Okay, I'm hammering the PS2 threads at the moment. I'll stop for a while after this one. The thing is, certs are hard to come by so spending them can be a painstaking decision. This thread won't make it a lot easier, but if we post our recommendations and non-recommendations here then we're less likely to waste them. I'll index stuff in the first post to make them easier to find (assuming the thread makes it past the first two posts).
Infantry
General (used by all classes)
Infiltrator
Light Assault
Medic
Engineer
Heavy Assault
Flare, Lasher, Hades, Nemesis, Decimator
Vehicles
General (common to all vehicles)
Galaxy
Liberator
Scythe
Sunderer
Flash
Lightning
Magrider
Planetside 2 Gear - Spending your certs
Moderator: Forum Moderators
Re: Planetside 2 Gear - Spending your certs
I have a bunch of stuff unlocked for Heavy Assault, my class of choice;
LMG: Flare
The flare is higher powered than the default Orion, but suffers from a lower accuracy. Personally I prefer that as I don't tend to engage at long range anyway, and I couple it with the IRNV optics for easier definition of targets in a chaotic assault. Despite that, and despite over a hundred hours at this point, I've still not got as many kills as I did with the Orion (EDIT: That's not true as it turns out, half my total kills across the board are with the Flare).
Assault: Lasher
The title of assault weapon is kind of a misnomer here. The Lasher, or disco gun, is a rapid fire weapon which spews a stream of energy sperms. While the sperms do little damage individually, they have the unique property of hurting nearby troops as the pass by, making it a decent standoff weapon when properly employed. Its decent accuracy and lack of drop combined with this weird blast radius effect means you can harass enemy formations from miles away, or hose doorways to chip away at the health of defenders in cover. However, in a one-on-one you will almost certainly lose so it's a poor weapon for lone wolves.
Launcher: Hades
The Hades is a guided anti-tank missile which locks onto the target, or can be fired dumb. None of the launchers do impressive damage against armour, but the Hades does less than most to counteract the accuracy. Unfortunately the range isn't great, maybe 500m at best, which makes it limited in use. It's all relative - that missile lock tone from enemy variants is a scary thing and will often send me scuttling off as a driver - but personally I prefer a damaging hit than a deterrent.
Launcher: Nemesis
The Nemesis is the dedicated anti-aircraft launcher. It has a reasonable range and a decent enough reload to be able to loose a couple of shots at an unwary pilot before he bugs out, which he is pretty much guaranteed to do. I use this weapon a lot, and while I don't get many kills because a hit from one is usually enough to send the flyer scuttling back to base for repairs, you get XP for aircraft damage from every hit. And damn is the projectile persistent - it'll chase an aircraft for ages. Flares will distract it or break lock, but it re-locks or reloads faster than they do so I usually give it a second or two before firing to see if they drop a smug flare. If they do I just wait to lock again and pop it anyway. The light aircraft with afterburners can outrun it, but that's not too common. During a big furball you can easily rack up a hundred, more if you have an engineer with ammo nearby. Be aware that you won't kill a Liberator or Galaxy on your own, the damage done just isn't good enough. Harvest XP by all means, but if you're after kills either go for the smoking ones on strafing runs being pounded by AA guns as they try to get away, or stick to the little fighters. Incidentally, they do about as much damage to armour as the Hades does, but has to be fired dumb.
Launcher: NC Devastator
The Annihilator is a cross faction heavy unguided launcher. As it's a projectile weapon it has more of a drop than the other VS launchers, and it uses iron sights so can be hard to hit with. It does do the closest thing to respectable damage though, although still nothing amazing. I pack it as my default weapon when not carrying the Nemesis, and I've found some ranging points on the almost useless sights. This means I can fire inaccurately at a lot greater range than the locked-on Hades, but if I have a supply of ammo then that can be enough.
LMG: Flare
The flare is higher powered than the default Orion, but suffers from a lower accuracy. Personally I prefer that as I don't tend to engage at long range anyway, and I couple it with the IRNV optics for easier definition of targets in a chaotic assault. Despite that, and despite over a hundred hours at this point, I've still not got as many kills as I did with the Orion (EDIT: That's not true as it turns out, half my total kills across the board are with the Flare).
Assault: Lasher
The title of assault weapon is kind of a misnomer here. The Lasher, or disco gun, is a rapid fire weapon which spews a stream of energy sperms. While the sperms do little damage individually, they have the unique property of hurting nearby troops as the pass by, making it a decent standoff weapon when properly employed. Its decent accuracy and lack of drop combined with this weird blast radius effect means you can harass enemy formations from miles away, or hose doorways to chip away at the health of defenders in cover. However, in a one-on-one you will almost certainly lose so it's a poor weapon for lone wolves.
Launcher: Hades
The Hades is a guided anti-tank missile which locks onto the target, or can be fired dumb. None of the launchers do impressive damage against armour, but the Hades does less than most to counteract the accuracy. Unfortunately the range isn't great, maybe 500m at best, which makes it limited in use. It's all relative - that missile lock tone from enemy variants is a scary thing and will often send me scuttling off as a driver - but personally I prefer a damaging hit than a deterrent.
Launcher: Nemesis
The Nemesis is the dedicated anti-aircraft launcher. It has a reasonable range and a decent enough reload to be able to loose a couple of shots at an unwary pilot before he bugs out, which he is pretty much guaranteed to do. I use this weapon a lot, and while I don't get many kills because a hit from one is usually enough to send the flyer scuttling back to base for repairs, you get XP for aircraft damage from every hit. And damn is the projectile persistent - it'll chase an aircraft for ages. Flares will distract it or break lock, but it re-locks or reloads faster than they do so I usually give it a second or two before firing to see if they drop a smug flare. If they do I just wait to lock again and pop it anyway. The light aircraft with afterburners can outrun it, but that's not too common. During a big furball you can easily rack up a hundred, more if you have an engineer with ammo nearby. Be aware that you won't kill a Liberator or Galaxy on your own, the damage done just isn't good enough. Harvest XP by all means, but if you're after kills either go for the smoking ones on strafing runs being pounded by AA guns as they try to get away, or stick to the little fighters. Incidentally, they do about as much damage to armour as the Hades does, but has to be fired dumb.
Launcher: NC Devastator
The Annihilator is a cross faction heavy unguided launcher. As it's a projectile weapon it has more of a drop than the other VS launchers, and it uses iron sights so can be hard to hit with. It does do the closest thing to respectable damage though, although still nothing amazing. I pack it as my default weapon when not carrying the Nemesis, and I've found some ranging points on the almost useless sights. This means I can fire inaccurately at a lot greater range than the locked-on Hades, but if I have a supply of ammo then that can be enough.