All i hear is "don't nerf me bro": a gunship's thread

[Osoygatitalove]

I might be the first player on my server to fully master a scout early this week, had all defensive talents/companions increasing my damage reduction by 29% and my shield regeneration, 3 days after GSF launched.

 

Have been able to dogfight for almost entire games with red hull on me (just holding with my shield power /shield regen).

 

And yes, i believe i'm one of the best dogfighters on my server, i had a lot of experience in beta for one and currently, with 180 games played i have 220MVPS and 130 MVPS solely for higher damage.

 

So please, save your "learn to play" comments because, clearly, i'm not a newbie.

 

So how is it possible that gunships take me down with 1 shot? sometimes i even get killed through walls (i'm not gonna go deep into this but yes, gunships can wallshot you sometimes , game is glitchy)

 

In beta, gunships we're doing pretty much the same they do now, and Bioware nerfed them (next week introduced bombers). Gunships end up doing half the damage they do now, wich i think was way more balanced, but currently a fully weapon upgraded gunship can take down any scout if it crits, or get your hull red 1 shot, no matter if you have the best scout in game, you are screwed.

 

 

The only argument i hear from those who defend the current state of gunships is "GSF just launched" or "its a matter of tactics"/"L2P" but none of them say a word when we ask if they think playing as a gunship and getting to the top damage/kills is actually too easy.

We all know it is/ ergo, needs a nerf.

 

Edit: Didn't want to brag about anything, just avoiding "l2p" arguments.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Osoygatitalove

[Slivovidze]

We are scouts, we sacrificed our survivability for agility. Unless that fully upgraded gunship camps you and only you for the whole time, you will easily get him when he is busy shooting others.

 

I got oneshot killed once in the whole time, and I play a lot (scout only), and my NovaDive is nowhere near to being mastered. I don't know what's the big deal. I can be anywhere on the battlefield in matter of seconds, with a trade off being that a skilled and mastered gunship pilot with the right setup can instakill me. I accept that.

 

Of course I will welcome any nerf made on gunships because I hate them wholeheartedly and anything that makes them even easier to kill will be pure awesomeness, but I think that I can mow them down somehow fine now, so no real need for anything.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Slivovidze

[willfarlow]

In beta, gunships we're doing pretty much the same they do now, and Bioware nerfed them (next week introduced bombers). Gunships end up doing half the damage they do now, wich i think was way more balanced, but currently a fully weapon upgraded gunship can take down any scout if it crits, or get your hull red 1 shot, no matter if you have the best scout in game, you are screwed.

 

 

The only argument i hear from those who defend the current state of gunships is "GSF just launched" or "its a matter of tactics"/"L2P" but none of them say a word when we ask if they think playing as a gunship and getting to the top damage/kills is actually too easy.

 

We all know it is/ ergo, needs a nerf.

 

THIS.

Heck, even just reduce the range on the damn railgun from 15k to 10k, that would make enough of a difference.

[Sangrar]

Heck, even just reduce the range on the damn railgun from 15k to 10k, that would make enough of a difference.

 

No, reducing range would ruin it completely, as it is there are strike fighters with 10k missle range already. The gunships was designed as damage from a distance. You mess with damage or distance, or both, and you end up with a useless rock in space. As for the OP, I have responded several times to the supposedly "easy play" of the gunship. When aiming at a target at close to maximum range, that is erratically moving and at any time can boost away at several hundred meters per second, you tell me if that is easy. Even if it is sitting still at close to maximum range but has evasion armor, and not even showing a good target reticle, it is like trying to hit a very small target that can still evade a shot you do get across. Also, when you fire, the energy buildup in the railgun makes me visible, dampening sensors or not, to all the scouts, my natural enemy. From there are they have to do is rush me and I am dead. Stop asking for nerfs, this is what happened to the ground pvp, back at 1.0 they thought there was an "imbalance" and after a series of ill advised nerfs and buffs, look at what happened NOW. I would like to see someone who plays ground pvp today who would say that the 1.0 balance is even close to being bad as it is now. You can nerf crits and shields that is fine, but don't screw around with the main purpose of the ship, otherwise you will ruin the ship altogether, make a bunch of people angry, and make us the laughing stock of the fleet (don't believe me, remember assault vanguards? how they were great for pvp but nerfed so much that for a long time everyone laughed at their **** dps afterwards, making everyone of the either respec or quit, a nerf is to bring BALANCE, not to ruin a class, or in this case, ship just to make life easier.) Anyway, scouts don't have as good survivability that's their tradeoff for speed and agility, just as a gunships tradeoff is mobility and survivability in exchange for damage and range. And to whoever thinks that a gunship can outrun a scout or even a strike, then that person really needs to L2P ( this last part is kind of aimed at a guy who literally said a gunship can outrun a scout, that moron). Anyway, nerfing range and damage is NOT a good idea. Nerf crits, nerf maybe our armor a little, or nerf dampening I don't give a **** about those, what I care about is you people repeating the SAME MISTAKES that happened with the ground pvp, how they yelled for nerfs and buffs to bring "balance" but only made it WORSE.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Sangrar

[Luckyluzi]

at first scouts are hard to hit for gunships if you actualy play like a scout should play... hit and run, if you play like a strike you will die fast

 

if you want to survive a critical hit from a gunship build your ship around this , use the directional shield with a large reactor on the flashfire/sting(1820 shield pool, >3000 if energy switch to front) or the engine power converter shield on the nova dive with the 25% shieldpool increase upgrade (1755 shield pool), a non crit cannot oneshot even the default scouts

 

armor reduction is useless against gunships and many weapons from other ships , slug railgun have 100% armorpen, use evasion its better for every scout build

 

i only fly as scout or strike, i hate gunships because they are boring as **** but i have no problems dealing with them, its always who spots who first

[Sportiva]

To the OP, it really doesn't matter how good you are at your Scout to support your opinion. It would have more credence if you had a lot of experience with all 3 ships.

 

My main ship is a maxed Flashfire. The only thing that can kill me 1v1 is a GS that I can't find (a key qualification). If I find the GS it has no chance against me. For enemy scouts & strike fighters the outcome depends on the circumstances; usually a victory or stalemate. Now I'm not necessarily that good, but I understand the role of my ship.

 

When I'm in my GS (which is about 50% upgraded) I rack up a lot of kills but I also die a lot. The way I play my GS is I usually fire 2 maybe 3 rail shots max then I hightail it to a new position. Against a well coordinated enemy I am relegated to trading one kill for one death. Against very good opponents I've had to trade one turret kill for a death in order to scrape out any medals.

 

People really need to stop worrying about kill counts and start figuring out their ships role in helping to win the match.

[willfarlow]

People really need to stop worrying about kill counts and start figuring out their ships role in helping to win the match.

 

As much as i hate Gunships, and I do, I have to agree with this. ^^

[Verain]

Two issues here:

 

1)- Should a noncrit shield and armor piercing fully upgraded slug be able to one shot a fully upgraded scout? If the answer is yes, we're ok. If it's no, then we need to talk about the gunship upgrades. Unlike a normal ship, whose upgrades could or could not make the difference, the gunship only cares about 1,2,3,4 shots needed. And 1 is probably not reasonable from full health and hull. This could be changed in several ways, but all gunships will consider it a nerf. The question is really one for the devs: is all that stuff supposed to happen?

 

2)- It's a little bit an L2P issue, but mostly I think it's a UI one. A scout at 14k who is aware of a gunship won't get hit by him, and has the juice to go kill him. You could maybe find some better sensors, or have teammates who help more. But often the gunship is drawn, onscreen, and just in a section of the map you haven't turned to. You could have used freelook to find him, but there's a full sphere of directions and he needs like 7 seconds to get in position and get a shot off- I feel that's kind of unreasonable to ask for that level of sitaware. The ships glow like tiny suns- wouldn't your sensors, if he is detected, be like "railgun charge detected"? Or if we had radar screens like Tie Fighter / X-Wing franchise, you'd SEE the dot appear if he's in range.

 

 

 

Gunships border on worthless, but then they railgun down someone from 14km away and prove their value. I'm not sure if the OP is really built to survive a railgun hit (I think that's max health, not damage reduction), but I'm also kind of suspecting that NO build lets a scout live versus a fully upgraded slug railgun.

 

 

I mean, as a gunship, your choices are slug railgun, which is raw damage and the talents mostly help it ignore shields and armor, ion railgun, which seems like a lot of overkill until we actually have something with serious shields that need that kind of attention, and plasma, which leaves a powerful dot and *should* be the most powerful when the dot goes full duration, but probably isn't. The one shots only happen during the use of an offensive cooldown, such as the ALSO likely overpowered "bypass" crew member ability.

 

So you have a lot of knobs to tweak. I think bypass needs the nerf, because it seems to be used by everyone regardless of ship or strat.

[Slivovidze]

"railgun charge detected"

 

This, sir, is actually an excellent idea, if you ask me. Either make it scout only or all ships wide, either make it default or an upgrade for something like sensors, make it a beep sound similar to missile lock or make it quiet, maybe make the red triangle representing the gunship on the radar we have pulse purple or something, make it range limited (like 10, 12, 13k so the gunship is actually safer at its peak range), but this thingy sounds pretty reasonable to me.

[Verain]

In the current meta, if anything it should be strike-fighter only but be communicable. Scouts are generally too good as it is (they tend to be able to ignore a strike fighter's missiles, and seem to bring enough firepower cooldown that a strike fighter gets ownfaced), though this could be because of the lack of bombers and infiltrators (infiltrators will be pretty ludicrously good against gunships).

 

But I don't think it should be restricted by ship at all.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

I guess it depends on the scout too, if you've got power to shields, full health etc. maybe getting 1 shotted is bad. But if power is to other systems it doesn't seem that big a deal, you lowered your defense gambling you wouldn't fall in the sights of a gunship. IMO the whole "I get shot down too easy by gunships" is because scouts can play sloppy against starfighters using regular blasters because of evasion RNG dodges. Such sloppiness means they become easier pickings for gunships than they should be.

 

From what I've seen scouts seem to rely more on their evasion RNG dodges more so than their personal ability to dodge manually and as a result fly in straight lines WAY more than they should with that type of craft. (Heck when I play my scout I do this because I know evasion RNG dodges will make up for any sloppy flying on my part, barring serious pilot error/stupidity). I'd guess that if evasion buffing abilities and components were removed and replaced with alternate things (buffs to turn rate, speed etc.), forcing them to take evasive action manually, gunships would be less of a problem except for those pilots who keep flying in straight lines for more than 1-2 seconds regularly.

 

Heck in my striker since I don't have evasion RNG dodges to help me out (the stat is so low to be inconsequential) I rarely fly in a straight line except going from A to B. almost every time I get shot by a gunship is when I'm flying in a straight line for more than 1-2 seconds. Outside of that I almost never get shot by them because (I assume) I'm flying too erratically to be an easy target so gunships focus on the guys happily flying in a straight line and just asking to be shot.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Gavin_Kelvar

[paowee]

So how is it possible that gunships take me down with 1 shot?

Because of Bypass Copilot ability: ~35% chance to pierce shields. Coupled with Slug Railgun's ~20% shield piercing upgrade. It's like an i-win button for 15 seconds every minute.

Edited December 15, 2013 by paowee

[Verain]

Because of Bypass Copilot ability: ~35% chance to pierce shields. Coupled with Slug Railgun's ~20% shield piercing upgrade. It's like an i-win button for 15 seconds every minute.

 

Don't forget slug railgun's 100% armor pierce upgrade.

 

The bypass copilot ability needs a nerf because it is damaging the whole game. Everyone else is like "I make you 20% more accurate versus some specific guy within 5000m". Bypass is "START THE BENNY HILL MUSIC"

[Necriol]

People complaining about '1-shotting' scouts obviously have never played gunship. Maybe the 1 shot that actually rolls as a hit kills you, but it could be the 3rd or 4th shot that the gunship has 'hit' you with. Of course this is the internet, so understanding how game mechanics work before complaining would just be absurd.

 

Not to mention that all of the ships can, when properly outfitted, kill nearly instantaneously if not also deliver 1-shots.

 

On another note, I agree that bypass causes serious issues, with all ships but particularly with the gunship.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Necriol

[Dr_Kid]

You're getting 1-shot because you're stacking resist.

29% Resistance doesn't mean anything when slug railguns already have 100% Armor pen. Stack for HP or Evasion and the frequency of 1-shots will go down significantly.

[Telos]

Here's my only problem with gunships, and it isn't really the gunship's fault. It's the map...

 

Several gunship pilots on my server have figured out a never die tactic. They just sit on their side of the map sniping enemies fighting around satellites, so I go to kill them. As soon as I open on them, they pop feedback shields and barrel roll back to their spawn behind the turrets where I can't follow and start sniping me from there, if I try to wait him out, I'll die when more enemies respawn. If I break off to go cap an objective, he comes back and starts sniping around the satellites again.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Telos

[Slivovidze]

Here's my only problem with gunships, and it isn't really the gunship's fault. It's the map...

 

Several gunship pilots on my server have figured out a never die tactic. They just sit on their side of the map sniping enemies fighting around satellites, so I go to kill them. As soon as I open on them, they pop feedback shields and barrel roll back to their spawn behind the turrets where I can't follow and start sniping me from there, if I try to wait him out, I'll die when more enemies respawn. If I break off to go cap an objective, he comes back and starts sniping around the satellites again.

 

That's not a never die tactic... You need to approach them so they don't see you. Even if they manage to escape on the first try, you will get them on the second. And you will soon learn to counter them well enough to not die yourself.

[cvak]

Just dont let gunship have the goddamn bypass copilot ability, and everything will be fine.

[renegadeimp]

Just dont let gunship have the gosh darn bypass copilot ability, and everything will be fine.

 

Change that to "remove bypass ability from the game" and you#ll be right. If you let a gunship charge their weapon and attack you, then you deserve it. Seriously. You stay in one place and you deserve the death. learn to move, zigzag, loop, hide behind asteroids.

 

Why call for a nerf to a balanced class because you lack the skill and thought processes to play the game properly.

[Soul_of_Flames]

I don't think gunships are overpowered on their own. I have little trouble taking them out with either a scout or a strike. However there are two balance issues with them that need to be addressed.

 

1. Bypass. The companion ability that lets their weapons bypass their target's shields. This allows for instant one-shot kills even if the target is maxed on HP and has all their shields charged to full.

 

I don't care how you want to reason this but no matter what the circumstances; I don't care how big your crit is and don't care what offense cooldowns you pop... there should never be any one-shot-kills. Ever.

 

2. Numbers. A single gunship is easy to beat with either a strike or a scout. But if even one other gunship buddies up with the other, then they practically become an unstoppable force. If you charge at one, the other one kills you. Of if you don't see them, they can just coordinate their attacks into a 1-2 punch to finish you off practically in an instant.

[ToMyMa]

People complaining about '1-shotting' scouts obviously have never played gunship. Maybe the 1 shot that actually rolls as a hit kills you, but it could be the 3rd or 4th shot that the gunship has 'hit' you with. Of course this is the internet, so understanding how game mechanics work before complaining would just be absurd.

 

Not to mention that all of the ships can, when properly outfitted, kill nearly instantaneously if not also deliver 1-shots.

 

On another note, I agree that bypass causes serious issues, with all ships but particularly with the gunship.

 

Yeah, if a Flashfire can sneak up on a gunship with blaster overcharge, Bypass and burst lasers, it's GG for the gunship. You'll die in a matter of seconds. It's brutal.

[Tentou]

Don't nerf me bro

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Change that to "remove bypass ability from the game" and you#ll be right. If you let a gunship charge their weapon and attack you, then you deserve it. Seriously. You stay in one place and you deserve the death. learn to move, zigzag, loop, hide behind asteroids.

 

I have noticed that scouts tend to focus their concept of "mobility" more on speed than their maneuverability. Striker or scout you can spot the good pilots because they almost never fly in a straight line except when lining up a shot.Strikers at least have the armor and shields to survive level flight for a few seconds but the only reason scouts can pull that off is evasion RNG dodges bailing them out for doing things that should've gotten them shot down. By having their hands held with RNG dodges from regular blaster fire (when they have all the maneuverability they could ask for and don't need evasion RNG dodges to survive provided they fly right) it encourages bad flying habits that make them illprepared to avoid getting shot by a gunship.

[AAntan]

What I would actually suggest is limit the number of gunships per team (Maybe 3 max).

 

In my case, I'm one of the dangerous scouts of my server, and yes people target me first before any other ship around cause they know I can kill them quick if unattended. Now this issue of being a high priority target gets worse when the enemy team uses 6,7 gunships to focus 1 single scout, and after killing that scout they ravage the whole team (because none of them are aware of the gunships, and neither would you if they dont give a **** about you at the beginning).

 

Even if I have full upgrade on my defensive components (Evasion, Distortion Shield, Etc), I get tagged by 6 gunships at the same time, making it quite useless, they basicly take turns to pierce me out. At least with 3 gunships would be more reasonable to dodge and survive the pinpoint moment

[Hambunctious]

Easy fix, no weapon should have RNG crits. There's a damage range on all weapons, and that should be it for everyone.

 

Weapon upgrades could raise the damage potential, and close the gap somewhat between high/low damage.

 

They need to add damageable components. Those would work great as a crit replacement. If you hit one you could, for example, temporarily stop their ability to regen shields, disable one of the weapons, lower their maneuverability, or take out an engine, or booster, to slow them down. Kinda like getting a head shot in a shooter for more damage/kill shot, except you have more areas to target.

 

Do away with the ion cannon as well.

Edited December 16, 2013 by Hambunctious