Dragon Valley needs both SAA and MAA

Uh, it actually gets better for the AH

It doesn't though. The further the MAA moves away from the AH, the easier it is for the MAA to engage it unmolested, and the harder it becomes for the AH to actually land it's shots (trying landing your cannon shells from 700m away while the pilot is attempting to dodge MAA cannon fire).

Meanwhile the AH has an unblockable TV Missile

With less range then the MAA has with it's guns alone. A competent MAA driver will never be in range to get hit by a TV, plus the TV has an entire host of it's own problems when it comes to 'working'.

the gunner cannon that has enough accuracy to actually have 100% hit rate on the MAA at max range

Fat chance. But still, even if it did, the MAA cannons zero difficultly hitting all it's shots at max range, and since the MAA cannons out range the AH's cannons, it's not much of a contest.

None of these suffer from damage drop off either

Nope, but they do suffer from travel time, and the margin for error with their use is far slimmer then it is for an MAA.

What the MAA has in stability, the AH makes up for with ease of use.

Seriously? The AH's 'ease of use' is greatly exaggerated here. If anything the MAA is far 'easier' to use. It's far more difficult to learn how to fly, fly and stay alive, and fly and fight, then it is to learn how to do the same in the MAA.

While it is visible, that does not mean it is actually in range of weapons. This is why it is important for AHs to stay on the outskirts of the map and leverage their reach.

To be fair, helicopters have no other choice. The ease of use of lock-on spam, coupled with their recent range and damage buffs, means that choppers are FORCED to skirt the outsides of the map. Unfortunately, even that isn't acceptable to some players here, who will now be creating threads about 'out of bounds, over powered choppers'. While I partially agree with you, choppers should be skirting the outsides of maps, players are now complaining that this tactic, is unfair.

How do you respond to to those players?

Also, the AH does enough damage to the MAA that it has to keep eyes on it 24/7 to avoid getting nuked. The same could be said for the AH when avoiding the MAA. However, the AH has greater speed and an extra dimension of maneuverability.

And the MAA has more cover to utilize and an easier job doing it. I think that balances things out fairly well. The MAA will crush most choppers and chopper teams, which is fair, as that is it's job, while chopper teams need to coordinate with jets/other forces to have a chance at taking the MAA out. Which I also believe is fair, since the MAA is the direct counter to those air vehicles.

It's not a problem at all, but lots of players make it sound like the MAA is untouchable which it isn't. If aircraft play smart and opportunistically, they can easily take out the MAA. All you need is for it to be distracted for just a moment.

This statement applies to virtually every single thing in this game, it seems. For example:

lots of players make it sound like the Scout helicopter is untouchable which it isn't. If ground troops/the MAA play smart and opportunistically, they can easily take out the Scout helicopter. All you need is for it to be distracted for just a moment.

Stiglas can try all they want, but the first rocket will be flared and if the pilot is smart, he'll egress so the second one never fires.

This is an incredibly idyllic situation, it's rarely this cut and dry. Very rarely is a pilot ever facing just one stigla user over the course of the match, in fact it's typically more like 6-12 in my experience (all from different users), on average.

And the same theme I've been touching on applies here as well. If the stigla user isn't incompetent, he won't just be spamming his missiles willynilly. It's brain dead easy to simply wait in hiding for a chopper in combat to dump counter measures and then pop off YOUR missile when he is vulnerable. The disable will keep him in range for the next shot (with a little help from the newly buffed stinger range), and the next shot will be a kill (also thanks to the newly buffed stinger damage).

It's never been easier or more effective to be a lock-on user in this franchise.

we rarely meet MAAs that want to come out of their spawn, likely because they're believers of the myth that it's capable of farming aircraft from across the map.

Well, technically it's not a myth. You ARE capable of farming air easily from across the map, BUT, the results will forever pale in comparison to what you could accomplish if you just left the base. Camp your spawn with the MAA on most maps and put up 20-0 or some paltry figure. But why should I settle for 20-0 cowering inside my base when I can push out and go 120-0 instead?

On the rare occasion we do meet an ---- that has pushed up, all that's needed is smart use of cover and patience for a good moment to strike.

A lot of these statements really can be applied to anything in this game. I could sub in 'AH' there and no one would be the wiser.

What's also funny about this is that people like to say that the MAA can allow such players to dominate against people who have put in lots of hours into learning aircraft. That it's some sort of great upset in the skill curve. I don't know man, doesn't seem like much of an upset if we can take a "no skill" MAA out with just a little bit of patience and teamwork.

I think the phenomena you're describing has more to do with players saying that mediocre or BAD MAA users are too easily capable of taking out good players in air vehicles that have put a lot of time and effort into them. Whether that is true or not, I don't know, but what I do know is that with just a little bit of "patience and teamwork", you can fairly easily take out anything in this game.

My main sticking point are with the people who think you shouldn't NEED to be required to employ patience and teamwork to take out your enemies, but rather that all your hopes, dreams and desires should be handed to you on a silver platter. This is basically how lock-on proponents operate. You could fairly easily take out any helicopter using "patience and teamwork", yet what happened? That was 'too much work' for some of the more lazy BF players, and they demanded even stronger stiglas, with even more range.

Where were the posters tell THEM to just have a little patience and teamwork?

/r/Battlefield_4_CTE Thread Parent