http://ps2.fisu.pw/killboard/?name=naughtydonkey&count=200 I've been reading and receiving comments from NC pilots complaining over the ineffectiveness of the Reaver and its Air Hammer capabilities. Obviously knowing better to this false claim, I decided to have a little fun and offer a quick example that contradicts their cries of being under powered or better yet balanced. I simply feel this weapon system is still to versatile in its designated role as an AI weapon system. I could ignore its ridiculous TTK on enemy maxes and infantry, as the trade off is you need to get close to a target for full damage, I won't argue something shouldn't be good at its designated role. But its raw damage and ease of use when engaging enemy ESF cannot and should not be ignored. By no means should a pilot using an Air Hammer be able to easily deal with an enemy pilot of greater or equal skill. Obviously this is only one play session and will not be a proper representation of the average use of the weapon system. But I feel it's a point that needs to be shown as the Air Hammer has yet to be properly balanced for A2A engagements allowing the NC a massive edge in farming ground and air with few to no draw backs. At the very least the matter of reducing effectiveness against aircraft would do wonders in balancing engagements with this weapon system.
It's the (or at least was) hardest to use against infantry and for compensation, it's a bit more effective against other aircraft. It's not nearly as effective against aircraft as the other nose guns. Not to mention it got a pretty big nerf a while back when they greatly increased the damage falloff and changed the resistance values against liberator armor in the lib's favor. Anyway, 3/10, easily refuted, poor bait.
I need to relearn how to fly... this whole momentum thing has really screwed me up. Doesn't help my flying style always had me skimming and barely missing buildings and trees and the new momentum which only causes a slight shift of a few extra meters in turns is enough to leave me in aflaming ball of wreckage.... but my point is when I went to use the AH holy hell was I doing poorly. I was used to cruising in, dropping accel into hover mode quickly and easily while v-thrusting and firing on inf, then burning away.... I haven't relearned how to do that quite the same yet (granted, I've only flown about an hour total since flight changes )
Difficulty is more based on each persons opinion, I find all three ESF AI weapons to be trivial to use. But please tell me how its only a bit better than the other AI guns at A2A? Air Hammer is simply amazing at removing enemy ESF, Banshee is moderate but you will lose if the pilot is anywhere near or above your skill level, and the PPA is not even on the score board for A2A capabilities. I also never mentioned libs, I find the current damage versus a lib to be appropriate and balanced, and if that crew is competent you won't be winning that fight alone against them with an AI gun, seems fair to me.
mag size 5 semi-auto shotgun... and it still has more ammo then Vortek Rotary, but at least, you will get better AI ability
Ahh, I see where we differ. You're saying that the Air Hammer is "amazing" at killing enemy esfs. And I disagree. It's ok at it, but not fantastic. It's better than the other AI noseguns by comparison, but claiming that it needs to be nerfed based on that is a bit unfair. Killing the mentally handicapped might have been the most humane thing that Hitler did, but I wouldn't call it humane by any stretch of the imagination. From my experience auraxiuming it, it's not OP, just more versatile. I don't see that as a bad thing since it gives up efficiency for versatility. From my experience against it on my alts, it's not a big deal. I don't think I've actually died to an air hammer on either of my alts. And one of those alts is primarily for flying the scythe.
as primarily an infantry player, who only hops in vehicles to get from point a to point b, and occasional skyguarding, i die more to airhammers than i do to literally every single other esf weapon availble combined. airhammers are especially infuriating as a max, since they can killed me in about half a second, where every other weapon i at least have a slim chance of either killing the aircraft or scaring it off before i die
The problem with AH is that, just like other NC's empire specific stuff, it's average at stock, but it becomes much more deadlier than its other factions' counterpart when upgraded/certed. It's a symptome of the poor design decisions made by the developers(to benefit their own favorite faction?), nothing more. Vanguard shield, shotgun/raven/shield max, jackhammer, AH & Vortek are all powerful without equals, and together they have the potential to kill this game if left unattended.
It was balanced when compared to the old Banshee. Now it is just blatantly OP in comparison. I would compare it to the LPPA. But with all the render distance changes in the past months, it is hard to compare until that variable settles down and you have a consistent baseline to compare it against.
Its on par with the LPPA in just about every aspect, if anything the banshee is took weak, as for aircraft kills the AH is tops but these are miniscule numbers we're talking about, all of the AI noseguns are sub 1 in aircraft KPU, lol. It being better than the other AI noseguns at killing aircraft is still terrible compared to any of the other noseguns.
I find it rather funny one of the complaints about the Banshee was that it was too quiet. You're lucky to hear that ninja Reaver sneaking up on you. Next thing you know all you hear is a tiny 'pap pap' and you're dead. No chance to react. I don't know if that's a render problem or not, but it happens to me a lot.
Air is broken when it comes to render sound affects. It is quite common to never have the luxury of hearing an enemy aircraft approach you.
It's definitely on par with LPPA and much better in terms of versatility. Coupled with the rendering issues in large battles, I have been enjoying AH a lot more than the LPPA lately. I loving going with AH+Tomcat without fear of ever getting into a dogfight between farming infantry, even if I'm flying alone, but LPPA+Tomcat requires me to stick close to allies for more protection.
This post is focusing entirely on the A2A aspect of AirHammer's usage. If OP is saying that he has a problem with AH being significantly better than other AI noseguns, I can accept that as an issue. Not a terribly important one, but an issue nonetheless. However, if he is saying he has a problem with AH being a relatively competitive A2A option, I've a few things to say on the matter. First off, let's start out by saying that, if someone is capable of killing you with AH in a dogfight, regardless of your build, the likelihood is they would do it much more definitively with either the default nosegun or a rotary. The only case where this isn't true is if you, as a pilot, are really unaware of how to deal with dogfighting against AH, but we will move onto that. The greatest advantage AH has is its miniscule TTK when a target is unaware of the attack. The reason that this isn't an issue is because, not only is it not that much faster than A2A nosegun TTKs, but it requires a particular brand of unresponsiveness from the target to allow 8/9 shots in a clip to hit square on. Most any sort of movement throws that one-clip ability right out the window, whereas standard noseguns have that much more flexibility to them. Battlefield awareness is another issue and I've always been fond of the idea that you are putting your own neck on the line when you are staring at the ground A2G farming, so getting caught off guard is no excuse. I understand that there are issues with sound, rendering and whatnot, but there are so many pilots out there that blinker themselves and barely ever look up from the ants and their magnifying glass. Next, in terms of a straight-up dogfight facing an AH, it is quite a different approach to what most might be used to, what with all the charging about and whatever. NC might be more familiar with it than the other factions because of their Vortek as well. Either way, there still seems to be a gulf between experienced pilots that know how to handle an opponent wielding an AH and experienced pilots that do not. I started up an NC account purely for AH fun a few months ago and it has been a real learning experience for me. Even inexperienced pilots can be tricky to lead properly, at times. The point is, it has shocked me on occasion when I can take down some players that I expected to be very good pilots and other times where ones I had not encountered before seem to put little effort into eluding me. This has come down to one very simple concept: Keeping DISTANCE. If you can do that, AH is not a threat in the slightest...provided your aim is reasonable. I've not had a problem with fighting AH Reavers on my Scythe for as long as I can remember, so long as it wasn't one of the server's true SkyKnights at the controls. Tl;dr - allowing for sound/render problems, you too slow/blind if you getting one-clipped by AH, groundfarmer. Keep distance from AH in dogfight, have steady aim and poof, AH dead.
You were mostly correct on the AH, but you misunderstood about the rendering problem. What I (and the other poster, I assume) have been experiencing, not just in larger fight, is that infantry render too late for LPPA and Banshee to be a superior anti-infantry option than AH. One of the main reason I prefer AH over LPPA these days after the Banshee nerf is that most times you can't really leverage LPPA's long-range advantage, while AH can do the same medium-range anti-infantry and much better in close-range (good enough to quickly wrack maxes), and being usable as a effective shotgun against planes just makes AH a much more dependable alternative.
So I'm not the only one. I'm trying to do strafing runs on infantery, but they only render at about 20 m distance left - that is too short to correct my course/aim, fire the 30 shells that I need for a single kill and still get out alive. In my experience the LPPA hover at a long distance waiting for stuff to render, the AH has to get in close anyway and the Banshee can either go hovering in plain sight of a dozen RLs or go **** itself...
