Wait until your opponent switches to hover mode, then charge. Pull up a tiny bit at the end so the scythe's massive landing-zone (essentially the entire bottom of the craft) strikes first and you're guaranteed a kill. If your accuracy is good you'll walk out with 0-10% damage. Even a newb can pull it off with ~50% damage. ] If you're using nose guns or A2A as VS, you're doing it wrong.
Leaving the ram damage aside, what I want to know is why the other person thinks flying into his opponent is a good combat strategy in the first place.
I think lots of pilots go for a kamikaze-styled ram when they know they have lost a fight, notwithstanding what they are flying, as there is nothing to lose at that point. It does seem that it's a bit easier to do in a Scythe, probably due to the shape and how damage works on the bottom of ESFs. Having said that, it's definitely not reliable enough to rely on over proper skilful piloting, though, and is most likely to happen in those close hover battles, (moreover, more times these miracle rams will be unintentional rather than with the direct incentive of killing your adversary while surviving yourself). As a Scythe pilot myself, I try and avoid those kinds of battles anyway; mainly against Reavers that are more dangerous up-close, (especially with Mustangs - those things are evil). I've certainly bumped people, most of which were unintentional or a painful by-product of overly flamboyant manoeuvring, and killed them while surviving though, usually at slow speeds in a motion that is basically landing on top of them. In any case, firing with your nose-gun is more reliable, and you will never successfully ram into an experienced pilot unless the dogfight goes horribly up the creek for both pilots... ...Besides: Real men ram with Skywhales...
I think skilled pilots easily could dodge this. Even I can dodge kamikaze ESFs, and I'm really not the best ESF pilot.
Statistically, hostile vehicle collisions accounted for 6.54% of all ESF deaths last month. Friendly collisions another 2.89%, for a total of 9.43% of all ESF deaths from collisions. On the other hand, all three Skyguards only total for 2.99% of ESF deaths. It is thus easier to kill someone by ramming them than trying to Skyguard them.
Thats not surprising. The skyguard is complete joke AA wise. Its a direct counter that sacrifices everything to counter one thing, Air, And it does a pathetic job of it. "Hey, Let me fire my Skyguard at you, Don't worry.. You can run any time you want once you feel its scratched off too much paint."
I thought Galaxy Ramming was the best AA? Seriously, they won't take any damage (I can also not count the number of times friendly ESFs rammed Galaxys in giant air wings).
i think scythe ramming could be resolved with some actual landing gears... many pilots have their arcraft flip over seemingly on a small gust of wind
Oddly enough, it's the TR that die the least often to A2A collisions, suggesting that they're the ones most often ramming others. % Hostile Collision Death TR- 6.16% VS- 7.00% NC- 7.54% On the other hand, the VS most definitely ram themselves the most, by a wide margin. % Friendly Collision Death VS- 3.74% TR- 2.41% NC- 2.25%
I can vouch for this and confirm that this is true. As a Scythe pilot, I will often be rammed by someone trying to do what I'm doing - usually, I'll be lowering myself into position to launch a payload of rockets, though they wanted it and decide to forcefully remove you from your situation, (and/or fire as well). Moreover, a lot of Scythe pilots have absolutely no idea what they're doing at all - more so than the TR and NC, (this is purely anecdotal, though is quite the point of humour for the Reddit pilot Community) - which accounts for myself being rammed and seemingly purposefully, although I hope not, being crashed into an alarming number of times during sky-zergs, (of which there are many, where there will be 40+ aircraft buzzing around a single facility). One thing the Miller VS can do is provide an epic aerial armada. Finally, there was an awful lot of team-killing during the earlier stages of the Pumpkin Hunt, where most Scythes would hover outside the Warpgate waiting for pumpkins to spawn. If two Scythes saw one, they'd either both go for it, one would kill it, and the other Scythe in a rage of butt-hurt would ram, or certainly attempt to kill, the other Scythe, or they'd both simply turn on each other and the victor gets the pumpkin, provided it hasn't already been stolen by someone else. There was a lot of team-killing, and it reached the extent where it simply became tedious rather than funny...
that video is from 2013, back then the scythe had overall bugged ram damage, and you could simply ram three enemy esfs before burning even if you flew into them head-on maybe the bug is back, but i doubt it
