I don't get it... so the complaint is that it's situational? Fine by me!!! I was hanging around next to TR held Xelas on the weekend and got 6 aircraft kills with the dual-burster before the sky just completely cleared of enemies... for good. Sure maybe they were new, but no more TR air at Xelas. Working as intended. If anyone is under the misconception that it is the most efficient way to make cert points, let me clear that up now. It's an incredible way to get cert points, but only if there is a massively target rich environment. If kill-whoring for cert-points is all you care about, then my best advice is to not waste your SC or Cert Points on a second arm until you have got all your HA kill-whoring certs.
I don't mind the Burster as it currently is, it just needs some tweaking, a bit more aoe dmg would be nice and survivability too. currently any nab can knife a max to death, also any riffle can rip you to pieces. The defence skill tree is useless, nano auto repair is a waste of time, Max units need to be as effective as they was in the Original Planetside, not realy sure what the devs are playing at with class's design, overall very mediocre unless your a rocket pod jok.
Bursters are fine. Doesn't matter if I kill the aircraft or it escaped, I still did my job of clearing the air. Think of the air vehicles as flies and you are bug repellent.
Dual Burster MAX is by far the best ground AA atm. Have 2-3 of those and your position is untouchable by air. I'd go as far to say it needs nerfing. Meanwhile Skyguard and Walker need a buff.
I was one of the better known burster drivers in the original planetside. Having spent a little time in the burster since the PS2 launch, I find the results disappointing. The range just sucks. Ammo capacity is bad and movement speed is terrible. Your shots have to be much closer to the aircraft to detonate than they did in PS1. That said, I still had fun with it and downed a few.
And this is basically the point. People feel that weapons are underpowered unless it allows them to shred the enemy by themselves. "Of course my MAX should kill a Liberator before it can kill me!" Ignoring the fact that the Liberator is committing 3 people to the engagement while the MAX is only committing one. Manpower makes a difference.
Did anyone actually say that ? I think a lone max barely has the ammo to kill a liberator by itself, i know i sunk 4 clips from each arm into a Liberator that just hovered above ground killing everyone, then it quickly left for repairs after killing a sunderer and a dozen infantry. If a gunship with rockets actually started shooting back at you it would most likely kill all 3-4 maxes and engineers, failing at that they can always eject and engage the MAX's as infantry, since bursters are like spitballs against infantry. Comitting three people to one unit that can combat ANY ground threat with that much effect is a better trade than comitting one MAX and one engineer to slightly annoying air only.
IMO, no AA is worth purchasing atm. I have both the burster and the skyguard. I have pulled them a couple dozen times total and might have 3-5 air kills. The ones I remember were mainly a really close ESF hovering and not moving.
I dual burst with TR max, have a ton of AA kills. For me its totally worth it because with no AA at least chasing air units away, a base can become a feeding frenzy for air units. A lot of times a fighter will line up with base coming in to take out a tank with rockets or so, which requires getting adequately close, and from that range you can easily get them to half health before they can react, and if they arent paying attention, they're dead. I finding myself putting most points into AA max stuff as TR on Jaeger is mostly lacking decent AA, we have counters for everything else usually. I plan on getting both extended clip upgrades for them as a lot of times you have multiple fighters flying by in rapid succession, and will help for taking out liberators too. At this point by myself at a base, if properly supported with repairs and ammo, I can defend the skies pretty much by myself. Two AA maxes with extended clips would be enough to have the skies pretty much considered on lockdown, pilots wouldn't go anywhere near them.
Oh and another thing we did yesterday in a squad, we had 2 AA maxes in a sunderer and a scythe started coming in for the kill, we jumped out and melted it. Surprise!
Here's the problem in a nutshell: An ESF with RocketPods can Spam Infantry and Tanks and can easily get on the order of 100 kills an hour. A Dual Burster (which has the same Cert cost to gain) can do, what, maybe 3 or 4 kills an hour if he's lucky? If he's good he'll scare away all the aircraft in the area so the base can be captured and get... 0XP in addition to tyhe base cap (which everybody gets, in addition to XP for doing their jobs). And half the time the pilot bails out before the crash to either suicide or jetpack down, depriving the Dual Burster of some of the XP he could have gotten. Yeah, it's good that the Burster Max did his job and cleared the air. But a reward for doing his job would be nice, and the current reward pretty much stinks, which is why you so rarely see Burster Maxes come out until after the air is thick with fighters.
Dual Burster all thy way . A dual AA MAX can kill a ESF. Hell i plan on getting a burster because two Doble AA maxes can bring down any numner of ESF. Even with one Burster I can do significant damage but with two ESFs will explode left and right . I have seen random Max groups 2-5. To make the sky clear . In the mather of 20 minutes there was not single ESF in sight.
Skyguard was twice as good as the double burster max suit, I dont know what they did.. but it is extremely hard to hit air units now. the max is best option now because it is the only accurate one.
WARNING: DO NOT GET MAX AIR BURSTER EXTENDED MAGAZINE AMMO UPGRADE "Doubles ammo in each magazine" ONLY ADDS +5 TO EACH MAGAZINE NO CERT REFUNDS ARE GIVEN
Someone who runs a DB MAX for an hour is most likely doing it VERY wrong. When I have one up (usually is only needed for at MOST 20 minutes, or as long as there is heavy air), I'll rake in 9 or 10 kills (with a bunch more assists). If you DO get no kills, congrats, that means you STILL helped your empire cap the base quicker. Also, I have never had someone bail before death. Not that I take my experience to be the end-all-be-all, but come on, is that REALLY happening as much as you think it does, or are you just not finishing the job? If the Burster is coming out when the air is NOT thick with fighters, they are most likely not needed, and so should not be pulled anyway. Bursters are a counter. Thankfully, even though they are considered a vehicle they can rearm themselves to be useful. If the air is clear, mount up with your AI/AV and go to town getting kills in the base while you're waiting for the cap. Learning to use your tools effectively (in this case, the MAX) is the way to go as opposed to complaining that you can't use your DB 24/7 to kill all the things by yourself. Also, snu, at least say WHICH one doesn't give the full double, because we already know SOME of them work fine. I agree they need to fix it, but come on. If you're trying to be helpful, at least BE HELPFUL.
Yeah, but keep in mind that the usual response from RocketSpammers when you say "We're getting creamed by Air" is "You should have had some AA out." It's a chicken and egg thing, if you pull the AA when there's no Air then you sit around and get no XP. If you don't pull it then a bunch of Air moves in on your position and ravages you before you even have a chance to pull AA - half the time waiting until the air is thick with planes it's too late to bother with AA. The lack of XP means that people aren't going to pull out AA until there's a ton of air, usually too much Air to be effectively defended against. I've said before, AA needs to get XP for damaging planes. Another thing that will help is if Squads and Platoons can share XP between members, that way when you have a dedicated AA guy running with you he gets a fair share of the XP even if no planes come in for a while.
I play 90% of the time as a TR Burster MAX (double bursters) on the Connery server and here is what my results have been. 1. Unless a plane is just hovering over your firing range or AFK you can't expect to shoot them down before they fly off. 2. If the plane is a liberator or galaxy, they have so much health that you can't expect to deter their mission since they just ignore your relatively insignificant damage. They'll just do what they need to do and then fly off. 3. Most fighter aircraft will bail out or crash into the ground before giving you the full exp. Congrats on earning 33 exp. You may have never seen it (which I find odd) but I can assure you the overwhelming majority of pilots "rob" you of your full exp kill. 4. You're going to run out of ammo ALL THE TIME. AA is unplayable without an engineer or some other form of ammo replenishment. 5. If an enemy infantry comes up to you, you're going to die. This is usually pilots/passengers that bail out of the plane you just got 33 exp for. 6. I have fun and feel important scaring off planes when I can, but really you can get much more exp just loading up Heavy Assault and shooting rockets at infantry (haha).
And rightly you shouldn't be able to every time, but if you're at least decent with leading shots you should be able to kill them maybe 20%(number from my *** but you get the point) of the time. Bursters should NEVER be able to 1v1 air (they can be pulled anywhere, cost far less resources, and [correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't have the numbers in front of me] but I believe that once maxxed out, can be pulled more often but I could be wrong on that last one), otherwise air wouldn't even have a chance. I don't know why people keep thinking they should. (and yes, I'm one of my Outfit's dedicated DB runner, so I tend to use it a lot) I agree entirely that they have a lot of health, but they also have longer pull timers, and significantly higher costs, and higher manpower needs. 2 DBs can be a deterrent to a lib 3-4 can kill easily, 4 can be a deterrent to a gal, 6-7 can kill them. Match those up with the number of people in the planes. I agree that the gal needs a little less resistance to flak, but not enough so just 1 or 2 DBs can keep them away alone. Here's where it may come down to different server attitudes, but I again stand by my statement. I don't doubt it happens in general and I just haven't seen it yet, but at least on Mattherson it is far less common than you state. Maybe they should reimplement (from PS1) the inability to bail from a severely damaged craft until you land. Teamwork. This game is all about teamwork. If you can't get at least one or two kills off a single ammoset, you're doing it wrong, or are against mostly libs and gals, to which I still say "teamwork". And anyway, if someone hasn't brought a Sunderer, or you're too far away from a resupply term....yell at your Outfit or squad cause they're doing it wrong. Again, usually you only need AA for base assault/defense, or pushing toward a base with troops, so it comes down to "teamwork". You're speccing AA; don't expect to be able to do AI as well (though I do think the flak needs a bit more splash to at least give some survivability). I'm glad you have fun, cause kills or not watching pilots bug out when they have 8 streams of flak heading their way is one of the more satisfying things in PS2 . I don't disagree you can get more XP from HA, but that's apples and oranges. Once they bring some kind of squad XP sharing or whathaveyou, you'll see XP gain going higher (I curse out my Outfitmates for getting the kill so often....haha)
