After normalizing those ESF guns

Tell that to my Vanguards G-30 which can't hit Scythes hovering right above me cause they are shaped like a Pizza........Or say the same to AA turrets that miss most shots from far away for the same reason (imagine, flak also detonates around the target, still nowhere close to what happens with mossies and reavers).

Could you please elaborate better? Not sure I really understand what you're saying.... that it's harder to hit scythes with flak?

So this is what i know from the new nose gun changes

rounds to kill:
vortek = 25/25 = 100%
hailstorm = 35/35 = 100%
rotary = 40/50 = 80%

hailstorm became the most accurate nosegun in the game, rotary is the most forgiving weapon and vortek? vortek does not seem to have any advantage in ttk (TTK for all nosegun are nearly the same)
correct me if i m wrong.

With E V E R Y T H I N G.

Scythe is huge when turning... And if your going to tell me to go straight in a dog fight.....

Exactly the argument i give with the mossie.. everyone states it straight line speed is what makes it.... yes but i don't fly in a straight line in a dog fight.

The Vortek itself may not have any distinctive benefit but the aircraft it is attached do does... super vertical lift.

Well then hate to tell you but you either cannot count, or you did not hit the target or the target landed more hits on yourself. If you claim you landed the same amount of hits you literally cannot lose that fight...

You do more damage per shot, Claim you landed the same number of hits as the target did yet the target does considerably less per hit. Both aircraft have the same resistances and same health.

You get other factors in this such as extinguishers and yes you could land the same amount of hits but he uses the extinguisher.. that does not make the vortek bad it makes the target pilot having a good decision and an edge.

Prior to GU12 it kinda sucked to fly for VS on Waterson as we'd generally be badly outnumbered in the air and hold the least territory (fewest resources to replace downed aircraft). It wasn't uncommon for our warpgate to be camped by enemy aircraft, or even to see enemy aircraft dogfighting with each other right outside of our warpgate over rights to farm hapless Scythes exiting the warpgate. Through a combination of GU12 population bandaids and GU13 ESF nosegun changes it definitely seems better VS.

The nosegun changes seem better for TR & VS and worse for NC. TR definitely didn't need any help on Waterson, between NUC and IR and the other random mosquitoes, TR is the dominant air faction on Waterson. When there is a deathball of 20+ mosquitoes and several liberators hovering just outside of your warpgate like in your picture, there is little point in flying. There is no outfit on NC nor VS that has an organized air force large enough to counter that. Hit and run tactics are useless as the Mosquito is the fastest ESF. Experienced pilots become frustrated, and new pilots have no opportunity to learn as they are instagibbed soon after leaving the warpgate.

It doesn't help that the best and most common ground-based AA presently is the Striker... no surprise that pretty much every Scythe and Reaver runs Flares but a whole lot of Mosquitoes run Fire Suppression for better survivability.

Anyway, I take the mention of ZAPS as a complement. We do have a few really good pilots, but nothing comparable to the airzergs regularly found over or near TR territory.

PS2 dogfights dont look like in top gun... You dont fly after another guy. A proficient player will get in reverse fly and own your face.

In a 1v1 the equally high skilled pilots will end in reverse maneuvers facing eachother. Thats where the front profiles make the scythe and mossie really hard opponents compared to a reaver.
The higher V thrust doesnt help that much if you get "sniped" by scythe from a far.

I love how people complain about Reavers being too easy to hit. How do you think Liberator pilots feel? Any idiot can hit a Liberator with a Nosegun, which kills Liberators in short order. It's like if tanks were vulnerable to LMGs.

don't reavers also have more health?

As ItsJustDash mentioned the Vortek is still quite lethal but with the aim offset along with other things, I fear many new NC pilots are deterred to making a habit out of flying Reavers. Perhaps Im only imagining things but since GU 13, a decline of Waterson Reaver pilots has occured. ItsJushDash mentioned this too and Im curious if fellow Waterson aviators have noticed this too?

So who is the "Best NC Pilot?"

No, you are correct. I've been saying this, also the "range" advantage for the new Reaver is a lie. They're just idle numbers on a page, they don't transfer to any sort of advantage, all ESFs are equally potent at any range, but as you pointed out, each of the other two rotaries have "perks" that the Reaver doesn't have.

Lol, no. They did in Beta, where they also had stronger Afterburners and a longer burn time, but people cried and the Reaver lost those unique traits but still kept its larger frame. That was likely the Reavers biggest nerf to date because everything else about the Reaver was designed around performing that way, and the other ESFs the same. So the Reaver lost two things and the other fighters gained Reaver traits while the Reaver got nothing? Again in the Rotary rebalance the Reaver lost something while its enemies gained something.

Call me crazy, but I don't think the Reaver was ever overperforming in the general sense enough for it to be "normalized." Everyone knows "oh well Ace pilots and bleh bleh" yeah well ace pilots gonna ace pilot? Why is the Reaver being balanced around Aces while the others are balanced around CoD vets? As far as I know Reavers were always kinda the underdog, and they keep getting normalized for whatever reason. NC also has the worst anti-air capabilities, so that just compounds the problem even further and I really don't know where they are taking this balance scheme for the future.

You quote out of context. This was for Cobalt server.

Discostoff was considered the best reaver pilot on Cobalt by VS and TR alike.

No matter what, the Reavers Hitbox should be reduced to be on par with the Mosquitos Hitbox. Approx 20%, i guess. SOE would know.
Also:
Increase the Mosquitos VThrust to 90kph without Frame, staying at 120kph with Hover Frame.
Increase the Scythes VThrust to 95kph without Frame, staying at 125kph with Hover Frame.
Increase the Scythes Cruise Speed by 10kph.
If, for whatever Reason, they dont want to decrease the Reavers Size, they could increase its Resistance by about 20% or increase its Health by the same Amount. Wouldnt be a good Solution, but better than nothing.
As it currently stands, the Rotaries are balanced, the ESFs itself are not.

But you have to turn around to face them.

It rewards you for accuracy with a slightly higher DPS than other rotaries. That's the reward. The punishment for bad accuracy is that you have to reload before you get the kill.

As for the AC-X11/Reaper, they really don't reward you for accuracy as much as they should. At the end of the day, their slow rate of fire means their TTK is pretty much the same as any other weapon.

This is what I've heard from teammates.

This has been happening on Mattherson since the ESRL update. Strikers and Lancers were thinning the Reavers, then Lockdown and ZOE came out and cut the remaining Reavers in half. All while Mossy and Scythe populations seemed to be consistent. After this last patch, even the best pilots I know are having trouble finding fun/fair battles.

I don't know about the rotatories, but the High damage NC weapons have higher ttk then the high RoF. so yeah....

And it's totally negated by it's huge head on hix box. I perform better in a hover dogfight with a Racer 3 Mossy, than I do a Hover 3 Reaver.

Aiming while reverse hovering is not easy. And the faster you hover, the harder is actually becomes to aim. And the reverse hover maneuver has nothing to do with how much hover your craft has. Getting into the maneuver doesn't require the use of v-thrust at all, and once you're in it, your speed is based off how much you hit the afterburner. Maybe the Reaver has a speed advantage there if combined with v-thrust, but the faster you go, the harder it is to aim. Not to mention, a Scythe and Mossy are much smaller head on.

I find myself trying to avoid hover duels. I try to do whatever I can, to get their cross-hair off me and playing catch up, while my cross-hair is still on them. I have one trick that works well, but only one. Hovering, despite the Reaver having the highest velocity, is absolutely not my go to move. In fact, even after 83 hours in a Reaver, it's still a highly defensive maneuver for me.

The Reaver now has too high a skill ceiling for it to be worth bothering with. Sure, in the end, at the highest possible skill ceiling, maybe a Reaver will be better than the other two ESF. But how many players are online for enough hours a day to maintain such a skill level, let alone even get there? Like 3 per server?

Since rotaries were normalized, now everything should be as well. To force the Reaver pilots to have to be accurate in most difficult thing to master in game, is garbage. The difficult in landing a shot on a slower barrel rolling Reaver compared to the other two, is a joke.