PlanetSide 2 MAX Guide

PlanetSide 2 MAX Guide by Cryptek

So the MAX is pretty beefy when he has an engineer behind him and when he has people using him as cover, usually **** dies unless your horribly outnumbered. So yeah he’s a pretty darn good line breaker when supported.

But that’s not what people are whining about, it’s running a MAX solo and without support.. The problem as I see it, is that people keep thinking in the same mindset, despite the fact that the MAX has a very different play style when you’re without an engineer: First, get regeneration, trust me it’ll save your behind, second get a dual quaser/cycler/scattercannon, you aren’t gonna fight anything but infantry where you’re going. (Because you really do need support if your gonna play AA or AV, since you run out of ammo so darn fast)

so your a big heavy indoor tank right? WRONG.. You are Pyro from TF2 with a larger healthpool, you are an ambush ******* that will straight up murder people when you get the jump on ’em.

Start thinking of your healthpool as a resource, if it’s below 60%, you should avoid engagements that arn’t heavily in your favor.

Pick your firefights with care and know when to run:

They spotted you first! Damnation, it happens to us all, especially MAXes with their huge bodies, if theres 1 or 2 of them, decide if you can stand RIGHT in their face with 1 charge, if they’re so far away that a charge won’t bring you just about behind them if they stand still, don’t charge them, use the charge to run away instead, there’s always some cover, keep in mind they’ll probably chase you because ‘OMG MAX, WANT TO KILL’ but you should be able to get far enough away to take some cover. That’ll force a CQC engagement with them if they pursue.

You spotted them first: Alright if you are behind them, they are distracted or you can somehow make sure that you can kill at least one of them before the others can react, then you can easily clear a room of 3 guys, charge in there and stop right next to one of ’em and unload bullets into ’em, the first one will die before the others even have time to turn their guns at you, preferably kill the HA first since he’s the beefiest and has the best CQC, if it’s a room of 3 heavies, you might want to hold off though.

In small bases: Skirmish between buildings, always stay mobile and try and make sure you always fire first, just because you have a large health pool, doesn’t mean that standard infantry tactics go out the window, especially considering that a firefight gone bad will take you several minutes to recover from with only 1 rank in regeneration.

In large bases: You’d be surprised how often you can circle around a base and find a completely undefended generator because: Hey we’ll just run over there and kill that 1 LA or infiltrator if someone overloads it. Usually people don’t expect a MAX in there, people will happily walk in 1 by 1 as lemmings, the best part is that they expect to just shoot back at whoever is in there, so usually they’ll be delayed in their reaction before bailing, this should mean you can finish off anyone going in there. Once the generator is going critical, people get straight up suicidal and you can just reap the rewards and kill whoever thinks they’re going to be a hero. (tip: Crouch and don’t move your mouse, you’d be surprised how often people just walk past a motionless MAX, since you don’t really have idle animations when crouching and sitting still.

In bio labs: If you need help here.. please.. stop playing MAX, your embarresing yourself.

Outside: Okay this is tricky, requires more work and patience and some vigorous use of cover. After all you’re meant for indoor combat, not outdoor! But you can make it work, preferably wait a little for other infantry to advance, take note of where enemy snipers are and then circle around to that location, snipers are delicious little meals for a MAX because they look in exactly 1 direction (usually at least) they almost never have all that much support and well, if they spot you? Snipers are the least of your worries, you can easily eat several headshots from a bolt action without caring. Anyway, get as close as possible (preferably save your charge if they don’t spot you) and then just butcher them all, go hide somewhere, get HP up and then look for your next target.

Circling around the battle is also effective against other entrenched units, but more dangerous since being spotted can be a lot more fatal in those cases.

Disclaimer: I know a lot of people want the MAX to be something different than what it is, I know that a lot of people want to feel like unstoppable bad ***** and probably don’t like sneaking around, but let’s face facts.. we got a huge buff when compared to earlier in beta, it doesn’t make us immortal bullet resistant beasts.. But we can still do something competently now, you might say ‘but the LA is much better at ambushes!’ not really.. sure he can get to better positions, but the thing about the MAX is, if you can get a 1v1 or 1v2 CQC fight with infantry where you aren’t badly damaged.. YOU CANNOT LOSE (unless of course… the game bugs out and your bullets pass through them )

After all, if you’re a dedicated tanker, you also play it smart and safe to compensate for your cooldown (otherwise you won’t be in the tank for long) and the same is true for the MAX.

(Btw fun fact: MAXes don’t make that much noise when moving, You may yourself hear it, but your enemy actually can’t unless they’re almost next to you, especially during a firefight )

TL: DR The MAXes role isn’t what you want it to be when left without support, but there is definitely a role there. You may hate that you have to sneak around and ambush people, but you cannot deny that the MAX is the most effective thing in the game for it now.

Feel free to offer your own tips, discuss why or why not these tactics work but please.. Keep it constructive.
The sooner people learn how to utilize what we’ve ended up with, the sooner we’ll see more MAXes running around.. the sooner we see more MAXes, well let’s just say that just 5 MAXes skulking around a base can really ruin anyones day But for that to happen, people have to learn to play smart and stay alive. after all, how often do you see more than 2 MAXes from the same faction (who arn’t going AA on a hill somewhere )