Do you think SOE went overbourd on the ESFs?

If I sound like am a bit off the air it because im sick so bear with me please.

They beef'd up AA max's there now extremely powerful now which im not really sorry about to be honest even though im a very dedicated ESF pilot I recognise that we had things too easy at least the VS TR did we got served. But I think SOE did go a little too far. right now if you shoot a infantry man and im talking direct hits it takes some thing like 4 rockets to kill him- 7-8 if your aim is a bit off. think the blast radius needs to be extended a little bit. oh and I tested this in VR so im not sure how much of a impact flak armour does.

I think one of the problems is since the NC now has a very good ESF every one is now wearing upgraded flak armour when there fighting us so it just taking a lot more time to down them now im really not sure it ok they can do that I really don't think you should be able ot eat a face full of HE and keep running.

it might be better if the machine guns damage was beef'd against infantry. I don't think it be over powered now due to flak. we also have a lot more people flying so not like your going to have to worry so much about air superiority

ESF's aren't that good, unless your a really skilled pilot. Because lock ons + burster maxes can easily ward off a ESF, or if an ESF is trying to attack a large place it will die really easily. As it stands i'd say ESF's even need to be buffed

I think as it stands im totally fine with flak the way it is. I just think the ESF need a little more punch.

last night I did really well getting 35-5KD in a reaver but today after that small patch things seemed a lot different I don't know maybe they fiddled again

ESFs are fine. It's a precarious balance, because both AA and ESFs are OP, so they kind of cancel each other.

ESFs can kill full health MBTs in a couple of seconds, they can kill infantry effectively, they can kill everything.

The problem here is lolpods. They shouldn't have been created...they're the origin of this crappy balance.

one thing I hated before was the mozzies were able to just blatantly fly into flak get shot 40 times then calmly fly away.

Rockets usually take me out with 3 rockets as infantry unless I have flak armor. Which leaves me with enough health to try to fight a bit longer.

Nose guns are pretty good at harming and a few of them insta-gib infantry.

Sorry something has impeded your ability to farm infantry, but nothing is wrong.

On the AA MAX thing, account unlocked are in affect, I can now use dual bursters on my TR and VS character, so can many others. The AA MAX itself has not been buffed in a while versus air, it's just that people who have multiple characters can now double up on a burster as opposed to **** MAX AA which just attracts attention in small groups.

yes hell fire and proton pods are a bit of a ****.

It maybe better if they scratch rockets all together and just have a couple of 30mm machine guns that good against infantry and tanks and other ESF's.

They nerfed hell out of ESFs, then after that they buffed AA, so they buffed a weapon to, counter a problem that wasn't even there anymore. So now you have an issue where a weapon has no power, an can be obliterated instantly.It was insane, an so typically SOE. Though now its far to late an we will only be getting more nerfs to esf not buffs. They will be nerfing hell out of the ESF again soon because we are able to use mines to bomb people. the codites will scream hell when they decide to spam threads about this.

I don't mind using just guns - if there's time, rotary killing someone is actually easier than rocket pods.

But you would have to NERF AA/flak/lock-ons HUGELY to allow for this, because there's just not enough time for the precision use of the nose gun when any amount of AA is present at all currently.

They wont, if anything AA is in for more buffs.

this Op makes no sense

I would LOVE to have an esf stacked with a pair of high capacity 30mm vulcans instead of lolpods.

1. You would have to actually hit what you are aiming at to kill it.
2. It would provide great utility to the esf while also eliminating the 0.5 second vehicle kill factor.
3. It would bring back awesome dog fighting and promote cooperative air to air tactics within factions.
4. It would feel like flying an A10 warthog doing bad *** strafing runs against entrenched infantry positions and vehicles.
5. STYLISH AS F CK.

The only thing that frustrates me is that it takes roughly the same number of rockets to kill an infantryman as a tank. It usually takes 6 photon pods to kill someone, more if they have flak armor or I miss a volley, while i can kill a tank in the rear armor with 8 depending if they're damaged slightly. Honestly, the nose gun is far superior to rocketpods in terms of farming infantry. The only time rockets are superior is if you can't aim that precisely due to high speeds or the enemy is grouped up.

I am a terrible pilot in a reaver and I never get gunned down unless I am doing something stupid.
Just learn to avoid things that can kill you, every other class/vehicle in the game has to do it, why not an ESF?

With the agility and speed an ESF has, its easy unless you want to become a hover turret - which I'm sure is where the complaining comes from.

Might come as a shock to you but ESFs have anti-infantry primaries.

Anti infantry primaries that are so frustratingly punishing to try and use against infantry that you have to be firing on them with high powered zoom optics from almost max render distance to take advantage of the weapons minuscule spread otherwise you tend to either miss completely or get your cheeks ripped off by small arms fire, launchers, lock on launchers, flak, more flak, anti air machine guns, other esf's, etc while trying to hover and strafe around a single target and drill it with the standard primary ESF weapon.

I agree and concede that when you actually strike infantry with it it tears them to tiny pieces in the blink of an eye but its painfully hard to aim due to its pin point accuracy. If you're 0.5mm off target its a total miss, and continuous adjustment to hit infantry running around like an ADHD kid jacked up on red cordial is actually extremely difficult.

Wait, what? Did I miss an update? Did the Reaver get a buff? Or even an un-nerf?

I use banshee with IRNV. It not hard to aim at all if you can aim rocket pod and it has higher ammo reserve than rocket so you can miss a lot without to worries much.

If they shoot their puny small arm back. I just disengage and let nano repair kick in and come back to them.

Right now, I actually think ESFs are in a really good place. Same with Liberators. They deal good damage, if you're skilled and careful you can still have good runs with the attack aircraft, but flak is scary, and you need to focus to actually take out targets. I would say that they're just about balanced. Especially now that tanks and esfs are worth so much exp. I feel that it's totally balanced. I don't have any problem killing tanks as an ESF, and I don't have any problems killing esfs as a burtster, or scaring them away as a g2a HA. Even liberators aren't too much of a problem. Sure if there's 20 liberators above a base, it's toast. But that's a full platoon of people. if you have 10 sunderers and 10 tanks outside of the base it would be the same thing.

Liberators especially are borderline under powered right now. Simply because bursters are so strong now.

Depends what side you are playing I guess. OP sounds like a NC player. That Airhammer is actually superior to infantry killing than the pods as long as you have a decent magazine size certed. Can be used while moving at high speeds. Good hit and run weapon versus infantry and its high spread makes it easy to hit even light assaults mid-flight. Being a bullet based weapon it bypasses FLAK armor I think.

TR probably has it worst as their Banshee requires the most aiming (though it seems powerful when it does hit) while the VS is kind of inbetween (assuming it bypasses FLAK armor?) with its large plasma ball that has a decent splash size.