Most of the time it's Scythes that get my Vanguard for the reasons mentioned above. I call them hover spammers now, there is no skill in what they do and it's one of the worst cases of imbalance in this game. Most of the time I can't even press the F key to get my Vanguard shield up before I am dead. Why should they be granted an instant 1000xp+ for hovering and spamming rockets? It should require more than 1 reload to kill a heavy tank. 1 volley is fair enough for lightnings.
ESF's in terms of weaponry are not underpowered, armor etc maybe so, reaver needs most improvements, but with so much lock ons and AA hard for any ESF.
so, in your opinion it is balanced for one player to need multiple other people working together to protect him from one other player? what situation requires an esf to need anti-ground support to protect him from ground forces? your example must be one that the esf cannot simply fly away from using speed and afterburners. hint: the answer is none.
How shall i put this? Well, maybe... owned? A "nerf vanu" + "nerf air" + "u nerfed scatmaxes I cry" thread.. nothing new under the sun, here on forumside
I think you'll find while the OP definitely had a VS hate slant, many posters since have made it clear that pods period are dangerous to the health of ... well, anything. And I am not personally saying they need a nerf, just the mechanics in practice mean there are a few people in this game who come across as untouchable because your AA is already dead. I can't even personally tell if its due to them using a particular vision cert, a particular skill set, or auto-aim script kiddy super fun times - all I know is I am stuck in the warpgate and all the certs I put into top armor, radar, smoke, infrared, shield, etc don't seem to make a damn bit of difference - hell, material was getting gibbed faster than I or team mates can identify the threat and take evasive maneuvers, only programs could possible identify and counter attack within those time frames. Jockeying for position ends up nullified. I am at a total loss of how to adapt to this situation and would appreciate any tips on how to not have everything in timer so damn fast and resources depleted. I swear, I am trying to figure out the Learn 2 Play (L2P) in this and coming up empty. Because with all the various ways I have been pwned in this game, this was the first that I threw my hands up and went "Why don't I just go play something else for a while until they figure out what is wrong with this picture?" I don't know about my fellow gamers, but I kinda like to have a chance to counter-attack in some fashion, even if it is a remote chance. Its a pretty demoralizing situation but I guess it happens infrequently enough that it hasn't yet reached the Liberator camping a spawn shack infamy yet? One of the cheapest in terms of resources vehicles in the game appears to have this huge skill curve that if you achieve mastery in there isn't really a counter for at the moment in practice, AA doesn't really act as a deterrent to it when they know they can flat line you before your AA can put a similar level of damage on their ESF. The real kicker to me? A2G pods are a better choice for Anti-Air combat in an ESF than the A2A missiles, there isn't even a trade off for being a ground vehicle and personnel killing beast. Many other things in this game have been tweaked for less.
A Phoenix will 1 hit kill a ESF, the TTK on a ESF from a Phoenix is about 0.8 sec ( time it takes for the last part to burn and you have to bail ) If a Scythe is " Hovering" to pod a tank he is dead. But the problem is if you are a TR then it takes 14+ seconds to kill a Scythe and in that time he can destroy 2 to 4 tanks.
Quoting these for truth. As has been noted, In order to set up a proper rear armor assault with your ESF, you need to set up a decent strafing run from behind the tank, and if the tank is positioning himself correctly, which means that he is staying within the range of his own AA defenses, it is incredibly difficult to set up a proper flanking run without getting chewed to pieces by AA. That's the reality of things. Also, as a few others have pointed out, the TTK for all ESF's on all tanks is very similar. Scythe may do it .5 second faster, but its practically negligible. Usually when I'm in my Mag, and I get exploded from full HP down to nothing in a second and a half, I think... wow, I must really have been out of position. That said, I do think the TTK for ESFs on Tanks is a bit too fast, but not by much. I think they need to buff tank armor a bit and make them cost more resources, and perhaps scale down the effectivness of rocketpods a bit also. Also as was pointed out, part of it is the wonky way that they do their hit-detection.
AV loadout: DF 3 - 700 certs Flares 1 - 100 certs Rocketpods - 1000 certs + IR view 50 certs + mag size 6 341 certs composit armor - 1800 certs ------------------------------------------ 3991 certs This is what I think you should invest. Some prefer DF some Hover, costs are the same. Some would use stealth or nanite repair, i prefer composit so I can take some pounding. Not calculated the certs for Acquisition Timer or your primary gun, as you dont need it to kill tanks. What you need to invest to get rid of those pesky ESFs: Walker / Ranger - 1000 certs maybe zoom? - 201 certs mag size 4 - 91 certs --------------------------------------------- 1292 certs You dont even need a gunner, if you hear the sound of an ESF, just switch Seats and fire away. And before you tell me those AAs are ****, you might want to try them first. There is a nice vid of matti shredding threw ESFs and Libs with one of those. If you dont want to invest into AA and prefer an AV secondary ... your joice, but than dont whine on the forum.
Its too bad you gotta take such a defensive stance, I asked for advice, you gave it, for that sincerely thank you. And I really do hope there is more advice forthcoming from you and others. Pronam, Marine, and Vasa have been doing what they can to teach me and others how to fly more effectively and I am willing to learn what I can. And I have a lot of that stuff already. BR 51 amount of certs and after I finished off making a team play friendly engineer, I did every vehicle with appropriate AA weapon set up that I could afford to help the team out. Relax a little, you are correct, they do take care of the "pesky" ESF, probably pilots with roughly the same or lower skill level as myself, in fact I have gotten so used to accurately judging the distance I need to lead the reticule on a target to hit that I am certain more than a few pilots out there think I am cheating sometimes, but against the right pilots? All AA solutions died, fast. And then the rest of the undefended out in the open soon followed. This isn't whining, this is just telling it like it is. And what it is ... well, I think I'll go play some Minecraft or Project Zomboid or Red Orchestra for a while. *shrugs*
No. You're implying the ESF supremacy in this game, and this is wrong. PS2 is too much of a flight simulator atm, the whole game is evolving around Air. Even although ESF were actually concepted to be A2A and not A2G.
Not really, I'm bias because it's only them I've experienced it against, and it isn't rare, it's frighteningly frequent. If other ESFs can do it too - then it's just as ****** for them as it is the VS!
From the rear, if they snuck up on you and unloaded, yes. You can even use a somewhat well known glitch to fire faster. For how much exposure fighters have now adays, though, I don't begrudge them their quick kills. I wonder if some of the rocket nerfs should be undone for how much missile and AA fire fighters have to endure now, and I say that from the standpoint of a diehard AA max user that has a hard time with using A2G fighters.
Oh look, someone else who can't read. I questioned their ability to do it or not because I literally was not sure if they could or could not do that. Can't find the bit where I said, or even insinuated that. An armored tank wielding a canon getting instagibbed is not the same as a man wearing trackies getting instagibbed. I tell you I was not alone, You tell me I was. I really don't want to quote myself, but, I think I have to. "I was completely utterly entirely surrounded by my own teams AA and AV, I also was not on open ground." To add to that, there were 5 or so tanks ahead of me, lightening and prowlers, working their way up the hill, and a couple had just been constructed behind me (I'd only just left vbay)
Probably your friendly AA wasnt the real deal. I play Burster quite freqently and 5 AA Maxes clean the skies.
The score per minute of my Lightning, Reaver, and Vanguard differs by about 5%. I have to work so much harder to get that with my ESF than I do with my tanks. Tanks have far less to worry about and play around than ESFs do.
it's just 8 rocketpods to kill and no, there's no way you can do anything about it. if you could I would have recommended you deconstruct your tank as soon as you see one notice you, but it's been disabled. it's like that for all three ESFs too, not just the scythe. I did this to a prowler the other day while using a reaver as a taxi.
Let me answer you, Mr OP, with some questions? Where were you? Did you have a secondary gunner? Were you rolling with or alongside AA? Were you in cover? Did your (if you had a secondary gunner with the capability who was doing his job correctly) buddy shoot back? Were your fellow friendly AA (if you were rolling with or alongside them) vigilant that hostile air might be in the area? How heavy was the friendly AA? Did they see him and shoot back? Did you position yourself so that your rear was exposed to an area of that may well provide a feasible area of attack from hostile air? What are your tanks certifications? If it had been a Mossy would you have felt any different? To answer your question directly. Yes, they can.
The Phoenix is not AA, it's AV. If someone is hovering long enough to get hit by a phoenix that's pretty bad. Sythes only have to hover to kill tanks if the pilot is bad, most will swoop down, pause for the 1-2 seconds it takes pod you, then afterburn away. I've seen it time and time again. The Prowler has to hit any ESF with two shots, which is no easy task considering our off centered target crosshairs are not accurate. The most ridiculous thing in the game is that ESF's direct AA counters kill them much slower than what an ESF can do to me in a tank. It shouldn't matter if I'm a TR or not, a bad game mechanic is a bad game mechanic, although I will say with all the AV counters out there the Uber Shield Vanguard is now the best tank which excels in every category but killing infantry once you put Racer 3 on it.
Dude it doesn't matter what you tell them, they would just rather call you a bad tanker, say L2P and adapt, and after being confident they put you in your place move on to a different thread. Anyone who's driven a tank long enough knows what a broken gaming mechanic rocketpods are once an ESF gets behind a tank, and those who don't are in denile.
