While this is true (especially vs berserker ravs), you are more likely to survive, shoot, and spread your damage out to allies (deter the rav from attacking you) because of your speed. Then you can shoot the rav yourself. Further, you are much less likely to ever get into that situation in the first place - because you choose when to engage and disengage (although a berserker rav will still close the gap eventually - but with your extra distance created by speed you will have saved more time and utilized your distance better then EOD or B12 ever could). Further, if the rav catches you even in EOD and B12, you will still get fracced, and a frac in EOD or B12 is game ruining, while a frac in light armor is harsh, but not nearly as bad (which also translates to difficulty wading through backline - the slower you are with splinted fracs the more time you have to spend in potentially dangerous areas, thus are -1 for longer with fracs).
Alongside this - the rav can easier calculate against slow people. It knows where you are and where you can be much easier then when it’s fighting a light armor user. You have to position much further away to have a tile advantage over the rav - otherwise it can simply run you down - this is what I mean by positional advantage. While teammates and terrain can cover for this, teammates are also much more helpful when you can create zones of pressure which distance, which you create by running away and thus speed is most helpful for, is very helpful, as every tile a rav pushes into a zone of pressure it has to eventually walk back out of and also has to go further into a bad position for. You can be available in this zone of pressure much easier with greater speed, because you don’t have to be in danger to be there. Movement is an incredibly important consideration for positioning and range and spacing and counterplay in general and it can’t be understated how powerful and undeniable it is imo.
For things that damage so much as to kill you in minimal timeframes (High DPS) the advantage of health matters significantly less. This can kinda be seen by your gain of ttk is a multiplication of the percent of health you gain. So this multiplies less with small numbers (small ttks) but multiplies greater with big numbers.
1000 + 250 is a 25% increase of health. So if it was 4 seconds to kill it before, *1.25, its now 5 seconds. If it was 2 seconds to kill before, *1.25, its now 2.5 seconds.
Another noticeable thing is the higher your slash dmg - the less armor matters. This is because armor reduces dmg more the less dmg per attack it takes - so high volume low dmg =/= high dmg low volume vs armor.
However against stuns and low dps - it can make you survive the stun and walk away with maybe less fractures (although the fracture, when splinted, will be equivalent to what you would suffer while wearing light and getting like 2 or 3 fractures). But it can give you an opportunity for a comeback - which is good vs less experienced players. An experienced player would play safe irregardless of outcome and abuse your slow movement to outmaneuver you entirely (given your in a solo position). If you’re in a teammate situation - your positions are weaker and you can’t respond quickly so you are a weak link in your position and the enemy can easily -1 you in their mind, while they focus on more dangerous or complicated people who probably won’t stay in range of your melee support, or you will be used as a piece of terrain/bodyshield (because you are slow), or you will be capped or become useless - as a result of the slowdown provided by your armor, which gives you less tile advantage that can be easily abused by enemies to pressure you and shut you down.
Berserker is kinda a stark example because it has such a massive tile advantage when its in its advantage state. It really needs marines to pressure it a LOT to do anything against its advantage state.
Tankiness could translate to tile advantage too at times especially with xenos where tankiness is very very significant. But being outspeeded means you can’t actually approach - your tile advantage is negative if they play right or if you have no teamwork. Tile advantage is very important counterplay and while you can create terrain to make it easier for less speedy people, its still incredibly important for marines to try and have that speed differential. I mean i don’t fully understand the term either I just made it up but it kinda gets my point across (i think). It just means your tactically stronger because speed is so important in places that need speed which is almost everywhere i think. Generally you just have an easier time staying in your ideal range (which is often an ideal position) with greater speed
Iirc, one fun fact is that b12 and EOD on weeds is the same speed as light armor on weeds.
But I think if you consider both EOD and B12 also wield a mk2, it will be significantly slower then light armor, even light armor wielding mk2 would probably be faster. Further, if you’re on weeds you should probably have a bayonet, or flare, and not be wielding anything unless you’re in active combat (and if you’re on active combat in weeds as marine its usually a misplay and you’re about to die - OR your using smg, high dps, have allies to protect you, or are chasing a weak opponent, or capitalizing on positional or simply just overwhelming advantage). Utilizing speed to get in position, or to “dodge” enemy attacks (by just walking away) is most important imo. And most marines should have a cqc power gun which they can use on everything except t3s (unless mou). So if fighting t2/t1 your optimal range may be closer given you can reach it since buck pb usually gets kills.
That’s why pressure on push points is so important. Various resource advantages are important too to consider while pushing (things like information (which includes flares, binocs, memorization/spatial awareness) - distance - terrain - allys/dmg available, cooldowns, health, etc)
The biggest advantage of b12 and medium to me is how much it changes the dmg of bullets. Because allies are inherently unpredictable. But also the ability to come back from combos also, is undeniable pressure, time, distance. I don’t think surviving one more slash from a rav or group of xenos will be gamechanging - but surviving a lurker combo absolutely can be (if you can take advantage of the situation, and the xenos aren’t playing by the same logic as you are - which is overwhelming pressure = win)
If you consider the fact xenos win by pressure just as much as marines - your loss of pressure by taking b12 or EOD could be the factor that tips the scales in xenos favor. Your loss of pressure and counterplay makes it significantly easier for the xenos to win against you.
But this all depends on the opinion that like, how important is movement compared to tankiness really. Im just yapping at the end of the day. A lot of this can be changed a lot by teamwork I think, because teamwork is much more important counterplay then movement.
big rethink
_
Taking slashes and trading hits itself is a form of counterplay and pressure - this can be useful in certain positions. How important is evading slashes? Further, how much can you use an expected number of slashes to push certain terrain and enemy comps better? While speed differential and tile advantage is more noticeable with things like fracs, and runners and stuff, the degree of sacrifice that tankiness for speed is important is noticeable with no armor too. This is a lot of questions to answer - why is light armor better then no armor, but why is light armor better then heavy armor?
How can tankiness translate to victory in otherwise unexpected ways? I mentioned earlier the SMG get up trick, where you get up from a stun because of b12 tankiness and kill a warrior or lurker when they don’t expect it - how far can this idea be pushed and where can it be utilized to create pressure in ways that light armor simply can’t? What guns are most advantageous for each armortype? How does this interact with wield delay, or attachment and gun usage in general?
I think overall the thing that most creates advantage for xenos is abilities which more or less gaurantee kills. And for marines it’s range - a marine who can’t maintain their range often is useless. In both cases, teamwork is king for making utilizing these strengths possible.
Plus, marines usually have good speed stat proportional to the enemy. This opens up a lot of counterplay options and situational advantages. This, is a proportional advantage too which can translate into an advantage of time and distance - which gives positional advantage. The greater proportion of speed differential, the greater the advantage in various situations. But what situations - how could we find these situations - when would these situations occur?
I said earlier in the thread that Medium/Heavy/b12 only helps when you are getting hit. But in light armor - if you get hit the slowdown is usually enough to make it impossible to run away. How important is not getting hit in various situations?
Another thing - if you aren’t running away or maintaining your spacing and optimal range well vs an enemie’s optimal range, the positional advantage for speed is much less noticeable. The more you stay still the less it matters - but should a marine stand still more often then not?
I will believe almost always that speed is much more important to not getting hit and getting your hits off because most combat is fast-paced, and your speed is immediately effective counterplay and just adds to your positional strength. If you can’t play at the pace of your enemy you will be run over and left to dust - everything is timing-based and if you can’t meet the timing to escape or to push or etc you will be left with nothing more often then not (especially since the enemy can easier play around your slow, obvious timing, while you’re simply hampered mechanically in responding to their attacks with movement).
In the backline it’s an issue because the distance between fob and other areas becomes much greater - even if its advantage of tankiness is most noticeable there.
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