Gunships need to be severely restricted or outright removed from GSF

[AJediKnight]

These things are just stupid. I just played a match where all but three of the enemy team were gunships - fully nine members of the opposing squad were sniping away. Yes, there are counters to gunships, but when these ships are using overlapping arcs of fire (and when your team is composed of 4-5 people who won't stop zerging, and won't even acknowledge chat), you're pretty much doomed in a match like that.

 

Far too often, both GSF game modes are determined exclusively by which team has the most gunships; nine times out of ten, I can tell who is going to win and who will lose just by the lineup I see in the countdown before I game.

 

Part of the problem with gunships is that their vulnerabilities aren't significant enough to counteract their strengths. Yes, great - you're slow and slightly weaker than a regular strike fighter. But the speed really doesn't mean much when you're camping in the back, and most of the time gunships are resilient enough to escape an initial attack and flee back towards the safety of covering ships.

 

I'd have been totally in favor of adding, say, some kind of sub-capital light cruiser to the game that had the gunships' capabilities; those could have been slow and unwieldy, but at least would have constituted an enormous target (and would have fit into the overall Star Wars 'feel').

 

But gunships are just contrary to everything that's going on - they don't dogfight, they don't frequently contest caps, they almost always wind up with 2/3x the damage of every other ship, they don't risk themselves in combat, they don't have to outfly other people... they're a massive screw job to every other player in the game.

[arunav]

The problem you're describing, though, is as much a premade vs. pug contest.

 

Coordinated gunships do ruin matches' fun, but so do premades in general when up against a pug team.

 

I think a damage nerf for gunships and some strike fighter abilities is in order, but don't see one coming any time soon, since it took years for the last meta to be adjusted.

 

Best thing you can do is queue with friends who are good at GSF to prevent the frustration you are experiencing somewhat. BW needs to balance the ships a bit better, but who knows when that might happen next. 6.0 won't have any new maps, and it's unclear if GSF will get a balance update during 6.x.

Edited July 6, 2019 by arunav

[Celise]

how does adding a cruiser with gunship capabilities help the situation, those people riding around in gunships will move up to this cruiser and then what?

 

Gunships are meant to be stronger than fighters, their purpose as a gunship is to destroy smaller targets. But if you are looking for balance in it. gunships can't be made glass cannons and neither should they lose their damage power, but strike fighters could be buffed with stronger base evasion chance making it much more capable of missing critical shots from those attacking, their speed can be boosted as well so gunship pilots would have a harder time lining up shots.

 

the game could do with an added mechanic, when flying on the deck, enemy fighters can't be seen except when they attack or come up, sort of like radar interference with the ground. this would allow more variation in how to attack your opponents by coming at them from behind with hit and run tactics and then just pick them off one at a time in ambush attacks.

[Storm-Cutter]

Approach them from the side or behind...

 

Most of the time they are zommed in on their targets, and unaware of flanking attacks.

 

Also, backing off so they burn their engine power leaves them unable to run away quickly.

 

Remember that they have ~15K range. keeping just above thet and burning your defensive CDs as you approach is a fair strategy.

 

Don't engage them head on tho' that way lies certain obliteration.

 

TBH there are only a couple of maps where GS dominate, but you can still sit back and pick off the scouts and strikes if they push forward too far - still out of GS range. - Nothing frustrates a GS pilot more than a ship a click out of range - if the only way to snipe at them means coming out of cover.

 

- And practice, practice, practice.....

[Visorknight]

GSF is full of premades with pros using coordinated gunships to farm kills every match, it is unlikely to change, unless they allocated team GSF premades for queues and a different solo q for gsf.

[AJediKnight]

GSF is full of premades with pros using coordinated gunships to farm kills every match, it is unlikely to change, unless they allocated team GSF premades for queues and a different solo q for gsf.

They could ban premades from GSF - that would be a good place to start. Given that you are likely to see the same premade over and over and OVER again, it kind of defeats the notion of queuing up for solo play.

[lightSaberAddiCt]

And they wonder why people don't do GSF.

[Celise]

And they wonder why people don't do GSF.

 

i only ever did GSF once or maybe twice and that was it. Frankly i found GSF to be far more trouble than it was ever worth in my opinion, getting a form of nausea from it in both cases also didn't help and neither did the silly combat.

 

So i really don't care what happens to GSF.

[Lenlo]

...-gunships can't be made glass cannons and neither should they lose their damage power-...

 

And yet, given that Gunships are essentially sniper ships, they really should be glass cannons.

[Celise]

And yet, given that Gunships are essentially sniper ships, they really should be glass cannons.

 

Gunships are the upgrade over fighters, naturally they should be bigger, well protected and due to the extra weight, slower and harder to turn. perhaps some adjusts made to armour quadrants? for example bottom, top and rear of the gunships are more vulnerable to attack than the front and sides. so getting a few strike fighters in behind might score a direct hit and take it out or badly damage it, as opposed to the suicide front entry. Sort of like world of tanks armouring.

[MingusPho]

Gsf needs to be outright removed from swtor

[Toraak]

Gsf needs to be outright removed from swtor

 

biggest troll comment ever.

 

Gunship damage is fine. People just need to learn to watch how close they get to the 15k range, and Approach from the sides, Above, Below or behind the gunship. While good GS pilots will move when someone approaches them, most don't pay attention. (also don't spam missiles at them from Long range) many GS pilots don't even pay attention when someone hits them with Lasers, but move instantly to a missile lock warning.

[MedleyMelody]

Approach them from the side or behind...

 

This one times 100. There are some *amazing* gunship pilots on SS (like the "bacon" person...those of you who fly on Satele probably know the variants of who I'm sure is the same super good GS pilot). But there's a really easy way to just make them miserable: make them move.

 

If there's any kind of GS nest, you need to circle around them and hit them from the side. The thing about gunships is, if you let them stay parked and slugging away, your team goes kasplodey. But if you shake them and make them actually try and dogfight, they're really squishy and fun to blow up.

 

If you challenge them head on, you have to be really erratic in your approach and jink side to side and up and down so that when they pop off their shot they miss.

 

It really doesn't matter if there's one super good GS pilot, or a bunch of them. Once you learn how they fly, they're pretty easy to counter.