forge gun because it's the counter I've heard so much about, so I got weaponry to level 5 and forge gun operation to level 2. I'm starting out with a basic forge gun and a sub-machine gun fitting. This is SO different from the assault rifle I use with Serenity. The range and splash is nice. It feels good to one shot people milling about instead of fighting to make every bullet count with my AR. This forge has so little ammo though. I don't know how you guys make it without any equipment. I took out my first LAV today. i think it was militia grade, so no big ups yet. Still, it felt good to see that explode. Dropships are coming up next. I'm planning on sticking to the basic forge for a while. I'm hoping it will force me to get really good to squeeze in he kills, and it will save me a lot of money. I'm only making 100,000 or so a game, so I need everything I can get. I also don't know how heavies fill up their CPU and PG. Even in this militia fitting with mostly militia gear, i still have about 40% of my total space left. That's it for now. I'm about to sign on and do some for work with this. Wish me luck PSN: PiercingSereniy Country: U.S Class: Assault, Heavy Corp: Shattered Ascension {SH4T]
Piercing Serenity Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 181	Posted - 2012.11.16 23:42:00 - [2] - Quote DJINN Riot wrote: Piercing Serenity wrote: I was actually inspired by Maken Tosch's journey from a novice ninja to the shinobi (I guess?) he is now. Which is rare. I'm not easily moved by words, and even less so from someone who I know so little about. But Tosch's posted hit a DUST nerve and convinced me to do a little refocusing of my own. Just for the record - I'm really not trying to steal any of Maken Tosch's thunder or be some kind of wannabe groupie. I just though the idea was very elegant and personable. It reminded me that there are still regular people out there in the forums outside of the trolls who like to make a mess of things. I respected that, and wanted to give it a shot myself. After watching Noc Tempre and his squad go 121 - 0 in a match and the resulting thread leading to "Skill more heavily into AV", I figured it was time to Put up or Shut up. Maybe Noc was right. Maybe it is really possible to fight vehicles on even terms with some focused skills. I might even owe him an apology. At any rate, I created two new fittings - Piercing Blast for my forge gun and Piercing Gaze for the sniper fit that might see some action. Day 1: So I just got signed in and got through all of the pop up screens (there should be an option in the neocom to skip the tutorials) and started spending some skill points. I'm only interested in the forge gun because it's the counter I've heard so much about, so I got weaponry to level 5 and forge gun operation to level 2. I'm starting out with a basic forge gun and a sub-machine gun fitting. This is SO different from the assault rifle I use with Serenity. The range and splash is nice. It feels good to one shot people milling about instead of fighting to make every bullet count with my AR. This forge has so little ammo though. I don't know how you guys make it without any equipment. I took out my first LAV today. i think it was militia grade, so no big ups yet. Still, it felt good to see that explode. Dropships are coming up next. I'm planning on sticking to the basic forge for a while. I'm hoping it will force me to get really good to squeeze in he kills, and it will save me a lot of money. I'm only making 100,000 or so a game, so I need everything I can get. I also don't know how heavies fill up their CPU and PG. Even in this militia fitting with mostly militia gear, i still have about 40% of my total space left. That's it for now. I'm about to sign on and do some for work with this. Wish me luck PSN: PiercingSereniy Country: U.S Class: Assault, Heavy Corp: Shattered Ascension {SH4T] From an advanced forge gunner to a fledgeling, dont waste your points. Invest your points in a Rail Tank, they are much more effective at taking out vehicles and surviving. A suped up tank will one shot you, regardless how many points you put into defense. At least will be able to one shot the tank, if you are driving one yourself. Thank you for your warnings DJINN. I don't mean any disrespect, but I'm gonna need find that out for myself. I need to know first hand whether or not vehicles are beatable. I'll have to borrow from my skill as an Assault user and learn from the snipers to beat these tanks and vehicle. I can work with that.
Piercing Serenity Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 181	Posted - 2012.11.17 00:08:00 - [3] - Quote Day Two: I just upgraded to an Assault Forge gun. I'm not sure how much I like it though. Since i'm only using the forge gun, my long range kills need to come from steady shots. Not being able to hold a charge means that I have three-ish seconds to find and lock my target, which is more than difficult. That being said, trying to hit people with this forge gun is hard. Somehow I'm better at at long range shots than mid range ones. I think that people are unused to forges being used as hand-held rain guns. They obviously weren't around during E3. I switched from Sub Machine Guns to the scrambler pistol. When I got my first kill with that, I laughed. It was the like Creodon all over again. i personally suck with single shot weapons - I get too trigger happy - so I'm gonna have to work on that too. I helped bring down my first tank today. My forge gun was strong enough to wipe the shields off of it with one blast. The armor was much tougher. I think that's my first lesson in 'tank theory'. It's a lot harder to make a good tank than I realized as an AI troop. This is also very ISK intensive. I'm gonna try to be less aggressive and see what happens. But I've been forced to go to a militia fitting to save and make some money. Manus peak is also awful for me. I'm not fast enough to dodge the snipers and there are too many peaks and crags for tanks to hide behind. I'd probably need a team of people to cover me and counter snipe just to give me a chance for a shot. These missiles are also very unforgiving. As much as people talk about AR recoil, Missiles have even less than that (read: none). I'm going to have to figure out away around that. Range might be my only friend right now. Just a side note, I shouldn't be able to bowled over as a heavy by an LAV. I thought it would make more sense for adding Armor to increase an object's mass, and have that be the determining factor in damage. Right now I'm getting killed by LAV's half as heavy as me. I think that allowing Stamina, jump height (Assaults can jump just as high even if they have the same armor value), and weight to be a factor of armor would be nice. Let tanks get tossed around if they are shield heavy. They don't have the mass to sit still when a missile volley hits them. Still working in game now. Wish me luck. PSN: PiercingSereniy Country: U.S Class: Assault, Heavy Corp: Shattered Ascension {SH4T]
Piercing Serenity Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 181	Posted - 2012.11.17 01:11:00 - [4] - Quote corbear Ormand wrote: From one forger to another, good luck, I'll post my best tips here. Personally I prefer the regular (Charge holding) Forge guns, reason being I can charge up behind cover, pop out and fire and hide again before he can (generally) kill me, lower damage, yes but it does the trick on most (not all) tanks and dropships, be wary of Mavado (Tank) Noc (Dropship) and a few others who will eat your shots like it's the first good meal in a long time, you will learn real fast who's decent, and who's the best. Tanks: High ground is necessary on these bad boys, get below/at and you light up like a christmas tree in the dead of night, plus he can usually run away before the final shot gets him down, keep on him, don't let him recharge shields/armor and keep pushing him till he breaks, mountainous area (Peaks, Near A, where all the tanks like to hide) is your best route, flank and you can either (Depending on who it is) kill them 80% of the time, or make them fly out of there with just enough armor to not burn if they don't have good infantry behind them. Bad fitted tank - 2 shots Decent fitted tank - 4-5 shots Amazing tanker - 6-10 shots (I think I have put about 12 rounds total into a tank before, no harden Dropships: Aim ahead, remember you have a range limit, while he does not (Missiles) it will take you a while to get the feel down, you need to be QUICK on this, thus why the breach is NOT recommended you need to pump 2-3 shots into him and you can't miss a single one, this is why dropships are hard/nigh impossible to take down without practice (And thus why most people will disown forge guns as a viable AV weapon) the other downside to dropship killing is most of them will take 5-6 shots to take out, you have time for maximum of 3, thus why 2 forge gunners is needed to KILL a dropship in just about any pubgame (Bar the crap fits) note that I said KILL Now on to the most reliable way to stop a dropship, pump rounds into him anytime he even thinks about coming close. Reason for pumping rounds into him (but not killing him) is this, if he's only getting 5-6 kills for the ENTIRE game, you have done your job well, he isn't going 50-0 or 100-0, you yourself are stopping the war machine from doing a pure **** on your team, look at it this way if you think "Well, I only went 2-4 and was nigh last on the scoreboard" yes, you may have only gotten 2 kills, but you stopped that dropship pilot effectively owning you, and everyone else, making you go, maybe 5-15, which is much worse imho. Bad fitted dropship - 2 shots Decent fitted - 3 shots Amazing - 5-7 shots Running as a lone forge gunner, you will have problems, specifically not enough DPS on target, thus why a friend would really help you out. Awesome. Thanks for all the help. Your description of Noc's Dropship and Mavado's tank made me laugh. Good stuff. I'm starting to see what you mean in terms of the fitting. I killed two tanks today. Both were Madrugars (I'm assuming those are low tier tanks). I also ran against Slap23 and Jesse Jayne's Saragis and Gunloggi respectively. I was able to put a dent in Slap's shield, but the splash from his missiles went through my cover and killed me. I think I like the basic forge too. It's cheaper, gets the job done, and let's me do as you say - charge in cover and pop out when I'm ready. I think I'm going to create a dropship fitting and put the assault forge on that. If my first goal is gonna be to scare them, I'll need to fire as fast as I can. I've also been working my way through Forge Gun operation. I'm gonna start working on Sharpshooter after that, so that I can be as removed as possible from these tank engagements.
Piercing Serenity Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 181	Posted - 2012.11.18 03:04:00 - [5] - Quote Day 3: Things are getting a little easier with this forge gun. LAV' s have become my bread and butter for warpoints. The RDV's hang them like a treat for me. I've also killed a few more infantry with this thing, so I'm sure my name brings a bad taste in someone's mouth. I've taken down two tanks and seriously damaged one dropship so far. The shields were light, but the armor took the rest of my clip. You all were absolutely right. Height is my friend. Tanks are still giving me some trouble. My forge gun can eat through the shields of lesser tanks and turrets, but I'm getting really bogged down by the armor. I'm assuming that forge guns are like 87% effective against armor right? I think I need to skill further into damage increasing skills to really put some fear in these tank drivers. I'm just about to reach level four in forge gun operation. One more and I'll be able to shoot these guns as fast as possible. Unfortunately I don't have the money for anything more expensive than the basic forge gun and militia heavy suits. I think that's okay for now. I still haven't filled up my PG/CPU. I'm currently debating whether I should skill into Forge Gun proficiency or start work on my sharpshooter skill. Gaining more damage will help me scare these tanks and drop ships, but will most likely be more ISK intensive - I'll be closer to combat. With range comes limited use. I'll get one or two hits before the tank falls out of range. It's not an immediate problem, so I'll mull it over, and gladly listen to advice. Just as an aside - we have to give some more love to these snipers. I am certainly feeling the urge to sit back and hit LAV's and infantry with my forge instead of getting into the fray. It's mostly because of the range of other weapons. Militia snipers have enough range to snipe across the 5 point map. Anyone who actually skills into them will have my head. I think adding some amount of random sway - even with maxed skills - would help separate the good from the bad and give me some more breathing room. But again, this is just an aside. My next goal is to max out forge gun operation and see where I should go from there. Wish me luck PSN: Piercingserenity Country: U.S Class: Assault, Heavy Corp: Shattered Ascension [SH4T]
Piercing Serenity Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 181	Posted - 2012.11.18 05:09:00 - [6] - Quote Day 3 (Continued): Just played in my first real squad. Man did that work wonders. I'm in debt to the logibro who not only revived me, but ran remote repairers. That's one selfless player. I killed (practically) another tank. I drained all of its shield and half of it's armor, but some swarm launcher finished him off. That's okay though. The more tanks down the merrier. The guy rage quit after his tank blew up, which made me chuckle a bit. I then faced off with a much heavier fitting tank. If my forge does ~1500 damage then I would say that this guy either had somewhere around 7-8000 shield or i just so happened to hit him when his shield hardeners were on. And just to add my two cents to the matter; I think that vehicles should have a similar reticule as forge guns as well as share the same splash damage. If CCP decides to reduce the percentage of damage that radiates from the explosion, that would be fine by me. But the effort I put in to just line up a shot feels much higher than whatever it takes to line up a tank shot. The difference is that the tank's accuracy will be flawless. It'll take me a few shots. Speaking of which, I'm getting better and better at hitting people with this forge gun. Snipers hiding against walls make the perfect targets, but draws a lot of aggro towards me. I might have to tone that down a bit. I'll get out sniped by a decent shooter any day. Still, that "+50" feels so much better when it comes from that speck of dust running across my screen or snipers who think: "There's no way he'll hit me with that". Skill point gain has been rough on me. I'm only 1/5 into the skill cap but I've already slowed down dramatically. I'm gonna see what I can do until Tuesday, switch back to Serenity and clean up for the week, then get back to work on Blast. I think I'm also gonna skill into forge damage before I work on sharpshooting. Quick question by the way: How does scrambler pistol operation work? It tells me that I'll get an extra round added to the clip. Does that mean that the chamber will hold one more shot? Will I be able to fire 8 rounds instead of 7 before reloading? You're continued help and support would be much appreciated. Thanks again for all of your input! Cheers, PSN: Piercingserenity Country: U.S Class: Assault, Heavy Corp: Shattered Ascension [SH4T]
Piercing Serenity Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 181	Posted - 2012.11.19 17:54:00 - [7] - Quote Day 4, Part 1: Today has been a very good day. I have taken down 5 tanks so far. A literal handful. My victims were two Soma's a Sica and a Gunloggi. Armor was the most difficult part as usual. I also met far more logibros healing me with remote reppers. I cannot understate how important you guys are to me. You keep me healthy for absolutely nothing. No warpoints. No formal recognition. I respect that you guys. In the interest of not letting SP sit idly, I spent my 116k on Sharpshooter Level 2 (100% due to your comments here) and heavy dropsuit level 1. ISK is getting a little scarce again, but hopefully I'll be able to recoup some of my losses with some tank death. Speaking of which, I nearly took down two dropships today. The first had a much better fit - active reppers went on as soon as I hit it. But the pilot was thirst for blood. Rather than trying to get as far away from me as possible and take his chances with missiles, he came dangerously close to give his gunners the best possible shot. This ended poorly for him, as he had to flee my forge gun rounds. The second dropship tried a similar maneuver. He/she flew so close that I thought I was back in E3 where dropships just crushed you. Unfortunately my turn speed was too slow and my ammo too little - he flew away with half of his armor left. I think i might be one of the few people benefiting from the vehicle friendly thanksgiving weekend. It feels like there are more ill-fitted tanks rolling around. Even better for me is that fact that I see more and more forge gunners on my side. Maybe my attention to forge gunners is more acute now that I'm filling their shoes. Who knows. At any rate, thank all of you for taking the ISK leap of faith for me and the team. God knows we need it. I've also added two enhanced damage mods to my dropsuit, so the damage output is boosted by a total of ~25%. I'll keeo you guys posted with any new stories later on tonight (EST). Wish me luck, PSN: Piercingserenity Country: U.S Class: Assault, Heavy Corp: Shattered Ascension [SH4T]
Piercing Serenity Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 181	Posted - 2012.11.20 01:31:00 - [8] - Quote Garrett Blacknova wrote: I've seen you in 2 games recently. In one of them, I was one of your medics. (I was the Assault) In the other match, you murdered my Sica. I feel like I got my money's worth from the battle though, since my winnings covered the entire cost of the battle with 20k to spare. Those were a good few shots, by the way. I was almost in cover when you landed that final blow. Thank you sir. Especially for the healing. That is always invaluable. Hope to see you on the battle field soon. Cheers, PSN: Piercingserenity Country: U.S Class: Assault, Heavy Corp: Shattered Ascension [SH4T]
Piercing Serenity Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 181	Posted - 2012.11.24 01:50:00 - [9] - Quote This is my final post. The nerfs to missile turrets have helped my infantry game tremendously. Gone are the days of tankers shooting from the safety of the red-zone. All of my forge gun targets went with them, however. Tanks are scarce sight on the battlefield now. Only those who skilled into multiple turrets show their faces on the ground. Thank you guys for all of your help and support. You made this a fun experience for me. I hope to see you all on the battlefield. As such, I'm going to leave Piercing Blast alone and skill into forge guns on my main account. Cheers, PSN: Piercingserenity Country: U.S Class: Assault, Heavy Corp: Shattered Ascension [SH4T]