Welp.. Skyguards are useless now...

If were ignoring all the other balance issues, the liberator has multiple crew members with anti tank weapons, so the liberator is built to counter lightnings. Arguements can be made about their air effectiveness, but tank busters, daltons, and shredders are primarily designed to kill ground vehicles.
I don't complain when squishys kill my viper lightning with c4, and rockets.
I don't complain when enemy tanks kill my AP lightning.
Why should a skyguard mean that you instantly win battles against multiple players while your solo?

Players who know what they are doing with a skyguard, and have devoted the time and certs into the lightning can take down libs, even solo. I can take down libs solo. I can also take out 2/2 mbts with an AP cannon, but its not easy.

If we ignore everything but lib vs. skyguard, everything is right. Arguments can be made about ESF vs. liberator, or what have you, but nothing has really changed on the skyguard vs. liberator front.

You can over simplify it all you want, you still have to hit the target to make any difference. Somebody doesn't try to shoot while parked in a ground vehicle much; let alone moving imo, which still even when hit with AP isn't the end of the Lib.

I only had to see 1 stream where a 1/3 lib starts cleaning house because they're maximizing being able to switch between pilot, belly gun and tail gunner's seat at a reasonably low altitude with auto repair. At this point they Skyguard shouldn't even be renamed to Skydeterrent, just FreeXpLawl.

The time that libs seem to be forced to disengage a skirmish seems to have dropped ridiculously now. Once the Skyguards get taken out by Tankbuster equipped dive bombing Libs, I don't think it's reasonable to anticipate thinning out a squad of Libs with just A2A HA's and dual burster maxes. What about AA turrets at the base / outpost? They dive bombed those first!

Damage buffs have been tried in the past. AA just scales too well.

And guess what? A properly crewed 5 man gal ***** lone libs, a properly crewed 3 man battlebus owns a 1/2 tank regardless of type. A well crewed lib does not die to a single esf assuming average skills.

The real problem is the lack of population. All I see on amerish is solo lib pilots who fly around with very little resistance due to the lack of population to deal with it
The libs fly down and **** any ground vehicle regardless of any anti air coming at them. A lot of BR100 solo lib pilots play amerish for this reason. Easy farms for them and no real good way to deal with it if you only have a couple to a few forces on the ground usually not the most battle hardened either.

As for the lib requiring more crew is not true, I see more solo lib pilots than crewed ones. And yes these solo pilots switch seats and Dalton esf's to anything on the ground. When you have a good pilot ****** on the few it's really disheartening and probably one big reason new players scream F this game.

In my opinion anti air should do more damage to libs the lower their altitude and closer they get to you. That or Nerf the tank buster/get rid of nanites for libs.

If a skyguard and double burster max with increased magazine size can't bring a lib down while it flies down to an almost stop to kill the lightning before flying off all non chelant is a little OP. It makes for quite the ****** play time.

Rename the tank buster to the lib buster. Leave the anti ground to the under belly gun like it should. Pilots shouldn't be flying strait into anti air flak with no worries. Its a bit much.

Solo libbers are much easier to take down. Its not hard to dodge the tank buster, and strafe their dalton shots. If a skyguard loses to a 1/3 lib he was pretty clearly out played.

There are 0 vehicles in PS2 that operate like that.

Except the Liberator can keep trying until the skyguard makes a mistake. Don't get to tank burst on that first run? Hit the AB, get out of sight, try again. The TTK of the skyguard is so absurdly long vs a Liberator that the pilot has more than enough time to move away and prepare for another try.

In a fight between a 1/3 Liberator and a Skyguard, the fight is the Liberators to lose.

Its not like lightning have the best turn speed and for a flying lib its much easier to adjust your aim and destroy the skyguard. A good lib pilot can **** on a good ground player. Libs should be renamed the flying fortress.

OP it wasnt meant for 1v1 engagements that Skyguard is for combined efforts part of the game it needs some type of threat other wise it makes the game not interesting with a 1 man army single handedly owning the sky from the ground coordination if you really unloaded 4 FULL clips you must be near their warpgate by yourself

coordination is key* is what i meant to finish there at the end sorry

i ended several liberators today with my skyguard. if you let one get right up on top of you then they will end you with the tank buster, but they are giant targets that aren't very agile. if you let one get right up on top of you then you weren't paying enough attention, but the OP does have one thing right, there is no recourse once a tank buster has you sighted in. every other weapon my rank 3 rival combat chassis allows me at the very least the opportunity to escape and repair as long as i act quickly. with the tank buster no matter how quickly i move i die before i can get out of the line of fire.

i do think the tank buster needs a rework in general. being able to obliterate a main battle tank in under 4 seconds is a bit absurd (yes i did the math) on a rear aspect shot the tank buster is capable of doing around 1200 points of damage per second. so at that rate the 4000 hit points of a MBT will last 3.3 seconds ok at 10 rounds per second with a 30 round clip they will leave a healthy target burning, but then a single shot from the belly gun (maybe a few shots from the shredder will end the tank). lightnings have slightly more resistance but also a thousand fewer HP so they will probably drop in less than 3 seconds most vehicles are not capable of moving or making any sort of meaningful response in that short of a time span, and that doesn't even consider the time span it takes a human to recognize the threat, decide on a survival tactic, and begin implementing that tactic. finally how is the tank buster anything but a straight upgrade over the vektor? most weapons have draw backs to go with their advantages, but i see pilots dog fighting with the tank buster just as easily as murdering tanks.

i think the only vehicle that can survive the tank buster is sunderers.

as a heavy assault i am capable of eliminating most vehicles with one decisive blow, BUT if they see me on the approach my odds of surviving are very low. liberators have absolutely nothing that can destroy them within that 3.3 seconds. liberators can take a beating and in most cases it takes several AA weapons working at the same time to bring one down. there are also plenty of places with hills trees or other obscurement that can often allow liberators to approach their victim without ever being seen. i don't mind them being tough, but being able to end a healthy MBT before he has any hope of making a meaningful response is absurd.

no other vehicle has this kind of anti armor capability and to do this sort of thing with my heavy (along with the personal risk) i have to spend at least 100 infantry points on C4 each time i do it. even the dalton (the dedicated anti vehicle artillery) can't dish out this much damage.

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Tired of getting killed 1 on 1? Bring a friend. When I see a fellow skyguard I try to remember the name or add to friend's list. Dedicated AA is a very rare breed. Getting a squad of 3-4 skyguards really isn't that uncommon if you put forth the effort to get it running. You can even do things that aren't AA related when there's no air around. When you see an ESF trying to hover, someone pulls a skyguard and makes it go away. If a lot of air shows up, everybody pulls theirs and makes it go away. A lightning is 300 resources. It's not a huge sacrifice to pull one, do your thing, and then ditch it. Make friends, play together, make awesome happen. FYI, 3 skyguards focus firing on an MBT will totally ruin that guy's day. Quit playing solo and crying that this game is too hard.

It has been said here already but I will say it again.

A lone Skyguard will struggle to do anything because the odds would be too even, the risks consequently much higher and with a bit of luck here and a few mistakes there could go either way. Same reason why a single HA would struggle to take out a single tank by himself. Or a single ESF struggle to take out a single Liberator by himself. Or a single LA with C4 struggle to take out a MAX by himself.

A Skyguard tag-team on the other hand would wreak air. It was, and still is, the most cost effective anti-air option. And pilots know this.

the skyguard is definitely balanced against air. you should play in a team to kill a lib crew (p2 = team based game). 2 skyguards and every lib run away or will simply die.

When I'm alone in a skyguard I will melt aircraft. Most liberator teams are not very good, consistently missing shots if I'm moving. If it i a good team(I can name many mattherson aces, I hate it when the enemy is good ) I will often die, a tankbuster+dalton will wreck anything, skyguard is no different. Drive under a tree, holy **** you're immune to aircraft! 1 plink of flak will stop auto-repair on a liberator. See an enemy tank that targets you? Going over 90 I'll be long gone before they get to my previous location.
I actually prefer dual extended bursters, no recoil seems to help me land more hits, I don't know about the cof. I like the skyguard because it is extremely fast and I can get places.

Skyguard NEEDS to do better, For a vehicle that sacrifices it's defence against Everything on the ground, It needs to do the AA part a lot better.


I can unload a full 3 clips into a lib, and he'll just 1 clip me and be done with it.

I understand a lone Skyguard shouldn't be able to wreck house, But it isn't even a deterrent, It's just free EXP for the libby.
A lone Skyguard should be able to do enough Damage to at least make the Libby's, and even ESF's, take caution in the airspace above it, As it is now, That is simply not the case.

so you let a lib sneak up on you. That's your fault for not seeing in game or on the mimimap, or even hearing them, or running with a group. Liberators are only good at attacking one target at a time and are extremely effective at close range yet lack range.

If you saw them coming, you could've shot them when they weren't close and any good lib pilot that doesn't feel like suicide would turn around.

Running with a group also would've helped because more people to spot the lib and more chance of more AA. Also, the lib's chance of engaging would be lower because of the greater risk of suicide.

But... I'll take a skyguard buff for an AA turret nerf.

I think Skyguards are effective enough as they are but the problem with using dedicated AA platforms is how unrewarding it is. Against competent pilots Skyguards will mostly serve as a deterrent and this often means spending a lot of time feeling useless and not getting much XP (the recent changes to the assist mechanics aren't helping either).

What would really help with this is finally giving us the option to change loadouts on existing vehicles (it shouldn't be possible in every outpost but at least in the bigger bases). Another idea is giving the Skyguard a coaxial MG (something like the Kobalt) similarly to the PS1 version, this way it could have a secondary role.

Probability to find 3 ppl with skyguard unlocked in one location is rather pathetic, bursters were suprerior to it since release.
Compared to dalton lib it is rarity, usable only defensively when turrets help u, hopefully.