Hilariously gloriously hilarious.



Good thing the Gal Assault bonus doesn't apply to Shotguns.

Dear Swarmer, please pay 2-10x the cost of your suit (tier/BPO usage dependant) for a single ADS; please require significant effort to even move around while paying attention to any and everything you possibly can because there might be someone not rendering ready to fire at you; please have to deal with your opponent literally tossing you around and moving your screen to throw off your aim; please have to actually aim instead of having a box that takes up half your screen do all of the work for you; please try to hit an opponent that is minuscule on your screen that is also jumping up and down.

There are a multitude of issues on both sides of the argument, don't make out as if ADS pilots want an easy ride: we want a fair ride.

I've stated my personal position before: I'd be happy being readily destructible if my ship didn't cost 2xx or more that of a fully fit PRO dropsuit; I'd be happy to fight against Swarms that required even a small amount of aiming (I've linked to [b]Juno's thread[b] dozens of times to show the sort of mechanic I strongly believe in); or if the ADS could actually evade Swarms with enough skill.

ADSs have an incredibly steep challenge against even a single AV player, for which they have barely any tools to use beside the inherent benefits of being able to fly and being a vehicle: there is nor real indication of the direction from which you are under attack; identification of enemies is hindered greatly by bad rendering; pilots are barely awarded any WP from actions other than killing (only kills and vehicle kill assists give meaningful WP; mCRU spawns do but are plagued by glitches) which makes their intended role barely operated and - due to the throw-away nature of MLT gear, and the tiny size of the maps - barely wanted by anyone. Dropship pilots tend to (there are some unreasonable folks, as ever) want to be relevant. The main reason so many vehemently opposed people like Soraya is that usually those people are too heavy handed, or simply not as reasonable as they present themselves to be.

Neither ADS pilots nor Swarmers are inherently wrong, only when the person doesn't understand the other's issues do we have problems in communicating.

ADSs being OP is entirely debatable. What constitutes being OP? KDR? ISK destroyed per death?

That's a legitimate question I'm asking: what makes the ADS specifically OP? Because if it's something measurable then surely Rattati wouldn't be making changes to ease the life of the ADS such as the proposed FoxFour changes, right?

I don't always fly, in fact I often ground pound. I mostly use my PLC and that can scare away ADSs fine for the most part (it's hard to hit them, but one solid hit and they're usually running) whereas my ADV Swarms on a STD suit costs minimal ISK and can put the hurt on any but the most hardened ADS. And that's kinda the thing: anecdotally, a single Wiyrkomi can seriously frighten even my double hardened Pythons - that Wiyrkomi does not need to be mounted on a fully PRO fit MinCom (orsoon to be CalCom) it can be on a STD MinCom and run to about 60k ISK with PRO damage mods while providing top-tier firepower and being plenty able to defend itself against infantry.

Is that OP? I don't think so, but I do feel that vehicles need a serious overhaul more than Hotfix tweaks to really get a proper balance going. While they cost an arm and a leg to operate they need to have that much of an impact on the battlefield, or else they aren't worth operating - surely it'd be better to make them less expensive and less effective simultaneously, thereby making them more interesting to actually see on the field. Well, in my opinion that's the case.

As for the cost,a fully fit ADS will cost around 300-400k; a fully fit PRO dropsuit will cost 120-200ish, depending on the suit. But as I also mentioned above, an AV suit doesn't need to be PRO to take on an ADS. A STD MinCom with Combat Rifle (or CalCom with ARR after FoxFour) and a Wiyrkomi will cost roughly 40-60k, depending on how it's fit/what tiers are used for the modules, etc. That's not dirt cheap but it's significantly less expensive than an ADS and threatens it to nearly the same degree as a fully PRO suit does,only sacrificing a small amount of damage by not stacking up as many damage mods as possible. Whereas on the flip side,the minimum cost of an ADSis roughly 250k with just STD mods and a single turret.

Again, not entirely unreasonable, but then there's a large disparity with the power/cost ratio of the two.

But yeah it's not all bad for the ADS, but the situation is overall not good and is definitely not a healthy balance. I just find that Soraya is unnecessarily militant about V/AV changes, and others like the one I was responding to earlier seem to feel that most ADS pilots want a free ride, which isn't the case.

The problem is, it was ALL OF THE ABOVE before the nerf. ADS was incredibly ISK efficient. I'm willing to bet it still is, but the only way we'll know is if Rattati decides to share the numbers.



It's hard to not think pilots just want a free ride when Judge thought a KDR of 50 was "about right", and most of the dropship pilots in the community SUPPORTED HIM! And from what I've seen, the ADS is the most overpowered class in the entire game, and not enough has been done. So when people are pushing buffs for the ADS, I do feel that that is rightly insane.

But I'm not even all that picky. I am okay with the turning radius change. That's fine, I'm glad there's actual gameplay potential in evading swarms. I'm okay with, as I mentioned, even drastically lowering the distance swarms chase you. From 400m down to less than 300m, so that if you're running from swarms, you can reasonably do so. But the lock-on range is pitifully low, I have to spend a minute just trying to find a spot where I can actually lock a dropship, but it moves two seconds later, and then I can't do jack again, much less fire a second volley if I got one off at all, the proposed will now bring it to HALF the range of the forge gun, and the forge gun was, to begin with, a far superior weapon.

I don't even understand why dropship pilots are so unreasonably militant about swarms, and unwilling to recognize that the only time they get killed by swarms, is when they were getting forge gunned at the same time. The arguments around swarms are complete nonsense, and I feel that yeah, dropships are just trying to prevent another viable aerial AV method from existing.

Which is funny, because he said "was". "ADS was incredibly ISK efficient."

Then goes on to say they still might be, but isn't sure.

Train reading comprehension V asap.

AV doesn't want it to be "best in class" we want it to "not be absolute dribbleshit". The lock on range reduction on the table is pushing the swarm launchers into that category.

I honestly think lock on should be removed from swarm launcher; or (a second less disirable option) added to large/small missile turrets. They are supposed to be the same weapon tech, & this was the original idea from what i understand. although i think removing lock on from this game is a far better idea. I also would like to see emplacement turrets treat infantry and vehicles equil. If infantry have to shoot them for the ai to attack back, same should be for vehicles. there is not alot of equality between vehicles and dropsuits, if they are to be equil, let them cost the same & let us deploy in them without a dropsuit, we can't escape death & our losses are on equil ground with dropsuits.

Massive vehicle nerfs, no corresponding buff in lethality, and no creation of a distinct role for tankers.

Kind of meh.

Like the AV changes, forge should have been the best AV forever, but without a clear role for tanks(transport, scanning, or even as a functioning in PC/FW cru) it just means driving around outside large sockets.

Going to have to record what will surely be ridiculous deaths when infantry come up on masse and beat a tank to death. Jumping plc's were already ridiculous, this next patch should finally kill off vehicles for any competitive use.

No, but def not enough.

Recharge is just a small part of the issue. Like, have you ever tried fitting a reg to a gunnie? What happens when you do so? And is it worth it over what you lose.

This buff will have nearly no noticeable affect on their performance.

I'll have to disagree there. Recharge is NOT the biggest issue, the biggest issue are the massive CPU/PG differences between armor and shields mods as well as the utility over defense.

The new recharge rates are helpful but don't point to the root of the problem. At full health using extenders with hardeners, assuming lets say a value of 4400 on health, it will still take 20 - 24 seconds to fully recover shield damage. Where a maddie will be recovering at a constant rate as you struggle to break fire.

In a straight fight, a maddie will still have the clear cut advantage. I mean just assume a maddie fit dual hards, plate, rep, heatsink, damage mod, nitro. That's fit for FULL tank AND damage augmentation / speed.

Conversely, look at your shield fit. If you want to fit for a full defense, 2 hards, 2 extenders at the very least are required. That leaves just one slot in your highs for an offense related utility mod. But then you need to fit a PG/CPU mod to your lows to make it happen because hardeners are quite intensive on PG/CPU (not to mention extenders).

To even say that right now recharge is the biggest issue right now just seems so ridiculous to me when you could just compare fits and see the obvious. Armor has no need to sacrifice any slots, yet a gunnie MUST to even compare to a poorly fit maddie.


And as far as HAV's usefulness on the field, nope. Yes, I'll admit there are some situations where they could shine. 5 point bridge map for one. But maps like 2 in 2 out cargo, or 3 in 2 out research, tanks are just useless. Home point defense at best if you can even shoot the console, many sockets you can't.

They are good at shooting dropships down, but generally a FG fills this niche better, as they can sit in the middle of the map, elevated. Even swarms work better with their tracking many times, as leading a dropship isn't exactly the easiest thing to do.

Transport, that's what a dropships is for.

Sure in pubs it does seem like the HAV is this unstoppable murder machine winning the match. But then I go run infantry and play to the points mostly ignoring the tank on the field because unless its a blaster, it won't be doing much. Even if it's a blaster, mobility around points can be extremely limited so it's not much an issue ducking behind cover or moving around another area.

It's usually an issue of silly blue dots that think they need to kill this tank doing absolutely nothing for their team, leaving the points undefended in the process or running into the maws of the enemy.

And if all else fails, AV grenades. Oh wait, all explosives do full damage to tanks (more to armor), cores it is! Maybe throw in some mass driver rounds and drive that tank off and never once worry about breaking my infantry slaying capabilities with AV nades that can't damage infantry or swarms that can't shoot at infantry.

Be my guest though, I hope you enjoy those plasma cannon rounds to the fuel cell that basically strip all of your shields in a single round with both hardeners up! It should be quite interesting for those unprepared for the pain!

This is hilarious and a terrible point. :/ You can't aim swarms, so "weak spots" are irrelevant for them.

You're buffing forges (which are already the only viable anti-dropship weapon, and the best at killing tanks) via this weak spot, and also thrice-over nerfing the swarms, which were already basically useless.