Uber-Flail

[keaoi]

It needs a HUGE nerf. The thing is completely unbalanced. Everything I list, I saw with my own eyes.

It can...

- Camp air towers VERY effectively.
- Deploy outside a doorway, greeting players with a insta-kill suprise.
- Sit on a hill (sloping down), and spam a base.
- (This one REALLY F'ING PISSED ME OFF) Fire from JUST outside a warpgate, then after taking damage simply go back in and repair. This wouldnt be a problem if the damn thing wasnt just as strong as a GAL.

There are several actions I feel would be most appropriate.

- Stop the ability to repair ANYTHING within the SOI of a warpgate.
- Lower the armor of the Flail to something more like a Lightning (or less).
- Disable its ability to deploy within a enemy SOI.
- Force its deployment location to have the same requirements and landing an aircraft (VERY flat).
- Drasticly slow its aim rate while increasing its accuracy slightly. Artillery is precision equipment, and as such should require precision (slow) aiming.

This would the put the Flail back where it belongs. Which is anywhere but where it is now. The Front Lines.

[Aen]

I agree that it is overpowered. Mostly in the fact that the armor on the thing is crazy strong. A friend and I were scouting in our reavers and spotted one sitting outside the NC WG on Hossin. So we fly all the way around to take full advantage of its blind spot. My friend takes point and unloads a full load of reaver rockets on it then trys to blast off, nailed. So while he was distracted I followed and unloaded my full clip on it and thrusted off, only to notice it had around 60% armor left (Adv. Targeting)!! Thats hella crazy. Not too mention that it can turn faster than it should as well. As Keaoi said, its a precision weapon, and right now its a doom cannon from hell.

[Flammey]

A few things you should know before you judge it. One, it is slow to aim, moving about as fast as a turret. Two, it takes a good 5 seconds to deploy, or undeploy. Three, it can not fire undeployed, so on the move, it is extremely vulnerable to vehicles that can move as fast as it can, or faster. Four, and the most important, everyone can use it, so there is no one side that is stronger than the other. and five, it is Artillery. It is supposed to be as strong as it is. You obviously have not been locked down in an area by a good tank driver/gunner. I imagine, if you had been, and had been many times, you'd be screaming nerf about it. There are two things you can do to destroy a Flail easy. One, get close enough to it, and two, get above it's aim. Simple. I was easily destroyed outside a tower by two guys using Decimators. I was not killed, but they effectively shut me down. The Flail has the same armor as a Liberator. How come your not screaming Nerf to the Lib????? A good Liberator pilot/bomber can fuck you up royally, and send you home to momma, crying. So why are you not screaming Nerf the Lib??
Obviously, you've never used a Flail.

[Cider_Ownz]

I jsut think it should feel more like an artilery.

Lower armor, slower ROF......... stuff like that.

It shouldn't really be able to defend itself against attacks, but it should be able to own everything from afar.

[WritheNC]

I don't have a problem with flails. I just drive full speed at them with a basilisk, stop while touching them, and then just hold down the fire button while they spend 10 seconds trying to see if they can hit me, then 5 seconds undeploying to run away. Its hilarious.

[MiniOrca]

Flails are overpowered in the sense their armor far exceeds what it should be. I was in the core where Falils run rampant and decided to "snipe" one with me 3 decimators. Ok well 7 of the shots hit and the thing was still turning around looking at what hit it. Not showing any signs of panic that it was getting hit by the strongest AV weapon in the game. I have 2 shots left in my last decimator and theres no way im gonna waste it. I just take out my chaingun and head inside.

Now listen to this.

As I was leaving the core, that same flail, which was almost at the other side of the cannon happened to see me. He takes a dumbshot into the air. The thing soars accross the whole canyon and plop, right on me as i was just about to go onto the blue string teleporter thing.

Ok ill stop now.

[MacavitySWE]

Err, artillery is supposed to be heavily armored... think about it: You have a big weapon that can rip thru most things at a range. Would you want to have the armor of a lightning?

Scenario: You deploy inside your base, fire a shot, a reaver sees you, flies off into your direction and kills you with one load of rockets before you've had the chance to say "uh oh"

Not likely, the flail is as Flammey said: Slow, cant fire undeployed and has a really slow rate of fire

Plus, everybody can use them, so there is no empire specific advantage.

[Veteran]

The Flail's shell should impact harmlessly until it has travelled for 300 meters, at which point any impact would be full detonation.

The idea of an artillery piece being used as an assault vehicle is most assuredly outside the devs' conception of this vehicle.

[Holgarth]

What anoys me about the flail is that it can kill you while you are under ground in a base or tower.

My squad was hold up in the last TR tower on Amerish and we were holding the NC off untill a flail parked itself and started shooting the back wall of the tower near the ground. It kept killing every one of us as we came out of the spawn tubes and at the equipment terminals and these were one shot kills...

It also shot the wall behind the tower CC killing the 3 max's in one shot. this is also happened while in a base. We added it up and that flail made about 30 kills at that tower, while only about 2-3 from other NC kills.

Cover should give some protection from the flail, let alone being underground.
I agree that there should be a minamin fire distance that the flail can not fire at or do damage, this is a long range weapon not an assault weapon.

Not deploying in an enemy soi sounds good as well.

[BDMJ]

Regarding flails and AA. It is really all about the gunner. I can't seem to get good long distance shelling going, but if an nme aircraft is within my firing arc you can kiss it goodbye (just ask aen ). One of my outfit mates is the exact opposite. He never seems to have his distance shots interrupted by mountains etc and gets tons of kills with them, but a skeeter is a deadly threat to his flail.

I personally think that the arc should be raised slightly, so that the flail has less defense against tanks at close range. With the difficulty typically associated with obtaining one, I think the armor is fine.

[Meyvon]

I think the flail should simply have a minimum range to hit with full power.

halve the damage the gun does within 300meters.

that'll get people to freakin use it the way it was designed, for Long Distance shelling, and not as a replacement for your empire's MBT.

[Everay]

are you guys insane, okay, me and my outfit love working with flails, but you see it has its problems, first off, you cant shoot long range without a spotter, a role i find fun to fill, but hard since i dont have CC, so i cant use a laze. second, those shells, are like a frigging flair, it tells everything where you are at, and trust me, reavers and skeeters love to follow those flairs. and if you deployed it withing 300 meters of the base, ill tell you, it would be the first thing to be killed in that battle, everyone would go after it. also, now listen, just because you cant kill a tank when your a infantryman doesnt mean the game is unbalanced

[keaoi]

Im just saying that it shouldnt be used on the front lines. The damn thing should be worthless without a spotter. And as for the armor, its just crazy sick. Artillery HAS to be defended. Increase its speed for all I care, artillery should not be able to survive 4+ passes from Reavers.

I also agree with the 300 meters idea, that could even componsate foe my deploying in the enemy SOI idea. These things own everything, just it should be fire from the next base, or over the mountain, not 10m in front of me.

In the real military, I dont even think artillery can go under a 60 degree incline, and for good reason. You tilt that cannon down too far and it will just rip the support beams out from under it.

Just get the damn thing off the front lines. They should never been seen in base defense (unless pounding the next base).

Everay - I agree that anyone can see your shots, but it doesnt matter. The balances I suggested doesnt weaken in ITS ORGINAL ROLE. Just makes it less effective at close range. Real artillery is worthless within 10 miles (might be 5), of its target. Obviously, we cant have that with the flail, but it should be the equal. Its just wrong to see a Flail being effective within 100m of its target.

/edit/ i agree that a lightning's armor would be too low, but between that and a sund = perfect. Artillery should never be undefended. I saw some AWESOME squad last night that would have like 3 skyguards and 2 tanks (actually vans) defending it. There were 4 Flails sitting there. Now THAT is a Flail squad!! Im sure there was an AMS too. That was an awesome sight that I feel didnt abuse the Flail's exploits.

[Gigabein]

We're not arguing for extreme nerfs here. We're arguing reasonable armor vs. unreasonable. Real artillery doesn't need to be armored better than tanks, because when used properly it sits way back in relative safety.

And just because an item is common pool doesn't automatically mean it's balanced. That's a common misconception I've noticed PS players sometimes have.

In the real military, I dont even think artillery can go under a 60 degree incline, and for good reason. You tilt that cannon down too far and it will just rip the support beams out from under it.

This is RIGHT on. If you use a little logic, ask yourself, "Why does the flail have to deploy?" That big old gun must have some kick to it. Make a lower limit to how far down the gun can angle relative to the base mount.

[ZjinPS]

How many rounds can this vehicle carry?