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Post by thelane on Nov 30, 2011 14:52:20 GMT -5
Just wanted to make a thread to talk with my bros about the [arguably] most powerful vehicle in the game. CHOPPER TIPS: Get a good gunner, you're 1000% more effective against ground targets and if you can get above other choppers/ jets you can kill them pretty fast. Have your gunner use different specs. No need for both of you to have stealth on. Having trouble finding that guy with a stinger? circle around some cover, when the beeping starts to recede, he's on the opposite side [for the most part] Speaking of heat seeking missiles, don't panic! If you can't shake the lock, get into 3rd person, pop those flares and look at where the missile came from; there's a reason they have smoke trails So far stealth has been my best friend. [extinguisher is my next unlock] The havoc is a boat compared to the super cobra. :[ You can out-turn jets, jets can out-fly you. Learn to circle strafe, you will Foxtrot their doo-doo up. However, it is not always the right time to circle strafe, use it effectively and know when it's time to bug out. Have an engineer fly with you with a stinger/ repair tool if you're in a little bird. Have him use an RPG if you're not too concerned with other air targets/ you think you can line up a shot on a tank. Learn to use both rotors when turning, you will not be level and may look like you've had a bit too much to drink, but you will turn MUCH faster. More will be added as people post/ I think of more. DISCUSS
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Post by thelane on Nov 30, 2011 14:56:07 GMT -5
2nd post will be a list of FAQ's/ questions people have
Q: Does it seem like the rocket pods to almost negligible damage to other choppers? I was dogfighting with one yesterday, dumped some rocket pods into him and didn't even get the disable.
Q: What's the heat seeker's effective range?
Q: What specs do you guys run with for pilot/ gunner?
Q:Any word on how much damage stingers do since the patch?
doublepostposse
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Post by natsuterran on Nov 30, 2011 15:58:05 GMT -5
I have the chopper maxed on both xbox and PC. I only play with a dedicated gunner on xbox however. I like to run either guided rockets or laser painter for spec 1 and flares as my countermeasure. Gunner runs stealth, zoom optics (he refuses to use anything else) and guided missile. The TV missile glitches a lot for him right now. I don't have issues using it on PC though. So I just have him run guided missile. If you use the laser painter to mark a helicopter that you are fighting, the gunner can launch the guided missile at it. It's impossible to flare but it will not be 100% accurate. When it works, it really works, though.
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Post by didjeridu on Nov 30, 2011 16:06:39 GMT -5
Main thing I have to add is for pilots. I never fly with random pilots anymore, since they're usually terrible. Either they crash on takeoff, crash into random objects because they don't pay attention, make no effort to avoid rockets/lockons, avoid flying anywhere useful, or don't give their gunners a line of sight. Plus, when I switch seats to repair, someone usually takes my gunner seat because of vehicle spawning. It's just not worth the effort to get in a heli with random teammates.
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Post by thelane on Nov 30, 2011 16:22:45 GMT -5
Main thing I have to add is for pilots. I never fly with random pilots anymore, since they're usually terrible. Either they crash on takeoff, crash into random objects because they don't pay attention, make no effort to avoid rockets/lockons, avoid flying anywhere useful, or don't give their gunners a line of sight. Plus, when I switch seats to repair, someone usually takes my gunner seat because of vehicle spawning. It's just not worth the effort to get in a heli with random teammates. Yeah whenever I pilot I always have my mic on team anyway so I ask for a gunner and ASSURE them that I'm actually a good pilot. Any word on how much damage stingers do since the patch?
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Post by saddaminsane on Nov 30, 2011 21:09:21 GMT -5
i believe they only do 45% damage as apposed to the original 50%, meaning it takes 2 stingers to disable a heli. Little birds still take 50% damage, but they can be repaired easily with a passenger engi. I mainly run extinguishers now because of that- tank 2 stingers, repair and fly away somewhere i can regen / repair. Even better is when i have a gunner with flares.
Also- if the gunner and pilot both have flares, can they use them seperately? As in pilot pops flares, and the gunner can pop his own while the pilot's recharge? Seems like that would make heli's indestructable unless someone uses soflam
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Post by bel on Dec 1, 2011 6:11:47 GMT -5
i believe they only do 45% damage as apposed to the original 50%, meaning it takes 2 stingers to disable a heli. Little birds still take 50% damage, but they can be repaired easily with a passenger engi. I mainly run extinguishers now because of that- tank 2 stingers, repair and fly away somewhere i can regen / repair. Even better is when i have a gunner with flares. I have not the slightest clue why they made this change. It's now totally impossible to kill aircraft solo, which is bad news if you're the only person on your team willing to give up Uncle Carl's bastard child for a stinger. It's not like it was too hard to keep aircraft alive pre-patch, as well. Good pilots had no trouble devastating teams, and now they're just unholy because they don't even have to wave off when they flare. I just don't get it. Also, I'm curious, because I don't have a dedicated gunner buddy and so have never checked.... do the gunner's unlocks really stack? What about tanks?
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Post by SheWolf on Dec 1, 2011 7:32:02 GMT -5
about stacking points: any score in a vehicle is counted towards unlocks, regardles of position. in theory you can just sit in the back of a transport helicopter for hours and unlock everything with passenger assists, for example.
and yes, the stinger nerf was beyond stupid. how did they not see this? if a pilot isn't reatarded, even two stinger guys pose no significant threat to any kind of aircraft. it's almost back to the battlefield 2, where the ground guys were just fodder for the allmighty pilots K/D.
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Post by doctorbrain on Dec 1, 2011 13:32:52 GMT -5
and yes, the stinger nerf was beyond stupid. how did they not see this? if a pilot isn't reatarded, even two stinger guys pose no significant threat to any kind of aircraft. it's almost back to the battlefield 2, where the ground guys were just fodder for the allmighty pilots K/D. I was also very disappointed by this; it's difficult enough to deal with enemy air support, especially on foot. This is made even more absurd by the buffs to helicopter guns vs. infantry. I'm having horrible flashbacks to the self-repairing death-copters from BC2...
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Post by natsuterran on Dec 1, 2011 17:01:36 GMT -5
Okay. I played a Conquest Large game on Kharg island as a Havoc pilot. I pretty much stayed behind Docks the whole game, making an occasional run. My gunner was random, but we were kinda working together with squad text chat. We both ran flares and effectively ping ponged them. At the end of the game my gunner went 57-0. And I went 7-1. It was the most ridiculous use of a chopper I have ever seen in this game, and I was behind the wheel.
That said, we still lost the game. What do you guys think is the best strategy for choppers? A guy on the other team was saying how he felt sorry for us for having a chopper that wasn't helping to win the game. But out of the 600 tickets they had we single-handedly dropped that by over 60. What else are we expected to do? Cap flags? If we went towards the middle of the map we would be shot down for sure. I had to stay at the edge of lock on range and hover back and forth so he could snipe people in the open. Was this guy just sour about us ravaging their people on the ground all game long? Or is there really something else a chopper should be doing besides racking up a killcount?
And as for the stinger nerf, I am kind of on the fence about it. The stinger honestly poses no threat if two people ping pong flares. But something tells me the nerf to stingers is supposed to better balance the gunners' perk choice, so that they feel comfortable venturing out to zoom and thermal. Like I said, I play with a zoom gunner, and we get stingered a ridiculous amount of times and get disabled way too easily. I could avoid it by flying safer, but we get far less kills that way.
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Post by saddaminsane on Dec 1, 2011 19:00:20 GMT -5
i feel like air vs ground is becoming like COD where it's stinger vs chopper gunner. Without a guy with a stinger, the chopper gunner will absolutely wreck the enemy team- likewise in BF3. However, with a stinger, the chopper gunner gets downed almost immedietly, especially if the stinger has cold blooded. Problem with BF3 is that the stingers are almost useless unless you have 2 people, and even then the chopper can just go away for a few seconds and come back with recharged flares. The only way to take choppers out efficiently is with soflam- and it's only every few hundred games you run into a reliable recon with soflam + reliable engineer with stinger/javelin. DICE probably felt their super choppers were getting shot down too easily by the stingers especially with youtubers complaining about it. They should have just planted a few mounted guns on the map instead of OP game changing anti-air guns
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Post by natsuterran on Dec 1, 2011 19:06:55 GMT -5
Yeah, as much of an air junkie I am, I still don't think the stingers should have been nerfed. Stingers only work if there's a whole group of people and they are standing relatively close to or under the chopper. If you are in a chopper you can avoid even 20 stingers by simply staying behind your team's first flag and retreating after dropping flares. Your gunner then drops their backup flares as you run back to base which shakes the other 19 missiles after you. Then you are out of range back at deployment. Even if a missile gets through you are now over your deployment and can repair if disabled. I feel like stingers as they are cannot kill a chopper but simply make it to where the chopper can't hover over the middile of the map with impunity. It's like an anti-map control tool for their team's chopper rather than a true anti chopper weapon.
And let's not even get started on jets. There is just about no way to take out a competent jet pilot, even if everyone had a stinger. They can just speed away with afterburners and flare the missile off before it gets to them. I would prefer it if stinger were still one hit disable but had a shorter lock on range to make up for that. It would mean they would actually have to find a strong position to stinger from and hold that area to take out their choppers.
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Post by saddaminsane on Dec 1, 2011 23:41:00 GMT -5
i miss the AT4- but shorter lock on range is great idea. Stingers would be decent counter without annoying aircraft halfway across the map
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sleep
True Bro
Posts: 10,189
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Post by sleep on Dec 2, 2011 1:11:18 GMT -5
anyone have any idea how effective the chopper gun is against armor? seems to do ok in my limited experience. also do we know whether hitting the rear of a tank does more damage using chopper weapons?
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Post by natsuterran on Dec 2, 2011 15:05:03 GMT -5
anyone have any idea how effective the chopper gun is against armor? seems to do ok in my limited experience. also do we know whether hitting the rear of a tank does more damage using chopper weapons? I saw a test on youtube showing that rocket pods do static damage to tanks. They aren't affected by weak spots. The actual chopper guns are more efficient when hitting weak spots. There's so many patches flying around, and I play on different systems where some have the patch and some don't. So I find it hard to say how effective certain things are objectively. In the game's natural state, the chopper gunner weapon was ridiculous against tanks. You could outright kill them with about 3-4 sustained bursts. Sink 90 bullets into the front or sides and it was dead. Much less was needed for the back.
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Post by thelane on Dec 3, 2011 14:48:12 GMT -5
Was this guy just sour about us ravaging their people on the ground all game long? Or is there really something else a chopper should be doing besides racking up a killcount? And as for the stinger nerf, I am kind of on the fence about it. The stinger honestly poses no threat if two people ping pong flares. But something tells me the nerf to stingers is supposed to better balance the gunners' perk choice, so that they feel comfortable venturing out to zoom and thermal. Like I said, I play with a zoom gunner, and we get stingered a ridiculous amount of times and get disabled way too easily. I could avoid it by flying safer, but we get far less kills that way. Were you shooting down other choppers? Were you killing tanks? Were you providing fire on infantry targets? If so you you were doing what you're supposed to be doing and he's just buttfrustrated. I shoot down a fair number of jets in a game. I"m always ~B/C flags in CQ [This is 24man PS3] and if I'm against a competent team, I'm constantly hearing the lock sound, but if you can fly aggressively enough, pop your flares correctly and get back behind your home flag when you need to, you can be up in their faces. I feel like stingers as they are cannot kill a chopper but simply make it to where the chopper can't hover over the middile of the map with impunity. It's like an anti-map control tool for their team's chopper rather than a true anti chopper weapon. And let's not even get started on jets. There is just about no way to take out a competent jet pilot, even if everyone had a stinger. They can just speed away with afterburners and flare the missile off before it gets to them. I would prefer it if stinger were still one hit disable but had a shorter lock on range to make up for that. It would mean they would actually have to find a strong position to stinger from and hold that area to take out their choppers. I semi agree with the stinger statement.If you have a 2 people with stingers, it's nowhere near impossible to shoot down a chopper, and if you have a jet on him too, chopper's toast. I take out jets all the time in my chopper. Granted better jet pilots are a fair amount harder to take down. Brotip: I have great success taking down jets like this: They want me dead They come at me for a run I'm locking on with heat seekers as they're coming at me Lock Fly above them Nose down as they fly under Shoot them as the jet flies under me or just before.very short time to target and the missile is coming from above, which seems to help for some reason. My guess is that since they're coming from above, even if they do flare in time, they still come down on the jet/ they don't even see the flares as theyre almost directly above the jet. anyone have any idea how effective the chopper gun is against armor? seems to do ok in my limited experience. also do we know whether hitting the rear of a tank does more damage using chopper weapons? I saw a test on youtube showing that rocket pods do static damage to tanks. They aren't affected by weak spots. The actual chopper guns are more efficient when hitting weak spots. There's so many patches flying around, and I play on different systems where some have the patch and some don't. So I find it hard to say how effective certain things are objectively. In the game's natural state, the chopper gunner weapon was ridiculous against tanks. You could outright kill them with about 3-4 sustained bursts. Sink 90 bullets into the front or sides and it was dead. Much less was needed for the back. The little bird's gun tears up LAV's it doesn't do much damage to tanks, however if you keep hitting it without them repairing you can kill it. I can typically disable a tank if I hit them with a good burst of rocket pods, not sure the exact damage. The attack chopper's gunner's rounds are extremely effective against tanks. Anybody have the laser painter, below radar, or the ECM jammer yet?
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Post by saddaminsane on Dec 3, 2011 15:48:43 GMT -5
i have those not sure how laser painter WORKS, but i look at enemy vehicle, press q , and it usually gives them a red lock on box I believe below radar is passive and only protects against AIR-AIR , NOT GROUND to AIR. You just unlock it and fly low- i usually fly in the red zone anyways where your altitude indicator is red numbers ECM jammer is like flares. I have no idea how it works, i tried it once and i died, never touched it again -edit just read some stuff about ecm. Apparently you have to use it before someone pops a stinger, and it prevents lock on for a few seconds. Some claim it lasts 6 seconds, some 2 seconds. Some say it attracts rockets, some say it does nothing to rockets
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Post by natsuterran on Dec 3, 2011 19:07:17 GMT -5
I have every unlock for choppers. The laser painter works automatically. You don't press anything at all. When you aim at a vehicle while you are within, say, the jet's heatseeker's range, it will automatically paint it the same way a soflam works. This let's the gunner's guided missile able to hit aircraft as well, along with all the other benefits of soflam targeting. Although I heard Dice is going to make the gunner guided missile only wokr on ground in a patch.
Below radar is always on without needing to be selected, just like with jets. When you're below tree lines you block signals for air to air missiles. And the ECM jammer is pretty worthless to me. I see some people use it and it works for them, but I get my $hit pushed in when I try to use it. You basically just press the button while getting locked on. It then cancels the lock (and they see you dropping a bunch of smoke out of your chopper), and your ECM lasts five seconds, then cools down for another five seconds for the second use. If they already get the missile off then you're done. You have to preemptively block it. I think the one thing it is good for is battling other choppers. Flares never work if you are under like 30-40 meters. They seem to need time to arm, so if the missile reaches you in under a second then flares don't work. That's where the ECM seems to come in. Two choppers floating towards each other trying to use heatseekers. One hits flares and the other uses ECM. They get a little closer and the one with ECM is now able to launch and get the kill because the flares (even if they replenished in time) can't work when they are close to each other.
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Post by raxcoswell on Dec 3, 2011 21:13:29 GMT -5
only recently started using the attack chopper. the scout chopper I've had a few runs in but it's never really wowed me, ditto jets, so I stuck to tanks and ground pounding. But man, the attack chopper is insane. The gun absolutely wrecks tanks, by the way. I don't know how much health it was on before (never saw it get hit and it was a while away from the fighting) but I've destroyed a tank in one salvo. Steady piloting so I didn't miss, all directly into the back of it.
Makes you wonder about the stinger nerf. For little bird and the transport chopper? Yeah, they kind of need it, they're pretty ruined if someone wants them to die. But attack helos and jets, nah. Stinger already isn't a particularly effective way to kill them. Can't see me using stingers anymore erally.
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Post by kirbyderby on Dec 3, 2011 21:53:27 GMT -5
... But I really want the "stinger master" dogtag! Oh well.
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Post by saddaminsane on Dec 4, 2011 12:45:08 GMT -5
does anyone know what guided rockets do for the pilot? it doesn't seem to make the rockets curve...
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Post by thelane on Dec 4, 2011 14:10:35 GMT -5
I have every unlock for choppers. The laser painter works automatically. You don't press anything at all. When you aim at a vehicle while you are within, say, the jet's heatseeker's range, it will automatically paint it the same way a soflam works. This let's the gunner's guided missile able to hit aircraft as well, along with all the other benefits of soflam targeting. Although I heard Dice is going to make the gunner guided missile only wokr on ground in a patch. Below radar is always on without needing to be selected, just like with jets. When you're below tree lines you block signals for air to air missiles. And the ECM jammer is pretty worthless to me. I see some people use it and it works for them, but I get my $hit pushed in when I try to use it. You basically just press the button while getting locked on. It then cancels the lock (and they see you dropping a bunch of smoke out of your chopper), and your ECM lasts five seconds, then cools down for another five seconds for the second use. If they already get the missile off then you're done. You have to preemptively block it. I think the one thing it is good for is battling other choppers. Flares never work if you are under like 30-40 meters. They seem to need time to arm, so if the missile reaches you in under a second then flares don't work. That's where the ECM seems to come in. Two choppers floating towards each other trying to use heatseekers. One hits flares and the other uses ECM. They get a little closer and the one with ECM is now able to launch and get the kill because the flares (even if they replenished in time) can't work when they are close to each other. Thanks. Super happy that below radar is always on without needing to be selected. Doesn't look like I'll be using the ECM. Kind of a shame flares reign supreme with all the other toys they give us.
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Post by vulgar on Dec 30, 2011 18:24:12 GMT -5
When Chopperbro's acknowledge that the Stingers are too weak, you know there's a problem. It's frustrating. You're lucky if you can manage to land a single hit. And when it's a skilled pilot, forget it. They deploy their flares and pretend like you're not there.
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Post by saddaminsane on Jan 1, 2012 20:56:04 GMT -5
does soflam + stingers also make unavoidable rockets? Recon class seems to be a class based wholey on ENHANCING a team's abilities. Also- are there any differences between the US/RU scout helis and transport helis? I know the viper > havok in mobility.
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Post by ZeroKelvin^ on Jan 2, 2012 10:34:27 GMT -5
When Chopperbro's acknowledge that the Stingers are too weak, you know there's a problem. Or when Engineer players start taking oaths never to use a stinger because it is futile.
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