ESFs are not direct counters to liberators. So what is?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Kriegson, Apr 17, 2014.

  1. Kriegson

    Just make it so belly guns cannot fire unless the aircraft is within a certain pitch/roll range (Belly down, some degrees though but not flying vertically and firing behind you) and remove afterburner. No more ridiculous high G libs playing AA with shredders and walkers, or racer/AB libs with daltons and TB's crushing a sunderer in a moment with virtually no risk and zipping right off.
    • Up x 2
  2. HellasVagabond

    If they make it so 2 AP shots can take it down even with max composite i am fine with it.
  3. WycliffSlim

    You're either lying or ran into literally the most incompetent ESF pilots in the entire game. No one with less than 3 hours of experience in a Liberator is going to be able to fend off even halfway competent ESF pilots.
    • Up x 2
  4. Kriegson

    Then there aren't many halfway competent ESF pilots. Don't get me wrong, they're out there. But just having a walker on the tail and knowing our limits my buddies and I have killed plenty of ESF's who just followed along like idiots. And that's not even considering GOOD lib crews with shredder tracking so good I'm sure they get hack tells all the time, and high Glib pilots who can do whatever the hell they want with the thing at any given time.



    IMo HEAT should have the secondary function of exploding if it is near a target after X distance, making it effective AA. And yeah 2 shots if you hit with all damage possible, 3 if they have composite but only just.
  5. PKfire

    Good ESF pilots come to the forums and confirm fighters can solo Liberators

    Good Lib crews come to the forums and confirm Liberators can be soloed by ESFs

    Ignorant masses come to the forums, ignore the prior two, make 5 new threads, and the cycle continues.
    • Up x 8
  6. WycliffSlim

    Yes, idiot ESF's are easy to kill. But anyone who doesn't use their weapon like they're supposed to is easy to kill. If a HA with a shotgun tried to charge at my bolt-action infiltrator from 200m away he's going to die. Same concept except in reverse. If you're an ESF and you get up close to a Lib you're increasing the odds of dying. If you're a bad shot and you're missing half of every clip you're drastically increasing your odds of dying. But at the end of the day there's one very easy way for ESF's to basically never die to Liberators. Avoid them. If you don't have the skill to bring down a Liberator just avoid them. Heck, I don't attack some Liberators because it's just more work than I feel like.

    Disagree on HEAT. Tanks cannons aren't AA guns. I agree about AP though. I'd like AP and dalton to do exactly 50% damage to a Liberator. That way if you use fire suppression in between you will literally barely survive but if not you're done. I'd like to see max rank composite armor drop the damage to 33.3% per shot. That way a third shot just barely kills you. The ranks inbetween would simply increase your padding for surviving the second shot.
  7. WycliffSlim

    In a way that sums up to good and in a way bad things about balance.

    At a high level ESF v Lib balance is pretty good imo. ESF's definitely have the advantage(as they should) but it's not an insurmountable advantage.

    The problem comes when you look at skill disparities. A bad ESF pilot will never kill a good lib crew. A bad lib crew will never kill a good ESF pilot. A good lib crew has a strong chance of killing mediocre ESF pilots. A good ESF has a strong chance of killing a mediocre Lib crew.

    Yet, people seem to want ESF's to always win against Liberators no matter what. However, a really good tanker running with HEAT will probably beat a mediocre tanker running with AP. If you don't let skill matter then there's no long-term incentive for people to play the game.

    I think of Libs like the Spy in TF2. In unskilled hands it's borderline worthless against everyone. In the hands of someone who really knows what they're doing it's borderline OP against people that don't know how to counter them and it's quite competent even against people who DO know how to counter them.
    • Up x 3
  8. umbrellapower

    Liberator crews have always been the biggest cowards and whiners in this game. They're the kiddies who couldn't get enough of their early release months of farming and sought ways to continue farming, whether it be in the sky or ground, because god forbid they learn how to fly AND shoot in an ESF or learn how to play infantry (many Lib crews used to claim that infantry gameplay was too easy which was why they sat in Libs 24/7).

    You just can't argue with these people who are so distanced from the rest of the game they think their tankier-than-a-tank "gunship" that can take on ESFs is balanced and takes skill.
  9. Gundem


    Ahaaaha, I beg to differ.

    Really want to go? Then come fight me on test. I dare you. Get 2 of your buddies. I will win 8/10 times.
  10. WycliffSlim

    Wow... that was impressively unbiased.

    I didn't even FLY when Liberators were super OP. I have over 100 hours flying an ESF and have at least as much if not more time spent on the ground than in the air.
  11. Gundem



    Watch out, we got an ignorant one over here.
  12. Brahma2

    There is no counter... cower before my might.
  13. Wizz

    W
    Welcome to the planetside 2 forum. Where everything you say that makes sense gets understood by one out of a thousand people.
    • Up x 1
  14. Kuro1n

    Probably because I've been a total of 3 hours in a lib... vs an experienced lib crew I think you would get totally rekt though. It seems to be most peoples opinion that libs dominate the sky currently and my experiences have been the same, I think we downed 5 or 6 planes in the time we were flying excluding other libs. Rest either let us be, got killed or didn't manage to kill us while we ran away. Only other things we got killed by was other libs... and a tower.
  15. PKfire

    Lol, are we reading the same forums?


    @ Cheech - man, bacon and I never see you in-game!
  16. dstock

    Yeah, well put. Makes me wish I still had my flick-stab videos, I'm still mad they patched that out.
  17. Gundem



    <Experienced Lib pilot here

    Yea, a single ESF can take you down.

    Every other Lib pilot in this thread will agree with me.
  18. IamnotAmazing

    please, fight me anywhere any time, hell I'll fly a stock esf, I guarantee I'll win 100 times out of 100
  19. WarmasterRaptor

    So that's like the top 1% of the player base that should decide where's the average level for the remaining 99% ?

    Well damn, guess of what is composed the player base sherlock? Of "Half-competent" "ignorant masses", you elitists egotists
    Because without those "scrubs", those "peasants" you'd have empty servers and you'd be only 12 online fighting with your planes.

    Sadly, you need those players. You also need them to have RELIABLE True counters to achieve something. To be able to actually DEFEAT you. No just deter; Defeat, destroy, win.

    I have nothing against skills. There's people able to put countless hours in this game and learn all the little twitch and tricks that makes a difference, even the borderline acceptable "exploits". But don't start to spit on other players. Because without them, firstly, you wouldn't be that good, and secondly, you wouldn't have any fun with an empty server.

    For the flying aspect of the game, casual players, for various reasons, don't really necessarily have the time nor the motivation to get to "skygods" level. And they actually don't care about getting there either. They just want to have fun in this game and be able to create an impact with what they do. Why would they be denied that? Why would imbalance be encouraged? Supported?

    I understand the motivation about protecting one's preferred... "tool" to dominate the battlefield. But you should eventually learn that balance has to happen if you don't want to dominate an empty server.
    Will you really be able to boast "Hey guys! With our unbalanced toys, we annoyed and disgusted the other player's so much that they left! Now that the servers are empty, we can now safely fly all alone! Let's feel so proud of that accomplishment!".

    My two cents. Flame on.
    • Up x 2
  20. Kriegson


    Actually I might not mind this given that its either composite or FS. But that said I would rather enjoy the idea of an MBT AA dedicated turret that fills the gaps between flak/skyguard Dot and Lockon deterrant. High damage low RoF and flak but with dropoff. This way the mag rider isn't SoL for AA and it doesn't step on anyone's toes.

    The effect is large but refire time is slow, so while you can hit ESF's with it, it would be very difficult unless they were lolpodding and then they would still survive the shot, unlike most MBT's, and have time to escape a second if they're smart about it.
    Alternatively this would be THE prime counter to battle-gals and liberators from the ground.
    That said, you are taking an MBT off AI or AV and devoting it to AA that is now the priority of everyone trying to establish air superiority. It has some serious pros and cons to consider.
    • Up x 1