Skyguard Vs Liberator...

Been plenty of post about this stuff.

1) plz stop making the "item on costs xxx resources, item 2 costs xxx resources" should be equal ttk. Or vechicle 1 can take 3 ppl vehicle 2 can take 2 ppl, vehicle 1 should be strongest: Someone actually made that arg about harrassers and MBT's.

2) Several buffs have been proposed to the lighning, a few of them have been around these lines:

Give skyguard a close range boost against libs so they have a hard time ganking skyguards:

• Boost top armour for skyguard against TB (gives an incetive for using top armour)
• Let the skyguard to a high level direct damage that drops off fast (balanced against libs, might be op against ESF - but they should not linger near skyguards and I am talking about a steep drop of, just enough for a lib to seriously fear trying to gank a skyguard as it can be shredded by it at close range), then damage transitions into the normal flak and direct damage we have now.
• This would keep the skyguard an air deterrent, yet still able to defend itself against any air-threat at short range.
• The hight direct damage cant' work against armour. I don't know how to balance it but it should not be albe to shred land vehicles. (Maybe an alternative is to change the flak values to avoid this problem but IIRC the engine does not allow for damage drop off for explosive damage? So this might not be viable)

Ofc, there is always the lock-on route. Secondary weapon slit: imagine the crying... Oh the sweet crying.

Who cares anyways. 9/4 patch broke all tanks...

I think alot of people are upset simply because a skyguard gives up viability against every other unit except air, yet it acts more as an air deterrent instead of an air killer. I mean, I could understand that. You give up on all of those targets...just to shoo air away so they can come back and do it all over again, or worse gank you while you are doing something else (even though you already shot at them heavily the first time).

That being said, there are a multitude of changes being mulled over for this I'm sure. The main problem with Air vs. Ground right now is simply that, air in small fights (low AA) is overpowered as all hell, where air in large fights (mid-high AA) is basically a flying target that simply has to participate elsewhere. It sucks for both sides because either the ground forces are getting roflstomped or the air forces are sitting just out of AA range twiddling their thumbs (or ballzing up and going in...only to explode a most pathetic death). I mean, you can't just buff the weapons on either side of the argument or it's going to be bad. Remember, buff one skyguard and there are at least 10 people in a large fight who will be using it (or alternatively it won't be used at all in smaller fights thereby not fixing anything). Buff one liberator, and you have at least 10 people in a large fight who will be using it. That is why balancing this stuff is so difficult, no other game has to put up with the kind of numbers Planetside 2 has in a single fight. BF4, just balance for 64 people max, done. Planetside 2, balance for 1-12 fights, 12-24, 24-48, 48-96, 500, etc. It's difficult to balance a weapon to still be effective whether one or one hundred people use it.

While the problem is rather hard to fix, I think a good temporary solution would just be allowing skyguard users to be useful against other targets than just air. At least this way they aren't giving up everything just to shoo away air targets. How to do this? I think the best way would be to make a skyguard its own vehicle class/variant/whatever and for it to have a smaller clip variant kobalt as a secondary weapon. Basically weapon one, skyguard ; weapon two, kobalt with a smaller clip. At least this way, they can shoot/kill infantry and do something when the air decides to run away. And lets face it, kobalts are in a good place right now, not too strong or weak. I don't think having kobalts would replace the anti-infantry cannon either, though I can't say for certain.

I still think the short range direct damage boost to libs/air I outlined in the post above would be doable in your scenario as well. Baically keep skyguards as an air deterrent at range but enable it to be deadly towards any lib trying to tb-gank it.

You would still be able to do so if the skyguard is unaware. As it stands now however even an alert skyguard will lose a 1v1 fight against a well piloted 2 man lib. I have seen it several times - one lib was perfectly able to kill a skyguard with the use of tb and dalton. The skyguard just did not have the DPS nor the health do deal with it.

EDIT: BTW - rgd your cobalt suggestion. You will be suprised how much damage a skyguard can do to both thanks and harassers at close range. Yeah it can't fight a tank by itself but a damaged tank it can very well fight - especially as they have a tendency to ignore that puny skyguard until they realize how big of a mistake that was.

Hmm ...
While i agree that skyguards (and bursters but skyguards especially, since they can't just sprint under a rock in most cases), need more power against liberators, i realy realy don't want it to become more versatile.

Now take this with a grain of salt please ... as my opinion is heavily biased. (i try to be a dedicated esf pilot)

Currently flying an esf during prime time is an absolute nightmare ... especially if you try to fly an a2a esf and therefore end up with much less cover most of the time.
a2a fighting is already a realy unforgiving and even quite unrewarding (cert wise) aspect of the game and sadly most g2a options out there are especially good against a2a esfs. (since a2a fights usually end up out in the open or in a chase, during which cover isn't something you can reliably put between yourself and potential flak.

Right now almost every base has at least a few g2a turrets (some even 4 right next to each other ... *the pain*), some burster maxes hugging the spawn room and the odd heavy that thinks spamming lockon missiles all day is fun.
As if that wasn't enough, every sunderer can be used as a super tanky a2a gun with a ridicolous high damage output (compared to the low cert cost)

Skyguards while underpowered against liberators are a real threat to esf's (again a2a ones are the ones that are the easiest to hit) and are for the most part completly immune to what a single esf can do.
Add to that the potential huge range (given this does require quite some practise) and you end up with an enemy you hardly ever stand a chance against in a straight up fight and only can try to run from.

So please for the love of a2a combat, don't make skyguards more versatile ... go the other route.

Give us a seperate version of the skyguard gun.
One that fires slower but more devastating projectiles ... basically something that excells at killing big and slow targets like liberators and galaxies but isn't usually (skill again can accomplish a lot) as devastating against an esf that flies at high speed. (hovering lolpoders should be fair game^^)

If the skyguard becomes a cookie cutter allround weapon that's used in every engagement, would result in the end of a2a combat.
An aspect of the game that i honestly think already is underrepresented and very punishing if not straight frustrating at times.

Even against ESF's, the Skyguard posses little threat if the pilot is somewhat skilled and uses Turbo to dodge behind objects.
The projectilespeed of the flak simply is too slow so an ESF flying past you at high speed after nuking infantry will be
able to get away easily with a few scratches.

Take a good Skyguard driver Vs good ESF pilot, and the ESF will get away everytime due to the insane about of leading the
skyguard needs on their targets depending in distance and speed. And ESF aware that you're firing at it, with turbo and
good enviroment - will just give you the finger and fly away.

This is a situation i've seen many times.. a Skyguard sits just beneath a hillstop to avoid lockons, guarding the airspace.
Suddenly 1-2 ESF's start doing drivebyes nuking all infantry with rocketpods but you won't get LoS until they are basically
done with their killingspree... and you get a few shots in before they swoop around some forest or peak...
Where was the so called "deterance" then !?....

The only way a Skyguard can kill an ESF is if the ESF isn't paying attention, is already smoking, or got nothing to hide behind,
the BURST DAMAGE simply isn't there to deterr ESF's from doing drivebyes.

Fixed it from the perspective of someone that knows how to use a skyguard....

lol axiom, checkmate

Do you play on mute, Dreez? I still don't understand how someone in a Skyguard wouldn't know what a lib is up to when it circles back around behind you. Even if you don't see it first, THE SOUND.

This assumes the engine sound isn't being muffled out by explosions, tank fire, etc. IMHO skyguards should have a passive cert line for engagement radar and i think it would be a good change in the right direction in AA vs Aircraft without affecting aircraft directly very much on it's own.

It's an AA platform, if aircraft can have engagement radar then it's small enough to fit on a lightning platform.

Top armour buff would do little for skyguard. Air units are more manoeuvrable and typically if a lib spots a skyguard they will sneak up on it and attack the rear armour. If the skyguard reacts in time it will still be attacking side or front armour not top armour. Get auto repair instead. Even if top armour was buffed to be like a composite armour that increases resistances for all directions against only air weapons there would still be that large vulnerability from the rear.

I would simply say that skyguard is not a great investment unless you always play in a way that you know there will be always a lot of other AA around you and have reliable people protecting you from other threats that a tank has (haha).

The tank buster nose gun is naturally still one of the most ridiculously powerful things in the game. If you want a vehicle that can counter libs and gals then that is a way more cost effective unlock than skyguard and also kills everything else super fast.

Top armor will do little for skyguards, because Air vehicles are not a major threat to skyguards. If you look at the Cause of death for lightnings, no where are you going to see an Air vehicle as a major killer of them, the major killer is other vehicles and Infantry. If you want to increase the survivability of the lightening, then you need to make it more resilient to other ground vehicles or Infantry. Or better yet give it a secondary fire mode that allows it to fight back vs Infantry or ground vehicles.


For as ridiculesly power the Tank buster is, it only kills on avg 3 vehicles/Hour. Yes it has incredible potential, but in practice it really isn't that big of a threat to ground vehicles, you have a better chance of dieing to the tank buster if you are flying in another liberator, but in a skyguard you need to be watching out for infantry and other vehicles as they are what is more then likely going to kill you.

Most of the tanks pulled are not skyguards. There is way that I can pull from the stats the data showing a skyguard will always lose to air in certain situations because the data just isn't detailed enough.

Exactly, The greatest threat to a skyguard is another ground vehicle. It's the fact that ground vehicles are pulled by at least a 4:1 ratio, so improved top armor will in practice do very little for the skyguard. A much better approach would be to improve the speed or acceleration of the skyguard, which would allow the skyguard to get away from enemy ground vehicles and also improve its ability to keep up with Air vehicles or dodge their attacks.

This is one of the reasons, I am a big fan of improving the ranger. I would love to see it buffed to be close in ability to the Skyguard, then players could put it on MBT's and especially harasser, I mean if a player is going to sacrafice his secondary gun for a ranger, it should be fairly effective. However, I thing the harassers are perfect AA ground vehicle platforms, because they can hold up to 3 players and are extremely fast and agile, which would allow them to keep pace with fleeing Air vehicles. I know my friends and I will often pull 2 walker harassers and it is a riot chasing Air vehicles down and wrecking them, or even a Walker harasser with a burster in the back is a nightmare for most air vehicles.

As for Skyguards, they are really as strong as i think we should make them, they are solo vehicles and are already extremely effective vs ESF. The only "buff" I would consider giving the skyguard would be to give it the utility option for an "Engagement Radar" which would reveal Air vehicles for the driver.

As for those "certain situations" they exist for every thing in this game and that is really quite meaningless besides if the data isn't that detailed how do you know there are situations the skyguard will always lose, that is conjecture. In my experience an ESF is no threat to me in a Skyguard, unless I am severely injured. Even in a 2 vs 1 situation I'd give myself at least a 50/50 chance of killing both ESF.

I don't know if skyguard should be buffed just that it's not a unit that is worth playing 9 times out of 10. The times when it is worth playing you might as well be using a max or ha. You arguing with me to put me down for picking the "wrong reason" for saying that top armour is useless is neither here not there. There are 100 reasons for why top armour is bad in this game and shouldn't be used but my reason in this case that if a lib ambushes a skyguard it is not going to be attacking top armour is valid. People like to say that any skyguard that gets killed by a lib is bad but this is just dunning kruger on the behalf of people just using a superior unit to win then putting the result down to their superior skill.

"certain situations" are very important in this game. Tactically if you are flexible and recognise the time and place to use to use different strategies it is the difference between doing exceptionally well or failing horribly. If an infantry or vehicle kit is designed to do a certain task and fails horribly at it in the situation it is supposed to do well in then it isn't fit for purpose.

Throwing a co-axle AI gun on the Lightning would be a win-win for lightning users, pilots, and even other vehicle users. First the obvious one, lightning users will have something to do when the air buggers off and thus feel a bit more useful. They may even get a kill or two.
This is good for the pilots too. Lightning users shooting at infantry are not scanning the skys. In this situation the number of lightnings may be the same, but a certain percentage have been distracted by other targets. That means you have a chance to get in a bit closer before you are noticed.
Other vehicle users can then call for a nerf of the Skyguard against tank/heavy armor. After all, if a lightning can shoot air and infantry, what need is there to defend against heavy vehicles? It shouldn't be viable against all targets, two is enough.

So yea, I vote co-axle AI weapon of some sort.

You are not looking at the big picture and narrowed down your balance arguement to nanite cost and TTK.
Too shallow to be taken seriously.

Whats next? Comparing AV MAX to a MBT 1v1?
Yes there are issues, but none relevant to your post.

Sort out the Liberator Vs Skyguard !. Currently a Liberator can instantly kill a Skyguard, when the Skyguard is suppose to be the dedicated AA-platform. Liberator is NOT a specialized platform in anyway since it kills EVERYTHING just as good.

Give the Skyguard superior protection against all Air-damage types.

A Liberator should fear a Skyguard, NOT The other way around. Currently a Liberator with a Dalton will LAUGH at skyguards and anything else armor.. The gun and the resistances on the Skyguard needs to be boosted to where it is considered a
THREAT and not a free kill for a Lib.

/Disagree

Skyguard is a Solo Vehicle that costs 250 nanites =/= Liberator is a multi Crew Vehicle that costs 350 Nanites

It is already a pretty even fight between a Skyguard and a Liberator with the liberator having a slight edge in a 1 vs 1, if it is crewed. However, the second you add a second Skyguard or another source of AA the tables completely change. If you are having an issue in the skyguard then you are doing it wrong. You are not getting into a good position, You are not moving properly to avoid the Liberator, you are not leading your target properly and/or you are not timing of attack properly. You are more then likely doing one or more of these things, which is leading you to the conclusion that the problem is the skyguard, when it is you and your failure to use the skyguard properly...

Really a Tank Buster / Dalton / bulldog is not a specialized Anti-Vehicle Platform?

Man if you are letting a Liberator Tankbuster in the rear, then you are doing something seriously wrong...

An AP Lightening is a specialized Anti-Vehicle Load-out, do you expect it to win most fights with an AP / Halberd MBT?