Why did Liberators need an anti-tank buff?

Well, the prowler and vanguards can do -something- in return.
Makes me feel left out in my Magrider if I'm honest.

Only works when the Skyguard driver doesnt know what he is doing.

No, it works as long as the skyguard doesn't have multiple friends who are in on the AA.

That's assuming the tanks are all conveniently in one location. It's rarely that simple, unfortunately.

It's pretty much the same for prowlers and vanguards now. It's just Liberatorside 2 right now, which reminds me of release. Only this time it's way less fun since the tools we have to fight them just aren't as effective anymore.

The inherent differences between the tanks are still there. So imagine then how much harder it is for you, it's even worse for mags.

A 1/3 lib can spray TB and finish off with a single dalton shot before the skyguard can get a full mag into it. The only way to really have a chance against a lib pilot that knows what he's doing is to have 2+ skyguards. Bear in mind that the killzone for a skyguard (the range that a skyguard will have enough time to burn down its target after it changes course and runs) is also within TB and dalton range.

If you come up behind you don't even need to Dalton.

Even I can do it and I'm a pretty average / bad pilot.

Tankbuster kills tanks, that is its job.
In order for it to do its job you have to fly ridiculously low exposing your lib to death from from tank shells to dumbfires.
It is a high risk high reward playstyle.

It is only really viable if you are hunting lone tanks, and a lone tank is a dead tank, like a lone max is a dead max.

Nobody is refuting that. What I'm saying is that if a liberator wants to snuff out a skyguard, it will. No amount of skill will save a skyguard from an angry lib pilot hellbent on destruction. Safety in numbers? Possibly. At the same time, it's amazing what you can accomplish when you have no intention of escaping.

I am in the camp that thinks a 350 resource 3 person anti armor gunship should destroy a 300 resource 1 person light tank...

I have only died to a liberator TWICE since the update, so I don't understand what all the fuss is about...

Yeah like i said, only works when the Skygurd driver doesnt know what he is doing. There is a thing called situational awareness and another thing called positioning. In order to sneak up behind you, the Lib has to somehow see you first. (In order to sneak up behind your enemy you need to know where he is) this means the Skyguard has the chance to see you too.

So when all you do as Skyguard driver then is stay in the same spot and wait till the Lib makes a detour to sneak up behind you rear and TB you, you failed.

Ah, so. What your saying is that the counter to libs has to be careful lest it be destroyed by said lib.

Obviously then a lib needs to be careful otherwise it might get destroyed by the MBT it's trying to kill.....

Oh, wait. No, it doesn't really have to be careful at all.

Yes it used to be high risk. Now if you take flak armor its low to medium risk at most as you can eat AP shells for breakfast.

Your logic is flawed. When you take skyguard on a Lightning its good only for one niche role, shooting air. It will die against any other tank and even against infantry the skyguard is bad. And even on that niche role it will lose to a decent lib crew dispite costing almost the same.

Meanwhile lib is very effective against everything.

You can see it first and it'll still kill you if it wants to. It takes 2+ mags of skyguard to burn down a lib (if every shot hits, which it won't). A clip of TB to the front will put a lightning down to about half health and the dalton or shredder will finish off the tank in no time. Like I said, if the lib pilot wants the skyguard gone, it's game over for the lightning. The bad pilots you can deal with, but we're not talking about those. The good ones will erase a skyguard from the map in seconds.

I agree entirely. The best way to do AA, just like anything else in this game, is to have lots of it. A single AA unit is scary for ESFs but is only a thorn in the side of libs. And that's really how it should be. Put 2 or 3 skyguards down (a substantial investment in total resources and manpower) and you've got the skies locked down. But that's been the mantra for a while. One skyguard is a deterrent, 2 is death, 3 is obliteration.

Except the lib is a multi-crew vehicle not a giant solo dive bomber, if its not safe to kill a tank with the TB don't use it, and any decent pilot can use the TB where its safe from retaliation from the tank you're using it on and if you don't kill the tank with a single mag just belly up for a few seconds and let your gunner do the work, this patch is an abomination as all it really does is promote solo libbing.

That doesn't mean it should be allowed to do so with impunity.
What's more, the TB can 1-clip an MBT, which costs 450 resources.
And since the patch they can do it with even less risk than before.

Because higby said the most common death a liberator faced was due to MBT's shooting them down. Now they have a bit more time to react before they die.

Just did some liberating on esamir for about an hour in 1 lib, skyguards, meh, lock ons, just fly above 400m and you're good, only time i died was when i dive bombed a magrider in the middle of 2 sundies, another magrider, and a viper lightning, took a shot from the other mag, full clip of viper rounds, still killed the magrider we went in for and almost made it over the hill before the basilisks on the sundies got us, lol.

I would like to point out i'm a terrible lib pilot so most of my tank buster rounds missed, not that it matters cause it only takes a few hits with the tank buster and a fully certed mag of shredder rounds to kill an MBT.