I think most pilots would agree that it isn't necessarily the damage that is irritating, it's that Swarms will always hit, always push you away because of the combination of impulse effects, good damage and difficulties identifying the enemy combined make fighting against Swarms an exhibition in futility. Simply, a Swarm will hit you twice, near guaranteed, and unless they're right in your sights from the beginning you'll rarely be able to identify them before you're forced to retreat - there's no interplay, no ability to evade no way to fight a Swarm: you run, you immediately kill them with no delay or you die.

Frankly, if they became dumb-fired with AV grenade-style hom+«ng, it would be both more interesting for both parties, and more reasonable to buff them somewhat.

Want to share your magic techniques? Without the use of AV grenades a solo AV will pretty much never take down a half awake Maddy, let alone a decent operator.

Forge Guns are pretty much incapable of soloing Maddies at all; PLCs not even slightly; Swarms, maybe if you chase them down with Lai Dai Packed, but far from easy/guaranteed; Proxy Mines are so easily avoided it's ridiculous; Packed REs are incredibly hard to apply to a half decent operator; and AV grenades are good for short range burst damage, but they're only good at spitting distance.

So while it is potentially possible to kill Madrugars, it is far from likely for any given AVer and will likely take 2-3 to have a chance. Then consider that due to some broken mechanic you rarely actually get WP for damaging them, and AV isn't properly rewarded for trying to deal with them.

Is it possible to deal with Madrugars? Yes. Are they killing everything ever? No.
But when they don't have a reasonable chance of death against 2+ AVers, something is wrong. This is pretty much identical to 1.7, and ADSs then too. ADSs right now are at least balanced with FGs, even Swarms as far as actual damage output is concerned - it's the Swarm's application that skews the balance way in their favour.


I don't quite understand your first point, but the second is almost right:

Dropships vs FGs are pretty damn spot on for balance. A good FGer will knock a DS out of the sky in two-four shots (depending on fit and FG) and the DS can actually fight back. The interplay between them makes it possible for either side to win, and if the DS - with its far greater manoeuvrability - disengages then the FGer at least gets rewarded some.

DS vs PLC is....dodgy, because it's pretty damn hard to hit with a PLC. Damage wise it's good, but application is hard because of speed of projectile and the curve. Heavily in favour of any vehicle.

DS vs Swarms: damage wise it is pretty close to fine. The Swarmed does heavy damage in a short time frame, but the DS can often take just enough to survive and flee (or, if reckless, try and find the bugger) - the issue lies with the target acquisition of the Swarmer. It's simply too easy to land Swarm hits, and far too effective for how easy it is.

I think most pilots would agree that it isn't necessarily the damage that is irritating, it's that Swarms will always hit, always push you away because of the combination of impulse effects, good damage and difficulties identifying the enemy combined make fighting against Swarms an exhibition in futility. Simply, a Swarm will hit you twice, near guaranteed, and unless they're right in your sights from the beginning you'll rarely be able to identify them before you're forced to retreat - there's no interplay, no ability to evade no way to fight a Swarm: you run, you immediately kill them with no delay or you die.

Frankly, if they became dumb-fired with AV grenade-style hom+«ng, it would be both more interesting for both parties, and more reasonable to buff them somewhat.

Here is a clue for all you guys QQing about swarms....

This is not a vehicle combat game. SURPRISE!!!!!

The vehicles augment the game, but are not the core. Swarms are fine. The rise of ADS in the last few weeks show that. In truth you can almost never actually kill one with swarms unless the pilot is awful. Now if two guys or more are trying than yeah you might get shot down, but WTF happens when two or more guys do the same thing to a guy on the ground??? They shut him down. The game is not about safe ways to pad K/D while you fire from a position that the other team can't counter play. Your light weapon is your man weapon not your DS. They are a great addition to field, but they are not made to be what you do the entire game. You use them then recall them once the AV shows up. You don't get to fly around and go 10+/0 because you feel like you should . So adapt your thinking. Its not a Vehicle game and individuals should be able to compete with vehicles after a respawn not simply have to die repeatedly of avoid an area entirely because of one.

Eh I don't know what your smoking but swarms do not always hit. You can very easily out run them if your already moving in a DS when they are fired. It also only takes a half decent pilot to go behind a hill, building or even just another person to have the missiles explode prematurely. Added to that the complete lack of anti infantry ability on swarms with the huge kill me please visual missile trail makes swarms a pretty suicidal and largely ineffective type of AV. If your not running a commando for the reload bonus you pretty much have no chance at taking down any kind of DS with swarms before they run away and every time you fire the entire enemy team pretty much knows exactly where you are and the fact your an easy kill because your using a AV suit.

Eh I don't know what your smoking but swarms do not always hit. You can very easily out run them if your already moving in a DS when they are fired. It also only takes a half decent pilot to go behind a hill, building or even just another person to have the missiles explode prematurely. Added to that the complete lack of anti infantry ability on swarms with the huge kill me please visual missile trail makes swarms a pretty suicidal and largely ineffective type of AV. If your not running a commando for the reload bonus you pretty much have no chance at taking down any kind of DS with swarms before they run away and every time you fire the entire enemy team pretty much knows exactly where you are and the fact your an easy kill because your using a AV suit.

Honestly a wall of text to say something inane, like a Swarm launcher always hits....

Not even close. Everything on cluttered maps stop them and a [bADS flies faster away than they seek it.[/b]

The purpose of the Swarms is to keep Vehicles from dominating he battlefield.

This is a ground combat game and is centered on that.

Vehicles augment that strategy. Swarms/AVG are the only thing that keeps the game from devolving into that.

To be honest, I know a lot of guys like padding their K/D with ADS, but they were not meant to kill or suppress an entire area. They are transport units capable of knocking guys off high ground. Right now on most large maps they can camp an open area and unless you get out the av your team can't cross it. Light weapons don't damage them so AV is really the only answer...so it should ******* kill them. Not like the average suit guy can.

And who are you to decide what the game is and isn't? And what people should and shouldn't specialise in?

No one in here is saying any of the things you assert, asking for and about balance doesn't automatically mean people want unkillable sky tanks, but hey I shouldn't expect much from a guy that has clearly never heard of a paragraph.

When you decided to buff swarm launchers CCP, did you ever consider the FUADS effect?

The rule seems to be that every person an ADS kills has a 33% chance of butthurt and will respawn with an AV weapon, depending on lack of skills this more often than not is likely to be a swarm launcher. How did you expect the Air game would work out considering that before doing that, AV weapons were more than capable of dealing with dropships?

Honestly a wall of text to say something inane, like a Swarm launcher always hits....

Not even close. Everything on cluttered maps stop them and a [bADS flies faster away than they seek it.[/b]

The purpose of the Swarms is to keep Vehicles from dominating he battlefield.

This is a ground combat game and is centered on that.

Vehicles augment that strategy. Swarms/AVG are the only thing that keeps the game from devolving into that.

To be honest, I know a lot of guys like padding their K/D with ADS, but they were not meant to kill or suppress an entire area. They are transport units capable of knocking guys off high ground. Right now on most large maps they can camp an open area and unless you get out the av your team can't cross it. Light weapons don't damage them so AV is really the only answer...so it should ******* kill them. Not like the average suit guy can.

Don't call down an ADS if you don't want me to spawn AV. It's a simple fact of the game.

Plus, running an AV suit leaves you pretty handicapped against infantry (especially with swarms), so there is a tradeoff. The point of the game isn't to have a perfect balance in 1v1 situations. It's to have balance in team capabilities. That's why there's now a cap on vehicles on the field, so the whole team can't run a vehicle fleet. But those that run vehicles have to watch out for those speced into AV.

So quit QQ'ing over swarms and out run the things, or have squad mates hunt the swarms down for you.

Exactly. The crying for unkillable skytanks is real of late. I can tell some guys have ran out of stuff to skill into and are looking for new ways to enjoy the game or something.

The focus of the game is to be tactical shooter, and flying around with no risk of counterplay seems like an idiotic request. Sadly, it's posted about once a day on here.

Exactly. The crying for unkillable skytanks is real of late. I can tell some guys have ran out of stuff to skill into and are looking for new ways to enjoy the game or something.

The focus of the game is to be tactical shooter, and flying around with no risk of counterplay seems like an idiotic request. Sadly, it's posted about once a day on here.

I can contrive situations as well if you like where the swarms always miss. The reality is I see maybe 1/5 DS actually get shot down.

The problem with dear.s has always been the lack of a dedicated anti-air variant. We need to have one that does a lot of damage for killing tanks but with slow missiles to make it hard to kill dropships, and one with fast maneuverable missiles that can easily catch dropships but do less damage per swarm.

People like to carry on like an ADS getting 30+ kills back in the day was some kind of crime against humanity, but seem to overlook the many matches where a guy with a rifle does the same kinda killing, the only difference is "wah my AR can't kill a dropship in under 1 second"

perhaps with your follow up post you'll tell me to get some ground game like some rail tanker i repeatedly chased into the redline yesterday.

In the rock paper scissors game dropships appear to be the forgotten 4th move, with some fairly minor changes a bit of balance could be restored without throwing everything else out of whack, for example giving them a higher resistance to swarms, vs forge and plasma cannons the balance is fine, but swarms especially high level suit enhanced ones are just far too much of an I win button.

*sigh* I hate arguing with Swarm apologists...

Thing is, AV gets rewarded for causing damage - causing vehicles (that aren't Madrugars) to retreat - where vehicles do not, they only get WP for actual kills. The point of that is that AV doesn't need to kill to be worthwhile.

AVers can kill vehicles, and AVers do kill vehicles. That doesn't mean that they should render a vehicle useless without effort.

And again, I'm not arguing for a flying tank, I want a DS that is relevant in a fight. I'm fine with dropships being eminently killable, but at the same time paying 350k+ ISK per ship is extortionate. The issue is that ADSs are not worth 350k+ per ship: either they should come down in price to match their capabilities, or be increased in capabilities to match their cost.

Give me a flimsy as **** ship that I can lose twelve in a battle and still make a small profit - exactly like a Dropsuit can. I'm fine dying a lot,I just want to enjoy my role.

Got to agree with the cost issue. They are way too costly. Again though, I don't see a lot of them shot down playing their support role. I see them dying while trying to be flying tanks not DROP ships. Swarms keep them from being a flying tank. That is a good thing not bad. Good pilots can still be super relevant in a game they just need to realize they are not going to be 30/0 with no risk.

*sigh* I hate arguing with Swarm apologists...

Thing is, AV gets rewarded for causing damage - causing vehicles (that aren't Madrugars) to retreat - where vehicles do not, they only get WP for actual kills. The point of that is that AV doesn't need to kill to be worthwhile.

AVers can kill vehicles, and AVers do kill vehicles. That doesn't mean that they should render a vehicle useless without effort.

And again, I'm not arguing for a flying tank, I want a DS that is relevant in a fight. I'm fine with dropships being eminently killable, but at the same time paying 350k+ ISK per ship is extortionate. The issue is that ADSs are not worth 350k+ per ship: either they should come down in price to match their capabilities, or be increased in capabilities to match their cost.

Give me a flimsy as **** ship that I can lose twelve in a battle and still make a small profit - exactly like a Dropsuit can. I'm fine dying a lot,I just want to enjoy my role.

Right now the only effective (and in truth its marginal) way to do that is swarms.