Both of these abilities cannot be balanced in the current ground to air meta: burster maxes with extremely high effective range are spammed while skyguards are hardly used. Buffing dual bursters would only add to the imbalance. The first and unsatisfying solution would be to disable these abilities while carrying dual bursters but it feels kind of extreme. This is what I suggest: ZOE and Lockdown could be part of a ground to air rebalance. AA Maxes in general would get their effective range strongly reduced while Skyguards (actually rendering from air and unrezable units) would get the current MAX range. In this scenario, ZOE and lockdown could fit two new roles: -They could be sneaky killing machines in very close range only (having an even bigger cone of fire while the number of rounds per minutes/damage per round is increased). -They could be a long range air deterrant: giving them increased range but drastically decreasing their damage (kind of like the current GD-40F Ranger).
Would you like them to throw their shield at ESFs captain america style? NC has a defensive ability, they can block a dalton direct hit. Are you saying TR and VS shouldn't get ZOE and Lockdown at all?
The shield is so small that it doesn't even protect the max from all the small arms fire coming at it. They'd be better off sprinting away from the dalton strikes than hoping that the shot hits the shield instead of an unprotected portion of their body.
Maybe they should make TR Lockdown and VS ZOE work only on ES weapons, so NS Bursters, Flamethrowers and Grenade-Launcers would not be affected by bonuses.
While somewhat boring, this really does seem like the best solution to me. Bursters are already freakishly powerful - giving them a buff seems insane. Never mind the fact that the buff would only affect two empires and leave the NC in the cold!
OP you are right. These will totally ruin already frustrating air play. If they don't buff skyguards sufficiently then pilots will fear nothing, because right now the only thing they fear is AA maxes. If they don't nerf AA maxes pilots will simply not be able to operate unless they're attacking NC, and even then they won't be able to even attack AA maxes 80% of the time because of the shield. ZOE and Lockdown are poorly thought out ideas. The VS should get an accuracy boost with a cool down, the TR should get a rate of fire increase at the expense of accuracy to boost their close quarters play. The "faction traits" are being diluted to the point of not even being a usable reference. Throw them out already, or pretend they're a factor. OH, and NC if you don't like the sheild don't use it. Everyone elses power has a major downside. You're saying the sheild's too small, but it still covers a large part of you..... turn the face your opponents like the infantry tank you're meant to be. Tanks have to do it too.
So the NC downside is that their shields is worthless? A downside should be something you lose when using the ability not the ability be worthless. The DOWNSIDE for the shield is NOT BEING ABLE TO KILL.
The NC downside is you can't shoot at things. I'm sorry, but there's a lot of times I would rather have a damage sponge than shoot. Imagine throwing up your shield when that light assault drops C4 in front of you. Not a terrible idea right? Or the hover podder is swooping in on your AI max? Sure, it's not always useful, but lockdown, and ZOE as they stand right now suffer from more than not always being useful. I'm not trying to say your shield is the super power of the group, just that there's a lot less to complain about than people are making it out to be. If you're not in a situation to use your shield, or you just can't figure out how, then keep sprint. There's plenty of NC that are scheming devastating uses for the shield right now. I'm still trying to figure out a way to use ZOE other than AA, and occasionally getting the chance to ambush someone since maxes are so nimble and stealthy.......
