The Real Problem with AA is Procrastination

Yes, it is 'wait for an air zerg' etc. etc.

As for your other points, I wasn't implying I was some amazing player. PS2, as you know, is set up to reward you for 'helping'. You get 'air deterrence' ribbons over time that add up. Plus you get XP for kills later that you helped with. Percentage wise you scare away more aircraft than you kill outright but that's ok with me.

I like how dangerous Auraxis is. I even liked the 'cloaked Liberator' bug and that was before I was flying Libs. That was scary as f**k. Being at risk without an 'EZMode' button makes the game fun for me.

Nothing said so far in this thread has convinced me that the OP is wrong: apathy and tunnel vision is the main cause for aircraft whine threads. I think it's all set up quite well with appropriate counters to counters etc.

Its deeper than that. As the trends and stats that make up the trends show, air is ineffectual and inconsequential in the meta that drives the flow of the game. This is even admitted by proponents of the anti-air crowd, or the authors of said 'aircraft whine threads'. I've found through goading, debating, coaching, and such that the main reason behind the agenda is mostly feeling and emotion.

"I get killed out of no where, and there was nothing I could do about it."

That's the main theme. Yes there is tunnel vision involved in most cases. But the other part is what this thread touches on specifically. The "there was nothing I could do about it."

Laziness implies they want someone else to do it.
Procrastination implies they will get around to it.

In both cases, the air gets so bad, that you HAVE to pull AA. And if the air is at any point talking to one another.. you better not be the only one pulling that AA. Which means if your team is lazy or procrastinating too (and likely they are), you're going to die.

Boom, threads immediately pop up saying Air is OP. And its easy to fall into the trap of believing it because yeah, what do you do to counter those situations?

Well the issue is the counters suck to use because they are boring. Try this if you think I'm wrong with this statement.

1. Login.
2. Pick a base to defend or attack.
3. Spawn near that base.
4. Pull a Skyguard and join the fight.

Do this a few times and your results will vary. You might get lucky and find a fight with air to take on. You might get unlucky and encounter a Short Range AV Harasser that pwns you in a few seconds.

You don't always know when a fight will have enemy air or not. Many times it doesn't. This is the part where the nerf air crowd leaves out (because they are blinded by a bigoted agenda). Air is not always present. In fact in most places enemy air will likely not be there.

That's why AA sucks. You go to a fight, Air isn't present. And you switch to something else.

Then by Murphy's Law the air shows up. You don't have a counter, and you die.

Then you make a thread about how terrible air is. Damn nasty cycle.

But this is where their bigoted agenda is DAMAGING to the conversation. They want to see Air.. a playstyle that affects 5% of the action (ground vehicles covering twice that at 10%, and infantry the rest.. and these stats are derived from the API, not made up), nerfed. How much sense does that make?

Then when you point out the fallacies of their argument, they go on about how kills don't matter. Its how they happen. Holy sh-t people.. everyone dies the same way in Planetside 2. Its when your HP = 0. A rocket, bullet, whatever it is, is just a image with flashy graphics, but a projectile intersecting the coordinates of your character position causes damage. Aka makes the HP number go down. Its all the same. The difference is in the controls of delivering the intersection. That's it.

But lets not insult their intelligence. Their intelligence isn't being used in the argument, which is where the real problem is. Its actually in the emotion. Emotion should only be used to motivate people in a positive manner. Using it in a negative one causes anger, depression, and anxiety. That does no one any good. Especially in a debate or conversation.

The other issue is dishonesty. There are many players who simply want to play a Sci-fi match based shooter revolving around infantry. PS2 has decent gunplay mechanics. And well EA shut down BF 2142, so what else is there for people? So they hide what they really want PS2 to be. These ones aren't too hard to weed out, most times, but some of them blend in with the emotionally compromised crowd.

Now I will say this. Those driven by emotion aren't always wrong. Just wrong in the angle they are trying to go. Imagine if they went for a positive one. Like, "hey, getting creamed by air once in a while sucks, can we have a means of fighting back without gimping ourselves?"

That sounds better. I can work with that. And well, I do. I've made suggestions in this thread along those lines. Its called a compromise. Of course on the other side, we have elitist skyknights that simply want more targets in the air for hunubrul duels. And they make stupid suggestions like "pull air", or misuse ones like "get coordinated".

I like to think I'm one of the more non-bias posters about the A2A, A2G, and G2A paradigm. I believe air should be a playstyle enjoyed by those who want to fly and should have an impact on the ground both outside and inside bases. I also believe ground should have a fair shake against air. And then I also believe that pulling air should be as easy to get into as pulling ground.

You'd think I'd make a bit more friends. In the end, it just p-sses everyone off. But I don't give a damn about people's feelings. Only about have a fun game to play. Not here to make friends, not here to take sides. But I can compromise.

With that said, I'll call out bigoted agendas, dishonesty, and ineptitude when I see it. While I don't get emotionally attached, I will use strong wording and conviction.

Anyway, point here is my motive isn't one that has hidden agendas or emotion attached, just facts, personal experience, and logic to some degree. If only more would do that.

So what is my opinion on the matter? Quite simple. AA is boring and too specialized. That should change. And it doesn't take much. Here's a list:

Skyguard needs some effectiveness against ground.*
Ranger needs an overhaul.**
Walker is effective against many targets and doesn't need to be changed.
Annihilator and Swarm are flexible enough and don't need changes.
MAXes are a terminal away from changing loadouts, bursters don't need a change, except for firing through shields.
ES G2A launchers can be used VERY effectively against ground like a dumbfire launcher. These don't need changing.
Base Turrets are varied and are powerful enough to justify their static positions, they don't need to be changed.
New Players need something so they're not free kills to someone just because they're moving in 3 dimensions.***

* Reason for a change to Skyguard is so you don't feel like an utter tool when you pull one and no air is around. Gives you something to do other than staring at the sky.
** Ranger is too specialized to take most times. Its short range AA. Works very well when air gets close. Maybe increase its mag size and rate of fire. That CoF is atrocious, but doesn't expand much. Allowing it to throw more rounds might help.
*** New players are told to get a G2A lockon asap. Even if they aren't going to main a HA. That's screwed up. Why not a default lightning? That's why I suggested the Viper getting the Flak property to explode its shells near aircraft. I mean a new player will still have trouble hitting it. But they're not dead in the water.

But even with all that, we still have to make concessions to the other side. Air players have issues and most of that is the Skyguard Flak. By itself a Skyguard isn't a danger.. usually. When there's four of them, your ESF is going splat. I don't care how good you are. Unless you ID that there is 4 skyguards and go somewhere else. That part is the deterrence.

That sucks for air as well.

This is why I suggested removing the flak from the Skyguard as well as making it more effective against ground. Do this by coupling the indirect damage it currently has with its direct damage, then lowering its CoF (since you now need direct hits), and increasing its velocity by a small amount.

Now when there's 4 Skyguards, they have to have good aim and leading skill to instigib you. It can still happen, and it should if its 4 veteran players against 1. But the pilot can have a choice once they make a scouting run to test the AA capability. They can make more cautious approaches and deal less damage, or try their luck. Right now because of the CoF, multiple Skyguards just need to point up and fire and something's hitting. That's the issue, to put it shortly.

So a more skill based, and more useful and flexible skyguard is the answer to the issues both sides have. That's compromise.

Why can't you guys just pull an aircraft and practice doing anti-air that way? Maybe it's for the best that enemy air can't be shut down from ground alone because that would just dumb things down. Not all people like piloting, but air dominance is at least something to strive for at the moment

Personally I don't pull air because for every man in the air, is one less on the ground that can make a difference where it matters.

That's an issue with Base Design and Capture Mechanics though. Not one easily solved and an issue that goes beyond the point of the thread.

Though realistically, I don't normally have issues with air personally. When I do, its because there's so much of it, we're probably better off NOT having them on the ground instead.

Its not really funny because its true.. but there are times I tell my squadmates to shut up and leave the 3-4 liberators flying around alone. That's 6-12 people that could be on the point if we shoot them down. That could push the fight to being uneven against us.

airguys are cowards at most, cuz i mostly see them farming ground forces with AI guns.
a few striker rockets from the hip send them run'n like bit0ches, when they get a bit annoying (like at the biolab leaf) i call in some of the heavy guys with me, and we striker hipfire the **** out of them.

What's the difference between a AI gun on a vehicle and a LMG?

There's no reason to make personal insults at someone because they choose to move in 3 dimensions.

Damage type (except for the Kobalt and the Renegade).

Yes, and even when "helping" you don't get a lot of XP, so those ribbons aren't worth it. Even if you 'fix' that by giving even more XP ribbons there's the whole "fun" part, where most people simply do not enjoy using AA because of the lack of explosions and fiery deaths they cause, and the one's getting shot at don't enjoy it because aside from gunning them down or running there's simply no way to deal with them.

We can have a much better system, where "being at risk" does not mean "can't really do anything about it without sacrificing everything else and even then you are only a deterrence". If there's options to fight back the game becomes far better. Aircraft that can fight back by dodging, weaving and using that maneuverability when encountering AA in between which they could potentially strike back and infantry and tanks can't run or dodge so they need extra mechanics to reduce the chance of being hit and killed by aircraft and things that are potentially dangerous to aircraft and especially for vehicles some low form of AA that is a passive certline option but requires extremely high skill to hit and has some effect on the aircraft like nerfing it's speed and maneuverability.

The OP is totally wrong. The fact that you make completely ridiculous statements to cover his butt ("pistols can get 500XP!", "anyone can get high scores with AA turrets In highly specific situations where air zergs are present as well as an AA turret and the AA turret is left alone, terms and conditions apply") only support that you are just trying to defend something undefendable. The only thing we can really take any serious is your feedback about the easymode, unfortunately even there you fail to realize things like "that's completely possible with most things proposed so far".

Sure then why not just remove all G2A at that point? If the best counter for a unit is that very same unit, something is terribly wrong with the game.

The reason I don't pull air in this game to do that is because I can't dogfight worth a **** in this game, and I have no desire to get better at it. Flying around in the air while ignoring the "meta" just doesn't appeal to me. If I wanted to do that, I would be playing a flight sim or something. I think I still have a HOTAS in my closet for that

I'm not sure what I think of your post Taemien. Some of it seems downright wrong to me, but I see a lot of my personal conviction of "I'm the only one with all the facts" even though we both know neither of us will be 100% fully capable of understanding everything because of the same subjectiveness and emotions you almost denounce here.

The deeper part of the agenda is feeling and emotion, but based on what? What are these feelings caused by? Well, "I couldn't do anything about it". No one minds if they get killed by something they could have shot back or had a somewhat equal chance to kill right back. It's when you don't have any chance of fighting back, when the skill level required to beat the skill of the opponent is in the multiple times higher if it can be accomplished at all that we see people complain.
Tanks vs infantry? There is maybe one AV weapon available that can be used in a direct confrontation, but no one is going to win with it any time soon.
Aircraft vs ground? There's not a lot of weapons that can reliably hit aircraft, and the one's that can reliably kill them are non-existant... Unless you hoard that AA and completely lock aircraft out. But it has a second group that's unsatisfied, the aircraft players can't do anything against AA either! You either shoot them first or you run away, there's nothing in between. This causes aircraft to... Move to another area without AA.

Exactly part of the problem. AI weapons? Try to find me any fight where they aren't present. AV weapons? Even if they can't always be used in a direct confrontation, AV weapons are always available. Even HE weapons on tanks can at least damage their opponents and with a lot of skill and flanking you can win these battles too!
AA? Not so much. It's not always present! Both because air isn't always present, and because having success with AA means the air goes away and you are left with nothing to do or you aren't successful and you die in flames! There actually is an in-between scenario, where you do survive... but your enemies as well. In a game designed mostly around blowing stuff up, having one highly specific set of weapons be completely different from everything else in the game is simply bad for the experience.

I think here I'm obligated to say that kills don't matter (yeah yeah you make a remark about that right below here). But what I'm saying is that kills don't matter in that way.
Infantry kills each other. They spawn fast, they get into the fight fast, they die fast. They have the shortest lifespan, and the shortest TTK. Is it any wonder that they get the most kills?
But is it effective? Well, a standoff at a biolab for instance can last for hours and hours, neither team actually advancing or being pushed back. Are those kills effective? No. Are they fun? For many players they are, otherwise they would complain more about it. Then some aircraft come along and start firing rocketpods at either the entrance of the airpad... Is it effective? Yes, it instantly changes the entire battle. Even one HE tank can change an entire battle as players instantly avoid the OHK death zone the tank projects and try to find different routes to their objective... Often right through an infantry chokepoint. Why? Because players still feel good about getting killed by other infantry because they feel they could have fought back.

And this is what I most disagree with. How about we buff AA to OHK aircraft? When your HP = 0 you still die, it's just some flashy graphics and a lot of background mechanics and mathematics and a projectile intersecting your coordinates.

But you actually point it out perfectly. Death is all around, there is only one differential here. One differential that changes if people enjoy the action or don't enjoy it: The difference in controls for delivering the projectile intersection. Oh, an the player-made chance calculations of success, which are partially subjective and partially hard numbers.

You know that this difference is there. You also know that players play a game for fun. How do they get this fun? In FPS's through a series of challenges they have to complete. From overarching "capture the continent" objectives down the the most basic challenge of two players trying to beat the other in a fight.
But what if that fight is skewed? Not just because one payed more resources, but because the mechanics favor one over the other? An ESF can squeeze a lot more out of that 350 resources than a Skyguard for instance. Or a Harasser can get a lot more mayhem and fun out of it's 150 resources than a 450 mastodon MBT. A good system wouldn't make it impossible to fight back regardless of the amount of resources spend, but it would give you a disadvantaged position that you have to overcome. It's a challenge in itself... However aircraft do not offer that challenge (and do not receive it either when AA is present). Aircraft are thwarted by proxy. Most people do not want to do the AA duty because of boredom, but the way AA works it also isn't necessary to use large amounts of AA. Small groups are enough. This still means that any player that isn't near a proxy AA and isn't wielding AA himself is completely defenseless and at the mercy. There is no challenge, no way to circumvent the aircraf bearing down on you except "hide somewhere and hope a proxy AA arrives", which simply isn't an option for most vehicles. The few options you do have, such as propping yourself up against a rock to get a higher elevation, are extremely situational and usually do not protect against any aircraft attacking you right now.
But is this solely a ground problem? No! Any battle should have just as much aircraft bearing down on it as ground vehicles. This isn't the case however because of how both G2A and A2A work in the game, discouraging the average player from joining in and enjoying it. With G2A there's barely anything you can do but blow them up first (which works against MAX's and HA's and only in highly specific situations against other AA sources) or flee for repairs to either come back or move to another area.
Which brings us to: Current AA isn't fun for either team and also breeds an uneccesary schism between the amount of aircraft vs ground vehicles pulled, so it needs changing.

Why wouldn't there be a reasoning behind that emotion? Emotions are caused by something, an intelligent reaction to something usually. Look at the internet: People are more likely to be emotional or act disrespectful/be downright posteriorhats because their intelligence tells them (rightfully so) that they are much more anonimous and unlikely to meet consequences.
But we aren't talking about griefers and trolls here, we are talking about people using their emotions to achieve a change in the game. Their conclusion (AA needs to deal 3x their current damage! All AA needs to burn and be useless!) might be completely wrong, but their initial feeling isn't. They have a feeling for a reason, for an intelligent reaction. They base it on something. If it was solely about dieing, people would be complaining about infantry. "I die about 50% of the time to other infantry instead of me killing them, and I see a lot more infantry than other things I die from!". But they don't do they? They complain about a specific method of dieing. Many might not realise, but they aren't complaining necessarily about the aircraft power but about the lack of ways to defend themselves against it without severely gimping themselves, and even when you do grab that self-neutering weapon your rewards are abysmal! On the other hand the aircraft complain about the AA because they can't fight back at it. Just try to wipe out a Skyguard as ESF (the most used aircraft rather than the far less used Liberator). First you have to find it, then you have to engage it which only works well with Hornets or Rocketpods if you manage to attack them from behind or have someone to distract them. 90% of the battles will simply not give you that chance, and you are better off either doing short runs or moving to a base without AA, which you can!

Actually this has more to do with the whole way the game is set up. The mechanics favor infantry the most, who have the most variety in their combat mechanics, the environment, the most mechanics that apply to them (overloading generators, capturing points, specific area's designed for infantry fights, most abilities in the game tailored to them, the largest loadout choices for each class compared to each vehicle, easiest access, least repercussions when dieing etc and a lack of area's designed for vehicle or aircraft)
So can you blame people who are constantly encouraged to get down too infantry level to ask for some ways that infantry play is supported and not dominated by vehicles? And here we get a clash: What can vehicles do? Aside from Sunderers supporting infantry, almost every vehicle can only aid a battle by destroying and killing stuff. Any request for infantry to be safeguarded clashes with the vehicles only real purpose. So... why don't we expand the amount of purposes vehicles can have? Let them influence battles more through other means than killing? This is of course a meta change that's required, rather than a rebalancing of the statistics.

I think you are aiming more for "keeping both sides in mind when rebalancing" than compromise.

Yes, yes absolutely! Aircraft gameplay should be just as fun, engaging and effective as ground units. If you have the choice to pull a 350 resource ESF or a 350 resource Lightning, you should be conflicted and make a choice on your preference. Do you want to fly or do you want to drive? Your effect should be the same (or if you have more effect on one end you have less effect in another), but the choice itself should almost be arbitrary. Almost, for tactical considerations you might want to swing to one side or the other, but those tactical considerations should end you up with both vehicles about as much times.

Exactly! I like it that you actually do know what it's about. It's about fun. You want fun gameplay. So do I! So do the other people on this thread! Well, most of them anyway. They are here because they feel this subject matters! Because it's important to the fun they can have in the game! They might not come up with solutions that are very good for the game, but their basic emotion, their basic reasons for being invested, that's not something we can throw away! It's the sole reason people play this game, they are invested emotionally because it gives them something, a challenge, and through that challenge, the frustration and the joy of success, they get to have some fun.
That's it. Nothing is more important to the game than that fun.

Well the agenda's might not always be cosher, but they will generally have their own fun in mind. There's also the whole internet thinig going on where people will 'discuss' things and take more extreme positions against each other because they simply keep disagreeing and somehow link this to requiring more extreme measures to solve their problem. For instance, when the game began no one asked for aircraft to be removed from the game, even though they could facetank a Skyguard with a nosecannon and win, and their Rocketpods had enough AOE and power to wipe out everything around a Sunderer, not to mention the capability to set an MBT to burning when hitting it full from the top. As time progressed and no solutions came (despite the nerfs to aircraft and the addition of new AA weapons like the lock-on) there are now people so obsessed/disillusioned that their only solution is the complete and utter removal of aircraft.

I think that all AA should have something extra against ground aside from maybe being stronger. The Skyguard and Bursters for instance could have a small concussion AOE that does 2% of a concussion grenade with each close impact and 4% on each direct hit. That way you can perform a strong suppressive function the longer you fire at infantry positions as the concussion effect grows. You could even extend this effect to vehicles, where they become slower in aiming and have a more diffuse vision the more they are hit.
This way you can improve AA vs ground units without requiring direct damage buffs or something similar to make them fulfill multiple roles. Although that would be very welcome. The ability to concuss a vehicle for instance would in itself already be a strong boost for the Skyguards capabilities against vehicles. Especially if the Skyguard is capable of turning circles around his opponent.

Yes agreed. Air needs to be able to move freely as well and not be deterred. Air should be able to feel threatened enough to leave, but also superior enough to stick around despite AA... and perhaps pay the price or reap the rewards.

You misunderstood the intent and the wording.

I never stated that I have all the facts. I said that everything that I base my opinions and assertions is based in both facts and personal experiences. I haven't experienced everything in the game obviously. Such as never really getting into piloting a Scythe or trying out the entire VS arsenal in different scenarios.

The point I was making was that I don't let an emotional outburst guide my statements. I don't get killed by something I don't understand or don't want to understand and then run to the forums to rant. I explore it, figure it out, and try to counter and use what works, discard what doesn't.

The emotion comes into play when working with my teammates. Both good and not. But that's between them and I. Not the general community.

Dying out of no where sucks. I get that. But outside of bugs or exploits, most of that can be avoided or mitigated. I get hit by air just like the rest of you do. I really do. But its usually because I was complacent, lazy, or just not on my game. I can literally attribute most A2G issues directed to me as blunders on my part. And I'm sure I blunder as much as anyone else.

The difference is, I take personal responsibility for it. I die because I was stupid, ignorant, or complacent. I don't die because the system is stacked against me, or someone cheated me (unless they're hacking), or because of some imbalance.

I hate this topic because most of the opinions to improve ground AA comes from people that cant or dont fly as a main, and therefore dont get a full picture but are still willing to make changes to the game with limited data.

Just as you can run away in any ground vehicle, you can run away with Air. I ll say right now that the walker bus to me is hands down the greatest threat to air in the game. If people choose to remove air from a hex they can and have many tools to do the job.

1) Infantry Lock On/Small Arms
2) Skyguard
3) ESF
4) Liberator
5) AA Galaxy
6) Harraser Walker/Ranger/Kobalt
7) Sunderer Walker/Ranger/Kobalt
8) MBT Walker/Ranger/Kobalt
9) Base AA turrets.

How much more AA do you need? Well, one more fun thing would be a Engineer Mini AA turret, like the AV Mana, but a Dual barrel Bofers type gun. But overall i think AA is fine where its at, as with anything in this game, practice makes perfect.

Spoken like a true hypocrite.

Let's see:
Claims that it's not a problem due to the amount of AA available rather than it's force (Bonus points! Adding aerial AA sources to the mix even though the complaint is the low amount of effective ground-based AA weapons)
Claims some weapons are AA even though they are definitely not (Small arms, Kobalt)
Claims that AA is only thought off as weak by players that do not fly, check
And the crowning jewel making him the hypocrite: Practically no experience with AA weapons himself. Those weapons he does have at least some experience with have abysmal stats.

So just because I think you missed it:
You claim that players need a full picture of the combat to have a valid opinion.
You claim that people with little XP in flying have a bad opinion by default.
You have only XP in the flying part, but miss the entire AA part, meaning you disqualify yourself automatically because you do not have the full picture.

Your inexperience shows in the comments you make btw.

Nice try...so what youre trying to do is paint me into a corner because my AA stats arent good. Doesnt take a genius to figure out that youre trying to slap universal coverage on all Ground based AA. Well guess what, things in this game have a learning curve and it actually takes practice to get good at things. Why you people are trying to remove the practice component is beyond me. How much air do you see over a 96+ fight. Its non-exsistant, why is that? Please explain youre theory now on why ground AA needs a buff!

Not all lack of Air in large battles is due to the presence of AA. I've been in many a large battle that have neither Air or AA for long stretches of time and, when it does show up, it's either in overwhelmingly difficult to handle volume or such a small volume that it's easy to deal with.

I see Air and Ground vehicles get destroyed but, if we're going to talk about trends that we only "observe" and have no statistical basis, I see people who were in Ground Vehicles often try to come back with another Ground Vehicle no matter how badly they died the first time. With few exceptions, I rarely see an ally pilot pull something, not last too long, and try to bring it to the fight again.

When encountering AA, does anyone often (go) back to intentionally locate and eliminate it the same way they do some enemy Armor targets, e.g., Sunderers?

They aren't just bad, they are almost absent. You practically only have experience with the Grounder, the most point&click AA weapon in the game, and even then it's not a lot of experience. You are in absolutely no position to say anything about any ground-based AA weapon whatsoever.

Well if you ever read all of my proposals, which include things like "making sure aircraft can join larger fights", "make sure there's just as much air as ground vehicles at any fight", "make sure every single fight has some kind of AA available at any point in time similar to AV and AI weapons" and "increase the skill ceiling of AA" you would have known you are completely and utterly wrong.
again. These are just a few of the things I'm trying to get into the game.

Ooh yes! Except for AA weapons, which do have a learning curve but it's so tiny you need a microscope to see it. Of course, you wouldn't know that.

I'm not trying to do that, I am a strong proponent of adding more practice component to AA. It's just that you have a stereotype in your head and everyone who is against you when talking about AA is instantly filled in with that stereotype. Why don't you actually read some of the things said here, look at their value, get some actual experience and then come back here?

Because you think I want a straight-out buff, while I actually want a rebalance! Again your stereotype rears it's head, I have painted the forums with more than a hundred posts right now with what I want for the G2A and A2G balance and you still have no idea and simply paint a picture in your head of what I want. I want G2A weaker on one hand, no more point&click style with extreme exponential scaling ground-based AA, but also capable of killing aircraft solo in a skill vs skill battle between the aircraft and the ground-based AA, slated in favor for the dedicated AA as it needs to be a hard-counter and aircraft have multi-functionality on their side.

I'd love to for you to point out where the buff vs Air is in my AA suggestions.

srsly? u ********?
AoE gun that instagibs u, while moving at fast rate with low chance 2 get cover from it.
vs
ground aoe that is fairly easy 2 dodge and an lmg that u have 2 *sic* ACTUALLY AIM WITH

I swear to the gods- if I wasn't straight and taken, I'd marry you right now!

Thank you for taking the time to sit back and look at the whole picture, and instead of complaining, offering solutions instead. You literally just repaired my faith in humanity today!

AA is effective when massed around a zerg

AA is NOT effective when you need it.

The problem is that its not effective for anything other then scaring air away and then it becomes a 350/450 nanite waste (skyguard/max), whilst the pilot (if experienced) has flown off to the next farm.

When trees are better at killing air then skyguards/AA Max units there is a problem.