Now that Banshee has been Adjusted*

I don't know about "farming"... I don't even know why Infantry would care; their deaths cost them nothing, and because everything in the game (just about) can easily kill an ESF there is no ongoing threat from an ESF unless they choose not to defend themselves.

Like I said I don't know about "farming" but I do know that the reason why I started flying in PS2 was to perform the role of Close Air Support. I prefer to take out threats on the ground. I spent the first few months of my flying career (for lack of a better word) engaging ground vehicles... but the rocketpods got nerfed and changed into a primarily AI weapon which were still OK for vehicles... then the nose guns got nerfed against vehicles... and the rockets got even more nerfed against everything... so A2G became a forgotten joy in the distant past.

I changed to a mixed role of getting ground kills when I could and defending myself against air when I had to. This was not a successful number of months in PS2 for me. It was pure frustration.

About 6 months ago, or so.. I switched to being mostly A2A and only going after ground when vehicles were a real danger and I could engage wit the new Hornet Missiles. Of course the Hornets turned out to be better at killing infantry and Libs than armour.... so I gave up on them quick.

Then the directives came along... and I needed to get a lot of kills with one last weapon... so I started using the Banshee. After nearly 2 years of listening to Infantry whine about air "farming" them I took great joy in slaughtering them whenever I could.

Even with the Banshee at peak strength ground could EASILY counter all the ESFs. All you need is two lockon missiles and we go away... they cost you nothing... or one burster max which can be repaired, resupplied, and you can be resurrected INFINITELY and when you get tired of getting XP for every time you scratch my paint you can go to a terminal and change your load out to be anti-vehicle or anti-personnel.... If lockons and burster maxes are too expensive for you to consider using to stop yourself from being farmed all you have to do is point 3, yes 3, rifles at the ESF and it will loose the battle with you if it tries to stay.

EVEN with the Banshee at peak power, you were able to completely and easily counter it. It could get 4-6 kills, two normal or two outstanding passes and you would either kill the pilot or at the very least drive him away smoking - if you bothered to try.

BUT since this is Infantryside, not only do you get to change the outcome of almost every A2A battle with your flak and lockons - you also get to have any weapon that can actually get a kill for an ESF pilot against infantry nerfed into the ground.

The great power and skill of Infantry in this game is how it is able to control SOE.

I'm not sure what the income stream is for infantry... but SOE sure seems to bow to your every unreasonable demand.


EDIT: the point of the above was to get to how the Banshee isn't even good for CAS (close air support) now. Because it requires nearly a full magazine to kill even one Infantry and requires you to follow that single infantry's movement you become an even easier target for ground using any or all of the options listed above. The Banshee has become a fool's gun now.

/rant

It sounds like you're saying Hornets are bad at killing armor, which just doesn't seem to be the case.

As I wrote, and you quoted, "Of course the Hornets turned out to be BETTER at killing infantry and Libs than armour..."

I don't know how you got what I wrote to "sound" in your mind like what you suggested in your comment...

They are a better AI and anti Lib weapon than they are anti-armour.

As for if they are good for killing armour - which is not what I was talking about hence I said they were BETTER at something else not that they were BAD at doing something - they are not particularly good weapons to use in a real fight. 1v1 in the open world with no one else around? Sure, not a bad option to go against a tank. Using them against a Sundy? lol... the Sundy will eat you for lunch. Using them against armour in a fight 12-24 fight? LOL! You will be killed on your first or second pass and it is going to take 4 passes just to kill a single tank if they don't repair.

Well then you make no sense at all. If you're most interested in providing CAS, and Hornets are good for killing armor, and even better at killing infantry and libs, then why did you stop using Hornets? Your post lacks consistency.

Read what I wrote again. If you still can't comprehend then I think we're done.

No, I know what you said. You think Hornets are not good enough against armor and sunderers, which was basically what I thought you said in the first place. The only difference is you are using "not good enough" and I am using "bad", but we both mean the same thing. It's funny that you thought I misunderstood your post, and then went on to say exactly what I thought you said in the first place.

Higby, the trolling by self-entitled Forumside Aces gets old.

Please quote me "basically" stating this? You thought this, you wanted to have an argument about that and what you thought I meant and now you want to be "right" about what you thought I meant. This is trolling.

I didn't say they were bad... I wasn't talking about how good or how bad they were - as has already been demonstrated to you in great depth and detail.

They are better at killing Infantry and Libs than they are at killing armour. Please go use them...

They are not good at anything in a real fight because of how they are used. I NEVER SUGGESTED THEY SHOULD BE BETTER AT ANYTHING.

As I explained in detail they are hazadous to use. They might be "good" at killing things, but they make you an easy target.

Now we are done. Have a nice day. If this is not amply clear to you then I don't care, you have now buried my other comment under half a page of nonsense which is against the Forum Guidelines.

Way to pander likes from the multitude of vehicle ******. Maybe ****ters like you enjoy getting killed and think their .5 KDR means anything ; players who actually work hard to build their skill in this game don't like having it pissed on by some loser who can get an easy kill and then fly into a mountain. This game is not combined arms, it's farm the f out of infantry with your stupid crutches. Infantry gets everything done in this game, vehicles (besides sundy and gal) are useless.

Vehicle AI is for noobs who suck at the core of the game, or for pros to farm in if they get fvcked by the aforementioned noobs and want to relieve some of the salt. Vehicles are utterly useless besides this (and providing mobile spawns).

If you nerf vehicle AI, the sh!tters who sit in tanks with thier thumbs up their *** actually get good, and the pros aren't so salty and can continue with their groundpounding wizardry ways. This game should encourage player progression and growth, not "Oh this AC guy just **** on me, i'm going to sit in a Viper lightning and kill everyone hehehHEH!heheheh!!!!"

TL;DR my OP .001 second time to kill weapon has been BALANCED, how can I maintain my precious 2.86 KDR now???

Wow, I think I struck a nerve. So many troll accusations... You need to chill out a bit, maybe even take a break from the forums. I'm not trying to start a heated argument over this, I just disagree with you.

Your original post said absolutely nothing about hornets being too slow to be useful, or anything else about their limitations. You just said they they were better at killing libs and infantry than armor, so you stopped using them. That is why I thought you meant they were not good for killing armor, because you specifically said you wanted to play CAS in the first place(please take a moment to consider why I may have come to that conclusion before typing out your rage-filled response).

Then you made up some scenario about attacking a sunderer or a tank, where you mentioned the damage(4 passes to kill a tank, if they don't repair), which does seem like you are criticizing them for not doing enough damage(even though I'm pretty sure it already takes less than 8 missiles to kill an MBT.

I would disagree about the damage, but not so much about the speed. While I do think they are far better for killing armor than you make them out to be, I find the speed at which the missiles travel to be a bit slow, and it makes them feel kinda awkward.

And please show me which forum guidelines I've violated by arguing with you? I don't think there is any rule that would protect your statements and opinions from criticism.

And you don't find that to be a problem? This is a combined arms game, not an infantry game.

So you think an AI weapon that kills infantry slower than it takes for the targeted infantry to turn around and one shot the ESF with a rocket is "balanced"? I guess your idea of "balance" is anything that it takes to keep the infantry game from being interfered with.

I would have ZERO issue with the weapon if it were balanced, but it is not it has been nerfed so hard that it is completely useless for CAS work which is what an AI weapon is for.

Enjoy your time running around without anything that can kill you. You got your way!! Enjoy it.

As for my KDR it is much higher when I focus on A2A than it ever is when I go A2G. Why? Well because your G2A and Flak are so balanced that they kill ESFs faster than an ESF can kill a single infantry.

Merry Christmas!

I do believe you are stretching it just a bit. Banshee still works. You just have to aim a bit better. It's still way more forgiving than trying to kill infantry with the Rotary/Needler. I haven't tried testing it out against AA maxes since the change as I rarely use it anymore.

My whole point starting this thread, was that when you pull something that is a specific counter (and useless for anything but G2A), to have just one ESF swoop in and kill my AA max in 0.4 seconds is just not proper balance.

Your MAX is dedicated G2A. The aircraft is dedicated A2G. Shouldn't each have the same strengths?

Example:
Infantry is dedicated AI. Other infantry is also dedicated AI. Assuming they have decent aim, the TTK for one of them could well be under 0.4 seconds (headshots). In some cases, it could be instantaneous (BASRs/PAs).

Why does air vs ground have different rules than infantry vs infantry?

Just aim a little better? How about you have to hit with 75% of your mag? And when do you have to do this? When everything is shooting at you with things that can either one shot you or kill you in under a second. Yeah.. that seems balanced. Tell ya what give me a lockon weapon that will take you down 70% while 5 of my friends are shooting at you with rifles and then you get a weapon that will take 1 second to kill me. Then I'll tell you to just aim a little better... OH and it will cost you 350 nanites to play for that second. And every 2 times you'll have to wait 1 minute, and on the third time you'll have to wait 4 minutes to play again. Enjoy.

The Rotary is at least as good at AI as the new Banshee is. The needler is still useless for AI.

LOL seriously.. infantry can swap weapons at will and it costs you NOTHING. AND you can get revived infinitely. AND you have dozens of options to get rid of air EASILY.

That I have to dodge lockons, flak, rifle shells, tank shells, trees, AND still maintain aim on a target using a gun that ONLY points where my vehicle is moving at 200+ KPH is plenty hard enough.

You don't need it to take a full second to kill one infantry because no ESF is going to live for a second going in a straight line in any real battle.

BALANCE takes into account the WHOLE scene, not just one ISOLATED stat.

Was the Banshee unbalanced against undefended infantry? It sure was effective against undefended infantry... but unbalanced? That was their fault not the fault of the Banshee or the pilot using the Banshee.

Nah I don't find it a problem. Maybe if vehicles had DEFENSIVE AI capabilities (tanks focus on killing other tanks, with AI secondary weapons for defense like kobalt or w/e). As it stands right now, vehicles can reliably one-shot more than one infantry man at a time (in large clusters I can get triple kills with the Python HE cannon) while infantry's "one shot" is extremely high risk and leads to more deaths than success.

Combined Arms is a buzzword/phrase for inferior players to have an excuse to farm. Inferior farmers couldn't care less about the objective, they're content with sitting in their safe vehicles and shelling a base from 100 feet away. Us true FPS players, the skilled infantrymen, are the ones who win the game.

The problem that skilled infantry players and most infantry players in general have with ESFs is that compared to infantry, they are MUCH more maneuverable, much faster, and have more health. That's the basic rudimentary issue. Not to mention there are weapons like rocket pods, airhammers, and light PPAs which are extremely ******* annoying to infantrymen. The Banshee has been brought in line, now it's time for the others to have the nerfbat as well. If I get killed by infantry in a 1v1 where both of us know each other exists, it's because I got outskilled, etc. etc. Even if I get ganged by 4 guys and I killed 3, but the last guy drops me, it's only a matter of me using better positioning next time which could lead me to getting kills on all of them.

ESF vs Infantry on the other hand is extremely low risk/low skill when compared to ESF vs ESF. Sorry, there is no skill in you getting a 10 killstreak with your light ppa. There is much more skill in getting a 10 killstreak as infantry on infantry.

Hornet are good vs. Prowler, Mag, non-Skyguard Lightning, and Infantry. Hornet can kill Mag and Prowler from one good pass or just turning above them and chipping them down. 4-6 shots.

Libs are not good targets. It takes 9 Hornets to kill em, Hornet has off starting trajectory and it's slow so it's hard to land hits, and it requires holding position while aiming which makes it very vulnerable to a Dalton OHK.

I find the best way to kill those pesky Dalton Libs is to hit them with either default nose guns or locust cannons, and the only secondary that's half useful at times is Coyotes if they come chasing you down, since even guiding Tomcats can be iffy, the lock on range just isn't far enough for comfort. A good Dalton Lib is just plain outright OP really... they can spam it endlessly and sooner or later if you're not careful, you're totally toast.

Hornets? Yeah it might be useful vs. those BAD Libs. I don't much like Hornets myself though - they just move too slowly, there's always that lingering threat that some HA you didn't spot might just dumb fire and hit you if you're using them against infantry. But then again, the new Banshee also puts you at greater risk to dumb fire OHKs, and the thing about Hornets, unless people have good situational awareness, you can surprise them completely.

I haven't been running Stealth until more recently myself - it happened one day when I was looking for pumpkins, got shot down, continued searching on the ground instead, and saw someone leave their Mossie at the end of a pumpkin alert. I got to it and sure enough he went offline and left it behind... I saw Fire Suppression and thought it had Nanite Repair too, but turns out it really had Stealth. Took it into battle - Needler/Hornet coincidentally - and kept wondering why people didn't notice me coming, and then later why I wasn't getting repaired back up fully... then it dawned upon me, it had Stealth!