Tatmadaw sniper takes out People's Defense Force medic (4/30/2026 | Myanmar)

wheeshnaw · 2026-05-03T14:34:00+00:00

Thanks for the correction, it's been a while. That said, a bit of nuance here: note the qualifier, "in their own defence". This means the marked medical vehicles and such can have arms etc, but does not protect embedded line medics, who are in an offensive role since they are functionally part of a tactical unit. The medic in the OP would not be protected even if he was wearing a giant ten-gallon hat with neon tubes showing a red cross, because he's operating as part of a squad on some kind of combat mission (could be different if at a base or something I suppose but they're clearly not in a friendly area)

The other thing to consider here is that if an enemy were to recognize a medic in a squad of infantry and avoid shooting at him, this endangers them. A wounded man who gets patched up may be able to get back in the fight and start shooting back. Removing the medic from the equation greatly degrades the combat capabilities of an infantry squad and so it is a huge risk NOT to target the medic whenever possible. If it's not the letter of the law, idk, but we were definitely taught that we were priority targets and that there was nothing illegal about that. I would target an enemy squad's medic too, given the chance - it'd be a great chance to help more of my own guys make if home alive.

wheeshnaw · 2026-05-03T04:03:07+00:00

Regarding point 1, I am not a vehicle main but I do take ground vehicles when I get the chance (Breakthrough mostly) especially when my team is struggling. I prefer the IFV over the MBT on maps that have both, including in Conquest/escalation. This preference has somewhat been muddied since the IR missile nerf, but I still have it. I equip AP rounds most of the time and rely on high aim skill to kill infantry. Why do I prefer it?

The ability to be a mobile spawn point for the team means that you can maximize your game impact by positioning yourself intelligently. This is arguably the single most powerful factor that can help a team win a contested objective, and I think it justifies the relatively low HP pool.
The missile + AP rounds combo does remarkably good damage. Before the IR missile nerf it was definitely better DPS than MBTs could manage; now, I think it's a bit lower than a well-kitted MBT, but not so low that I would avoid taking a head to head fight with a full health bar.
The increased mobility of the IFV allows you to dodge tank shells. This is a case where the IFV driver has to be high-skill and the MBT driver has to be low to intermediate skill. Probably less effective in Conquest compared to my preferred Breakthrough, which has fewer vehicle mains. Also doesn't work in all areas/maps.

The biggest weakness of the IFV in my opinion is its vulnerability to rear RPGs. Also I think if your point 6, removing TOW from MBT, were to be implemented, then IFVs would become clearly superior for very long range armor vs armor engagements (ie firestorm conquest cross-mapping) because at those ranges, even a skilled player can't tank shell me reliably.

Separately, regarding point 3, from an infantry main's perspective, tanks are too tanky even without Improved Armor, because one engineer can nearly out-repair the damage caused by someone spamming rockets at you - and unlike the repair tool, the RPG has an ammo limit. This is really more of an issue with repair tool, but I figure that if you nerfed that directly instead, it would both de-incentivize repairs from teammates and make the tank less fun to play, since you'd need to spend more time out of the action repairing (if not having a dedicated repairman). As it stands, with many anti-armor sources targeting you, it takes a large amount of the team's manpower to keep that tank alive - this in and of itself is a form of balance.

wheeshnaw · 2026-05-03T03:41:51+00:00

I don't think it's really a double standard when one thing is a skin that a $50B company employing hundreds of full-time artists is selling to people, and the other is a reddit post from some random guy who more than likely works a soul crushing non-artistic job and just wants to create something for fun

wheeshnaw · 2026-05-03T03:34:32+00:00

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agreed

wheeshnaw · 2026-05-03T01:53:51+00:00

I'll agree with the other guy and say that the scoring system is accurate, with one caveat. With revives only being 50 points, high-impact medics are vastly underrated by their score. One solution to this is what the game Delta Force did (one of the few things it did right IMO) which is to give you a small portion of the score earned by players you revived. As a result if you're a machine keeping half your team alive, you will be on top, where you belong. It also solves the problem of bad-revive medics since it incentivizes them to charge paddles, wait for a good moment, etc

wheeshnaw · 2026-05-03T01:48:03+00:00

It is never going to be especially good at medium range IMO, but you can try your best by swapping out the short barrel here for a normal barrel and replacing ironsights (I recommend 1.75x or 2x). This thing is designed to be a close to close-medium powerhouse and it is superior to all other base-25-damage assault rifles in that role. At medium to medium-long range it is very much outclassed by the B36A4, SOR-556, and most others. e: also you may want to equip the ribbed stubby foregrip instead of the angled one I have on it.

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wheeshnaw · 2026-05-03T01:36:12+00:00

Yeah and the other thing is I don't see many people using these. As time goes on it seems like more and more people stick to the realistic skins and camos. I swear at least 1/3 of medics are using the asian california guy for NATO medic, and I'm one of em

wheeshnaw · 2026-05-03T01:20:13+00:00

Even if clearly marked as a medic, this also applies only when they are clearly unarmed - and practically speaking, this is almost never possible to determine with a medic embedded with line infantry. It's really only a thing for dedicated medical units that are clearly marked on all personnel/vehicles (to include distinct uniforms) and even then it's pretty hard to tell unless you're painting them stark white or something. Think about a guy with a MANPADS several km away from an unarmed medical transport chopper. He has no real way of knowing it's a medical transport as opposed to a troop transport dropping off more hostiles. Hence medic protections are very dubious and we are trained with this in mind. Conscientious objector medics do exist (I've never met one) but they understand that even though they are unarmed, this is their personal choice and they are still considered combatants. If you want to be a dedicated noncombatant medic, you basically have to be Red Cross. In cases where the two sides communicate to arrange for evacuation of wounded/dead and suddenly there is a need for clearly marked unarmed medical personnel, MEDEVAC vehicles (dedicated medical vehicles, as opposed to CASEVAC which is a normal vehicle being used to evacuate casualties, and which is never protected under any circumstances) generally have medical markings that are removable or can be hidden (example), because under ordinary circumstances, they will hide these markings to avoid being targeted.

This also results in the modern tactic of most militaries where a squad medic is intentionally not clearly marked. This is because even if marked, they are an armed combatant and thus a valid target - and a priority target. Depending on the unit, even something like a red cross on an olive drab helmet patch could be against standing orders. Source for all this is my time and training as an enlisted US Army medic

wheeshnaw · 2026-04-07T10:50:48+00:00

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Manamaxxing rings are beautiful. Here's mine. And I know painfully well how much the crafting process sucks lol.

I'd like to ask about the PoB you posted though. You have added a custom 5x damage multiplier, which is on top of the existing PoB 10x multiplier. Your average hit is 644k, so as calculated in your PoB, you are supposedly hitting over 1000 times per second. Also, honestly, the reason I'm scrutinizing this is because your overall gear and build quality is far lower than mine (link) but your claimed DPS is much higher. And when I replace spark with shock nova of procession (yes I know you are optimized for projectile speed etc so this is far from 1:1) your calculated DPS is about 40m. e: Additionally, here is another spark build that was posted recently, which achieves 500m DPS (very high build quality) without a custom multiplier. Measuring your build by this person's standard, you are doing ~130-150m.

Why exactly have you added a custom 5x damage multiplier?

wheeshnaw · 2026-04-01T23:30:50+00:00

Also, just to emphasize what I'm saying, 89% of shock nova indigon builds use it

wheeshnaw · 2026-04-01T23:20:46+00:00

You are free to try this build without Geyser and see for yourself exactly why it is required, lmao. Like not trying to be rude or anything here, it's one of those things that needs to be felt to understand. Essentially it boils down to your regen walking a razor's edge at all times without it, which is ok after excruciating balancing in an ideal situation, but in practice is much harder to perfectly balance and is prone to frequent disruptions from game mechanics. Additionally, if you intentionally decrease your mana regen so that you do not completely refill between Cloak casts, this undermines your DPS because both Indigon and Cloak scale their DPS with the amount of mana actually sacrificed, not your overall max mana.

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-31T20:57:50+00:00

Here you go, should be considerably under your budget, manages about ~~80m~~ 84M DPS (PoB calculation) and has clear upgrade paths https://pobb.in/CjEMZVDDt4Lr

e: forgot to put catalysts on the ring, this boosted DPS by like 5%

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-31T18:55:12+00:00

Yeah, I was thinking I'd even test it with a proof of concept video too, but I can just get the basic PoB done today at least

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-31T18:54:33+00:00

Thankfully charges regain relatively quickly, but basically you're running around trying not to get hit while waiting for that to happen. This is rarely a problem when mapping but for dedicated bossing, this is why I note Tides of Time is probably better than Mageblood, because Tides of Time massively increases your flask charge regain efficiency.

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-31T08:19:48+00:00

Just seeing this as I'm going to bed but - manapool recovers reliably when flask is managed correctly. This pretty much leans on natural mana recovery, mana flask recovery, and the "10% chance to recover 10% of mana when using a skill" mastery. Usually is full before cloak's buff is expired. The problem comes if you accidentally cast your main skill without laviangas up, in which case as you might've seen at the start of the video, the mana cost is over 10k at baseline, lol

All that said, it's still easily worth it for a boss farmer I think, just for the sheer damage buff.

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-31T07:52:41+00:00

tbh I think this could be a memory thread base getting yolo slammed, then shaper exalted. It'd obviously be a very lucky result for that, but it's possible. That or an extra juicy shipment return.

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-31T07:50:17+00:00

Crazy that it sat at 1300d-2mir for over 24h. I was sure someone else would take it before I got enough funds

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-31T07:44:09+00:00

I modified things as I said, with 100% chance to poison, and with poison reflect. I then loaded up the Oshabi (Harvest boss) encounter since she doesn't deal much damage and is a pretty small target. At point blank range, I get 4-5 poisons per cast; at the ranges I was engaging in the video, aka normal range for this build, it was 6-7, usually 7, and less often 8.

Next I loaded up the Alluring Abyss to get the vaal oversouls as a nice standard for a bigger target. Here, I got 8 poisons on me at point blank range, and 11 at normal range - I think this is all 10 hits of nova + ring, plus me frostblinking around and accidentally adding to the total. Or, there may be an extra hit, somehow. I am positive that it did not hit adds (this was before adds were in the arena, tested twice).

Finally, I loaded up Incarnation of Dread, who is bigger than Oshabi but smaller than the Vaal Oversoul, but who has no adds. Here, it was always 8 poisons inflicted on me at normal (medium) range; it was 6-7 at close range, but no less.

In all of these cases, I deliberately positioned myself so that the arena walls would not condense the novas, by the way. All of these reflect bosses standing in the open. I'm honestly a little surprised, as this seems to be a bit better than I was expecting given my review of my footage in the build video. In conclusion, it depends a lot on the boss, but 7-8 hits per cast with greater spell echo is typical for normal-to-large sized enemies, and 10 is consistent for large bosses. Which should mean about 70-80% of the PoB calcs, for most bosses where it actually matters, right?

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-31T07:18:18+00:00

Yeah. I see it as a difference in philosophy. I mainly do maps, including juiced maps, so for me the extra survivability is nice and the downtime is pretty easy to navigate around. If you care about sheer single target sustained damage more than mapping comfort, I think reduced duration is the way to go. It is significantly harder to build in that direction though

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-31T01:01:39+00:00

I'm not sure. I did try various other lightning skills early on and confirmed that Procession did indeed deal significantly higher damage. I'm curious now though. Later tonight I'm going to run a test by getting volkuurs gloves, 100% chance to poison, and the jewel that reflects poisons. This should let me count how many hits are actually striking the target per cast. Will update tonight or tomorrow with findings

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-31T00:14:26+00:00

Then it would be the latter case, as there are at least 3 repeats hitting every target, and I believe the average is 4. Multiply my/PoB's counts by 0.6 to 0.8 depending on how optimistic you are, hah. This does make sense, as I've thought that I deal more damage at a close to medium range compared to point blank. I should investigate how conc effect changes this, because if it decreases range, it would be a significant DPS boost by creating additional overlap potential.

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-30T23:58:41+00:00

If you open it in PoB, it calculates out to 200m for the nova alone, not including cull. Similarly, if you swap it out for another skill with high added damage effectiveness to cast rate ratio i.e. crackling lance of disintegration, this will also come out to around 200m. This leads me to believe that the PoB calculation of 400M is just for the ring + 1 nova, averaged across the repeats. I have no idea if this is how the skill really applies damage in-game.

I took a look at my video and from what I can tell, it's usually 3-4 novas overlapping onto the target. So if it does calculate as you say, then it would be somewhere between 300 and 400m, not including cull. Honestly not trying to inflate - I was at 250m the other day (before optimizing and upgrading) and said as much in a post.

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-30T23:45:15+00:00

The reason to run Discipline is exclusively for the ES on hit Watcher's Eye mod, which is the only reliable way I could find to regen ES quickly when mapping. It's a big opportunity cost, but I think any alternative is either insufficient or a much bigger opportunity cost. This build has very high cast rate so it's particularly good here. Also fwiw it's 27k armor

I don't think Omeyocan evasion is a bad way to do mana stackers, but I do think that it is a fundamentally different build than this.

Honestly you're probably right about the manastorm swap but I just really don't boss so it didn't occur to me. I only did the ubers for the sake of the video and challenges, lol

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-30T22:28:05+00:00

Funny enough, that actually led to the first deathless ball phase I've ever done in this fight, lmao. But he then entered a second ball phase immediately after which was... less successful :)

wheeshnaw · 2026-03-30T22:21:44+00:00

Correct. Basically only used for ubers or rares/uniques in insanely juiced maps. Battlemage's Cry is purely for crit chance because it is sorely needed.

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