Why is there no hard counter to Air atm?

Actually, is there a hard counter to anything in this game?

Pretty much kills almost everything.

Well fair enough. I guess the only counter to c-4 is c-4 then?

At the very least the skyguard could have been made more resilient against air if the perspective of buffing its laughable damage output is making you nervous. Its dps and accuracy sucks some major *** but as far as libs are concerned you could decribe the existing problem in terms of insufficient survivability. 'A' should think twice about trading dmg with 'AA', which is not the case. For a lib it's a no-brainer and even some adventurous ESFs try their chances.

Remove the ability to be one-clipped/one-clipped+1 bomb by a charging lib and the problem will be largely solved. How to do that? I am not paid for coming up with solutions, but maybe the gun could have a special property not unlike unique items in diablo, eg some additional armor out of the box. It still would be borderline useless against mech because of atrocious dps and accuracy, it still would be feared and generally avoided by ESFs and the only thing that would change would be the dynamic between libs and skyguards.

Actually its not. I have a gunner that flies with me sometime. We use the hellion and the maxed evasiveness frame. We have no problems taking down air units that try to kill us. If the hellion shots hit, They tear through ESF armor.

And that is not true. I have put four bricks of C4 on a lib, Detonated them, Then had to finish the lib with my AV mana turret....

The valk is the Air Superiority vehicle. They are absolutely boss vs ESFs.

Especially the TR variant with Striker HAs

I have limited experience with this, but i have killed many more ESF with tank canon then Libbies. Anyway, i agree with you that it's a good measure.
Talking of fixes i believe both max burster and lightning skyguard should have their damage model remade. They should be doing twice the damage they are now in under 30 meters but should start losing it with the range.
Right now, a libbie can fly by my dualburster max, get 5-8 seconds of constant flak at point blank and it won't even be close to a dangerous situation. I believe that such mess ups should be lethal or very near lethal as they are for an ESF which can escape badly smoking if he's a really good pilot.

Oh, it's quite worse. I consider C-4 a heavily non-deterministic element in this game due to its dependency on clientside interactions. In my experience, the only way to know for certain that you have successfully rebuffed the efforts of an avid demolitionist is when you do not die.

I agree, in fact I have made such suggestions in the past that the Skyguard should have a specialized Reinforced top armor option for it's defensive slot. I also think it should have an Air Radar as an option for it's utility slot, that operates like the ESF Air radar. These two features alone while not making the Skyguard OP vs ESF would ais in giving the skyguard much greater situational awareness.

I do not have an issue with a Liberator being able to tank buster and drop a Dalton round onto a skyguard. It is similar to an AP/Halberd or Vulcan clip into the rear, which would have similar results. And when we further look at the statistics and vehicle cause of deaths, for as powerful as the Tank Buster/Dalton combination is it really does not translate into a leading cause of death for any vehicle in this game other then other Liberators.

The Skyguard already dominates ESF in 1 vs 1, engagements. There is really no room to increase it's offensive capabilities without seriously disrupting the air/ground balance. If you've followed my posts, you will note that I offer an alternative, which is to increase the elevation angle of Lightenings and MBT, which will allow those vehicles to more easily shoot at enemy Air, as well as buff the Ranger to 90% the strength of a skyguard, which would allow players to put this weapon on the harasser frame and the MBT secondary, which in essence would create an AA MBT varient.

They should add a type of sheild deployment that only works if you pick Skyguard. Can be activated like using smoke and has a timer before you can get it back on again (to prevent flicking on and off) - would let it tank more A2G damage.

The current uselessness of lfak versus libs and gals needs addressed - the resistant values are way too high. Only the armour slot for them should let them take so much damage.

And anyone moaning saying "libs/gals are hard mode) - you have afterburners to escape behind a hill, and autorep will get you back over that spawn in a matter of minutes.

The comparison has one major flaw. In case of GAVvGAV both sides can and should play that backstabbing game.
Where is the lib's soft spot again? Lib can go from "kill" to "obliterate" the skyguard with some skill, what can skyguard do? It has a hard floor of TTK and that's it. You can try rotating, driving under the lib in hope that you ruin TB aim, start spamming flak at belly gun in hope that asplosions will make the finishing moves miss but that simply doesn't work against people with half a clue.

And it doesn't really matter how much mech libs kill. Per capita they kill plenty enough but 30v30 tank blob battles with C4 and other inf based AV sprinkled here and there waste more stuff, news at 11.
It rubs me the wrong way that after sacrificing almost all utility to pull that piece of **** the very first lib i see can dunk on me to collects near-free certs and there is nothing i can do. All that for being a bit scary vs ESFs (though not really since good pilots take advantage of the atrocious amounts of leading required and maneuver their way out with ease)? That's ******* ********.

Just posted this in a thread above:

The lib should always have been the same as Planetside 1:

No rolling, gunner could only aim up/down on bomb seat so you had to do straight bombing runs - and it dropped buns, not firing shells. Needed esf air support, and could drop 1 of 2 types of bombs (tankbuster and cluster)

The lib is a joke of a vehicle, and at the very least needs its afterburners removed and its resistance reviewed. Same goes for the galaxy. If you run galaxy as a flying fortress the spawn option should be unavailable when you select bulldogs etc. Both vehicles can tank way too much damage.

Lib vs skyguard is too one sided - the lib ha sa pilot, who takes care of getting them to safety and the gunner can focus on hitting the target not having to worry about cover. Theres not much cover for the lightning since the lib has the aerial advantage and the driver also has to deal with controlling the tank as well.

Im not a tanker fan, never really use them. But being in a lib with Dreadnaught (prob one of the best lib pilots in the game) the lib is unstoppable in the right hands - and even in the not so good hands. Its too tanky, too quick to escape, can use multiple angles to roll and maintain target. Def needs addressed. Gal does too.

I don't think FLAK needs its damaged buff, this would have multiple repercussions. The biggest of which is it would be a severe nerf to ESF as they are the most vulnerable to FLAK and they are one of the biggest killers of Liberators. It would also not effect the factions equal. For instance the NC with their Air hammer must operate much closer to the ground, then either of the other two ESF, so they would be effected much greater then the other two factions.

You also say that with this change any good pilot would be able to get away. I think this is already an issue with flying, is that it already takes an extremely skilled player to succeed in the Air, this would only further raise the ceiling, especially for ESF pilots, which are the primary and best counter to Liberators, since they fly as well.

The issue I have with increasing Infantry AA, including MAX, is that it is the most abundant unit and it is quick and easy for players to swap out to AA load outs and then switch back or change and they can be near instantly revived or respawn seconds later with no consequences or real loss. The Infantry unit for all intents and purposes is meant to require multiple units to take out most targets, even in the case of C4 & tank mines. Even though in the end it only takes 1 Infantry to blow up a vehicle with C4 or tank mines, it still on average takes multiple Engineers and LA's for each of those single kills, because 3 out 4 or more are going to die in the process, but we only record the kill for the 1 that got through and we ignore the fact that 3 or more others died in failed attempts.

It's really no different with other vehicles and other sources of AV, it generally take 3-5 infantry players to take out MBT or a sunderer using rockets, even if you had a Deci and you fought a MBT or Sunderer 1 vs 1 you are talking at the bare minimum 17.1 Sec to kill a MBT from the Rear and 40 sec to kill a sunderer or MBT from the front. Using an Annihilator on a Liberator its 8 hits or 37.6 sec TTK, add another player and its 18.8 s TTK, add a 4th and its TTK is halved again to 9.4s up to 8 Annihilators at which point any liberator will be destroyed in a single volley and you can kill a Liberator roughly every 5 sec or 2-3 ESF every 5sec

The Lib's weak spot is its overall exposure, as it is much more obvious in general as it is flying and more open to taking damage from other sources. The Pilot also can not quickly hop out and begin repairing, once they take damage.

I'm going to be pretty honest here, if you are dieing consistently to liberators in a skyguard, then you are doing it wrong. I also feel your perception of what the Skyguards capabilities are is also wrong. It is a Solo AA vehicle, that is really a 1 vs 1 counter to ESF, not a 1 vs 1 counter to a liberator. A better counter is an AA ESF or another liberator, because they can FLY or use something like a Sunderer with Dual Walkers or even a MBT with a Walker (please note my earlier posts where I feel the Main guns on MBT's should have increased Elevation to shoot into the Air better)

As I have stated numerous times I am opposed to increase the effectiveness of Infantry/ MAX AA and the Skyguard. However, buffing the ranger to 90% effectiveness of a skyguard would be a more balanced approach as it is a secondary weapon that can be placed on a more appropriate heavily armored-multi-crewed vehicle (exception the harasser). In essence, if we gave the MBT's main gun higher elevation and a 90% skyguard secondary gun(the ranger) would give players basically a MBT AA/AV Variant, which would be a more appropriate counter to a liberator,or even a dual ranger Sunderer, it would be worthless for anything other then AA, but damn it would be a beast with 2 Rangers with a 90% effectiveness of a Skyguard and the vehicle cert / player cost would be more balanced.

Please tell me the last time you saw a liberator die to a sky guard 1 v 1. It's a tickle gun at best all is an exercise in futility.

1 v 1 only works if that Lib is already damages.. trailing smoke.. and then I get the final shots in with a Skyguard.
If the Lib is on full health, and I start the engagement, even from a surprise close range.. the Lib just hauls *** out of there,
dives behind cover, repairs and either never comes back.. or comes back to kill my Skyguard.

1 v 1 is not in favor of the Skyguard. But it shouldn't be anyway.

While I love the vanguards(/and magriders too) ability to drop an esf in one hit, I do love the ttk on libs with a deployed prowler.

So libs don't have a mountain of HP to offset their exposure already? They can't mount "press button to restore a lot of hp, undoing a lot of tedious plinking done by the enemy"? Also have you looked around recently? Hossin is one big LoS obstruction. Amerish - LoS obstructions everywhere. Half of Indar - LoS obstructions everywhere. If it's not northern indar or chunks of Esamir there is always a LoS obstruction not further than 200m away for any air to exploit the **** out of it. Half of bases are in holes in the ground. Air can cut and restore LoS at their leisure there, jumping in and out the attack range which means the ground can't do anything but take it up the *** as far as libs and whales are concerned, ESFs being not that far away.
Theoretical exposure to prolonged skyguard fire doesn't happen often.

oh really? Pull a skyguard then and record your pro moves against thirsty libs with half a clue.

For ***** sake, skyguard doesn't even have to be a COUNTER to a liberator, but could it stop being a VICTIM of a liberator by default? Being EVEN would be sufficient, something like avg 10s TTK vs avg 10s TTK. Now who plays it better wins.
Lib has what, a 4x advantage in ttk? As it stands libs don't think twice about bumrushing, tanking damage with their face and dunking on skyguard either way. It's completely ******** that an AP tank can make the lib rethink their plan with a quick round or 2 to the face, but skyguard, an AA vehicle completely useless otherwise is 20-30 seconds of tickle tickle tickle.
And why would we want to make AP tanks even better? They reign supreme already, destroy vehicles the best and have sniper-like qualities against peasants. Combined farms something something?

And the fact that people consider a bus to be a superior AA platform is laughable in itself (not to mention bus' double fury nonsense). This game's overall design is pants-on-head ********.