Could we take a second look at the Banshee?

Firstly, I well prepared a fire extinguisher to use on myself, just in case I need it to cool down my beaten ace.

Now, secondly, I have the usual statistics for threads of this kind.
Source: http://ps2oraclestats.com

I did not use any stats from dasanfall, since they are all time and not just recent.
This means they don't express the current situation and are useless for this thread.
The ps2oracle stats are the averange KPH counts from the last 30 days, which is why I used these.

M14 Banshee: 21.94
M30 Mustang AH: 35.84
Light PPA: 37.87

And the same stats as graphs, this time reaching back further in time:




Plus the empire specific ESF rocket pod statistics:




What you can see:

- the Banshee went from the most used AI ESF weapon to the least used after the 18.12.2014
- the usage of the TR Hellfire Rocket Pods raised up notably after that same day

Important knowledge: The 18.12.2013 is the day the Banhee "rebalance" update went life (official DGC update notes).


This thirdly leads me to the conclusion, that something should be done about the current Banshee situation.

Every player flying with it recently, is aware of its (pretty much) uselessness.

Since the explosion radius got nerfed down incredibly, the gun requires extremely high accuracy and furthermore is very inefficient allready at short-medium range.

The decision to fly with Hellfire Rocket Pods now brings two great advantages:
- the Rocket Pods require less accuracy, are very accurate on range and efficient against groups
- swapping the now inefficient Banshee for another nosegun gives you the possibility to fight of ESFs

I may be so free to say, that I find hitting infantry with the Needler just as efficient as the Banshee.
At least the bullets go where I am at pin-point accuracy, since the Banshee requires almost the same accuracy but has a horrible spread, it seems to be worse at AI than the Needler.

I don't suggest to buff the Banshee back to its previous state, however, some adjustments to make it worth using again would be very much appreciated.


Before you write any comments, please call into mind to be friendly and constructive.
Thank you very much and happy commenting.

It could use a small buff at first , and them maybe other buffs in small stages .. But it should never get back to anywhere close to the OP state it was in previously ..

It should be tweaked to bring it to the level of NC / VS .. No higher / No lower

Buff? Ok, yes.
BUT, only in very tiny, itzy, bitzy, little steps.
I'm still fed up with mossies, instagibbing MAX units although they got flak armor maxed rank equipped -.-' .

i like the banshee how it is - reducing the splash dmg was needed based on the size of a 14mm round. its a bit tricky to relearn, but still vastly superior than the 18mm

TLDR: I don't really agree with buffing the Banshee. I'd rather TR just use Rocket Pods and Needler or Hornet and Needler for AI. DB messing with Banshee is just too dangerous in terms of possibly making it OP again and ruining the game for 1/2 a year until they bothered to address it being OP.

First off, let me state that I fly (mostly solo) ESF a lot in game and have flown extensively for all 3 Factions (though notably with low time on the Air Hammer). I Auraxiumed pre-nerf Banshee on 2 different Characters, and have lots of time with LPPA on 2 different characters. I'm not an Ace, but I'm probably a little above average.

Yes, Current Banshee is bad. I tested it after the change, and
1) it felt weak/unreliable in the AI role
2) it felt inferior at AI to running Needler + Rocket Pods (as you note below)

Yes, TR have a great AI in their Rocket Pod. NC also have a good AI Rocket Pod. VS Rocket Pod I feel is more clunky vs. Infantry (for the average player), but a little easier vs. (large and slow moving) Vehicles (for the average player).

NOTE: the Average player sturggles to use the Air Hammer too. And a lot of NC use Breaker Rocket Pods for their AI.

While I don't particularly disagree, I'm pretty sure it will be left in the state it is in which is the fate of overpowered things in this game.
If they do decide to do a balance pass, I'd however suggest they tend to the long time neglected things first until they're performing on par with alternatives - some but not all examples in chronological order: zoe, striker, ppa (tank), ... , banshee

Yeah, that nerf was completely unnecessary, now it's easier to shoot infantry with Needler. Why Banshee supposed to kill one-two infantry units per clips, while LPPA can wipe an entire squad in one go?

Here are a few summed up points I have on the banshee:

- It was arguable a bit too strong before, in the sense that it was too lenient. Sloppy shots "somewhere near the target" resulted in kills too easily, or the gun had a very low skill-floor you might say. point roughly towards a target or cluster and let it rip.

- Rocketpods are just better at doing what the banshee does now. They don't require quite as presice aim, and they are fairly versatile to boot. I don't think the rocketpods should eclipse the specialized weapon for the intended purpose. The banshee feels more like a supplement weapon now for those cases where you decide you don't need a normal nosegun at all.

- The nerf was kinda huge. The weapon lost about 75% of its total splash area (and thus average splash damage). This upped the skill-floor a LOT and the banshee now requires fairly accurate aiming if you want to actually kill a target - which is no doubt the reason for the large drop in the kills-stats. That's a hard hit to the weapon, but it would not have been so bad if it weren't for the fact that the weapon also had a low skill-ceiling. By that I mean that new banshee requires you to aim accurately, but at the same time the weapon has very high spread.

- I think that a second-pass rebalancing to the weapon would to well to add some more accuracy to it rather than just giving back some of the old splash (though some hybrid of both may be the ideal for all I know). The idea is to raise the skill-ceiling and make the weapon a weapon that can be good if you use it well - rather than spray-n-pray. That adds a much needed skill-curve to its use that hasn't been the case so far.

-Stigma

I want to ask you one thing:

LPPA and Mustang are high skill ceiling weapons as current Banshee?

Well after reading the comments my only suggestion is double the ammo. This will make it a true TR weapon.

Yeah it needs a buff. SOE tend to balance things with this:


when they should be using this

Looking at the numbers, I'd say it probably needs a little buff. It's been a few months, so I don't think the numbers are still skewed from players dropping it, out of spite.

I think they should do to it more what they did to the Air Hammer, give it a little more damage, but then reduce the max damage range to 50m, that way the Mosi, will need to get in danger close if it wants to utilize max damage, just like the Air hammer.

I think they should reduce max damage range to 50 on the PPA as well.

These changes would make the ESF's get much closer to their intended targets and be more vulnerable to dumbfire rockets, rather then being able to hover 120+ m from infantry and sniping them.

Well according to the TR and NC that have been opposed to the PPA (not the LPPA the Mag PPA) getting fixed, you just need to learn to use it, wait for the CoF to reset instead of using auto fire, use bursts of fire (of 1 shot)...

Ok being serious now, the numbers support a buff, however lets not go overboard, lets start small and work upwards so as to not over compensate.

Small buff? SMALL BUFF?! Go to hell guys. According to your Vanu pics you don't want balance, you still want it to be weak, cuz you're afraid it will be balanced on par with LPPA and Mustang.

It needs a serious buff, and not in few steps, so it will take a year to fix it, but with a single patch!

the banshee is a more focused killing weapon, adding more splash would be a nice thing or perhaps higher ROF. but a 14mm round is tiny. it cant keep up with that much splash. i do think the LPPA needs a reduction in splash, 1.0m is just too far, and the mustang is a shotgun, why does it need splash as it already has pellets. increase the pellet count and remove the splash

Just use the lolpods (that's what I do). Problem solved.

^^this.
it good as it is now. buff ammo a bit. only Light-PPA is broken now. you can farm infantry outside of lock-ons.

Okay, you suggest to use anti-vehicle weapon against infantry, while there is dedicated anti-infantry weapon. That's great.

Ammo won't solve the problem. What's the point of shooting more bullet's that barelly do nothing? That's gonna be more time to hover and more time to get exposed to the enemy fire. Else you gonna run with half-emptied mag. So what's the point of it? No point.

Yes small buffs in small stages .. It's needs bringing up to be as viable as it's VS and NC counterparts ..Not broad large buffs that once again put it into the realms of OP ..
And yes pre-nerf it was OP to anyone not living in Lala denial land ...

Alright, so we have a weapon that gon nerfhammered in one go, but has to recover with sevral patches for over a year as it happens to other overnerfed weapons? To hell you guys go, straight ahead!