State of the Lightning Address

The top armor is a good idea. Noone uses top armor right now.

While I don't agree with OP completely (I am of opinion the Lightning could use a secondary weapon slot that could be equipped with something to help cover your weak points or boost your advantages), this is still a very nice post. More posts should be like that.

Cause auto repair is much better if you can avoid shots
The only downside is that you lose repair xp, but you get that back by staying alive and shooting at aircrafts

Lightning is also only vehicle I dont have speed frame on and it feels so slow, but its much easier to dodge incoming daltons etc
a stock lightning should be faster than a certed MBT (Prowler..)

Not sure about that, what i value about the Heat is the higher accuaracy. I wouldnt be able to land shots on infantry that is far away and moving with the AP or Viper as reliable as i will with the Heat. Same goes for 1v1 with Viper Lightnings. While the dps might be higher it´s unlikely he will land all shots. Since as Heat you can go out of cover for a splitsecond shot and get back to cover while the Viper doesnt have chance to land all 6 shots during that time. Same for a fast moving fight. Its way harder to land all the Viper shots while maneuvering trough rough terrain then it is to land 1 Heat shot.

But that just my experience and i didnt spend that much time in a Lightning and have to admit that most using a Viper that i encountered probably had a uncerted Lightning.

Imho their doing a good thing at tuning the Viper. With PU02 that weapon had been buffed without a reason (see here https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...cember-17-2013-9-30-am-pt-6-30-pm-cet.162621/ ).
Now they're bringing it back to the initial situation and that's more or less fine, right now that's performing a little too well to be the stock weapon of a cheap 1-man tank.

Concering the Skyguard I think this weapon is exactly where it should be, even if yeah it deals too little damage to infantry. I do not expect to rip infantry to shreds with a Skyguard but it's currently dealing less damage than a carbine which feels very weird.

Then when it's about armor I also feel the top armor could use a little buff to become a little more appealing. Right now the perfect Lightning setup is max speed and autorepair so you can play "hit & run tactics" while every attempt to make the lightning more "tanky" with armor layers really seems to be sub-optimizing.

I rather the lighting get some more AI buffs.
IMO
Lightings =AI
MBT = AV

And of cource a MBT could equip HE and a lighting can equip AP but having lightnings do more damage against infantry will mean MBT have more targets and more of a purpose destroying armor, While still being to engage moderate groups of infantry with AV loadouts.

The lighting should still be able to take out sunderers and light armor with some effectiveness, they just shouldn't pose a big threat vs MBT.

I know why noone uses top armor, thats why I liked mangrychop's idea of buffing top armor much like liberator composite armor is. Grants additional resistances against air attacks regardless of direction.

The lightnings AI ability is already rather off the chain, and the lightning is not simply AI (Skyguard, and AP cannon), but much of the post regarding the viper was still to make it an AI weapon instead of a heat cannon like SOE is planning.

The lightnings AI abilities currently are getting nerfed. its gonna happen because the viper is insanely strong against infantry, but it can be nerfed against infantry and still be a good fair AI weapon.

I spend the vast majority of my time in a AP lightning, and the lightning has always had a place fighting other tanks.

Firstly, there is no reason for stock to equal bad. this is a game about sidegrades. Had they been turning the viper back to what it was I would be happy, but they are nerfing parts of the viper that have existed since the game went live, and retaining much or GU02 in its place.
The trend is as follows...

HE cannons get AI nerf, later on receive AV buff to compensate
Viper gets AV buff, gets AI nerf later to compensate.

^sounds balanced, sure, but I already own a HEAT cannon. Whats a HE cannon when you buff its AV and nerf its AI? A heat cannon. Whats a viper that does decent damage against armor and infantry....a heat cannon.

Do you see the problem I'm pointing out?

Instead the viper should be AI first of all, and the viper should be a unique AI weapon. One that focuses on scoring direct hits. I am completely against the decision to homogenize all the lightning weapons into the same exact thing with three different names.

The viper has the same drop and velocity as lightning heat, though I think your referring to the viper's recoil more then anything, and comparing it to heats high alpha.

When I go AV with the viper I typically do it in 3rd person, and the multiple shots allow me to compensate my aim on the fly. A viper lightning fighting this way is a real beast. I find my AP cannon a little more difficult fighting this way, because missing a shot is more painful. I still haven't mastered fighting in 3rd person. Right now the viper doesn't need to land all of its shots to beat a heat cannon, but your not wrong. a heat lightning should beat a viper generally, but its too close for a weapon that is incredibly good AI.

I would like to see the heat and AP cannons getting a velocity buff while the viper remains where it is. This will give both ap and heat more accuracy and make them even better at fighting other lightnings. On the other side vipers will no longer be able to burst fire accurately and lose their alpha damage even more. This will emphasize the differences your talking about.

The reason additional toys for the lightning aren't mentioned is because this post is reacting to a balance pass SOE put live on the test server. They don't add new toys on balance passes. I'll have much to talk about when they are finally ready to give the lightning new stuff, but in the meantime there are some very simple balance issues with the lightning that I have been waiting on for over a year, and more importantly SOE is making some poor changes to some lightning weapons, like the viper.

Oh, by the way, they may be nerfing NAR too sadly. On the test server its gona from 8 seconds to 12 seconds. Pretty significant if you ask me.

Alternativly they could just put the projectile drop on the viper back to what it was so it's more of a close range AI spec vs. HE

in my experience bullet drop is generally only a nerf to those who are inexperienced with the weapon. they added bullet drop to my shotgun slugs a while back and i sucked at long range combat for a while until i learned the arc then i was pretty much back to where i was without the bullet drop. actually if you understand the drop of your shots well enough you can use it to hit targets behind cover and it actually becomes a substantial buff. the only time bullet drop is truly a nerf is when it is so extreme that it limits max range like the drop on grenade launchers does.

It was a projectile/drop change. The c75 was rarely used back in its pre-buff state.

Video evidence of Bigfoot

Can I say something generally about the Lightning ... I never much used third person gunning on it, because I'm more of the MBT guy ...

But hell, you can do some serious stuff if you keep moving nonstop and only fire in third person, this is so much better than mobile Vanguard firing!

I should make a montage of how crazy this is ...

yeah, its especially strong against the rare battle sundy with bulldogs/fury. Passenger heavies/maxes are left in the dust, Gunners can't score any hits. Its fun to see a scenario where the enemy thought he had the fight from the start, and see their reaction when the fight goes horribly against them. Against enemy tanks it really depend on their skill. I haven't seen any competent MBT thrown by this (could be that I'm not skilled enough at pulling it off) and a lot of mbt secondaries can really punish this behavior.
Its much easier to do with the current viper then it is with the AP cannon (viper's AV is far too strong for what it is). Skyguards can also do it really well but they seem to do less damage to ground vehicles after that huge end of the year patch.(their AV could use a buff).
The biggest problem is that few places have enough open terrain to allow it. Easimir comes to mind as the big exception.

thanks. I apologies for doubting you. No wonder its so hard for them to balance AA

Yeah, that change was what made the viper for me. Me, and many other tankers had this problem with distant infantry using lock-ons, AV turrets, and MAX AV weapons to decimate us with little retaliation. When infantry play peek-a-boo over hills they are safe from splash so HE wasn't cutting it as an AI weapon here, but the viper with its 6 shots of pain turned the tides. I would often pull a viper to support MBTs to take out these pests before they could do significant damage.
This is why I use zoom on my viper in the first place, and this is what I think the viper's nitch should be. The problem is that firing the full 6 rounds full auto style is effective even at longer ranges, and doing so doesn''t have enough drawbacks. I find myself just firing full auto, and letting the splash kill the infantry since its more effective then actually aiming.
SOEs patch to the viper is wrong on a few levels.

1. Its not going too hinder the viper's AI power in any significant manner.
2. It encourages lightnings to fire their full clips more often instead aiming shots.
3. IT continues to allow the viper to completely own HE and skyguard turrets.

SOE is right that the viper needs a balance pass, but they need to nerf the cheese volleys, not the skill shots.

I was doing it with HEAT, since I yet need to unlock AP but I had no issues hitting Vehicles and once you get used to the drop it also was possible to snap shot Infantry in third person.

The only real problem I had was gundepression in some cases were the camera would not go down further, this was especially the case if I was racing down a step hill.

It needs a bit getting used to, since I'm so used to the Vanguard steering drag to the sides but once I got a better feeling for that I had Infantry dropping left and right, sniping Vehicles across 350+ meters while zooming around at almost maximum speed.

It's crazy ... I tell you! I need to max my Lightning on my main instead of my dirty VS alt!

gun depression can be a pain. My biggest pitfall is adjusting for horizontal. I think I'm aiming at the target too much, rather then where he will be. I just need more practice. Its still a relatively new skill for me and I'm not the master of it yet.

Using it against infantry with the viper is just plain unfair

Oh another thing about heat/AP and my original post. I wouldn't be against lowering the overall damage of each individual shot from heat or ap in exchange for the .25 second faster ROF. The problem isn't DPS as much as it is TTK. I feel that lightnings should have a TTK comparable to 1/2 MBTs. While I don't feel that the DPS would be a problem after that buff, I wouldn't mind it being lowered in exchange.