Rangers are broken OP

try the ranger, you haven't tried, I use it a lot, it takes aim, it's harder to aim with ranger than walker, first of all because the "explosives" are spaced out while walker is straight line, easy, but second of all the ranger is only good when you have an ESF in front of your nose, or he/she is hovering a little further but not moving;

ie -> the "explosives" are much slower than the bullets of a walker, you not only have to aim better than with a wlaker, you ALSO HAVE TO GUESS WHERE THE ENEMY IS ACTUALLY GOING, like way way way WAY more.

And for these two extremly logical and rational reasons, your wrong and I'm right.


However, for LIBs, that's differenty, you can't kill a lib with ranger unless the lib isn't moving and./or very close.

In my very honest and oh so very enlightened opinion, Anti Air guns are not supposed to be just a "deterrent". Do you see infantry running around with guns that are JUST A ******* DETERENT?

Do you see tanks shooting DETERENTS?

If you don't know what DETERENT is, it means "I tickle the enemy just enough to make him go away for a few seconds then he comes back full health no problem".

Guns are for killing, destroying, and I really don't see why that shouldn't apply to anti air guns.

Not ignorant at all. Last night 3 shotgun reavers were hovering over a base totally annihilating any fun to be had by ground forces. Anything that deters this kind of cheese is to be cheered from the rooftops. Yes I pulled a striker and managed to kill one, but the other two cowards just withdrew until their cheese ganksquad mate pulled another then they came back in a pack of three again.

This absolutely ruins the game so any buff against ESF cheese gets my vote all day long.

Of course guns should be lethal, but flak is at a point where engagements don't happen in the first place. Sazukata really nailed this, so I'll quote him.

There needs to be a good fight between air and ground, not a single Ranger Harasser keeping aircraft stuck in the warpgate till a Vulcan Harasser takes care of it. There's nothing good or competitive about that.

You're lucky you had the Striker. I was going to mention that when I saw your TR picture. It's a perfect counter to air in small fights that every HA should own. Every faction should have a similar launcher. You were single-handedly able to kill a 350 nanite vehicle just by looking up, but the other two continued to kill. That sounds balanced to me, especially from the ground side of things. If 3 of you had looked up with Strikers then those 1050 naites would be entirely countered. I play a ton of TR, and begrudgingly play HA just to have a Striker on me. If you were NC or VS then I'd feel bad for you, but your story paints a balanced picture. Do you expect your single launcher to counter 3 anti-infantry vehicles? Really? Would you insist your single launcher defeat 3 anti-infantry tanks? It just sounds silly to me that you expect such a safe place from vehicles in a combined arms game.

The problem with AA guns being able to kill aircraft without fear of retaliation is that it makes aircraft completely pointless.

Why bother to pull an ESF to try to get rid of a lib, when you can just pull a skyguard or a ranger harasser?

Why bother to pull any aircraft when someone on the ground who you cant see before he sees you can easily kill you with less certs and less skill?

So what we end up with is massive tank zergs and no air anywhere.

Or when air shows up to a battle it lasts for 30 secs before the skies are clear again.

Flak is op atm, i think we all know that. But i think it is deliberate. Most people play on the ground. Flying is too hard for them.

The problem for me is due to op flak there is no counter to the tank zerg. Trying to play infantry is often a complete waste of time because there are always 20 hesh tanks and 30 kobalt sundies at every fight just farming it up with no counter.

Clueless people will no doubt claim that C4 is a counter to tanks, but of course it only works rarely and against bad tankers. The good tankers will shoot you dead EVERY time you try to C4 them.

Eventually everyone gets good at the game so there is no point trying to balance based on bad players.

The Ranger harasser i think is the worst because it is so cheap and it does so much damage. And of course its so fast. A skyguard i can kill with my shredder every time if i get on him fast enough. Which is as it should be, 450 resources and 3 players vs 350 and 1 player.

But a ranger harasser is very very hard to kill because its smaller than a lightning much faster, AND quicker. Lightings change direction very slowly compared to a harasser and this makes predicting shots quite easyvs the lightning but not so for the harasser.

I know this from both sides, getting attacked in a lib by a harasser and being the harasser myself.

People need to play everything imo. for a couple of reasons, one is so you understand the strengths and weaknesses of each weapon so that you know how to counter them, and also to gain an appreciation of how hard or easy it is to play things. Everyone has this idea that flying is just easy-mode farming, but if that were the case there would be more libs and ESF than Tanks, and we all know that isnt the case.

TLDR; A 2 man 150 resource vehicle should not be a match for an equally skilled 450 resource lib, but it is.

Oh and a 350 resource ESF gets absolutely destroyed by a 150 resource ranger harasser, assuming equal skill of course.

The reverse argument can be made just as easily and is more accurate regarding the absurd power A2G aircraft have had for basically the entirety of the game's lifespan.

One should hope a two-man vehicle equipped with a single dedicated weapon would be capable of killing its sole intended target without much risk of being killed by said dedicated target. Aircraft enjoy that luxury by the fistful.

Again, not saying it ought to stay OP but for once the Ranger is actually useful and I think it should stay that way.

The problem here is that both vehicles are designed to kill the other.

The ranger is designed to kill air targets and the lib is designed to kill ground targets.

So since they are equal in that they are both designed to kill each other, they must be balanced based on cost and number of players.

450 resources and 3 players is greater than 150 resources and 1 or 2 players. All day every day. Even supposing the lib has no tailgunner, its still 450 and 2 players vs 150 and 2 players.

There is no way you can equate that. What this means is that in order for harassers to kill libs you should need at least 2 for total resource cost of 300 with 4 players.

In this case you have pretty equal terms because 450 resources 3 players is 50% more resources than 2 harassers, but 4 players is 33% higher than the lib crew and i would assign more value to the player over the resources, so i would say that equation should favor the harasser.

So, why can an ESF can easily kill a 2-man higher-priced MBT?

Harassers are too cheap in every kind of engagement.
The platform itself, has an easy time with the price against land - and against air.

It's pretty hilarious however, when Aircraft is being killed by something less expensive, it's a problem.
When it's an Aircraft piloted Solo, it's perfectly fine that multi-crew land-vehicles get killed relentlessly.

A Harasser is murderously Cheap, but it's also a 2-man vehicle.
So, just on the basis of Man-power, the ESF is logically screwed as it's 1v2.
- or Land-vehicles need additional weapons & operators on MBTs.
As 2-man is the largest ground-vehicle operator count, 6 is Air.

(Yes, Harasser is too cost effective, not to mention with Rangers.
I just find it hilarious that now the Argument that 3v1 should favor the 3:
when Air has been saying the ground needs to out-number the 1 pilot, with the Favor being to the 1 pilot.)

MBT shouldn't be mauled by an ESF either, the cost of a Lighting, piloted Solo.
Same logic.

I used to play ESFs a lot, I wasn't highly skilled at them but I felt like I could make a contribution in large fights where the enemy was pushing my team back to the spawn room. Then they nerfed the Thermal vision making anti-infantry weapons nearly pointless, they nerfed the Hornets removing anti-tank capabilities from ESFs almost entirely, they got rid of flak armor making ESFs easier to take down by AA Maxes, Skyguards, Rangers, Walkers and the vast plethora of AA weapons available to almost every class and vehicle in the game.

I play infantry a lot too, since the very beginning, and I never felt ESFs were more of a threat than tanks. We used to have a lot of fun popping them out of the air with our dumbfire rocket launchers or setting up on a hill and killing them with our lockons. The striker made dealing with ESFs absolutely trivial and I regularly shoot them down with my Lancer and even my Phoenix.

I don't really use my fully upgraded ESFs any more, they're not as effective as taking out infantry as everything else in the game, they're not as useful as taking out tanks as everything else in the game, any time you fly around in one there's always someone better with impeccable aim in another ESF who'll shoot you down first. Tanks have no problem shooting you down in one shot with their cannons, Liberators have no problem taking you out with their belly guns, Valkyries often fly around with a squad of 4 HAs with Strikers, but nobody really flies Valkyries either since they're so easy to kill. Battle Gals are a thing of the past, don't really need ESFs to take those out anymore. Don't even bother with tanks since 4 infantry classes have access to C4 and will just blow it up and you can't see them either thanks to the thermal nerf.

All for the sake of some whiny noob infantry who don't play this game for more than a week anyway.

ESF can perhaps easily kill a solo mbt who has chosen not to run a G2A wepaon.

The ESF will not kill the MBT if the MBT has an anti air gun on.

You must compare apples to apples.

An mbt that is set up for AI wont kill an ESF.

Nor would one expect a lib with say a duster on it to be able to compete even with a ranger haraser.

So if the two vehicles arent designed for the same thing then the equation must change.

I should have clarified that i meant a dalton or shredder lib vs a ranger harasser and that i would happily stipulate that a zephyr or duster lib should have no chance to kill the ranger harasser.

An A2A ESF is not killing an MBT. Period. An A2G ESF is not killing an MBT with an anti air gun attached. Period.

An ESF even set up for A2G has zero chance to kill a skyguard or a ranger harasser either.

So a tank that chooses to go without adequate air defense does so at his own risk, just as an AI lib has no chance to defend itself from ESF or flak.

See my response above for the explanation to that question.

EXACTLY. Even when ESF were at their worst they were never as bad, as frustrating to deal with as tanks have ALWAYS been.

an MBT setup for AI can actually be incredibly scary to ESF if he is running a Kobalt

This is very true. I always shoot ESF with the kobalt.

If you can't kill infantry without Thermals, you aren't using ESF Anti-infantry noseguns.
Thermals didn't improve their damage, accuracy, or RPM - It made it impossible to not see every squishy target.
The Hornets, were able to kill an MBT in a single pass, on a cheaper more agile aircraft, faster than it could react.

Outside of the Harassers, Flak is massed, to finally kill - and ESFs have all manner of counters to most AA weapons, faster weapons, and the agility of Air.
An MBT can be killed by singular infantry with Rockets, and is a local hex threat.
An ESF is able to do a lot more damage, do it faster, and is a map-wide threat.

If you can't kill infantry with an ESF's plentiful weapons, due to lacking the all-seeing-eye of Thermals with aircraft-enhanced range on it...
The weapons aren't the problem.

As well, You try using C-4 outside of a Light-assault - unless the tank is blind, that ain't happening.
Not to mention, Thermal vision isn't long-ranged on ground vehicles... if you couldn't see them without it, you are dependent on seeing Massive red blips with Kill-me-signs in order to target.

Yeah Noob infantry.
*After all, needing the entire target high-lighted brighter than sane, in order to use a gun, isn't a lack of ability*
Harassers are poorly priced, and poorly balanced.
But dear lord man. You likely couldn't use the real LOL-pods, unless the game handled firing.

Sorry Krelas, you seem to have ESF derangement syndrome. How much experience do you have flying? You are describing things that dont match reality.

That G2A weapon on a tank, rather than a Bassie even, cuts the tank's firepower in half against every vehicle, every infantry unit, just to attempt engagement of a cheaper flying vehicle that isn't encountered as much, and can avoid the entire engagement.
The ESF picks the fight, MBTs don't have a choice.

An ESF set up for AI, can kill an MBT
An ESF set up for AA, isn't as likely, but can escape.
An ESF set up for AV, certainly mauls an MBT.
In no situation, can the MBT pick the fight
- and that is a multi-crew more expensive vehicle, being easily handled by a solo-player in a cheaper vehicle.

So to run that G2A weapon, that MBT is sacrificing half their firepower, against a target that gets to decide if they engage the MBT to begin with - while the MBT can not chase, or disengage from the ESF ever.

Harassers are cheaper.
Skyguards are equally priced - and for a long time, it took 2-3 to kill a single ESF. And still have less firepower, for the same cost of an ESF.

Harassers are bull against all targets at their price.
But the logic that 2v1 & 3v1 should favor the multi, shouldn't only be when it is an aircraft on the multi.

You literally tried to claim ESF's haven't been able to farm infantry..
As if LOL-Pods were throwing tissues.
So one to talk.

Actually I think that yet again the hate is (probably rightfully so) aimed specifically at the Harasser variant.

At 150 certs it's just too disposable. I've had an AV Harasser spawn from an enemy base I was passing in my Sunderer - managed to kill it (just about) only for the very same guy to just pull another one, catch me up easily and finish me off - I literally stood no chance. And he made no attempt to dodge or outmaneuver me, just sat there plinking away.

A 1/3 buggy simply shouldn't have that much power at 150 certs period.

Ok guys help me out on this one, I've been meaning to ask for a while, but why are Rangers considered better than Walkers? Is it because the flak burst helps accuracy at very long ranges or something? I always use walkers and do pretty well with them, even at silly ranges (though that's just to get them to move on usually) and walkers are MUCH more useful against ground based targets, that I know for sure.

Thoughts please?