As a main ads pilot, I find it difficult to do anything in a match so long as there is a swarm of any kind somewhere on the field. I am gonna try and cover a few of the problems with them and I want to see other peoples opinion on them.

1: Turn speed "nerf"

Recently in one of the hot fixes when all the AV was changed, the swarm launcher got this "nerf". I put it in quotes because in almost every instance where I thought it would be to my advantage, it wasn't. When the missiles are in flight, from what I understand, they fly toward the location you are at at the time, and then repeating that process every few short seconds. The "nerf" cause the missiles to be more likely to fly around any object or terrain that the pilot would use as cover to prevent damage. This means on the downside they have a long flight path, but it doesn't matter cause it'll still go around the object most of the time or catch up to its target by the time he gets safe.

2: lock speed and lock box

After dying a few times from swarms I gave in, I skilled in to swarms and a commando just to see what it is like on the other end of the gun. I was astonished to see that my lock box took up almost half the screen and would auto lock on to anything that was in the box. After I found my target, which would usually be a poor unsuspecting ads, it would take just about 3 seconds to get a lock on and fire, which I think is understandable. But what really got me was the fact that I could get the second lock on before first one hit just about every time, which usually meant I could get the third lock in before they had time to process the fact they were getting shot. Maybe an increased time in between shots?

3. Invisible missiles

I know MANY people have mentioned this before but it is still something that needs to be changed ASAP. During my adventures with the swarm launcher, it occurred to me that most of the time, even if directly under them, the ads wouldn't come back to target his threat after flying away to regenerate some Hp. I figured he either didn't see me as a threat or something like that. But a majority of the times when I was shooting at something like the incubus, something that could usually survive all three rounds of a clip, would try and look for me but due to what I presumed to be the invisible swarm bug, it was near impossible to find me.

4. Rendering

This isn't a bug that only affects swarm infantry, I usually saw, or didn't see I should say, all infantry. When swooping in to fight av infantry who would usually be in one spot up high, i was never able to render their clone by the time I was above them. This meant I would be exposing my dropship to the Av for a longer period of time, especially because after swooping in like a majestic eagle, I would either have to do a slow turn-around or fly away and hope they render earlier next time.

5. Damage application

I didn't get the honor of skilling in to the infamous ads slayer (minmatar commando) but I got a glimpse of it. It's ability to stack not only two complex damage mods, but an explosive AND reload bonus native to the suit, and the swarm launcher prof (I'm not sure if that increases damage or not) plus it can also have a second light weapon such as a mass driver that will get all it's other bonuses to be used against infantry. Not only will it make it almost impossible to work against an ads, but it will decimate LAVs and make tanks run for their lives. I think it needs a bonus like this, but not to this extent of destruct to EVERTHING. I don't know the actual numbers but I know this has the capability to kill any ads within its 3 shots.

I hope this can help balance the battle field in someway. I'd like to hear some other opinions on the subject so leave a reply.

175 meter lock with 400 meter travel isn't long enough?

@_@

I burn at least one dropship every match and drop with swarms to try to keep enemy pilots off of my uplinks. Swarms will not kill me unless I let them period. Swarms are useless to kill most dropships check your fitting because it takes at least 4 shots on a ads to kill it without a hardener. Even then the only ds downs I get are from a hard landing then swarming before they shoot me to death. Lock on range increase would go a long way to help av no pun intended and I would be fine with a slightly smaller box as a trade off.