So in essence, you're complaining because you couldn't kill your hard counter by flying straight at him.

So in essence, you're complaining because you couldn't kill your hard counter by flying straight at him.

The fact of the matter is our lead DEV made a lot of changes at once that put the ADS at a disadvantageous position. When they swung the nerf bat, they knocked the ADS back to pre 1.6 levels. Continually they go in circles.

Would you mind describing some other "hard counters" as I was under the impression that there really wasn't such a thing. Or are dropships special?

Also consider the swarms are fire and forget missiles, it takes no skill or aiming, just a minor SP investment to be "good" with them. I find that in itself foolish..

Well your first problem, is that for some strange reason you decided that it would be a good idea to engage an AVer who's clearly prepared to engage you.

You're on crack. Before Uprising 1.7, a Swarm Launcher could kill ANY vehicle in DUST other than an LLAV by simply looking at it. You could have the best fit in DUST and it would still go down in flames if you didn't have an LLAV or other vehicle repping you.

Now? Any ADS with common sense and the ability to resist the urge to consume cheese curls and soda whilst flying can evade a Swarm Launcher provided that your fit isn't garbage.

It doesn't take skill to aim with an ADS either, as you aren't actually aiming the turret but rotating the ADS to align the reticule in a position where it will hit the target.

That in mind, the skill of operating an ADS is that of movement, not aim. Given how using a SL against a vehicle requires that you can strafe and evade their fire, it also requires movement skill as opposed to traditional aiming.

That aside, if you're killed by any Swarmer with a minor SP investment, you need to stop operating an ADS.\

edit: That's not to say however, that landing hits with an ADS doesn't require skill. However, the skill it requires is not actual aiming, but instead maneuvering.

Well, considering that an ADS is supposed to perform strafing runs, and also considering that strafes are entirely untenable at the moment...how else would you suggest engaging them? 'Hard' counter or not, nothing is this game can't fight its nemesis; except swarm launchers (ironically) though we know that they cannot engage infantry because show OP it was back in beta.

So, without the ability to do what we're supposed to do, how are we supposed to engage anything even vaguely aware of our presence?


Yep, back with 400m swarms, vehicles were utterly pointless.

By evade, I'm going to assume you mean escape (since actual evasion of swarm missiles is nigh impossible) which is still a pretty steep statement to make. At Op3 I can have all three volleys in the air by the time the first volley hits; the ease of application of swarms make flight mandatory the moment you come under fire.


Um..seriously? Simply moving in a dropship requires more skill than operating a swarm launcher at all. Every single touch of the sticks requires constant monitoring and in a fight the dropship requires moment stop moment readjustment simply to remain aloft.

The Swarmer...simply doesn't. The only facet of skill the Swarmer requires is knowing when to fire and the extremely ridiculous 'strafing herp-derp gun gamr' that plagues this game.

Let me ask you a question: does a Mass Driver, Flaylock or Plasma Cannon require skill to use? If so, the missile turret needs skill - less than any of those mentioned, due to high damage output, but still inordinately more than any Swarm Launcher.


Considering that the turret still has to deal with Y-axis aiming and that the X-axis is still more than simply 'manoeuvring' like you seem to make out, not to mention the anticipation of motion that requires you to learn your target.

The swarm has a lock on box that takes up about 75% of the screen and requires minimal adjustment, and only the most up-close and extreme dropship movements will cause any possible lock-on issues.


Atiim, your assertions that swarms require even vaguely as much skill as piloting, and shooting with, an ADS is frankly offensive.

They are currently forming 2 versions of the missile turrets one for av and the other of ai. av has high dmg and ai has high radius and short range. I av very often and get one shot by adds on a regular basis unless my swarms happen to stagger them. So any boob will be able to kill ai close to the ground or control the av on a map should they win the first battle.

It's all subjective mate. Using swarms to take down a competent vehicle user is damn near impossible but given I've seen Atiim in action I don't doubt he could.

However to be fair there isn't nearly as much skill in ADS or tank use as Vehicle pilots claim there is. It's all a matter of rolling up, shooting stuff, and running the **** away like a ***** when things seem to get too hot.

The fact that you find Atiim's assessment of skill offensive tells me everything I need to know.
Came hoping for reasonable posting.
Left disappointed.

Nothing useful here. Just ranting.
Assault forge still beats swarms for vehicle decimation. Will continue not skilling swarms

Would you mind describing some other "hard counters" as I was under the impression that there really wasn't such a thing. Or are dropships special?

Additionally, should I have "snuck" up on this swarmer. I find that approach rather laughable.


The fact of the matter is our lead DEV made a lot of changes at once that put the ADS at a disadvantageous position. When they swung the nerf bat, they knocked the ADS back to pre 1.6 levels. Continually they go in circles.

Also consider the swarms are fire and forget missiles, it takes no skill or aiming, just a minor SP investment to be "good" with them. I find that in itself foolish.

The change to swarms coupled with an AB nerf were probably enough to alleviate many of the problems. Instead they choose to severely nerf ADS dps as well, resulting in a laughable vehicle (AGAIN). Flying straight at him, haha. Yeah, aren't we supposed to make "strafe runs"? You do realize dropships are rather large targets in the sky right.

The fact that disagreement was had with Atiim's assessment was found isn't my problem.

I consider the assertion that atiim disagreement with your no skill assessment being somehow offensive to be arrogant in the extreme and contempt-worthy at best.

Keep making comments on that vein if you want to be a jackass and a troll, not if you want your opinion to be taken as more than akin to a five year old throwing a tantrum.

Getting buttmad and offended instead of actually posting with suggestions on how to repair a percieved problem is pretty much normally my signal to see just how mad you can get. Same for every other AV gunner posting on the forums.

It's not hard: be constructive, act like a grownup, get treated like you actually dress yourself in the morning. Act all buttmad and offended because someone disagrees with you and it's basically holding up the neon sign reading TROLLS COME TO ME.

Man up and do the legwork like the rest of us. Perhaps you too can achieve the power of posting constructively and trolling with a single statement.

( as I'm running out of words)

Next time reserve a second post for editing later.

I am not saying I entirely agree with you, but I do like to see a well thought out and well-articulated argument.

I also like your AI tank idea. Just allow Tankers to fit small turrets in Large Turret slots.

Dropships are relics. It was a cool idea that has never been implemented to the Concept that CCP sold us on them in Fanfest.

The average Dropship user of today uses them for two purposes.
1) A Glorified Fighter jet
2) Means to get to an elevated position.


That is it.

This is why dropships have and will always be a massive Pendulum of Nerf/Buff.

The DUST Community has to figure out what Dropships are even for in DUST. Because roaming single pilot slayers makes no sense to the overall game and hurts it.

The Main vehicle used for troop transport in the Everyday DUST is an LAV..... This is a massive problem seeing how it has only 3 seats and a squad is composed of 6.

Spawning in the redline after all your points get wiped when your team has 2-3 dropships in the air? Even running out of the redline when you could be carrying a load of troops to assault an objective?


Dropships could facilitate fights and constant action for the entire battlefield...


Instead? Dropships kill every suit in the game in 2-3 shots.. And are wet paper bags for defense and have to run away when someone breathes on them.

Creating next to no competition between AV'ers and Dropships.

Instead of a dropship that can competitively return fire and defend itself with turrets while dropping off a load of troops at a height that doesn't require an inertia dampener activation.. Gets paid 50 war points each mercenary for transporting them safety over 200-300m, Mobile CRU to keep an active spawn place out of the redline, helping to perpetuate action and competition.


Dropships and how they work is like a giant joke played on the DUST community, and a monument to CCP Shanghai's Lazyness to fix obvious in your face problems that have existed for years.

Next time reserve a second post for editing later.

I am not saying I entirely agree with you, but I do like to see a well thought out and well-articulated argument.

I also like your AI tank idea. Just allow Tankers to fit small turrets in Large Turret slots.

This is why I go play War Thunder instead of getting in my ADS most of the time that I want to fly. Unfortunately I lack ideas for how to fix this problem. This is more relevant than it may first appear, as I usually use assault/attacker planes in War Thunder so in both cases I am firing on ground targets.

No matter what turret you use, strafe runs are (sadly) impractical. I tried this with blaster turret, and I'm fairly certain that once some FGs spawned in they were either laughing at the thought process that made me think this could be effective at all, or swearing profusely as they could only hit me twice (both times with my hardner on) before I ran safely out of range. One bad maneuver and the addition of a red ADV swarmer was enough to stop this awful performance.

I probably hit them twice as many times as they hit me, sadly this was with a turret that does about 39 damage per hit and probably didn't even do full damage due to distance from which it hit them, I don't use missile turrets out of simple refusal to do so and rail turret strafing is just a ridiculous idea to begin with. I wish strafe runs were viable, but they simply aren't.

Oh, and a side point, blaster turrets still suck on the nose of an ADS, you might as well land on someone instead of shoot them with a blaster since it will be much more effective.

wat. you can strafe an ads

*Remote Explosives are hard counters to Sentinel & Logistics combos
*Combat Rifles are hard counters to Armored Frames
*Scrambler Rifles are hard counters to Shielded Frames'
*Sniper Rifles are hard counters against players in open fields or on certain towers.
*20GJ Incubi are (well, were at least) hard counters against Pythons
*Well positioned Assaults and Commandos are hard counters to Sentinels
*Assaults on level terrain are hard counters against Commandos

Do I need to list any more examples of "hard counters" or is this enough?

Well your first problem, is that for some strange reason you decided that it would be a good idea to engage an AVer who's clearly prepared to engage you.

Your second problem is that upon the engagement, you thought it would be a good idea to stay there and eat an entire mag from a Swarm Launcher as opposed to escaping sooner, which you had plenty of time to do since 3 rounds impacting takes at least 4s.

The Afterburner change wasn't made because of Swarm Launchers, it was made because the super low cooldown meant that any ADS could escape virtually all engagements without risk 24/7, thus creating an imbalance between HAV/FG vs. ADS engagements.

It doesn't take skill to aim with an ADS either, as you aren't actually aiming the turret but rotating the ADS to align the reticule in a position where it will hit the target.

That in mind, the skill of operating an ADS is that of movement, not aim. Given how using a SL against a vehicle requires that you can strafe and evade their fire, it also requires movement skill as opposed to traditional aiming.

That aside, if you're killed by any Swarmer with a minor SP investment, you need to stop operating an ADS.\

edit: That's not to say however, that landing hits with an ADS doesn't require skill. However, the skill it requires is not actual aiming, but instead maneuvering.

This is why I go play War Thunder instead of getting in my ADS most of the time that I want to fly. Unfortunately I lack ideas for how to fix this problem. The first statement is more relevant than it may first appear, as I usually use assault/attacker planes in War Thunder so in both cases I am firing on ground targets.

No matter what turret you use, strafe runs are (sadly) impractical. I tried this with blaster turret, and I'm fairly certain that once some FGs spawned in they were either laughing at the thought process that made me think this could be effective at all, or swearing profusely as they could only hit me twice (both times with my hardner on) before I ran safely out of range. One bad maneuver and the addition of a red ADV swarmer was enough to stop this awful performance.

I probably hit them twice as many times as they hit me, sadly this was with a turret that does about 39 damage per hit and probably didn't even do full damage due to distance from which it hit them, I don't use missile turrets out of simple refusal to do so and rail turret strafing is just a ridiculous idea to begin with. I wish strafe runs were viable, but they simply aren't.

Oh, and a side point, blaster turrets still suck on the nose of an ADS, you might as well land on someone instead of shoot them with a blaster since it will be much more effective.

I think Judge's fallacy

"The arguer claims that they can always recognize when something is present. This is likely a fallacy because the arguer is not aware of all of the times that he/she did not recognize it."

I so overly potent in this thread...... especially so between vehicle and AV users its not even funny.