An In-Depth Analysis of Heavy Gear

In a previous post I may have been a little hard on heavy gear, so I decided to look into some of the stats for myself and crunch some numbers. Here's what I found:

The gear with the highest stats in each of the categories (Head, Face, Vest) are the subject of the study.

For the Head slot, the highest headshot protection goes to the Pilot Helmet at 35%, with no restrictions to the face slot. It's only available at a steep 2LT2 for 550GP/day.

For the Face, there are several items with 3% protection including the Skull Mask series (available to everyone for 2,000NX/30 days) and the Hammer Face Guard, only available at MSG3 for 400GP/day.

The top in the Vest class of course goes to the Tanker Vest with 17% general protection and 9% speed reduction (smaller than the Heavy's 10% reduction). It is available to everyone for a little under $5 per 30 days--4900NX/30 days.

The above loadout will give you a whopping 55% headshot protection, 17% general protection and only a 9% loss in speed. If the stats don't lie, then that is the exact amount of protection you can get and the damage you receive while wearing the best defensive loadout in the game can be expressed as:

headshot damage - (headshot damage x 0.55) = total damage received

Now if the above is true, and the fact that it takes 100 damage for a lethal shot at max HP, then all you need to find the usefulness of the armor is the headshot damage. For that, I had Daraku9 headshot me (I was wearing no vests or headgear at the time) at medium-long range with a G36E. In 3 trials, we averaged 268 damage per headshot. So, using the above:

268 - (268 x 0.55) = damage
268 - 147.4 = damage
120.6 = damage

Even with MAX DEFENSIVE STATS, there is no possible way to tank a headshot from a G36E at a reasonably long distance. Of course, I suppose if you were to get hit from the other side of the map on Snow Valley, the damage dropoff would be great enough to allow you to tank it. But, that's a hard shot to pull off.

The verdict?
Headshot protection stats are absolutely useless, unless you're in a pistols- or melee-only match, which I don't care to test because if you're that stupid to spend $7 for items that may or may not benefit you in a hardly-played gametype, you're probably not that good anyway.

<3,
Tyleh.

well with the normal vest u can tank a l9 shot but this happens rarly

ha! like last time or yesterday gamre and i were playing u tanked my l9 shot D:.... but with balance vest u prolly can tank a l9 shot from body and below i think..

desiareluvbird wrote:

ha! like last time or yesterday gamre and i were playing u tanked my l9 shot D:.... but with balance vest u prolly can tank a l9 shot from body and below i think..

Leg/foot shots do less damage, of course. I'm not going to test how much but I would say that with the regular vest it's possible to take one to the foot.

Obviously, though, it's still not a smart idea to run into sniper infested territory with a heavy or tanker vest and expect to last very long.

true but we were doing sniper only and like i no scoped him and shot him in the chest and he tanked it! lol

Sometimes lag or extreme distances can cause that. If it was close it was more than likely lag or you didn't hit him in the chest like you thought. You have to remember the bullet never goes right where the crosshairs are in this game (which is one of my major beefs about the game).

well i was really close to him and on my laptop i was DLing CA too so i can stay up and play but i was extremly lagging when it was at 50% and i thought u hit him in the cest cuz i saw him move when i shot....

Could be a glitch/lag spike. Tanking shots don't happen to often and apparently there can be weird glitches/lag spike in the game like delayed fall damage and there is a video on youtube of someone getting L9 kills even though he clearly missed and shot a pole instead in the slow motion.

oh... but i was lagging liek crazy after 50% and like when last time i shot him after 2mins it said i got 29kills.. and i was like wtf...... and ea time i move i move back all the way where i started

Tyleh wrote:

Leg/foot shots do less damage, of course. I'm not going to test how much but I would say that with the regular vest it's possible to take one to the foot.

Lol, well, with the L11 I know for a fact that a foot shot is a 1 hit kill, quite a few people neglect their feet when taking cover...

Dying Heavens wrote:

Tyleh wrote:

Leg/foot shots do less damage, of course. I'm not going to test how much but I would say that with the regular vest it's possible to take one to the foot.

Lol, well, with the L11 I know for a fact that a foot shot is a 1 hit kill, quite a few people neglect their feet when taking cover...

How far away do you have to be? I know that from truck to truck in Roadkill a footshot is far from lethal with an M107, and I think the L115 and M107 have similar damage stats.

im not sure ive heard da recon vest is pretty good but not rly sure does any1 now how it is ?

i had it once on my other accoucts and the recon vest is kinda good for me...

Tyleh wrote:

Dying Heavens wrote:

Lol, well, with the L11 I know for a fact that a foot shot is a 1 hit kill, quite a few people neglect their feet when taking cover...

How far away do you have to be? I know that from truck to truck in Roadkill a footshot is far from lethal with an M107, and I think the L115 and M107 have similar damage stats.

Well, I don't really know exactly how far obviously, but I've gotten 1 hit kills from across Junk Flea (not that far lol) and 1 hit killed someone in the foot base-to-base in Rattlesnake

welll i dont think like the l115 is that good cuz from shooting some1 in the foot i dont even no how they could die from that i mean like really its on their foot and then they die...... i think it didnt hit his foot cuz last time i tryed that gamer didnt die from getting shot from the foot

lol cuz im superman and ya it can i think well ive done it b4 and the l9 Artic wolf how is it

Your HP loss isn't always the same point for point even at similar distances. I'm guessing damage calculations and damage amounts are done on the server because otherwise people would have accurately found out the damage for all the guns and stuck them on a chart (such charts exist but only after long hours of dedicated testing and finding averages by players and were not created by dissecting CA code).

welll... i dont think it's any of those cuz i mostly lag on my laptop so it could of been that or just prolly something wrong... i dont no but mabey not hp loss thou