Is Rotary/Turbolaser too good against infantry?

phungus · 2013-05-06, 04:55 AM

Granted it took hundreds of hours getting comfortable enough to shoot infantry beyond 25m or so with the rotaries but now that I do I don't even bother with rocket pods. The rotaries take care of lone wolf tanks well enough - not as efficient as rocket pods for sure, but is certainly effective (working with another A2A reaver we were even able to take out sunderer's provided they didn't have more then 2 people trying to protect them). Against infantry though it almost seems absurd. If I had to guess TTK on infantry with the rotary, I'd peg it at 0.24 seconds or so, pretty much an instagib.

Does this seem reasonable to everyone? I'm fine with it, I love the fact i can load A2Am and not sacrifice my ability to to take out pesky infantry who are a legitimate threat to me. In my opinion A2Am really helps in Air to Air combat despite what people say and despite the fact they are broken. It does feel like too good of an all around weapon though, honestly it's better at killing infantry then the default gun.

Sifer2 · 2013-05-06, 05:00 AM

If your flying low enough to be accurate with it against Infantry your low enough to get horribly murdered by AA so I don't think its an issue. ESF's have always been good at picking on lone wolf Infantry at some random outpost though.

phungus · 2013-05-06, 05:08 AM

Originally Posted by Sifer2

If your flying low enough to be accurate with it against Infantry your low enough to get horribly murdered by AA so I don't think its an issue. ESF's have always been good at picking on lone wolf Infantry at some random outpost though.

I find I'm more likely to get killed by tanks and dumbfire rockets when killing infantry with the rotary. But they get you infrequently enough it's well worth taking the risk to close at that range and hover for the fraction of a second it takes to gib infantry with the rotary. The TTK is really low, that's what really surprises me, I guess it makes sense though given the rof of the rotaries.

Figment · 2013-05-06, 05:20 AM

Originally Posted by Sifer2

If your flying low enough to be accurate with it against Infantry your low enough to get horribly murdered by AA so I don't think its an issue. ESF's have always been good at picking on lone wolf Infantry at some random outpost though.

What AA? Handheld lock on that takes 5 seconds to lock on and when it finally does is negated by a single flare creating a safety marging that is more than ten times the length of the TTK you have on the infantry?

AA MAXes? You think those survive long now with all the AV and ESF gun upgrades?

I've had situations where a Banshee would kill me as soon as I popped through a door and before being able to fire even a dumbfire missile or aim at the aircraft.

It's very questionable if this is fair and fun at the very least.

Sifer2 · 2013-05-06, 05:37 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

What AA? Handheld lock on that takes 5 seconds to lock on and when it finally does is negated by a single flare creating a safety marging that is more than ten times the length of the TTK you have on the infantry?

AA MAXes? You think those survive long now with all the AV and ESF gun upgrades?

I've had situations where a Banshee would kill me as soon as I popped through a door and before being able to fire even a dumbfire missile or aim at the aircraft.

It's very questionable if this is fair and fun at the very least.

I dunno man in my experience I still die almost instantly to dual burster MAX's. I think it really depends on where you go. If you go to any big battle, and try to swoop down an kill Infantry with Rotaries your not going to survive in my experience. Some mostly abandoned outpost with no AA present? Sure. Also isn't the Banshee designed to kill Infantry?

Figment · 2013-05-06, 05:39 AM

Originally Posted by Sifer2

I dunno man in my experience I still die almost instantly to dual burster MAX's. I think it really depends on where you go. If you go to any big battle, and try to swoop down an kill Infantry with Rotaries your not going to survive in my experience. Some mostly abandoned outpost with no AA present? Sure. Also isn't the Banshee designed to kill Infantry?

Yeah and it got buffed for no other reason than being better than the things mentioned by the OP, after all, it's supposed to be better than the AV version.

But AA MAXes aren't always available and it takes many seconds to kill air. Many more than its target needs to get kills and get away, ESPECIALLY when flying low (good pilots make use of buildings as cover and lock breakers).

I don't mind flares, I do mind extremely long lock on timers, having to to reload non-scoped and not being able to reacquire a lock after a flare has popped for several extra seconds that make no sense. After a flare is popped, targets should be immediately open to new locks.

PS: what feels like instant death by AA to you is about 40 times longer than what air does to infantry. IMO - since air is so fast to weave in and out of areas - AA is the only short TTK that should be allowed.

Assist · 2013-05-06, 08:49 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

Yeah and it got buffed for no other reason than being better than the things mentioned by the OP, after all, it's supposed to be better than the AV version.

But AA MAXes aren't always available and it takes many seconds to kill air. Many more than its target needs to get kills and get away, ESPECIALLY when flying low (good pilots make use of buildings as cover and lock breakers).

I don't mind flares, I do mind extremely long lock on timers, having to to reload non-scoped and not being able to reacquire a lock after a flare has popped for several extra seconds that make no sense. After a flare is popped, targets should be immediately open to new locks.

PS: what feels like instant death by AA to you is about 40 times longer than what air does to infantry. IMO - since air is so fast to weave in and out of areas - AA is the only short TTK that should be allowed.

You're ignoring that if they're low enough to kill infantry they're low enough for an AV turret, dumbfire missile, or tank to also hit the ESF. Killing infantry *requires* you to be low, so they draw on your screen, and I personally find that I die far more often to the random heavy dumbfire, tank gun, or other ESF when I try to kill infantry. Killing infantry = sitting duck, you're not weaving in and out if you're killing infantry in an ESF, the game doesn't render infantry fast enough to make that possible.

IMO the balance of rotary's against infantry is perfectly fine. It requires time and skill to aim at a player on the ground as an ESF, this is not the same thing as killing a vehicle on the ground. I guess you could say TR have the short end of the stick in this situation, because a low flying ESF is done for against the Lancer or Pheonix. The Decimator seems to find me more often than any other dumbfire when I'm in my ESF. That said, the Striker is the best area vehicle denial weapon in the game, behind the Bursters.

ThatGoatGuy · 2013-05-06, 08:49 AM

Originally Posted by Emperor Newt

It's just the same issue with ESFs people have been complaining about the whole time: ESFs being too good at everything without the need to sacrifice something.

They sacrifice armor. Do you understand the difference of the amount of flak that a liberator can receive versus an ESF?

Originally Posted by Figment

Yeah and it got buffed for no other reason than being better than the things mentioned by the OP, after all, it's supposed to be better than the AV version.

Haha on what Auraxis do you live on? The banshee is shit for every thing in the game outside of killing infantry. I was nerfed (max mag size it 10 rounds lower), what GU are you claiming that it was buffed?

RLxJame · 2013-05-06, 09:37 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

.
PS: what feels like instant death by AA to you is about 40 times longer than what air does to infantry. IMO - since air is so fast to weave in and out of areas - AA is the only short TTK that should be allowed.

No offence Figgie but according to your stats page you only have 4 kills with the reaver in more than 2 hours flying it.

From a pilots of perspective the biggest problem with air/AA balance is the render ranges. You have to get so close to the ground before your targets even appear on your screen.

Aircraft have been nerfed so much since launch (which is hilarious since all these issues persisted in beta yet they released the game anyway!) and any further nerf they might as well be removed from the game.

Snoopy · 2013-05-06, 05:17 AM

I agree with the above in that if you're close enough to be in effective range of the hailstorm/rotary, you're generally in a vulnerable place for AA or some body wielding a dumb fire rocket to take advantage of you in return.

I personally wish more ESF pilots would learn to actually dogfight, and stop harassing infantry on the ground all day long with lolpods. That way, when I sneak up behind them and unload a clip into them... they mightn't just fly straight into the ground.

Snoopy · 2013-05-06, 06:01 AM

Dual burster MAX should hit ESFs hard and do lots of damage. If they don't get the kill, they should damn well be a deterrent.

Emperor Newt · 2013-05-06, 07:33 AM

It's just the same issue with ESFs people have been complaining about the whole time: ESFs being too good at everything without the need to sacrifice something.
I doubt this is every going to change. They are "broken" by design.

Lately ESF pilots have become more risky from my experience. Decided to switch to my AP lightning again for AA. Way more effective then the skyguard (which is pretty much crap anyways) as all air seems to be flying low these days. One shot one kill, not tickle damage while the ESF finishes his swoop and flies off to repair and be back in a minute for another kill.

Figment · 2013-05-06, 06:36 PM

James, if you give someone a tool that kills in 0.3s or 0.8s without and the counter to that thing takes well over 10s (handheld AA), you can't tell me that's balanced. Note, that is the counter, a tool those people are likely not even carrying. Regular weapons take fastly longer to kill an aircav, if you can even hit them reliably (which even the actual counter cannot do).

Air to ground however, is a VERY reliable method of firing and hitting.

I'm sorry, but I just don't have much faith in pilots, knowing they feel superior 90% of the time when they ignore their counters are few in number and have massive handicaps and poor efficiency they can exploit.

Originally Posted by Assist

Out of the top 10 kills, 2 are ESF's, 1 Liberator, 1 Tank, 6 Infantry. Not quite what you're stating.

People that have the most kills per minute do what is easiest to do solo, because it's easier to jump from active fight to active fight as a solo player than it is in a squad. Other than that those are just people with ridiculous playtimes.

Should have probably phrased the stat differently. You know what I meant though. It's like the people with a 56 K/D in a Magrider during the even more excessive spawncamping days would contribute this purely to skill. We all know that equally skilled players in PS1 who had different tools would get different K/Ds. If you had HA, you'd get a higher K/D by default than someone who used Sweepers, simply because you're disadvantaged by default. Air advantages the user a lot in every conceivable way and trades that for very few weaknesses. To just look at situations where there's a lot of AA and say "see? It's hard!" is asinine though.

Lonehunter · 2013-05-06, 06:44 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

James, if you give someone a tool that kills in 0.3s or 0.8s without and the counter to that thing takes well over 10s (handheld AA), you can't tell me that's balanced.

You're assuming 2 things that don't work with PS2's design.

Everything has a perfect counter for another thing

1 vs 1 is supposed to always be fair.

Their are random deaths, there's are 50 people around you who should help you take down that ESF, there's are thousands of elements to this equation that have to all balance with each other. Not just 1 Rocket launcher vs 1 ESF.

Figment · 2013-05-06, 07:44 PM

Originally Posted by Lonehunter

You're assuming 2 things that don't work with PS2's design.

Everything has a perfect counter for another thing

1 vs 1 is supposed to always be fair.

Their are random deaths, there's are 50 people around you who should help you take down that ESF, there's are thousands of elements to this equation that have to all balance with each other. Not just 1 Rocket launcher vs 1 ESF.

Okay, how's this:

There are random deaths, there are 50 people around you who should help you take down that infantry unit, there are thousands of elements to this equation that have to all balance with each other. Not just 1 ESF vs 1 infantry unit.

Now why do I get the feeling you will object against this? Why the hypocrisy to make this statement when an infantry unit uses AA, but not say so when an aircraft uses AI? There are MORE units carrying AI than there are units carrying AA (even AV and AA fall in the AI category!). There are no instant saves from AI weapons, but there is a way to instant save you from AA weapons. Sure, the ESF costs a couple resources, but on the other hand, the unit frame didn't cost certs to acquire (some of its weapons did), whereas AA lock on did. Yet the AA weapons are considered less worthy to actually pay off than the aircraft weapons. There's quite a bit of hypocrisy and arbitrary bias in there.

I don't really see why AV weapons should be good at hitting infantry and then hit them really hard. What's the point of having AI weapon trade-offs then? AI weapons like the Kobalt don't even harm armoured units at all!