[Suggestion] Secondary Weapon for the Valkyrie

I was thinking about the Valkyrie and a good way to make it slighly more powerful can be by adding some weapons that "only" the pilot can use.

I came up with several ideas that you can share with me -

1) AGM-114 Missile style weapon: basically something that reflects the Modern missile used on the AH-64 Apache, an Air-to-ground LOCK-ON missile (maybe we can be able to select between direct and high impact like in real life?)

2) Tomcat Missile style weapon: well the first word says all, just a simple A-A lock-on missile that will be able to make the Valkyrie a bit more strong against other aircrafts

3) The NS-50 MASS DRIVER!: we forgot about this weapon that was going to be introduced for all esfs back in 2013! I think it can be a good addition to the Valkyrie Weaponry

4) The Locust cannon: as projected in 2013, a double galtling gun that does massive damage over time (but low DPS) that can be used for sustained - covering fire.


This will turn the Valkyrie into a (let's say) Attack-Transport vehicle just like a combination between an AH-64 Apache and a Mi-24 Hind

I'm not against extra weapons but the problem is the Valkyrie is not meant to be an attack vehicle. With 1 gunner + 4 rumble seats it already has a good offensive potential.
The problem is one never manages to fully use this potential because Valkyrie survivability in combat situation is tragically close to ridicolous. Even with toughest loadout (evasive frame + fire suppression + composite armor) the pilot must stay far from hot points and fly at high speed: passengers have no opportunity to fight from rumble seats. The pilot cannot slow down nor fly steady so the only decent weapon results to be a lockon rocket launcher.

Then before adding more turrets, what about bslancing the main guns' options?

Yeah, lack of firepower is the least of the Valkyries myriad problems (however lack of firepower is a contributing factor to the fact that no one in the entire world has yet finished the Valk master directives).

If a valkyrie meets even one ESF, it dies (unless it is carrying 4 guys with lock ons and lands so they can shoot the ESF, which happened to me once).

The valkyrie is just so damn easy to kill, and its reputation as a cert pinata means everyone and their dog will shoot at it and chase it all over the map. I shoot at passing enemy valks even if I am on foot with my sidearm out, thats how vulnerable to fire they are.

It is also only marginally faster than the galaxy, which is just sad.

On the firepower issue, all they really need to do is fix the existing valkyrie weapons. The Hellion is really, really awful, and you can fire its entire clip at ESFs without landing a single shot.

The other weapons aren't much better- in fact, the only halfway decent weapon on the Valk is the Wyvern, which is basically just a flying Basi.

Our outfit has a guy who was really keen on the valkyrie, who decided (After seeing that no one has finished the valk directives yet) to try and go for the valk directives.

He burned out within a few hours, because getting rumble seat kills is really damn hard, pilot kills is really hard and gun kills is really damn hard.


My solution to the valk would be to buff its armour, buff its hitpoints and buff its speed/agility, then to improve the accuracy of the hellion, and rebalance the rest of its weapons to make them effective. I would also buff the Wyvern, as while it is decent against ground, its still pretty terrible against ESFs, and the valk has no other viable options to deal with air (other than rumble seat lock ons)

Also, it needs the squad logistics system to be a certification rather than taking up a slot, because it is basically an automatic choice other the other options in that slot.

Wow, I didnt know we have helis like that in Poland

I still say they should replace the rumble seats, and just mount more turrets on the bottom of the Valkyrie. Keep it weak as it is, but make it a close range gunship.

The Mi-24 has been the mainstay of our air cavalry for quite a while now. We manufacture those as well.

Yeah buffing resistance and hp is the first step. I found shocking it has not been included in October balancement patch.
As it stands now Galaxy is superior to Valkyrie from every point of view. If you have carry more than 5 soldiers 1 Galaxy is way more efficient than 2 Valkyrie snd you also save nanites.

Stick a 5th MAX only rumble seat on the roof... then again, that'd probably be way too OP.

But seriously, it's a transport craft in a game which has little to no need of transport. You can get just about anywhere in 30s redeploying, a bit longer if you have to make 2 jumps. It actually takes longer to get a valk, load it up and fly to somewhere than it'd take to just redeploy there (most of the time). There are few places that are inaccessible to ground troops, such that you need to fly a squad there, and if you do, you're now unsupported and easy pickings for an ESF or three.

Perhaps add an infantry terminal to the rear of the thing when landed. So it can provide some logistical support to ground troops.

Or give it a cloak when landed, allow rumble seat passengers to repair while cloaked. It then (with squad logistics) potentially becomes a limited but hidden squad spawn location, in potentially out of the way places.

Air dropping is pretty relevant- its not about getting you from one base to the other, its about dropping a squad of guys on the roof of a pointroom to cap or hold it or on top of an enemy sundy to C4 it- just walking to said pointroom or sundy isn't always doable, especially if the ground spawns at that base are being camped by the enemy.

Basically we just give the Valkyrie a bit more power because right now that vehicle (between us) is just useless (apart for ghost capping and quickly destroy a deployed sunderer .. and even there there is a high chance to fail)

... you can use a Galaxy that can do much more and has more firepower than it... use the Valkyrie for what? A quick drop of 6 people in a hot-zone and get REKT by even infantry shooting at you?

It's a good concept, it's a good idea but it's still a bit rusty.

Personally I don't feel the need of a 6 people transport vehicle like an UH-60 Blackhawk... that thing has 2 miniguns on the side but can carry much more people... but I can't see his place on PLANETSIDE which is MASSIVE GAMEPLAY.. you don't have time for tiny drops on a "weak" vehicle like this one that can't defend himself in anyway, YOU NEED A MI-24 HIND ATTACK-TRANSPORT HELICOPTER, FOR MOTHER RUSSIA

A secondary weapon would give FIRST a bit more excitement to the pilot that can actually do something instead of watching his gunner.... SECOND it would fulfil the role of the ESF, trading speed and hitbox for a bit more firepower that will be in between the ESF and the Liberator...

I think it might make things a bit more interesting for everybody... you won't see anymore the same vehicles flying, Valkyrie will change the balance and make it "different", just like it should have been when they released it.



As it is right now, my outfit calls it THE EXPERIENCE Piñata

Is it worth noting that the entire "hybrid" Hind concept has been thrown out the window as Russia has done what the rest of the world does and opted for dedicated transports and dedicated attack helicopters? Hinds were just a silly idea and while they had very niche uses, it simply made much more sense to have dedicated airframes.

If you want your Valk to survive, then fly it with an ESF escort as is the modern way of doing things. When we send in Blackhawks, we can also protect them with Cobras/Apaches. We don't try to put a ridiculous amount of weapons/armor on a Blackhawk because that would detract from their carry capacity, and instead we just make them use escorts.

Forcing Valk (and Galaxy) pilots to rely on escorts would be a good thing, as it would encourage teamwork and cooperation. Sending in an unescorted Valk into a quiet base would be fine, but trying to force a drop in a base with any amount of AA or air superiority should kill the Valk (and Galaxy) even before it has a chance to unload. Otherwise what would be the point of AA or interceptors?

The Valkyrie is a good combat vehicle.

Make your pilot and your gunner medics with triage abillity.
Have four engineers in the backseat; the medic triage will heal the engineers while the engineers will keep your Valkyrie in tip top flying condition even under heavy fire.

The engineers whose weapons are overheated can be tossing mines over the side as you fly over enemy vehicles; and with the squad deploy option sthey can simply redeploy in when they need more mines.

The Valkyrie can be a killing machine unlike any other when used with a team; it would take heavy gunfire or a coordinated effort to take it out of the sky.

Yeah drops are relevant. But it's easier to reach the spot with a Galaxy than with a Valkyrie. According to the designers article the Valkyrie is meant to be used when you need to a quick and surgical precision.
But the Valkyrie is only slightly faster than a Gal and it definitely has less chances to get close to the heart of battle. Even if you max Stealth it's just too risky: one ESF burns you to ashes in a few seconds.

It all makes it poor even for the niche it's meant to fulfill.

All fine but... can we agree that a vehicle relying on a specific combination of 6 players to be effective is pretty disappointing?
If we then consider that most of loadouts and weapons are clearly underperforming...yeah the Val is fun to pilot but it has no place in ps2.

I think it's more like the amount of people you use... 6 people! 6!! it's a lot of people working together! I think they should deserve something more than a stupid nonsense vehicle...

Actually your spawn timer is only 5 seconds when you redeploy now (basically, the 10s redeploy timer gets subtracted from your spawn timer).

I've actually often found myself redeploying to the spawn room of a base I'm already in to get ammo, because it's faster than walking just 50m...

And that's probably why in this game, even transports are assessed purely by their direct combat capabilities and nothing else. Which is really sad.

Indeed... with the redeploy system we don't need an other transport vehicle... if you count it up the galaxy is more suit for this transport (the only difference between Valkyrie and Galaxy is the firepower...way better on the Galaxy)...

AND Galaxy fulfils already that tiny hole that planetside had, thanks to the squad deploy thingy...

But Valkyrie? Where is the place for this vehicle? I could understand BEFORE the servers were merged and people were actually RENDERING when you were in their same BUILDING but now??? with 200+ people fighting in a zone? think about it... 100 weapons pointing at your 6 people vehicle (of which only 4-5 are able to jump).

To me, Planetside 2 Needs a transport / attack vehicle, not an only transport vehicle. Transport is not needed! Galaxy is fine where it is. Redeploy system works perfectly.

I think Valkyrie should have been an AI bomber jet.

Should have been faster than the ESF, less maneuverable but more AI potential than the Lib or ESF.

An anti-infantry air vehicle big like the Valkyrie is a waste in my opinion.. By the time the enemy renders you get killed.

What we need is something between the liberator and the esf, something that makes air-to-ground and air-to-air more interesting... Imagine a vanguard repaired by 4 engineers behind..wouldn't that be op?

Actually the real question is..would that be balanced? Answer..YES! Jesus there are 4 engineers working together with a tank driver and a tank gunner, that makes a total of 6 people, 6 PEOPLE TEAMWORKING..if you give the chance to the Val to be a bit more effective it would be more balanced, you are implying 6 people and making them work together for an objective...

Think about a max repaired by 5 engineers..that's OP or balanced? BALANCED, there are 6 people working together, they "produce" a lot of energy so they "deserve" to be powerful...

A liberator for example is VERY POWERFUL compared to the people you need to use it...

Let's put it in this way..the VAL is a vehicle that you have to use with more than 2 people, its Not like a Liberator! Once YOU reach 6 people working together you can prize them with effectiveness.

But since the valkyrie is just a simple nose cannon that effectiveness is WASTED

Teamwork doesn't always translate directly into "juicing up one guy's DPS/HP pool" though, and effectiveness doesn't always translate directly into "raking in kills for the pilot/gunner". The Valkyrie is not designed for the other four people to stay in the vehicle. Its job is to get them somewhere they're probably not supposed to be and drop them off. If it's doing that, it's doing its job.

To facilitate this, I do think the Valkyrie could stand to be faster and handle better.
Example:


Granted, in that game transport actually matters and if you're a competent transport pilot, your entire team LOVES you no matter how low you are on the killboard (plus transporting people rakes in mountains of points anyway). Oh, and in that game people are actually okay with walking more than 5 feet so you can actually drop people off at a safe distance and expect them to take care of the rest.