Liberators too strong?

Fear The Amish · 2012-12-20, 08:03 PM

So i have had some bad experiences lately with Liberators and just checking if im the only one. To preface this i do roll with an outfit and yes we will have 4-5 dual bursters providing air cover... So how can a lib that is way outside of firing range of a max either Vertical or horizantal (1-2 hex's away but points noise up or to the side so gunner can fire into the base) so DAMNED effective? we took gravel pass last night and started taking some air fire so grabed some max's and positioned them all over they cleared the ESF's no problem but the LIBS! there was 2 that were at max cieling just circling raining the pain down which we could scare off for long enough for them to repair and come back. but couldn't kill them so to scare them off we would lose 2-3 infantry every time. but the WORST was there was a few hovering over ZURVAN! a hex away and would just raise the nose or roll to the side and they would fire in from there completely out of range. So at this point we grabed a few A2A scythes which though they fired a full load of missles only got 2 of them but in the proccess got shot down by the 6-7 other liberators.

Nolerhn · 2012-12-20, 08:14 PM

Originally Posted by Fear The Amish

So i have had some bad experiences lately with Liberators and just checking if im the only one. To preface this i do roll with an outfit and yes we will have 4-5 dual bursters providing air cover... So how can a lib that is way outside of firing range of a max either Vertical or horizantal (1-2 hex's away but points noise up or to the side so gunner can fire into the base) so DAMNED effective? we took gravel pass last night and started taking some air fire so grabed some max's and positioned them all over they cleared the ESF's no problem but the LIBS! there was 2 that were at max cieling just circling raining the pain down which we could scare off for long enough for them to repair and come back. but couldn't kill them so to scare them off we would lose 2-3 infantry every time. but the WORST was there was a few hovering over ZURVAN! a hex away and would just raise the nose or roll to the side and they would fire in from there completely out of range. So at this point we grabed a few A2A scythes which though they fired a full load of missles only got 2 of them but in the proccess got shot down by the 6-7 other liberators.

To me this is a situation where you rally people in your empire to clear the skies. Libs have tons of armor, and I'd like to see that not change, but some people rallying against a very specific threat can have surprising successes.

How many A2A scythes did a your outfit field?

Whiteagle · 2012-12-20, 08:19 PM

Yeah, this might be a symptom of weak G2A AA...

Fear The Amish · 2012-12-20, 08:19 PM

5-10 but my problem is that the Liberators are now equally good at Air 2 Air and Air 2 Ground without changing anything. Were as any other vehicle or infantry in the game is only useful against one. All they have to do is roll to the side and that Dalton is amazing at smacking down an ESF attempting to intercept. You can't go above them and drop on them were they are weak because they sit at cieling. You cant approach from rear or sides because of location of the tail gun turret. you DO NOT! want to approach from bottom or front because they wwill just eat you.

KaskaMatej · 2012-12-21, 07:45 AM

Originally Posted by Fear The Amish

5-10 but my problem is that the Liberators are now equally good at Air 2 Air and Air 2 Ground without changing anything. Were as any other vehicle or infantry in the game is only useful against on.

You seem to forget about ESF, which coincidently is Liberator' hard counter, which would be even better if ESF wouldn't be a counter to everything in the game. But that's a different story.

Liberator kills ground. It should be the best anti-ground aircraft in the game. It's slow and it isn't something I would call nimble in the air. It's big. It need a crew of two who communicate. I needs to have lots of armour or HP to be actually hitting ground, meaning not getting blown to smithereens by G2A AA before it is able to do so.

Liberator is the most balanced attack vehicle in the game right now, IMO.

Fear The Amish · 2012-12-20, 08:22 PM

we actually did clear them out... by grabing dalton lib's and doing the same thing....

Whiteagle · 2012-12-20, 08:26 PM

Originally Posted by Fear The Amish

we actually did clear them out... by grabing dalton lib's and doing the same thing....

Ok yeah, if they are bad enough flyers that you can take them out with Cannon fire, then it is DEFININTLY a symptom of weak G2A AA...

Fear The Amish · 2012-12-20, 08:32 PM

Originally Posted by Whiteagle

Ok yeah, if they are bad enough flyers that you can take them out with Cannon fire, then it is DEFININTLY a symptom of weak G2A AA...

lol actually no we had to get to ceiling then roll to the side and shoot them with a Dalton then turn so the tail gunner could finish like they were doing to our scythes.

GreatMazinkaise · 2012-12-20, 08:32 PM

How are they getting kills at the flight ceiling? Infantry don't render that far up in my experience (unless maybe you're in really sparsely populated fights).

Libs are only strong when they've got air superiority and ground AA is sparse. Skyguards are still fairly bad, but those invisible surprise MAX nests remain incredibly nasty.

StumpyTheOzzie · 2012-12-26, 04:37 PM

Originally Posted by GreatMazinkaise

How are they getting kills at the flight ceiling? Infantry don't render that far up in my experience (unless maybe you're in really sparsely populated fights).

Libs are only strong when they've got air superiority and ground AA is sparse. Skyguards are still fairly bad, but those invisible surprise MAX nests remain incredibly nasty.

Yeah.

True story: I'm bombing with the Zephyr. We know there's a sundy at [someplace] and we know there's a swarm of zerglings pouring through [chokepoint]

So I'll get my pilot to fly around so I can shoot into the chokepoint and then we'll fly over the sundy but since nothing renders after about 400m, no kills. Even though I'm firing. So we go lower. Then we start getting torn up by the Maxes but still can't see anything, so we go lower. THEN my machine starts rendering the infantry. My Zephyr rounds already in flight suddenly start massacring zerglings and my new rounds can actually get aimed better and then we're dead before we know what's going on. 20 minute timer and 300 green resources gone for maybe 12 kills (4kxp with boosts, alpha squad and double XP bonus, so 1kxp "normally") in 23 minutes. I can do WAY better xp/h than that doing pretty much anything else.

Are liberators too strong?

In lightly contested areas, yes. For camping external spawn rooms while the bases are being capped, yes. For bombing runs over large zergs? no way.

Metagame effects of liberators? It makes the small groups get upset and stop trying to do anything useful, because one lib can pretty much take out a squad so "lets just go to the crown" and make the zerg bigger. Depriving liberators of targets, making them useless.

Dragonskin · 2012-12-26, 04:44 PM

Originally Posted by StumpyTheOzzie

Yeah.

True story: I'm bombing with the Zephyr. We know there's a sundy at [someplace] and we know there's a swarm of zerglings pouring through [chokepoint]

So I'll get my pilot to fly around so I can shoot into the chokepoint and then we'll fly over the sundy but since nothing renders after about 400m, no kills. Even though I'm firing. So we go lower. Then we start getting torn up by the Maxes but still can't see anything, so we go lower. THEN my machine starts rendering the infantry. My Zephyr rounds already in flight suddenly start massacring zerglings and my new rounds can actually get aimed better and then we're dead before we know what's going on. 20 minute timer and 300 green resources gone for maybe 12 kills (4kxp with boosts, alpha squad and double XP bonus, so 1kxp "normally") in 23 minutes. I can do WAY better xp/h than that doing pretty much anything else.

Are liberators too strong?

In lightly contested areas, yes. For camping external spawn rooms while the bases are being capped, yes. For bombing runs over large zergs? no way.

Metagame effects of liberators? It makes the small groups get upset and stop trying to do anything useful, because one lib can pretty much take out a squad so "lets just go to the crown" and make the zerg bigger. Depriving liberators of targets, making them useless.

Well said and this can be said for most balance threads in this forum. People complain from a small scale perspective, but from a large scale perspective things appear a lot more balanced to me. Playing a high pop server during peak time you don't see large kill streaks.. because plenty of people will switch roles to kill you regardless of what vehicle you are in.

Small scale vehicles > infantry. Large scale infantry < vehicles.

I can't count how many times we have switched to all AV or AA as an outfit and ripped through colums of armor or skies full of air.

Fear The Amish · 2012-12-20, 08:56 PM

the Dalton's bomb is server side no need for "render"

GreatMazinkaise · 2012-12-21, 12:16 AM

Originally Posted by Fear The Amish

the Dalton's bomb is server side no need for "render"

I guess that makes the difference then... we (and most others) use Daltons because the Zephyr is much better for farming infantry - you can't score with a Zephyr without targets rendering.

NoXousX · 2012-12-21, 12:38 AM

The problem is SOE made libs massive slow flying protection warriors that deal a lot of damage. Why is that an issue?

1) The majority of the time libs are either eating people alive, or being eaten alive.
2) That vast (and I mean vast) majority of lib pilots don't have the skill to determine whether or not they can be sucessful defensively when they get attacked by enemy air.
3) In low population scenarios they are unstoppable.
4) In high population scenarios (assuming people actually pull AA), they spend all their time getting flak sniped at a distance.

NoX's solution?
Libs need to be faster and more maneuverable with significantly less health.

Having said that consider the following:
If you put a lib in the hands of a great pilot with a great gunner (for example ScourgeOftheServer/Twf), this lib can single-handedly turn the tides of battles. For any other pilot they are just another target in the sky... an annoyance.

The learning curve is steep, and it's frustrating on both ends.

Assist · 2012-12-26, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by NoXousX

NoX's solution?
Libs need to be faster and more maneuverable with significantly less health.

I don't know that they need to be faster. Cert'd out they move at a decent speed and handle a lot better than most think. Maybe more thrust power, but not top speed.

Less health I agree with. I actually think one of the big problems with liberators is not the low flying ones, they can be destroyed by ground easy enough. It's the ones that are so high that AA and Lock-on can't get them. You have to have ESF's to go after them, and having only one counter to a problem isn't what PS is about. I watched an armor column of 30-40 TR vehicles get demolished in about 2 minutes from 3 Liberators that were flying at ceiling height. It's things like this that need to be fixed.
I'm probably one of the few high BR that is never in air vehicles, I don't understand the value of it tbh, but as a ground fighter I'm never worried about liberators. I get rocked by them sometimes, but it's usually because our offensive force is not balanced for the fight. ESF's tear me up far more often than liberators, personally I feel that Rocket Pods still need to be worked on as every single ESF uses rocket pods these days. When everyone uses one weapon there's a balance issue, imo.

All that said, a TR on Waterson went from 62 to 70+ yesterday because he sat in a lib all day. Something needs to change there IMO. Liberators shouldn't be so dominate against infantry. Tanks/Armor they should annihilate, but infantry not so much.