[Video] Was the banshee nerf justified?

Hi all!

Do you feel that the banshee nerf was justified since nothing was done
to the other two ESF's?
Was the changes made in the right amount, too much or too little?

oh yea it was definitely justified. If you heard a mossie you had to drop everything and find some cover, like you did with the old lib. It was also so easy to use the old banshee that I could even get kills with it.

As for other ESF's. I'd prefer if they removed PPA and AH, but if they nerf them as well, fine by me.

It was about right IMO. Could use some minor tweaking. But over all it seems fine to me

It was...and
guess what? The Vulcan got buffed in exchange and its slightly overperforming AGAIN
/youtubeclickbait thread

Thank you, Matti. As someone who has seen your previous Air Hammer vids, I can vouch for their effectiveness at gibbing MAXes, even at some range, and punishing enemy ESFs in air battles that don't start 1:1 at render distance.

I believe that the Banshee is still effective, but that effectiveness is just a shadow of what can be accomplished with the AH and PPA, and is not enough to warrant pulling it in most situations.

The PPA has the ability to lay down a never-ending stream of highly accurate AoE fire from a long distance. It's slow velocity is an issue, but not nearly as much as people say. As anybody who has played this game for more than a week knows, the majority of medium to large scale infantry battles happen in cover. Two groups fighting from one piece (or multiple pieces) of cover to the next. It's only in small battles or when there's a major breakthrough before the next lines are drawn that you see a lot of movement. The PPA excels at farming those large battles, where a Scythe can stay back and pummel a rock formation, door entrance, open-air capture point, or any other place infantry consolidate with impunity.

The AH has to get to closer ranges than the PPA, more in line with where the Banshee operates. At the Banshee range, however, it has roughly equal lethality against infantry, and higher lethality against MAXs. The real imbalance comes when the AH gets closer, where its lethality against infantry and MAXs moves from "high" to "insta-gib", and in its effectiveness at smashing enemy ESFs in medium to large battles where engagements typically begin at close ranges.

Ultimately, I can't make any recomendations. Currently ESF AI weapons are in two completely different tiers. It's up to SOE to decide whether they want these weapons to be operating at an effective level of the Banshee, or at the much, much higher levels of the AH and PPA.

Once they make that decision, they can either bring the Banshee up (by increasing velocity and upping the magazine size), or being the AH and PPA down.

I'd rather die a thousand horrible deaths IRL than join a zerg.
It's so friggin boring!
To me the most fun comes from fighting the zergs. If you know how to do it right it's more than just fun, it can also be a goldmine.
Mines, sticky nades, C4, wraith flashes, harassers, ESFs, Annihilators, Ravens - I'll use all the weapons I have just to make your life a little bit harder fellow zerglings. Just saying something is lame won't stop me from using it.

I don't play air (no interest for it at all), but i do hate A2G in general and one of you ESF videos (the one that got the nerf discussion on?) with the Banshee was truly disgusting due to combination of the speed and range at which some MAXes were melting. And i've had this happen to me a few times too, barely having the time to see my AA MAX die.

So yes i do think it was a problem as this can't happen as easily with the Airhammer (quasi-exclusively VS player: no Light PPA opinion). I won't deny that the Airhammer may achieve the same kind of results, it has happened to me, but i'm quite convinced the Reaver has to be closer than what you showcased with the Banshee on that particular video.

That said, if A2G isn't going away, it needs to be balanced, and if the metrics show the Banshee is underperforming -which they do- i believe they have to buff it back, though probably not to 100% of its previous performance, even if as a footsoldier i won't like it much.

In my experience, which i value less than statistics, i've been dying to banshees very much less since the nerf, arguably less than to Airhammer which i didn't die much to in the first place. It's hard to say if that's due to the Banshee underperforming or not as abandonment of a nerfed weapon or overuse of a good weapon tend to flaw perception.

1.) Yes.
2.) It was WAAAAY too severe. Typical SOE balancing, if they nerf something, they literally take it out of the game.
3.) Banshee has to be brought on par with Air Hammer and LPPA, or Air Hammer and LPPA have to be removed out of the game as well.

Yeah, it felt pretty justified to me. I can still get kills with it of course, it's easier to do that than with the needler or locust. It's sort of like training wheels. But when you have loads of 4th factioners camping one faction using the banshee day in and day out, it starts to get a bit ridiculous. Ironically the same can be said about the base camping zergers you mentioned, but that's more a foundational problem really...(one I agree, is really sad and I refuse to take part in)


But was it too much? When you pit it against the Airhammer and L-PPA it starts to get a little grey, I think. If I had the selection of all three weapons on a mossie I would probably switch between the Airhammer and L-PPA for shorter and longer range engagements, respectively.

At the end of the day though, versatility wins if you ask me. You really don't want to be fighting other aircraft with a L-PPA, and up close, you just can't face down an Airhammer reaver; they shred instantly. Some of the really good pilots I've seen manage to 'sneak' up on players. All you hear is a light hum, a few quick taps and it's already over. Those who can't do that either get away with a few kills smoking, or they get insta-gibbed themselves with a decimator.

1. Yes, I've been saying it was too good for awhile now. Surprisingly, before the usual whine hit full swing. PPA is balanced because it sucks against air. AH is balanced because it isn't very good at AI compared to the PPA or Banshee. It is however, very good at A2A.

2. A tiny bit overboard (I was thinking they could just reduce the RPM and it would be all good). I wouldn't mind a bit of splash damage or radius back, but not both and not to the previous amount.

I put some time into it the other day.

Ouch, that nerf really hurt.

I can still get kills with it, but I'm unsure if I might not be just as good off with the needler.

If not, I think close enough that the Needler is still a better choice for not giving up A2A utility (and pestering the hell out of tanks).

I think the damage rate might be fine, I just think maybe some of it's direct damage should be moved back into splash damage, to make it a little more reliable.

It was very justified, they went overboard with it and overnerfed it (NC here).

As for why using ESF create so much emotion, you actually say it yourself: they struggle with flying, and you need to take an AA ESF to counter them. Now in Planetside 2, if you struggle with piloting a tank you can always use other options. You can go use aircraft, or one of the AV options (AV turret, rocketlauncher, C4, AT mine's) that are easily and readily available, with a variance of skill-ceiling and effectiveness.
The same counts for playing infantry, if you suck at it you can always go to aircraft or tanks and combat infantry that way. But when you engage aircraft, you are basically stuck in the high-skill ceiling and unintuitive aircraft gameplay (the best methods for flying are using bugs and bad gameplay elements as "features". Such as the reverse maneuver and the fact that when going up or down it takes a while to get the right leading done due to another bug when pressing space, by abusing this you can make yourself much harder to hit).
Or, you can go ground AA. Ground AA has the best force multiplier in the game, take multiple flak weapons and its the best to keep aircraft away, which causes a problem with aircraft simply moving to another base without AA. Aside from that you will need to share all XP and kills with the other AA units around, while you can get triple the XP and kills by simply equipping any other loadout. But solo ground AA has tons of flaws and vulnerabilities, and are almost as often destroyed by the very thing they try to counter as the ground units they can barely keep off of them. Besides that, all AA except the Walker has a very low skill ceiling, with another exception of flak when at longer ranges when leading becomes important but you can't enjoy it as much as your COF is always incredibly big. The Walker does have a high skill-ceiling as it's the only weapon without skill reduction such as flak or lock-on, but it gets too little in return to be effective.

So why do people have so many emotions for ESF? Because it's the gameplay element with the least counters from the other unit types, and the counters you got have too many flaws solo, are not fun to use or fight against and there's too little to actually learn to become better with them.
We need AA that an ESF can fly 10 feet over, and the AA actually misses because it's not got Flak. We need AA that when you do get those hits in you can annihilate the aircraft.
One more thing, if you look at the MBT you can see the lack of synergies available. You can take an AP+AV secondary MBT to fight off tanks, you can take an HE+AI secondary MBT to fight off infantry, but there's no primary AA weapon, you can't specialize in AA. The Skyguard, debatably the best AA unit in the game, can't kill any aircraft solo unless that aircraft decides to stick around or was already damaged. And all ground AA is like that, you can't improve, you can't sneak around or surprise enemies like you can with infantry or tanks, at best you can sit near an airpad and shoot down damage aircraft. But regardless if you are attacking a tank or infantry, there's always a (reasonable) way to kill them even solo without them having the option to escape.

I feel it was justified and also better executed than the PPA nerf which Destroyed the weapon. 25% nerfs work better than 100% nerfs.

Yes it was justified - but the nerf was too harsh, its clearly under-performing the AH and LPPA now.

At least it isn't as bad as the Proton PPA (about 50% as good as the Canister/Marauder) but the Banshee is now only about 70% as effective as the AH/LPPA is today.

Also it should be noted that the AH and LPPA's overall performance is similar overall, but the AH has much better air to air capability so its still far more versatile and the better of those 2 weapons.

As with all nerfs, SOE tends to go too far... but at least its not completely uselessly bad as the Proton PPA is now.


As to how to fix the Banshee to more equal levels, without increasing its TTK to previous instal-gib levels...

• Increase starting ammo by 10 additional rounds, and ammo pool to match.
• Change radius to 0.5m inner, 1.5m outer.
• Leave damage the same.

It will help to also bring the A2A effectiveness closer to AH levels, as the added rounds should help... but it won't have the old TTK vs AI that was just too quick for most people to accept. AI TTK should remain at current levels, the ammo adjustment is badly needed given the reduced damage done, and the radius change was way too harsh.

I have some ideas on how I'd like to see the LPPA revamped too, but not sure if others want the LPPA changed in this way...

• Reduce AOE to 2.5m or 2m outer
• Increase projectile velocity to 450 (50 less than Banshee)
• Increase ROF/change damage model as needed

The LPPA would need to lose something to gain something - a higher ROF/projectile velocity will help increase its A2A effectiveness quite a bit, but to pay for the buff, you'd have to lose something. I don't think it needs such a large AOE, given you have rocket pods to do the AOE AI role already, so make it a more precise weapon with better versatility.

I'd like to see AI nose guns gain a bit of versatility (more to AH levels), and require a bit more aiming so with these tweaks, I think you'll have yourself 3 rather well balanced AI nose guns, that don't just melt infantry too quickly, but gain a bit of better self defense in the air as a tradeoff.

Banshe will be the second Vulcan... Buff over the top, nerf to hard and buff over the top... =)

the thing is, AH needs to actually hit the target, HE weapons like current light-PPA and pre-nerf banshee can just be farted in the general direction of 30 people and rake in the kills from the AoE splash damage.

each bullet from airhammer will need to hit a target, and on hitting the target only that target will take damage.
each bullet from PPA/pre-nerf banshee will deal damage to everyone around if it lands anywhere near them.

i'm really against HE/AoE weapons, they are a terrible playstyle that awards bad aim.

How to counter planes from the ground is to pull a plane??

This is why people don't like planes. They stop you from having the fun you wanted to to have and start doing something else.


For people who like running around fighting on the ground planes simply force you to do crap you don't want to do for long periods of time.

The pilot is always in control of the battle. If he wants to hover around for 40 mins attacking and running away he is free to do so which becomes frustrating for the people who just want you gone so they can go back to playing.

Thanks for feedback!

Maybe this banshee nerf was just an experiment to see if the other two should follow
or if some of the nerf should be reverted. Hard to tell

Was the banshee in need of a nerf: yes, absolutely.
Was the nerf done correctly: no. Halving the AoE damage probably would have done the trick. (*probably... )
Instead, damage reduced, and actual AREA reduced.
I don't think LPPA & AH are in dire need of (re)-balancing. Yes, the AH is more effective at AA; it's a feature.
LPPA: probably the mag size upgrade should be nerfed; more than actual weapon damage.
Banshee: I think SoE should try adjusting the area, currently it is 0.3m and 1m; increase to 0.5m and 1.5m.

Your rant at the end is unjustified however.

I want mouseyaw to be able to fly, but beyond my flying capability: air is massively OP.
Air is survivable (difficult to hit with most weapons, unreasonably able to tank damage (liberator taking 8 lockons to destroy..like a tank, but without the vulnerable rear), mobile)
Air is mobile: enhancing survival, offense, and speed of deploying to a different area.
Air has the best weapons.

A simple AI advantage:
ground AI: the kobalt.
200-154 dmg, 550 rpm, 650m/s. 0.2 CoF, 0.1 bloom.

M18 needler: mosquito default nosegun.
200-167 dmg (over far more range), 750 rpm, 750m/s, 0.3 CoF, 0.1 bloom.

The kobalt is pure AI, the other is general purpose. Yes I'm comparing a secondary to a "primary".
For true ground removal, the ESF can bring banshee and rocket pods.
The lightning, the 350 nanites ground vehicle, has no where near the armament of the ESF.

If you bring up HE: vanguard HE: 1m kill zone, 175m/s projectile. Wear flak armor and survive even that.
Rocket pods deliver a stream of projectiles resulting in a larger potential kill zone, and they actually fly faster: 250m/s.
Concentrated fire will kill flak users; and it is easier to shell infantry from a vantage point.

"AA is a deterrent" is the main issue I think.
One good example is that one skyguard isn't really a counter to a liberator. Two skyguards then. Well, not a good counter if it costs more resources, is slower so can't keep up etc, to deal with, or to protect from, the possibility of 1 liberator showing up.
If the lib manages a sneak attack, or has an excellent dalton gunner, two skyguards might not even be enough.

Scythe PPA actually got buffed.
With the render range change, you now get PPA spammed from Howling Pass all the way over to Mao Southeast outside flak and lockon range.

Anyway.
I feel the Banshee nerf was justified, but i dont like the way the nerfed it.
Firstly they didnt have to overnerf it. (Though it was to be expected its soe)
Secondly. The nerf hit the hardest on people who are struggling to get into the airgame. Low aim, low flyskill players.
The largest streak i got with the old banshee was 4. Thats not OP, but im still getting punished. I can get 70-80+ streaks as infantry, but thats fine obviously(?)
High skill high aim players wont feel the effects as much i assume. They nerfed aoe, but not TTK. So if you can aim, its probably going to perform similar to prenerf.
So they "fixed" the banshee by removing the 4killstreak banshee players, while leaving the experienced banshee farmers (the ones that caused the nerf cries in the first place) relatively unharmed compared.

I feel like they should have done everything but remove the AOE on Banshee. Its the one thing that makes it not just another generic nosegun.
Cutting damage in half and/or increased the COF
People complained about TTK and range afterall, so wouldnt it make more sense to do something about that instead?
It seems like they thought up the AOE nerf "fix" in 5minutes without worrying or caring about any sort of consequences.