Certing for beginners (no longer updated!)

How to spend your first certs in Planetside 2 - basics for all classes and vehicles. - OUTDATED!

Introduction

So, you got into Planetside 2, played for a while, (hopefully) got someone to show you the ropes, and slowly you're getting the hang of it. For a while you're content just shooting dudes in the face, but then you notice these yellow thingies piling up to the left of your screen - certification points, or certs for short.

These are one of the two ways to upgrade your character in Planetside 2, the other being Station Cash Daybreak Points - SOE'S Daybreak's real money equivalent. Certs are earned at a steady rate of 1 per 250 xp you gain - there used to be a passive cert gain as well, but that was disabled a while ago.

Chances are you already know all this, and that's not what this guide is about - it's about showing you what to do with your first hard-earned certs, how to spend them, what's a good idea to buy and what maybe isn't (I'm assuming basic knowledge of how the game works and some more common expressions in this guide - if it reads like gibberish, there are some very good guides out there for people completely new to the game!).

Now, this is personal opinion and basically just a summary of my experiences so far, which include a couple of buys I would definitely not make again, so maybe you can learn a bit from my mistakes.

I've split this guide into two general categories, Infantry and Vehicles. I'll cover the basics in each section first and then move on to the specific class or vehicle, giving tips for each and every one of them.

Good reading, and if you got something to add, criticism, boundless praise or anything, just let me know in the comments!

Please note: As I've stopped playing PS2 a while ago, some (or even most) of the information in this guide might be outdated. I don't play PS2 anymore and don't intend to start again, so this guide will no longer be updated - view everything with a grain of salt as most of the specifics will likely no longer be accurate anymore. The basic principles I explain should still hold true, though.

Infantry Classes - General

This part of the guide deals with the 6 available infantry classes, and it's a bit more in-depth than the vehicle part - chances are, you spent the better part of your game time so far as infantry, and as long as you don't turn into a diehard tank driver, that won't change much.

I'll cover some things that apply to all classes, then move on to the specific stuff.

Medkits

If you open the cert page of any class, you'll notice a tab saying "Universal Utility" at the top, containing two items: The medical kit (50 certs for the first rank) and the restoration kit (30 certs first rank). Once unlocked, you'll be able to equip those with every class, and as the name suggests, they take the utility slot.

They both do roughly the same: Restore you to full health. The medical kit does so instantly, while the restoration kit applies a 6 second heal over time. Both have their application, but in general, I'd say the medical kit is better, simply because you can jump straight back into the fight (also, it looks like a hypodermic injector you stick into your leg. Cool, huh?).

Now, as I said, these kits take up your utility slot. This isn't much of a problem at first, since no class save the engineer starts with an item equipped in the utility slot, but it might become problematic later, when you want to equip class-specific utility items. For starting out, however, I'd consider them an excellent purchase, since they add the ability to heal yourself, which I'm sure you can imagine can be immensely helpful.

Addendum: The one exception to this would be if you plan to play mostly medic, in which case I'd save the 50 certs for something else (at least in the beginning - in the long run, you can't really go wrong with a medkit), since the medic can heal himself with his active ability. Thanks to JuiceX for pointing this out!

Suit Slots

These have to be bought separately for every class, but most of them are the same for every class - there are some class-specific ones, and where they're worth a look buying early, I'll introduce them at the relevant part of the guide.

Basically, there's two choices here: Flak Armour or Nanoweave Armour. Both are only 1 cert for the first rank (10 for the second, still cheap), so they're an absolute must-have. Seriously, there's no way around these.

Flak Armour lowers the damage you take from explosives (grenades, rockets, tank rounds etc), while Nanoweave Armour increases your resistance to small arms fire (read: everything that's not explosive). Which one you take is up to personal preference - I personally use Flak Armour, since it protects you from those pesky Anti-Personnel mines that normally kill you once you step on them.

Scopes

Again, these have to be bought separately for every weapon (although they cross over if another class can use the same weapon - engineer's and light assault's carbines, for example), but with a few exceptions, the same scopes are available for most weapons.

These are also up to preference, but I would absolutely get one as soon as possible. All scopes cost 30 certs, regardless of weapon. A certed scope is a huge increase in accuracy over the default iron sights, and on top of that, most of them add utility the weapon didn't have before.

Depending on your favourite engagement range, I'd either get the HS/NV scope for close range or the 3.4x red dot zoom for mid to long range. The 2x reflex scope is a nice compromise between close and mid range, but I feel it's not particularily good at either - still, if you're only going to buy one scope and want to have flexibility, this is what I'd recommend.

Infantry Classes - Specifics

I'll go over each of the classes and what I believe are good first purchases for them. Now, I'm assuming you have already tested all the classes and picked one you like best, and now you want to improve that one - upgrading everything mentioned in this guide would probably cost you quite a few certs.
Without further ado, on to the classes:

Infiltrator

If you like to sneak and snipe, rejoice! The infiltrator is fairly cheap to upgrade, as there isn't a whole lot I'd consider a necessity for this class.
There are two things you pretty much absolutely have to get, though: A bolt-action (read, one headshot-kill) sniper rifle and a 12x zoom scope for said rifle. If you play NC, your default rifle is already bolt action, so you need only the scope. Fortunately for TR and VS, the cheapest bolt action rifle is only a hundred certs, and that's about all you need - although upgrading your cloaking ability a bit won't hurt, either.

Light Assault

Upgrade your Jump Jets! With the default jets, it's going to be hard to even get on top of a regular building, so I'd recommend getting at least rank three in them before upgrading anything else on this class.

C4 is very nice to have, since it gives you the ability to take out tanks, but it's very costly too, unfortunately. One thing I have noticed is that it's almost useless to have only one C4, since you'll need 2 to kill a tank, so wait until you can afford both (a whopping 700 certs) and get something else before.

Medic

Upgrading a medic is fairly simple, since there isn't really anything besides upgrading your tool and your active ability that would be considered absolutely necessary for the class. Stay away from the triage passive ability (heals everyone in the same vehicle as you) and the medic specific grenades for the time being, as they are fairly expensive and are sort of a niche utility you will only need in pretty specific situations. The regeneration field, on the other hand, is both cheap, extremely useful and a good way to get more certs. It replaces your AOE heal ability with a deployable that regenerates shields in an area around it, which is great whenever you need to defend a spot.

Engineer

First off, upgrade your tool! While a good investment for the medic, an upgraded tool is an absolute necessity for an engineer, since your tool overheats. Upgrading it might therefore mean the difference between your Sunderer exploding in your face or you repairing it right through an enemy attack.

Next off, there is one purchase on the engineer that will not only increase your threat potential immensely, but also help out your team and, last but not least, be a great source of XP for yourself: Tank mines. For a 100 certs, you get two mines that will instanly blow up every vehicle in the game that comes into contact with them (save those who use mineguard, but you'd be surprised at how few do). It doesn't even need to drive over them, dropping them on top of a parked sunderer is sufficient to watch the fireworks.

Tank mines use your utility slot (and are therefore mutually exclusive with anti-personnel mines or the medical kit), in which by default your ammo pack is equipped. This will not be lost, however, as you can also access it by selecting your turret and pressing B.

Addendum: As of GU06, tank mines will only explode when an enemy vehicle actually moves over them - or when they are detonated by hand by shooting them. One way to still make the suicide engineer work is to shoot the mines directly after laying them - it takes about 4-5 shots to make them explode, and they are pretty small, making this tactic somewhat less likely to succeed than before, but it is still your best shot to get rid of a deployed sunderer quickly.

Heavy Assault

Besides upgrading your active ability, the Nanite Mesh Generator, there is one thing I think is pretty essential on any Heavy: The Munitions Pouch. It increases the amounts of rockets you can carry by one for each rank (30 certs for the first), meaning that with only one rank in it and the default launcher, you now have sufficient ammunition to take down a sunderer all by yourself.
Unfortunately, it is a suit slot, meaning it's not compatible with Flak or Nanoweave Armour, but you have your NMG to give you an advantage in a fight.

Addendum: As Professor oWay pointed out, the Munitions Pouch might actually not be all that good for a heavy. While it increases the time you can operate alone without resupplying, Planetside 2 is a team game, and as such running around alone with a heavy will be a fairly rare occasion. Thus, it's probably best to take Flak Armour on the Heavy Assault as well, for the reasons pointed out in the general section.

MAX

Finally, the section on MAXes. Flak Armour for the MAX is reasonably cheap and provides good defense against a MAX's worst enemy: explosives.
I got the Auto repair system, but I wouldn't recommend that, as the amount repaired is pretty minimal on low ranks (and the high ranks are prohibitively expensive) and there's usually an engineer around who's more than happy to repair you.
Unfortunately, the default MAX isn't really good at any role, so you'll need to get some weapons for it if you want to specialise, all of which cost 1000 certs (one thing to note, though: you get one Burster - an anti air flak gun - for free, you just need to equip it).

Addendum: As of GU09, the price of many MAX weapons has dropped significantly, making it a lot cheaper to specialize your MAX (usually 250 for another AI/AV weapon). Thanks to Mr.900 for reminding me of this ;-)


That's it so far for the infantry, let's move on to vehicles!

Vehicles

General

First off, the must-haves: There are a number of certifications available that cost only one cert. Those are Ammo Capacity (each and every vehicle weapon has this, although the amount of ammo you gain varies depending on the weapon - usually you get one additional magazine worth of ammo) and the 1.25 zoom optics (also available for every vehicle weapon).

Generally, if you plan on driving or flying anything, I would definitely get these two for the vehicle/aircraft in question.

On to the


Specifics

Flash

Nothing here, really. There are a number of actually fairly cheap certifications for the flash, such as the Wraith cloaking device or the Cobalt machine gun, but first and foremost, the flash is meant to get from A to B quickly if no other transport is available, and it does that well enough without any certs at all, so I wouldn't advise investing in it early on.

Sunderer

The party bus, beloved by all. Even cheaper now that the Advanced Mobile Station is free! It allows you to deploy your sunderer as a spawn point, which makes it one of the most important vehicles in the game. If you plan on deploying it, getting mine guard (30 certs) won't hurt, as even the first rank prevents you from being blown up by those suicide engineers with their tank mines. Another good option is the deploy shield (50 certs).

Addendum: As of GU06, tank mines will now only explode when you actually move over them, making them less of a threat for deployed sunderers. As pointed out in the section about engineers, you can still manually detonate them, so I'd say mineguard is still the best option for a dedicated deploy sundy.

Lightning

If you like driving a lightning, you should consider getting its gun upgraded. Unfortunately, even the cheapest upgrade, the Python HEAT, weighs in at 250 certs, so I would leave upgrading the lightning until later.

Main Battle Tank

These are empire specific, but the same line of reasoning applies to all three. With the exception of the prowler, the empire specific utility upgrades (a short afterburner for the magrider and a shield for the vanguard) are definitely worth getting (100 certs for the first rank) - mind you, the prowler's anchor mode (immobilise to gain range and reload speed) is also very good, but it's a bit situational and I wouldn't advise getting it right away.
Other than that, more ammo for your main gun is a good idea. Sooner or later, you'll also want to upgrade your secondary gun, although this shouldn't be first priority. The Cobalt (against infantry, 100 certs) or the Halberd (against tanks, 250 certs) are fairly cheap upgrades to specialise your tank, but for the beginning, the default gun should do.

Harasser

If you want to use the Harasser with any efficiency, there are a few upgrades you should consider. First and foremost amongst these is the composite armour, at as high a level as you can afford - it reduces any kind of damage dealt to the harasser (excluding mines) by a very significant amount, especially at the later levels!
The Harasser's afterburner has the distinction of actually being pretty decent (compared to the Flash), helping a lot with dodging incoming shots, the Harasser's main way of staying alive in a battle, so it's a good option - not a must have by any means, though.
Another upgrade to consider is the gun. Acceptable on the MBT (where you have the main gun) or the Sunderer (where you have two and rarely fight for any prolonged duration anyways), the default basilisk is very sub-par on the Harasser since it's your only weapon. A very good upgrade for this is the Halberd at 250 certs, enabling you to actually duel tanks if you have a capable driver (the empire specific guns are also very good, but at 1000 certs slightly out of the scope of this guide...).

Addendum: Unfortunately, the cost of the Halberd has been increased to 750 certs. It's still very good, but a little too expensive now to really be considered in this guide.

Aircraft

Now, I've got bad news and good news for you. The bad news is, pretty much all the really important upgrades for aircraft are very expensive (rocket pods, AA or ground for the fighters and either a Zepher or a Dalton for the Liberator), but it doesn't make much sense to fly them without. One exception to this is the galaxy, but there's a reason you don't see many of those around: They don't really make sense without a coordinated squad - the same is true of the Valkyrie.
The (sort of) good news is, the most important thing when flying doesn't cost you a single cert: Practice. Without practice, you'll get shot down by enemy aircraft or simply fly into the ground due to the fairly unintuitive flight dynamics this game has.

In short: I'd stay away from aircraft at first and focus on other stuff, then move on to them once you feel comfortable with everything else.

Conclusion

That's it for this guide! If you want to go more in-depth, check out some of the other guides here on steam or on youtube. Thanks for bearing with me (if you hadn't noticed, this was my first guide), and again, if you have any comments, additions to make, criticism to deliver or anything of the sort, just leave it below!

[Pentregarth]

@dragon: Yeah fair, I'll change the name of the guide to immediately show it's no longer updated. It's in the introduction but that might mislead some people.

[dragon]

god this is so ancient it has older nanoweave, sad that it's still trending when it's just... outdated? suit slots there's other good ones now, flak is still good, but nanoweave is basically useless now, in contrast to the historical 'nanoweave and flak are the only viable options'

probably a lot of other stuff as well, ps2 is an old game- this guide was last updated 2018 and there's been massive balance changes since then

[/3udweiser /3andit]

step 1: cordium bomb

[The Big 2000]

STOP! You're hitting TR!

[Pandyy]

Wheres the : "Play heavy assault if you want to win tip" ?

[🅑𝕋ᑕ 𝟚𝟘𝟘 𝕜]

top

[lewis]

@author
"and the medic specific grenades for the time being, as they are fairly expensive and are sort of a niche utility you will only need in pretty specific situations."
Gotta disagree about the Nanite Revive Grenade, though. With a decently timed throw in a good-sized battle, you can get 3-4+ (depending on whether you revived non-squadmates/squadmates, and whatever xp boosts are active) certs at the measly cost of 75 nanites. It can be easily grabbed along with the maxed Medic tool with the bonus check you get for the first 15 BR increases, too.

[lewis]

@author
"and the medic specific grenades for the time being, as they are fairly expensive and are sort of a niche utility you will only need in pretty specific situations."
I agree that the Nanite Healing Grenade is pretty niche. Medic already has two abilities (counting regeneration field since shields are effectively health unless you have carapace) to heal nearby allies, neither of which costs nanites to use or requires any kind of aiming.

[lewis]

@author
"Stay away from the triage passive ability (heals everyone in the same vehicle as you)"
I'm fairly certain that triage now constantly heals allies that are really close to the vehicle you're in (like ~5 meters). Still wouldn't get it unless there's absolutely nothing else you want or think you might want later on.

[Бибер]

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