Why ESFs are Despised, and Always will be

Really now? You're going to compare Lego Survivor to this Sci-Fi Shooter...... -_-

Minecraft is more difficult. Every time I play Minecraft I'm like...

Damn.

What do I build?

In PS2 you just click M and look for yellow bubbles

Cute.

My opinion, not that anyone needs to particularly care- is that in my experience, the problem I and my friends have with ESFs is two things:

1) When ESFs kill us, it is -always- rocket pods. Which are very expensive, yes, but all A2G pilots do have them. This is an annoying way to die because even with flak armor on, you will still die from a strafing run from these- and ESF pilots saying; "You shouldn't have been outside" is absolutely a ridiculous thing to say- 95% of Planetside 2 is outside. And if you try to control only the interiors as infantry, you will lose every single battle. Enemies will box you in, and start throwing the flashbangs/emps/grenades, and MAX rush you. You will lose that. We -have- to play outdoors. I DO NOT MIND getting killed by the guns, evne though they shred you instantly most of the time, I -know- from my own experience how hard it is for them to line up that shot- and ones that do it consistently, deserve the kill on me. I'm not talking about the explosive AI ammo, but hey, I never get killed by those anyway.

2) The feeling of helplessness is real, because if 2 sub reasons: a)PUB mentality. 90 guys with ARs can kill every ESF, ever, but for some reason, they don't even shoot. Why? Likely because while you're shooting at ESF's, you're not: Playing the Objective, Pushing a Sundy SPawn, or supporting your team mate- you're shooting at a guy who can ignore you as an individual without consequence, so long as no one else (about 5 of them) is doing it. So, when you are engaged by an ESF, even carrying a lockon- your time to kill on the ESF is 30 (for lock ons) seconds, and about 35-50 seconds with a carbine or rifle at any kind of distance. His time to kill on you is between 1-5 seconds. You will lose that 100% of the time, if he's killing you. Yes, you can do things about it... but only if you see him coming. And he's flying at 150+ KPH, at 8km altitude- or hexes away seconds ago. YOU will not see him coming, even if marked, you'll have no reason to think he's picking you. Long story short, mano-y-mano, you will lose to the ESF every time. Whereas a tank, you can use terrain easily- a hill side, and he literally has no chance to kill you unless you let him. An ESF? He does not have to care. AS long as you are outdoors, you are an easy target. But all that aside, if he's using a chaingun, not rocket pods, I can dodge, weave, hide, and shoot back, to some extent. Rocketpods, I can't even -see- him from the massive wall of fire enveloping me as I helplessly die, regardless of my kitting.

B) This is situational, but I play NC on Emerald as my primary with friends. I see 1 reaver for ever 5 mosquitoes, and every 3-4 scythes. We -never- have combat air patrol. The pilots we have, are good. But they are usually running A2G reavers,and usu ally fly solo, meaning they do not provide CAP support, they fly away. When I see a reaver engage a Mossie/Scythe, I see the Reaver lose 9/10 times. This means as a faction, we never have air support -from the air-. Our anti-air defenses are purely ground based. This means if ESF's are involved- or any kind of air, really- it will be enemy, and it will be killing us, not helping us. Is this other ESF pilots fault? Not really. Except it is. I have a few friends, who fly Mossies and Scythes. THey will even hop faction when they want to fly. They refuse to fly Reaver for the nc, for lots of valid reasons, including being outnumbered 5 or eight to one. Also, all the dedicated ESF outfits are TR and VANU. [382]nd, I'm pointing at you. Also, there are good G2A weapons. There are. But they require a ground fighter to completely give up their ground-to-ground viability. Bursters? Useless against ground and armor. Lock on G2As do not count. They are not an effective AA weapon. 10 second lock on, 5 second reload, 10 second lock on, where an entire 15 seconds of that can be negated if they have a single flare pack equipped. And honestly, what ESF pilot is EVER going to sit there for more than 10 seconds anyway? It never happens, at the very least, not when the ESF pilot in question is any kind of a threat to those on the ground. Walker, and ranger? Sure, they work, but... we're talking 30 seconds of fire time, sometimes more, assuming direct hits, and you become immediately useless against ground targets, who -will- focus you down. Remember? I'm NC. TR and Vanu types focus down anti-air vehicles, because they're easy certs, and more over- they actually benefit from removing our ground-based anti-air- remember, they actually -have- ESF support. So, a sizable portion of your player base doesn't have air cover, and does not benefit from ESF support themselves. They are constantly being attacked by TR/VS ESFs, and suffering without being able to hit back effectively. Sure,I can scare offa mossie by locking him for a whole minute. But he'll just jet away, pop flares if I Shoot, and then make high-speed low altitude runs, giving no time to engage him. In summary of my wall of angry text, I apologize-... but ESFs have a counter for everything I Can do to them from the ground. In all cases, they can kill what I have, faster than what I Can kill them, skyguards not withstanding-and honestly, skyguards are no fun to pull, because being effective means you will instantly become a victim of your own success- the sky clears. AND you just ran out of nanites, and have a very lame, very weak bag of certs to hand the enemy. Did I mention your only reward forthat , was... 50-75xp? There's no certs in it, so no one does it. Nevermind 90% or more of the population don't even own a skyguard, or havethe certs to buy one. Those that do, usually are busy flying ESFs or running infiltrators with smgs... or camping vehicle pads. Or something else. Anything but pulling aa. because they're herefor certs, and fun, in that order. Back to point A.

ESFs are not the main problem here, its the lack of good base design and vehicles not being able to switch weapons at bases.

Necro, or not, the statements in the OP are still valid... after a year. This is disturbing.

You were right up until this point.

Rock-paper-scissors is a much used concept to explain parts of the game, so I'll use it as an example, scissors=infantry, paper=aircraft, rock=tanks


Tanks can get the following primaries: Rock+scissors, rock (slight scissors), scissors (slight rock), Paper (Lightning only, aircraft can always escape unless you have multiple AA sources, slight paper and rock abilities)
Tanks can get the following secondaries: Rock+scissors (slight paper), scissors (slight paper), rock (slight scissors), paper (same negatives as skyguard, only weaker)

Infantry can get the following primaries: scissors, scissors and scissors again. It has a teeny tiny effect against paper, but you need so much of it that it's simply impractical, you might as well say that pistols are great against enemies at the render distance.
Infantry can get the following secondaries: rock (often used against scissors as well, RL and C4), paper (lock-ons), scissors (most utilities give some aid in infantry fights but not much else).
MAX's have the same options as MBT's in being able to become intermediaries or dedicated, they do have an AA option but it's weaker than the Skyguard and the MAX costs more.

ESF can get the following primaries: Scissors+paper (several of these), scissors.
ESF can get the following secondaries: Scissors+rock (several, have on-par damage with ground-based vehicles, the Hornet for instance deals 150%+ of the damage that the Titan AP can and is able to get a faster reload speed, while at the same time having afterburner+scissors+paper available), paper (lock-on), one rock+paper+scissors.
But wait! ESF have the secondary weapon available in the drivers seat, at the same time as their primary. This means that with one loadout, they can engage all unit types effectively rock+paper+scissors, where every other unit in the game has to sacrifice to be able to attack one or the other, at best you are able to attack 2 unit types (rock+paper) while not being able to properly compete with dedicated rock or scissors ground units. Why don't they need to sacrifice?
Then comes something else: Afterburner. Afterburner is an automatically granted ability, where very other tank needs to buy it's abilities beforehand. But wait! If you switch out your afterburner, it just becomes less effective, it doesn't go away.

And there's more! not a single unit in the game, with the exception of... ESF... comes equipped with a dedicated AA. It needs to be bought, and what do you get? A "I'll stare into the sky and press a button, hoping they are heavily damage and/or engaged by someone else as well" rocket launcher, A "I'll keep them off and hope they are damaged/attacked by someone else, then switch weapons" burster MAX, a "I'm hoping they stick around long enough so I can kill them/are engaged by someone else who kills them/they are already damaged" Skyguard, or one of the weaker secondary weapons on tanks. Notice how each and every ground-based AA requires the ESF to be something first: Either damaged, engaged after you fight it, or stupid enough to stick around. There is actually nothing you can do but fire and pray.


That's why ESF are OP. They can equip weapons to engage the most unit types, where no single other unit can do it without losing a lot of power against other unit types, they have set abilities such as afterburner which they keep no matter what they equip, the ground-based AA needs to be bought and is dependent on the ESF status and pilot skill rather than the player vs pilot skill to be effective (like, you know, every other unit in the game?), and the ESF has incredibly powerful weapons on board, the Hornet for instance outdamages the AP variant of both the Magrider and Vanguard, while still having access to an AI and AA weapon.

OMG. The skyguard will never be buffed because you can, right now, set up a no-fly zone with just 3-4 skyguards.

That is the role the skyguard is good at. If you get a small group of them together, you can completely lock down a hex to enemy air. I don't see people whining that the phoenix needs to be buffed because one guy using it can't kill tanks.

It just frustrates me so much the number of people on these forums who feel entitled to demand buffs to the skyguard because they can't be bothered to join an outfit or team up with other skyguards to make their weapon effective.

It's an insult to the game of rock-paper-scissors the way people are using that as a metaphor in this thread. They're, in reality,sitting there saying that rock and paper(the game's ground weapons) need to buffed because they feel entitled to it because they made the CHOICE to refuse to use scissors(air).

As far as all BR100 pilots go, I am probably the worst BR100 at the air to air game on the entire Emerald server. I am like the easiest guy to shoot down in air to air. It makes me want to pull my hair out sometimes how I could be allowed to do run after run with rocket pods on 96+ enemies and the only things I get spammed at with are rage tells.

This is just five minutes of video from an alert where I did nothing but follow outfit mates around and help them push up with my rocket pods.



I'm practically hovering at high altitude making me a very very easy target for enemy air. I'm allowed to do this at every fight I go to for the entire alert giving me these stats at the end:



Now I won't go into the other argument that it's the big redeployside outfits who repeatedly go around max crashing and are forcing their people into using bursters and G2A lock-ons as the only options who are at fault...but it's something for you to think about if you happen to be in one of those big outfits. Maybe if they learned force appropriation and didn't try to zerg the hex, I wouldn't be able to bomb groups of them like that.

Side note: this alert was, for me, about experimenting with my theory that outfits like GOKU and AOD's redeployside max crashes can be broken with overwhelming air support at the same time of their rush out of the spawn. People on the ground inside the base would call out when the max crash was beginning to signal to pilots who were waiting behind mountains or at high altitudes to come in and start their attack.

The next thing that makes me want to pull my hair out in frustration are the people who are reluctant to even TRY using a tank's main cannon against an aircraft that is hovering at low altitude.

I hold training sessions in my outfit to teach people how to shoot down ESF's and liberators using you default shrike or your tank's main cannon, yet there is always one new recruit(usually among people who spend too much time on the forums and join the outfit at a higher BR) who won't go to training and will sit there pouting about how air is OP and anti-air needs to be buffed.

Like if I show you forum readers this video...


It is absolutely depressing how many of you wouldn't ask me how to do this, no matter how EASY I say it is, but would instead sit there and harp on about how I'm the exception. It's not an exception when I can teach every WILLING person in my outfit how to do it.

If you still feel that skyguards and bursters and lock-ons are the only option because they're the only weapons that say "anti-air" in the description, then work together in a group and use them!

Is teaming up with other people really that hard for you to do? What's your excuse? Does SOE not give you things like squads, outfits, in-game voice?

Let me show you how easy it is to work together.



This is the result of working together: (See ReconTeamSix)Notice that it's the same alert.



All those "pro-mlg" pilots that you are so afraid of...*stands on soapbox and grabs bullhorn*

THEY ARE ALONE!!!!

Are you telling me you can't grab like four other people in stock ESF's to attack one guy who isn't even using lock-ons or coyotes?

The biggest enemy of the people in this thread who agree with the OP are each other.


You guys label each other as "infantry only" players and encourage each other to be close-minded so much so that you make each other feel that being creative or having ideas will get you ostracized from the herd.

You guys can band together in a mob on the forums but heavens forbid you actually squad up in-game AND actually do something together.

The idea of not running to the forums to whine but instead trying something else when one tactic doesn't work is absolute heresy to you.

I commend SOE for making like the first MMO in a long time that has begun to reverse the trend of antisocial behavior and glorification set forth over the years by games like Battlefield and Call of Duty. The rewards of this game scale up with higher and higher levels of teamwork and organized play.

*drops microphone*

My only current issues with ESFs are (1)their ability to sit at max render and spam pods/hornets etc at infantry accurately. Most of the time in larger fights they don't even render (silly if it can kill you it should render, if it doesn't render it shouldn't hurt you). You just see the spam coming or the explosions on the ground. This is happening with MAX units also see the comets? i think they are but not the MAX.

(2) render - Even seen this happen where an ESF obviously must have afterburned in its now within 150m, starts firing. You see the bullets, rockets before you see the dam ESF in some fights.

This was never an issue before the last month or so. The render culling is just FUBAR.

Outside these game issues, ESF are fine now.

*Picks up microphone*

You only need 2 MBT or even 2 Harassers to set a no-skyguard zone And after taking down those Skyguards, you don't have to stay around, bored with nothing to do with your vehicle.

Oh, that means we should nerf all aircraft and vehicles because one guy alone shouldn't be able to destroy not even a single enemy, even if used weaponry is specialized to destroy said target, right? Or at least, not be good at it

Agree and disagree. The skyguard is fine, and doesn't need to team up with several other unless enemy air is really overwhelming.

You need scissors to beat scissors? *claps*

Ah, yes, Vanguard is best tank at that. Go try hitting both shots with a Prowler or the much slower Magrider. You'd have a point on tanks not even trying to hit Liberators, though

*Video of dumbfire shots*
I guess NC should stop complaining about their rifle's recoil. Just aim properly at the head at those easy targets!

Note: personally I don't have any problem against ESF. But that's beacuse I've put thousands of certs on any AA available and don't care of low cert gain.

First off, people dont start pulling counter measures for air until:

A)They themselves get killed multiple times by air.

B)They are told to pull AA by squad or platoon leads.

C)Multiple air units are attacking.

D)Galaxies are spamming a point with troops.

People do not pull AA to help protect their own air support nor do they run AA kits in general. Not many people are proactive and get caught unprepared. Maybe if people paid more attention to the global aspect of this game, air would be looked at as annoying instead of threatening.

Battle rifle? How many people use those?
225*20*0.25=1125.
With 100% accuracy, a semi-auto battle rifle deals about 1/3rd of ESF health.

Maybe you meant assault rifle:
The default NC AR is the gauss Rifle. At 75m, it deals 143 dmg/shot.
143*30*0.25=1072.5
So uh.. not 50% either.
Oh, and you're not getting anywhere near 100% accuracy vs any remotely decent pilot.

The default ESF actually has MORE effective health vs small arms than the max.
Max: 2000 health, 80% dmg resistance. 2000/0.2= 10.000 effective HP.
ESF: 3000 hp, 75% dmg resistance. 3000/0.25= 12.000 effective HP. In addition, ESF's typically engage from longer ranges than maxes (vs infantry at least..). This means more damage drop.
Wanna see how they stack up vs anything but a direct hit from the pure dumbfire launchers? It won't get pretty..

Anyway: give us a mouseyaw option, so flying is more accessible for a lot of people.
And make AA lethal; especially the skyguard: give the lightning a dual walker option; which still might not be enough vs libs and galaxies, but at least it can get hits from range.

Also, buff the velocity on things like the ranger, buff the current skyguard a bit with velocity and CoF, likewise for the burster.

i agree.

if you are a regular flyer you know that ps2 is the world of AA/lock-on as soon as there is some good battle.
to protect noobs ego soe decided to prevent esf to play the metagame on ground, why nerfing stock afterburner? just to put you in a slow **** easy to kill if you stay more than 3sc upon a battle spot, that was an error for me.
they dont want us to play ground game, all is focused on this, rocket ridiculous aoe and spam to kill 1 grunt, horneth speed and hit distance, canon nerf on grunts, stock afterburner useless, inf weapon who put you defensless against esf farmer.

esf playing is reduced to lib/gal/esf fight upon 500m or zerg spawn camp no fun no risk, great soe great..
this is soe vision.

put back afterburner stock, give us some speed, let us play your game and not only upon 500m!
if there is air farming nmy need AA and mass lock, that's all and not nerfing esf!


in real life airplanes are war kings, deadly and fast, in ps2 they are flying turtles...
and they dont get one shot by tank bullet.. another thing i never understand, why use AA on mbt then..

special mention to paper esf which explode on leaf or debries touch, and ******* antenna 1 pixel large upon all base for crashing esf, what use of this? just frustrating again more pilot.

why deadly nerfing esf since 2 years the most difficult thing to pilot in ps2?!
cause of ******* noobs crying about daddy's clones, yes there are some good esf farmers and we have the same in all class vehicules who dont get nerfed as we were!

i say you
THEY HATE US!

Yeah, and the counters to air are a goddamn joke. Lockons? By the time its locked on the plane has either flown off, or some guy shot you up your *** waiting for it to lock. Then, half the time it will fire into the side of the wall anyway.....and if it does hit, you need like 4 rockets to kill it. And well, after hte 1st, unless the guy is a total tool, hes flown away and will be back in 30s to splat you in the nutz with his lolpods.

yeah OP, I basically agree with you.

"...you can completely lock down a hex to enemy air."
I guess the day that a group of Skyguards would be only locking down a single hex was already subject to every Pilots wet dreams.

- "...team up with other skyguards to make their weapon effective."
It's mostly (or at least often) not even needed to team up with others to make some very effective (and absolute deadly) use of an Skyguard if, and only if, the one who's driving it knows how to take profit of the current environmental situation and also have spent enough time in the air by himself, to know about the various "details" of the aircrafts and the ways they are being used by different types of pilots.


I guess one of the most common problems of the global AA- and AvG discussions is still that the faction of the "Pilots" has some well-founded knowledge about how the different types of Vehicles on the ground could move around and how they most likely would be moving around, in different kinds of areas together with having some knowledge about the several ways in which various kinds of weapons could be used, where they could shoot at, and where not.

Everyone who thinks a bit about it should see that these are a few natural things for Pilots to know about since if one spends tons of time on flying around everywhere, he will, over the time, automatically see thousands of situations in which the various ground based vehicles and weapons are being used, not to speak off all the times when an pilot is target to their attacks by himself.

Another thing that much people have stated over time is that it needs a much higher situational awareness to survive in the Auraxian skys then it needs to survive on the ground, but IMHO this is heavily depending on too many different factors to be used as an valid argument within the AA- or AvG discussions.

The faction of the Landcrabs "Ground Based Players" on the other hand usually consists of players who have barely been sitting in an aircraft beside for some transporting related reasons and/or maybe have been doing the gunner for someone else a few times so they don't know much about the several ways in which the different aircrafts could be used and how the targets that they're confronted with in AvG situations would be most likely acting like, speaking off the common routes many pilots would take or the typical firing positions and vectors that would be the best for fitting the current situation on the ground.

I hope many people will agree with me at this point if I say that there's just barely any imaginable way for someone who haven't spent some good amount of time in the air by himself to know how to make the most effective use of AA in many situations.

ESFs with ground-targeting explosive attacks can be a real pain.

Two heavy's with lock-ons can take one down with one shot if it doesn't evade the lock-on fast enough.

I'm not sure how many infantry it takes to lay down concentrated fire with their primary weapons to take down an ESF, but even one can damage an ESF.

Then, of course, there is the skyguard, MBT secondary AA weapons. and Sunder AA weapons.

ESF is a pain. Yeah, that's what air superiority is about.

I'm not a pilot - well - not a very good one. But I understand the power of aircraft and I find not problem with it being involved with combat. There is a Nanite price of it like other vehicles. Aircraft isn't cheap.

Yes, this is the other side of the coin. With many you can have an incredible effect on aircraft, but it doesn't become fun for either party at any time. Not when you have too few (read: one or two, and two is already tough to come by), not when you get many. Because if you have many, you get a few kills, people stop coming there (or if you fly like me, you get smart and backstab the Skygaurd or the Skyguards buddies and are gone before you die). Problem is, you have to share your kills, and when the air stops coming you are a sitting duck for all the grondforces.
Which is something an AV ESF doesn't have to content with. In complete AV mode it still has an effective counter against aircraft or infantry for instance.

First the Phoenix. What kind of alternatives are there to fight tanks?
Well, there's dumbfires, C4, tank mines, AV turrets... they might not be able to OHK a tank, but there's good options to actually kill you can actually hit it reliably before it gets out of range. If a tank decides to play it ultra-smart and always go away after damage it gets nothing done as it is much slower and needs cover rather than a conveniently flat piece of land in the middle of nowhere away from fights.
Then look at ESF. They can swoop down and kill something in a split second. There's barely a reaction time, there's no real safe place once you get outside. The strongest ground-based weapon (Skyguard) can't even kill an ESF outright, let alone go toe-to-toe with Liberators. You can't get better with your aim to deal more damage, because if you do a surprise attack on a hovering ESF right above you he can get away before he's killed even if you hit every shot possible. It's not a fun mechanic, the whole "deterrent" idea needs to go, all the skill reduction methods (flak and lock-ons) need to be reduced or removed, in turn the damage and accuracy need to go up. When AA attacks an ESF it should be a match of skill rather than a mathematical formula where 'If ESF=flies away, AA does not win'. This makes it interesting for both sides.

The whole "locking down a hex" has been an overrated argument. It makes it difficult and dangerous, yes, but not impossible. Aside from that, it can take a week or two before I even see more than two skyguards next to eachother. The most AA I see is Burster MAX's at spawnbunkers, at which time you go kill something somewhere else for 5 minutes and come back when they switched loadouts (they don't often switch back, killing infantry/tanks gets you more kills and XP), or you surprise them and use superior DPS to kill them before they get to you, and are gone before their buddies reallize the guy is dead. Sure he'll be revived, but you got a MAX kill and survived, and eventually they give up or the fight ends.

Does an ESF need an outfit or team to be effective?
Does an MBT need an outfit or team to be effective?
Does infantry need an outfit or team to be effective?
No an all three above.

Is a Skyguard team effective in a team or outfit?
No.

Oh, why isn't it effective? It's good against aircraft... but it will be completely dominated the moment infantry and tanks show up... or an outfit or team of Liberators...

Yes, many people ask for buffs that simply shouldn't be given. If you simply buff the AA's damage or ROF and leave the rest untouched it would instantly make AA OP. The problem with AA isn't that it lacks damage, it lacks the capability to reliably kill their target. If you can kill it with skill, but also have the option of doing no single damage at all due to the lack of skill (or the better skill of the pilot), it becomes much more balanced and fun for both parties. No more "I flew nearby flak, I was damaged", but "I flew near flak, but he wasn't good enough and I managed to escape without damage". Or "I flew near a Skyguard, the guy had me dead on and annihilated me'. It's similar to infantry fights: Sometimes you can simply outmaneuver someone and get away unscathed, sometimes you are simply screwed and attacked from a position where you can hardly win.

No, the rock-paper-scissors metaphor is used differently in Planetside 2. In an RTS, you can pick rock (AA) to engage Scissors (Air). But in Planetside 2 this doesn't apply. You pick on unit type (rock), but you might be able to attack both rock (tank) and paper(infantry) with it
Paper on the other hand, can mostly just kill paper. There are relatively few exceptions where they can take on Rock, and there's literally only two options to reliably hit and possibly kill aircraft for paper (lock ons and burster MAX). Tanks don't fare better, they got 3 dedicated AA weapons (Skyguard, Walker, ranger), and each can't kill aircraft alone unless said aircraft decides to hang about.

If a tank kills you, what can you do?
You can take an AV infantry
You can take an AV tank
You can take an AV aircraft

If an infantry kills you, what can you do?
You can take AI infantry
You can take AI tanks
You can take AI aircraft

If an aircraft kills you, what can you do?
according to you, the only option that should be considered is using another aircraft. People complaining about ground-based AA should simply switch to aircraft.
How is that fair? how is that balanced? How is that fun?
Any player should be able to engage any unit type, regardless of him playing infantry, tank or aircraft. There should always be an option somewhere to effectively engage them.

This is the answer that completely rips your whole video argument apart. "I could do this while I was a big target for air, so it's their fault". No it's not their fault, it's a problem in AA and aircraft design that needs to be adressed.

Just to use your words. It makes me want to pull my hair out when people are reluctant to even consider the fact that aircraft should be the sole counters for aircraft. It's beyond rediculous.

One of the few things that people actually do instantly when they get the chance. Problem is, you don't get the chance that often anymore. about 9 months ago I made sport of surprise dumbfireing on any hovering ESF, and got a ton of kills with it. Now they seem to have learned from that and don't do that kind of stuff anymore.

So basically you are saying "there's nothing wrong with AA! That's because our tanks main cannons can deal great damage should the aircraft be dumb enough to fly low!"
tank main-cannons can be strong, but they just aren't suited for it. They don't have the elevation, and with the exception of the AP Titan and AP magrider they can't OHK them, and landing that second shot is very difficult considering that the first thing a heavily damage ESF does is afterburn away while going out of your elevation range. Good luck.
Oh yeah, and this argument has been used before, and it's completely designed as a justification for yourself rather than others. Just look: we are talking about AA in the game, but you pull up the effectiveness of non-AA weapons when they hit, then argue that hitting aircraft with non-ESF weapons is easy because you train people for it. While in reality it simply isn't effective. How about we make all LMG's have a maximum elevation similar to tanks? Would they still be effective? Of course they would still be effective, but any time you have to fight on a stairs or an LA decides to go to the roof, you are simply screwed. At best you can use a pistol, but good luck with that.
That's actually a perfect anology: all ground-based AA is basically a pistol against infantry, and all other weapons have a limited elevation except when in the hands on an LA. Now you go hunt some LA's with it. How many will stay on the ground, and how many will head to the roofs, trees and stairs where they can curbstomb you? Just for fun and balance, we give the LA access to Assault rifles and scout rifles and no elevation restrictions. That's basically what you are up against as ground forces, although this anology is a bit extreme, it illustrates it well.

And now do the same without a montage. I can show you that pistols are incredible AA weapons in a montage. Show us how you, without cease, get kill after kill, rather than different kills at different continents at different times of day... which already shows that these were all seperate incidents rather than willingly hunting down aircraft. You probably had seen a dozen aircraft for each one you shot down, and two dozen more before the next.
Oh, and just look at your own video! Did you even see how many of those aircraft actually had to fly into your bullets, you just had to pray that they stuck to their flight path, there were infinite reasons as to why they could change path, they just didn't. That was the only reason, aside from their low altitude, why you could actually hit them. You even miss one of the first shots when the Liberator is almost filling your screen.

I've said enough above, read it and I hope you will reconsider. I doubt it, you were already using self-justification arguments. The whole "oh, it's sooooo easy shooting down aircraft with dumbfires" is one as well.

The excuse is that it shouldn't be required to team up! Teaming up should be a power increase over normal tactics, it shouldn't be the tactic itself!
Well, it can be the tactic itself, if the thing it counters is something that's justifiably more powerful. Infantry vs tanks for instance. The tank costs resources and has more limited spawn and movement area's, but offers higher speed and firepower in return which can be overcome with team tactics... but it's not required. You can also lone-wolf it and C4 or tank mine them, or flank them from behind while they are engaged. Problem is with ESF, when they are engaged they are already going away, and you can't really flank them as they don't have weaknesses and they have a semisphere of almost infinite escape routes they can use to get away, rather than a tank that can be outmaneuvered.

Yes, 10 seconds of working together, easy! Have you ever tried to teach a team to hold a point against a Zerg? Taught a team how to breach and pulled it off besides "lets swarm them guys!"? Have you ever done a simultaneous attack from different entrances or with combined arms to actually kill a superior enemy?
Killing a lone Prowler is easy. What if a second prowler had been behind it? Or a Sunderer similar like yours? It could have surprised you in turn, killed one or two and fled. Killing one or two would already mean that you can't OHK it like you did, then push it's advantage.

they are using aircraft, with less counters and the counters that you can take are weak against anything else. In the meantime these aircraft can be equipped to deal with tanks, infantry and aircraft in one package, alone.

Lock-ons and coyote's are overrated as well. Nose canons beat both by a mile and a half. They are great cheese weapons, but in the long run they aren't good enough to compete.

The biggest enemy is people like you who believe that aircraft should be the only counters to aircraft, that because tank dumbfires can sometimes kill aircraft that AA is suddenly OK where it is. They are completely unrelated! You don't take an AP tank because you want to go AA.

Which guys? Who? I don't. I'm an all-rounder. I play aircraft, infantry and tank. I play dedicated AA, I play AV, AI, I play just about everything.
That's one more thing that "we" people who want AA to be changed need to be wary about. The people who are against "us" who put words in our mouth. There's people on both sides who do that, but that doesn't mean you can do that too. "we" don't encourage eachother to be close-minded, "we" don't label each other as infantry only players, and if you are forced to be creative with weapons not designed nor very useful against aircraft, while aircraft don't need to be creative and get multiple weapons specifically designed for multi-purpose engagements, then even you should have realized something is wrong.

Again, how is it fair that you have to be creative against aircraft, when aircraft don't need to be creative and get the power handed to them in a neat package.

AA squads don't live long, that's the reason. They have to switch out weapons to survive against the ground forces, or are destroyed.
You never actually did an AA squad did you?

It's heresy that you are promoting your point of view with rigged montages, self-justification and idea's that you've never tried yourself.

Yeah, pick up that microphone when you get some actual arguments and facts.
I'll stop being hostile, if you just take a look at your own words, and your rigged video and your self justified arguments, and please, please look at them hard before you answer again.

I'd say the things you listed DO actually make them OP right now, ESFs (and all air really) can easily swoop in, get a ton of kills then leave when people notice them before swooping in again.

This is all made worse by the fact that they can farm from outside the range of most AA so even if you have a skyguard or burster MAX up and running the air you're fighting will be so high up you'll be lucky to hit 2/10 bullets when they are going in a straight line, let alone when they change direction non stop.

What would help is if

A. ESFs were way more vunerable to small arms fire and had much shorter range guns, this way they wouldn't be farming from 800m away (I'm looking at you LPPAs..) and theres be an actual way to try and counter them, sure 1 person with a rifle wont stop them but a group could and at least you'd feel like you have a chance so it would be less frustrating.

B. A greater variety of AA (which I'm discussing in another thread about AA) so they can be dealt with more easily, such as 1 type which is great for long range but awful up close, 1 that shoots very slowly but does amazing damage so it kills gals easily but will never hit a ESF.

Doing these would not only balance air properly but stop people getting so incredibly frustrated when a pilot swoops past killing them before they even realised they were there.