Armor preference

[Grubstank]

Medium and light armor are more effective for fighting.

Light armor is too light and just a casual breeze leaves you having to visit medbay.

The biggest reason to wear heavy armor is simply fractures/IB. You cut them down a ton with heavy armor. It's not very good in a fight, and it prevents you running after and securing kills, and it definitely won't help you if any xeno gets you alone. What heavy armor does, and the only reason I like to use it instead of medium or light, is it prevents random FF or 1-2 slash fractures. This means you aren't being immediately taken out of a fight for 30+ minutes from casual damage.

If medium armor prevented fractures/IB a little better, I wouldn't even touch heavy armor. It's way too slow, and the damage mitigation is a total meme. Any xeno that gets on top of you for 10+ seconds kills you regardless of the armor you have.

More often than not tho, the speed of the medium and light armor is totally useless. When you're pushing into a chokepoint in LV caves for instance, there's nowhere to move but forward. If anything the speed of medium/light will land you in hot water, as you'll advance faster than you can count the marines around you to coordinate. And when you inevitably get killed leading the push, you'd best believe you'll be sent up to medbay if you were revived wearing medium or light.

If the fighting is exclusively in tfort or perhaps even outdoors in big red/trijent, then you might actually get some use out of those speed bonuses. In general though, caves tend to be the hardest, most grueling part of a marine push where it really comes down to keeping marine numbers up thus out DPSing the xeno mob's regeneration.

You might get a few more peripheral kills with medium/light, but that (usually) doesn't result in a marine victory. The biggest determinant of a marine win in my experience is being able to grind the main front into the hive, and still having enough marines around to score kills on the weakened xenos driven to defend it.

The biggest marine weakness is logistics; for the average pfc, medium/light armour just aggravates that. If your role involves a lot of running around (eg, medic, perhaps engie) and less damage sponging, that's where light armour actually gains some credibility.

[T0EPIC4U]

I take light because I usually JTAC behind everyone and need to hop around for good laze spots or run up and drop a flare then run back and observe with binocs


edit: im tired of getting rekt so I'm taking heavy now

[Zokkie]

I usually pick heavy armor for combat.

I only pick light armor if I decide to take on a support role that requires moving around a lot. Like for example carrying supplies, wounded and dead back and forth.

I never pick medium armor anymore.

[Freedominspace]

When I play frontline Marine, I bring heavy armor. Friendly fire is where most of my injuries come from, and heavy let's me shrug off a round or two without ending up with shrapnel or ib.

[misto]

heavy armor's biggest downside isnt the movement loss, but the fact that youre more likely to be taken alive and not bleed out due to wounds, and even setting a grenade off in your nest prison might not be enough to put you down, thus feeding the aliens more larva.

[Freedominspace]

heavy armor's biggest downside isnt the movement loss, but the fact that youre more likely to be taken alive and not bleed out due to wounds, and even setting a grenade off in your nest prison might not be enough to put you down, thus feeding the aliens more larva.

I've never ended up in this situation, personally. Either I get killed or dragged off depending on what's most convenient for the xenos at the time, and I don't think my armor would make a difference.

[Boersgard]

I've never ended up in this situation, personally. Either I get killed or dragged off depending on what's most convenient for the xenos at the time, and I don't think my armor would make a difference.

The more I use heavy armor the less I like it. This is one of the big reasons why - you quickly go into paincrit in about as fast as it takes for you to die in medium armor, so in practice there's no practical difference between the two sets of armor, but with heavy armor you'll live longer in paincrit and get captured more often, and you move slower, so you get captured more often.

I'm sticking with medium armor and might even start using light armor. Literally the only reason I ever want to use heavy is for FF.

[DaDoge]

Right now I got back to medium armor when playing support classes, for the extra protection and okay mobility, but as a regular PFC it really depends on a weapon and playstyle. I guess it's good that all kinds have their use now.

[Sora9567]

I roll light armor as medic when I feel like I can trust my squad to not fucking spray me with a burst. Otherwise, heavy armor all the way.

[Freedominspace]

I roll light armor as medic when I feel like I can trust my squad to not fucking spray me with a burst. Otherwise, heavy armor all the way.

This is the big thing for me. I never trust my squadmates to not magdump me in the back with no benos around. Heavy armor at least keeps me from having to evac for surgery.