Overview

Headshots

The biggest factor in a fight is your ability to headshot. Most players realize that landing a headshot deals more damage, despite this knowledge shooting heads is criminally underutilized whether it be because of ignorance or lack of ability. 

Similar to most modern FPS games there is locational damage in Planetside 2. If you are shot in chest/arms you take however much damage your opponent’s weapon does (minus any range penalties). When you are shot from the waist down, you take 90% of the damage you normally would. When you are shot in the head, the damage you would normally take is MULTIPLIED by 2.

To stress the importance of headshots, we’ll use the LA1 Anchor (NC) as an example. 

Players have 500 Health and 500 Shields

The LA1 Anchor deals 167 damage per shot.

If that shot is a head-shot, it will deal 334 damage rather than 167. 

If all shots land on the head the TTK (Time to Kill) with the LA1 Anchor is 0.2 seconds. 

The average human reaction time is around 282 Milliseconds.

Therefore, the LA1 Anchor can kill you before you can react, and we have not even begun to factor in lag.

This is why aiming for the head ALL THE TIME is important as milliseconds can be the difference between life and death.