Why Helicopters are balanced without the Soflam

Check out Hemuli's take on the whole thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s1BanjuZnU

Lots of talk about how the Soflam and Javelin combination and a lot of people heavily imply that it is essentially the only counter to a good helicopter pilot. I hope this video shows how it helicopters are actually completely balanced in the game given the fact that there are Jets and Mobile AA and how Stingers will force you to ECM or Flare and give the enemy Helo the advantage in the eternal heat seeker lock battle.

Some may reply by saying that if their team doesn't have a good Jet pilot or Mobile AA driver then the Helo will rape, but, why is that the fault of the pilot? If the other team isn't as good then they lose, that is the nature of competitive online shooters.

You never see anyone mentioning how a good tank team are OP and can dominate the airs and skies because

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Battlefield
• Battlefield 3
• BF3
• gameplay
• Gaming
• Games
• FPS
• helicopter
• AH-1Z
• Viper
• Chopper
• Attack Helicopter
• balance
• jets

[yofrodo123]

I feel your pain about the SOFLAM as a fellow pilot. I really hope this will get balanced, but from what it looks like the BF3 'community' is full of people that instead of learing how to play prefer to whine for easymode weaponry, beacause loosing to better players is unacceptable and they need a hard counter for everything. Any sensible comment about the balance gets attacked by bunch of people that have ~30hours spent ingame and less than an hour with a helicopter.

[OshiSeven]

@yofrodo123 Tell me about it, I've had my fair share of hate about it. Usually the people who like soflam/javelins are people who play only occasionally and like the easy-mode nature of it. Sad times.

[IIEMProductionsII]

I would've raged so hard....

[OshiSeven]

@IIEMProductionsII I edited out my voice :P Didn't want everyone to hear me shout "SUCK MY DICK YOU FUCKING JET".

[Rec99YT]

You had perfect opportunity to take down the jet at 5:12 . He used flairs which would've been an easy lock on and kill.

[OshiSeven]

@Rec99YT He was flying upwards. Not sure if you fly helicopters but when you over commit to a jet that flies high into the sky, you lose altitude incredibly fast and makes the Helo hard to control. I've destroyed jets in Helos before, not saying they're invincible against helicopters.

[Shernoc]

balance: nerf jet impact on heli, make soflam 1-hit disable and make the laserlight visible up to 600 meters. what do you think?

[jay1jayf]

@MrJackconnolly Sharqui Peninsula i supposed where the teams get the havoc and the viper, interesting thing is the attackers get the havoc which is inferior to the viper and is way easier to take down than the viper and if you really don't like getting shot by chopper you can just cap E. Now for the scout chopper those two games only show that you were playing against an incompetent team and you are moderately good at driving the thing, it doesn't mean is hard at all.

[MrJackconnolly]

@jay1jayf + the B2K map with the TV tower. And no disagree, it can be very tough to take out the scout heli's with good pilots in, especially if they're getting repaired (and especially on Damavand Peak). The last 2 games I played on that map have both been exactly 20 - 0 in the scout chopper. So no you're not easy to kill.

[jay1jayf]

@MrJackconnolly By those 3 maps you mean Demevand Peak, Rosharh canals and ? in those two you get the scout helicopters that any pilot can tell you, they are really easy to take down.

[Rui96711]

nothing needs a nerf. soFlam is fine vs helis, I fly them as much as I can and I don't get taken out by javelins that much. prioritize your targets, look for that soflam and take it out. good helicopter crew can destroy everything on the ground with ease. if you keep getting killed by the javelin get on the ground and find the soflam and eliminate it.

[IVulgarI]

Honestly, I'd rather they left the jets out of the game. They're like the wookies of the sky. It was a better balance in BC2 with just helicopters.

[MrJackconnolly]

@OshiSeven Dunno, that's not the case on console - 5 maps with jets + helis vs 3 maps with only helis. Honestly stingers are too weak now, and this is coming from someone who pilots a lot as well. The developer made a good point on twitter - the ground is more deadly to pilots than all AA put together statistically!