PS2 ServerSmash 11-22-14 - Banshee Slaughter

Do you know what this reminds me of?

It reminds me of the lesson my outfit learned regarding break-outs from towers under siege by enemy aircraft.

There was a break in the bombardment because we had managed to drive most of the enemy air away. My squad broke out of the top-level of the tower with 12 Light Assaults going for the a point, it had less than a minute to go.

Since that day we spread out our break-out between all the doors on the top level because even as we made a line out and not a clustered bunch, one very lucky PPA Scythe pilot found himself in the right place at the right time, he AOE volleyed us all to death, all 12, in a couple of seconds. By the time the front infantry realized what happened and tried to spread warning to get off the platform the guys in back were already hit and the guys in front were dead.

Also, while it has yet to happen to me personally I was playing VS on Miller about a week ago, and had just left a cluster of VS on a Sundie that was our last staging area in a region over-run by NC. AH Reaver came by, he had a LOT of fun.

First off - These things happen. Deal with it.

Secondly - the Banshee is slated for a severe crippling over-nerf soon enough, because it's the one thing TR has that performs better than the average, and we just can't have that.

I'm looking forward to testing the new version in the months it will take to work it back up to usable levels.

Disagree with AH but when I was watching the Emerald/Cobalt game it looked pretty similar except it was LPPA/Pods ****** the ground. I feel like Banshee and LPPA are way more effective in smashes than Airhammer though I haven't seen a proper air dominance smash with NC being the ****** faction.

I would agree to your feeling, simply because the AH is a lot harder to use since you have to get closer.
Also Cobalt had airdominance as NC at least once.
If you can do it though every other AI weapon pales in comparison.

I've done streaks with all of them and it like this:
PPA - Long range, Big splash, easy to use, infinite huge magazine. Crap in A2A
Banshee - Middle range, small splash with good damage, as easy/hard to use as you want (damage increases a lot if you get closer), medium magazine, bad at A2A.
AH - Little range, shotgun spread with splashdamage resulting in incredible alpha damage, hard to use, small magazine, usefullness in A2A depends on pilotskill (means harder to use than the others, but good/very good if you time your shots right)

The part in bold is the only problem I see with the banshee. PPA and AH can't choose their range - PPA gains almost nothing by getting closer and AH does nothing if he is too far away.
On a side note - **** Vanu. The LPPA is stronger than the pre-nerf PPA for magriders - unlike that one it is mounted on a pretty fragile platform though, which makes it a lot more balanced and less annoying.

Oh well sorry about that. But the Briggs air platoon was 42 vs Emerald's 28. Plus, probably an even bigger problem, the Emerald air platoon usually has very little coordination or organization.

Show evidence that some can get 50+ kill streaks regularly with 4 c4 bricks.

Since i already know that you never will ba able to, let me reply with something just as solid as your post:

I have seen an infil knife several galaxies to death/destruction

Briggs is a TR strong server.

People played on Esamir and didn't bother having AA/air support?

Smashed as they should be indeed.

I had a feeling this was due to Splash overlap, but does it actually get more powerful the closer to the target you are?

Yeah, ax that **** right there, that's the only nerf it needs!

They are usually chosen.

I guess you could say they got EMEROLLED!

Wasn't there a bunch of recent discussions about why TR was never picked? Not that I'm disagreeing with you since I don't have the list, but I know lots of people complained about TR not being chosen.

the higher RoF isnt really a good thing...its mag is so small that any miss really impacts your killing potential....and if you miss 1 bullet, you probably missed 10 or so


Rocket pods could be equally as deadly considering there were 2 mossies there

No stats to share, but I disagree here. I swear that it takes 3 Banshee bullets to kill me (which it delivers in a tenth of a second), while it takes 2 rocket pods to kill me, which fire much slower.

So a bunch of infantry got slaughtered by an aircraft specifically designed to wreck infantry, while none of the infantry even looked up or attempted to pull AA ahead of time. Poor planning by the platoon leader who ordered those people to charge helplessly through a base without AA against an enemy with a heavy air presence.

This video proves nothing to me.

Hell, they weren't even killed all that fast...

The tactical play the NC was attempting to engage in was one of surprise. Our BC and PL thought we could make a quick play for Freyr to divert attention from the Briggs push in the center bases. Initially there was not a major TR presence there. We had no hope of actually capturing the thing... just sting a little. So after capping one point we charge out like lemmings to "quickly" take the next point. Our squad leader (Ghosts of the Revolution GOTR outfit leader robocpf1) did a commendable job following orders from above - he's the one heard saying "nobody ever chooses TR, but they should" - and he's right for the most part for this match.

The thing is, all of our time fighting the TR squad that was on the previous point ate up whatever friendly air protection we had so when we charged outside, there was so much freakin' TR air you could randomly pop shots in the sky and not miss - as was the case most of the server smash. There is only so many places you can hide in a walled trench open to death from above. I recognized it but charged ahead anyways hoping I'd make it to the "cover" of the wall in front of me hoping the guys in front of me would be a sufficient meat shield.

This video was simply made to show Emerald leadership the consequences of a lack of air control planning. And I hope this tactical mistake is remembered forever. Running a bunch of guys from point to point without AA in a group is pretty normal... if one isn't expecting a red cloud of mossies in the weather pattern. To this end, our outfit actually bucked orders a few times to simply switch to AA to clean up what Emerald Command wasn't committing to. But there are only so many mossies, liberators, and gunships a squad of 12 can take on when there is absolutely no friendly air in the skies. To be honest, we should have bucked more orders to simply defend the missions we were given, as long as the missions weren't changing every 2 minutes to the wrong bases.

I heard that our Emerald pilots were even ordered into sunderers at one point. Sunderers!? Our dedicated air force?

This is by no means a vid complaining about the TR mossies who rightfully and tactically took advantage of the situation as we would have if we were them in that match. This vid is for Emerald commanders to learn something from their mistakes in the hopes that they aren't repeated as badly as these were made.

As a final death knell to the smash, I think ordering platoons of NC to the wrong base in the final minutes of the game was just continued evidence that something was wrong at the top.

This smash was nothing short of an Emerald rout.

Banshee totally balanced!.

I hope they PPA it.

Was the light PPA made less effective against infantry? I thought they just nerfed it against armor, like with the AH nerf.

Do I seriously need to get involved in these Server Smashes?
Hell, just give me a squad of Infiltrators and I'll hand you the win on a silver platter...

Nah our squad/outfit simply decided to nominate robocpf1 to lead the next one that Emerald is involved in. These smashes require leaders who are familiar with leading combined arms.

well i have not personally been on the recieving end of a banshee, but using one it takes considerably more time unless you are right on top of the enemy....and at that point, if you dont turn around and use a rocket or get to cover you will die


but the same can be said for the AH, it has an instant kill time when its close range and it has a larger explosive radius than the banshee and its a little better because it can be used to do strafing runs where the banshee needs more time to kill


lolpods COULD be more effective as the spread at range isnt as great....but generally the banshee is better in close range combat