Best way for ESF to counter Burster Max?

Bring a friend. Same applies in the reverse situation of you in a MAX reliably trying to take down a pesky ESF.
I don't think the two were ever designed around a 1v1 situation against each other.

Leave area and find another ESF to duel. That's all ESFs are for. You're not actually affecting the ground battle, and the burster max is just wasting their time. I guess you could toy with them and keep them from switching to a AI or AV loadout, that -MIGHT- be construed as helping the ground fight.

As it stands currently, there's no role for vehicles without spawning capabilities.

No no its all wrong.
See..what you do is this....get out about 250m, line up at him then turn on your thermal...yeah thermals...then go at him slow until you see him in thermal scope then start firing.
Death is imminent.

I play the burster max pretty often. And the only ones who are really dangerous for me are the banshee and the ah. And only if I didn´t see them first. If not it´s a 50/50 if I hit the max charge fast enough. By the way yesterday I was shooting vehicles and I only switched to burstermax because 2 mosquitos tryed to kill me. I would have never done that if they had let me alone. There were to much vehicles to hunt. Maybe also a strategy to let them alone.

Flak blinds ESFs so taking out a burster MAX alone is best done with stealth and taking them unawares. Hornets work great if you can land 1 shot and follow up with any nosegun for a near instant kill. If the MAX sees you first, give up and AB to safety.

Oh god this.. As it stands now, The Banshee is stupidly OP at killing ma... Everything. Drops a fully certed flak max in less than 3 seconds. One. Single. Magazine.

Certainly. In general, unless you have Banshee or AH in one-clip range, you NEVER engage AA MAX head on. And even then ist's still risky because you're assuming a 2nd MAX/G2A, or even an enemy ESF, won't see you and add the kill damage to take you down.

Rocketpods are still good to use on MAXes if they aren't looking at you. Noseguns have higher DPS potential, but if they're moving around at all it's less certain.

you're better off not trying if you're talking about 1v1. unless the burster max is horrible or you are really really good you will end up losing more than winning...

You don't the buster is a counter to you

Racer airframe works wonders for A2G maneuverability and escapability.

You aren't supposed to, but you can anyways. The AI noseguns and rocketpods can absolutely melt maxes, really need flak armor, an engineer, and a place to hide in order to take deter the better pilots.

To outright kill them you need to surprise-heavy them as they run away and hope they don't have flares. And that only works on the first pass, as they'll never make a second pass on that base until their outfit rolls in.

Against the pro air-cavalry that feed by themselves at different ponds, when such a threat exists they'll stop what they are doing and swarm the max.

So ultimately you need a place to hide, flak max, engineer, medic, and surprise-heavy.

Same way a tank counters an ESF or air in general, hope they are stupid.

makes sense if you assume that its some sort of duel between single esf and single burster max. but what I see a lot is a max getting a bead on a esf in the open sky and completely melting it while the esf trys to get the hell out of there as fast as possible once they see that they are getting pwned. if the esf and max start firing on each other at the same time the esf might win but air is easy to spot and open up on whereas burster max can take cover get engi support and has more opportunity to suprise the esf.

Noesguns are generally the best way, although it does require being able to aim which I know is an alien concept to a lot of rocket pod spammers. Even rocket pods are pretty effective against MAXs though if you HIT the MAX with them instead of just splashing. Once again though, it requires aiming.

Above all else you need to catch them off guard too. If you engage them when they are already shooting you with bursters you are very unlikely to win unless you have reaver LOLshotgun. Come from different angels every time, wait till they are focused on another aircraft, etc.

If he doesn't have an ENG wth him, then racer airframe + upgraded fuel pods + AI nosegun. Might take several passes. If he does, then hornets.

Alternatively, if you know what you're doing and you use fire suppression, and he's out in the open, you can just land on him. I have started doing that, and it's not very hard in a Reaver.

It's a sad day when esf are landing on burster max. They must be really bad if you're landing on them... means they didn't even see you coming lol.

Also, a good burster MAX knows to change positions so that if aircraft locate where they are taking fire from on the next pass they will have to spend the time to locate the MAX again. A good burster MAX doesn't start firing until the aircraft gets in optimal range. And above all a good burster max is not alone. Lucky for you though at least half of the people using a burster max are bad... it's not that they can't aim it's that they don't pay attention to whats important and end up letting themselves get caught unawares... which could happen in as little as a few seconds really.

Well I'm pretty sneaky. Using stealth helps quite a bit too.

Do it the old fashioned way, bail and deci them, or slightly new fashioned way, bail and C4 fairy them to death as a LA

the funny thing is that it is way harder to shoot down a c4 fairy than an esf with bursters since no burst and whatnot. I propose that burster rounds explode on c4 fairies causing bonus damage... i'm serious