So, about the Reaver vortek rotary nerf

Normalizing anything is at best a short term stop gap to balance something blatantly imbalanced. (no reaver rotary isn't bad).

Stop normalizing stuff and make stuff more unique to compensate.

The Reaver has the best vertical thrust of the ESF's, something that is very important when talking about reverse maneuvers and, well, skilled piloting in general.

Basically, as Stigma pointed out with the google docs, there needs to be some sort of change. Not a big one, but a change none the less. I would be angry for the NC players if they nerf the Vortek a lot. It just needs some tweaking, not a massive rebalance.

On topic:

I'd like to see "normalization" not remove uniqueness. For example, retain the 1 magazine kill potential, but slow the rate of fire. An equal TTK for all, but the other two have to reload before the kill, and the NC do not. The reload time for the other factions would represent how slower the NC rotary fires, but of course the NC weapon does more damage. just an idea i pulled out of my *** just now though.

I put 1000 certs into a Reaver, and flew it for the first time yesterday.
I normally only fly Mosqitoes or sometimes Flying Sporks.

Complete noob to the reaver, 1 life 20 minutes netted 5 infantry kills, 2 Mosqitoes , 2 scythes, and a full liberator. using nothing but the Vertek

**** is OP as hell. I dont see why it needs to be nerfed though, Breaker pods are horrible, and NC doesnt have that MAX AA buff like the other two had. let them keep it..

Christ man it's 9% more damaging, are you seriously claiming to see such a difference in 1 session, utter bull. A volley which would be lethal from the vortek would leave an ESF heavily on fire with TR/Vs (plus your regualr mosquito gets to fire at pancake/bus hitboxes).

You are obviously doing pretty well for yourself on PS2 in general, it isn't the vortek making you suddenly pulverise all opposition.

stop hovering?

You guys forget the scythe also has the added weapon of "scythe ram". Half of them don't even know where their trigger button is and they don't care.

LMAO. wut... so if all fighters get the same damage output now... can the Reaver have its extra HP pool back again to balance out the hitbox? Cause... we were told after the HP normalization that the damage output was to balance that out... and how about those TR and VS AA Maxes guys huh? The ones that already have an edge over NC AA maxes? Wouldn't it make sense to make the NC air more powerful than the other two to create a nice balanced and fruitful ecosystem?

So this minor Reaver buff we just got that we had to wait 7 months for just turned into a larger nerf that puts us right back in 3rd place then? Just making sure I understand correctly.

A TR/VS MAX using their long range AI weapon without extended mags can drop an enemy max without reloading. The NC MAX using their Long range AI weapons without extended mags will NOT be able to kill a default enemy MAX without reloading. Obviously this blatant imbalance calls for normalization of the AI long range max weapons.

Huh? I'm Confused. You're saying it's OP but shouldn't be nerfed? Or am I wrong?

Something is only overpowered if the other people don't have the means to counter it. Reaver rotary is a step above the Scythe, which is in turn a step above the Mosquito. TR AA is a step above VS AA, which is in turn a step above NC AA.

aka

LEAVE IT THE **** ALONE.

They think the reavers deserve to be in the 3rd place because they got so used to killing reavers. Having a balanced reaver is OP to them.

Scythe maneuverable? Man all that drinking must make it feel much better because last time I checked, if you include V-thrust, the Scythe is the least maneuverable.

P.S. Scythe ramming and surviving takes a lot of practice to get it correct. I've only survived a handful of the times I've rammed another ESF (most of those were running into other Scythes moving into the death roll to see who'd win).

Good, NC tears already flowing too. mmmm

Reavers, at the moment, have 10% more punch than the other fighters. Mossies are (10%?) faster and Scythes are (10%?) more manuverable.

I don't really think air-to-air weapons need much balancing, the most annoying thing about air combat is the hover fight. Maybe if ESFs took longer to transition to hover and glided a bit more (like Liberators).

(Also, it's 2.08 seconds for the Vortek)

Seriously....A REAVER NERF...

Are you guys just crying for nerfs for the sake of crying?

We had by far the worst ESF out of the 3 and now they fixed one issue that ALL 3 ESF HAD but the Reaver had the worst of and NOW it is suddenly OP....

I just can't help myself from laughing at this....

Did some so called "good pilots" get smashed because we have a half way decent ESF now that we can hit ****?

This is conjecture, it has no validity in reality.

The only things worth mentioning right now is that post GU10, Reaver is the best air superiority platform, Scythe is the best ground attack platform, and the Mosquito does both of them well without being the best at either.

Not so.
Science has been done, experiments have been run (on the people who are still alive).

Fighter to fighter, Reaver's TTK is about 2 seconds for it's rotary, 3 for it's default, whereas the Mossy and Scythe have about 3.5 for the default guns and ~3.75 for their rotaries and I need to use the Needler more

The Vortek is a better stock rotary than the other two, that's what makes the Reaver better at air superiority, I didn't say it wasn't. When the other two Rotaries are upgraded in mag size, the three are basically indistinguishable. Any real pilot will not be running a stock Rotary anyway, and if they are, they don't have the right to complain.

However, the Scythe is not any more or less maneuverable than the other two. The Mosquito has a faster cruise speed yes, and a middle ground AB speed (which IMO should be swapped with the Scythe AB speed so that it has the slowest of the three) but it's not really all that fast in a straight line path. The Mosquito mainly has the best global acceleration and the least speed bleed from turning of the three making it the most effective at evasive maneuvers. So the rest of what you said is incorrect.

That's really not that impressive, definitely not enough to call it OP based on that streak alone. Your first kill with someone elses' weapon always yields the response "omg this is so OP."