Ok now as a TR I see people all the time with the burster cert.....indoors and I do try to tell them that the burster sucks...indoors but try as I may I see bursters fall to agile armors all the time simply cuz they are within that 10ft envelope where the burster doesn't do crap. This got me thinking of why the burster sucks as AA.
With the recent patch that increased the starfire's rate of fire, range and speed of those projectiles as the same as the sparrow's. This makes the VS and NC AA about the same. Another thing about these two is that they can be used against infantry as well, up close or far away, to some extent. Plus myself being a reaver pilot I'll tell you that even before the patch both can drive away pilots faster than you can say "piss ant max bitch!"
But the thing is that the burster, for the most part, sucks balls. You have very little chance of hitting a fast moving aircraft, and you can't hit anything within 10 feet of you. One of the more important aspects of the NC and VS AA max's is that they scare off aircraft. They scare of liberators, galaxies, skeets, and reavers, and it doesn't matter how high they are. Not so with the burster, the only way your going to hit a liberator at 400m is if the idiot is hovering up there, or if god himself magically guides your flak rounds directly to him. Ok so you say the burster isn't designed or intended to hit planes flying at that altitude, even though both the NC and VS now can. .... ok.
Ok lets talk about low level protection. The VS and NC AA max's can lock onto fast moving aircraft, and lob rockets or blue testicals at them with impunity, hitting them and causing them to die or flee. Not so with the burster. If a skeet or reaver is zooming by at more than 50m away, you must be a crack shot to hit it with the burster. Ok so you say the burster isn't designed or intended to hit "fast" moving aircraft low. .... ok
So what is it designed to do? Ok yea its designed to hit aircraft hovering or moving very slowly. Lets review what they say its designed to do. Its designed to lock onto a target that preprogrames the flak to burst at that specific altitude but the aiming is totally up to the user. SO this means that while the starfire and sparrow both lock on to their target and require only keeping the target reticule on the target to have the missles hit, the burster user must lead (by quite a bit depending on the speed of the target) in order to hit. So that means while the NC and VS AA max's are user friendly the Burster is only really capable in the hands of a seasoned PS player.
But surely it has other great aspects. Um not really, sure it can be used to fire upon a bridge or tower, but if anyone sees it they only need to run up to it within 10 feet, hell i'd kill one with a beamer just to piss the guy off. So you say it has some weaknesses, much more so than the other AA max's, but you still love it!
So bottom line is, it has limited use against aircraft, its only real advantage over the other AA max's is that the target doesn't have a "lock on" warning indicator (hmm just like the skyguard and that is one POPULAR vehicle lol), it doesn't shoot any faster than the other two AA max's, and it requires advanced targeting on the users part to use. Oh lets not forget is sucks balls against infantry within 10 feet and only average beyond that. Honestly I'm surprised I don't see more people complaining about this. But i'm sure there are going to be a lot of people responding to this post that I'm just not using it right...um isn't that my point that the NC one and the VS one don't require any "knowledge" of the proper way to use their AA max's?