^^^ Your experience in AA… apparently not shared.
As for the .50 MG’s.. Nothing new to BF. Even the vehicle mounted .50 has been neutered to uselessness in BF against infantry for some time. It should near split the target in 2. That said strafing should be hard.
One VA or one BF 109 of any type with rockets = every bomber in the map is dead.
This. And it gets even better. A decent fighter pilot can actually induce the enemy team to forego regular tanks and spawn camping AA tanks, which do little for their team. What usually happens when I join a server with one or two bombers on the enemy team that are doing decently well is this:
This happens every time.. not just with bombers but salty fighter pilots who want revenge, sit camping in spawn or if twisted steel at one end of the bridge waiting the entire game for you, occasionally getting 50 health off before I fly away repair rinse repeat.
Total domination, no tanks getting used in/around flags. Game won!
IMHO.
Luckily or unfortunately Battlefield is a team-based game. There will be always classes be able to do more kills and others be able to do more support. Jet planes have a support role (in fact, if you look into menu, as target they have jets and bombers)… but I don’t pretend that they must “circling aimlessly waiting for someone on the other team to spawn a plane”; in fact as I have said, they can easily kill also infantry (obv, one at time)… and this must be harder than using a bomber: in fact their machine gun has a lot of damage but low splash damage.
With this there are 2 balance issues very clear:
fighters are insane OP against bombers (example: Spitfire VA needs a BIG nerf at rank 4 front guns) and AA is useless against fighters and needs a serious improvement.
Everything can be killed by multiple options, but only the fighter can be taken down by a fighter, this should change or fighters should only be capable of destroying other planes and nothing more.
The difference between a rank 0 and rank 4 fighter is so insane huge, a rank 4 fighter can stay up in the air for a whole round if no pilot on the other team has a rank 4 fighter plane.
But the balancing in this game is broken on so many places this is not a surprise.
It is pretty clear Dice is trying to make CoD out of BF, vehicles can no longer have a big impact on the outcome of a match.
Bombers need to get more damage (mostly damage area) again to compensate for the limited spotting and being shot down so easily.
Bombers still work. Thats a fact. Fighters… hm well. one fighter works.
JU88 with 16x 50 und 4x 500 lbs Bombs rocks hard.
Stuka B1 with 1000 lbs is to use as it was. as STUKA. Stuka is german vor Sturzkampf what means "Fight in a Vertical Line. from up in the sky, vertical down to ground, jericho sirens crying and then unlock the 1000 lbs and pull back up. If u do this with a churchill or any other tank and your bomb hits, this target is not there anymore.
stuka b2 with minethrower and 2x .37 Cannons is for breaking the shell of armored vehicles or planes. Only thing is: 4 shots and its overheated… that NEED to be fixed. 10 or 12 shots are necessary to break trough a tank. and the stuka has limited time to attack, because it need to pull up again. No need for higher fire rate but the overheating after 4 shots makes it useless.
BF109s - well… both are to weak atm. explosive rounds of the G6 are nothing else then .50 of spitfire VB (in dealed damage) and the G2 has to switch weapons for the larger machinegun. in my setup both are to weak against other planes.
Mosquito: Fast, but no passenger guns. my setup with 4x .330 nose MGs and 8 rockets… is not bad, but the rockets are to weak as well. its not possible to defeat an AA tank with them. I dont ask for rockets taht kill Tiger tanks on lvl 4, but a flakpanzer, the baddest enemy for a mosquito, needs to blow up when all 8 rockets hit. (and its NOT easy to “sneak” a mosquito close to a Flakpanzer without beeing seen!, so if i made THAT, i also want that tank to blow up)
Blenheims: I just use the mk2 because of 2x 500 and 8x.40 bombs. the other one is more like a recon plane with photography and radar and stuff. I also have it on lvl 4, but dont use it anymore. Blenheim mk2 has a great turret. it can turn around even to the fron side of the plane. 2 well placed 500s are able to blow up tanks as well. the 8x 40 lbs are not really strong if they dont hit infantry directly. splash damage is to weak i think.
Spitfires:
VA: THE machine of all. 8 mgs with much damage, low overheating rate and high fire rate. kills everythin in the sky and is not a firend of infantry. you can shot out a Flak38 driver without a problem from high up in the sky if he doesnt notice you. 2x 250 lbs bombs can be if they are well placed (there is no crosshair for them, even not the ciorcle in external view) the most dominating plane at the Battlefield sky atm.!
VB: well.. 2x standart mg and change to 2x .50 with medium damage and medium firerate. is usable but feels similar to the BF109 G6
Upgraded with 8 rockets (same count as the mosquito has) you can do some damage, but not to much. Is good to sneak at a Flak38 to blow the driver out, but as same as mosquito there is no vehicle/tank cracking possible
What would I change?
JU 88 - nothing
Stuka B1 - nothing
Stuka B2 - Decrease .37 cannon overheating for some more shots available to a target until it overheats. maybe slightly more ammo (just 60 rounds in mag atm)
BF109 G2 - More Ammo, higher fire rate of 2nd gun, less overheating
BF109 G6 - More Ammo, more explosive round damage
Mosquito: As Spitfire VB has 8 Rockets, why dont give the mosquito 12 or 16? Its still hard to master to kill somehitng with rockets because its more difficult then a bomb. So if someone can handle this, he should be rewarded with a kill (of a Flakpanzer maybe)
Blenheims: well. a recon plane and a medium bomber. its good as it is i think. Maybe the MK2 should be raised to the level of JU88. Maybe also 4x 500 bombs or more 40 lbs bombs
Spitfire VA: Man i like it as it is, but to be real, its OP atm. Everyone in that plane dominates the sky. but lets see what we could change. maybe a little higher overheating rate of the 8 mgs. And slightly reduce rate of Fire. - but to be honest, leave that beast as it is. just raise up the opther planes to the same level and strength 
VB: hm… same as G6. More ammo, raise damage of the .50 guns
Other Things I really need to say:
Flakpanzer; Valentine AA and Flak 38. You guys know what I mean.
The range need to be reduced moderately. AND/OR something need to be done against base camping with AA tanks. I just think on ARRAS or Panzerstorm maps. good position makes it possible to AA over the WHOLE map and no enemy tanks/inf can reach and defeat it. Thats a shame. Thats not fair, thats a Problem DICE needs to fix. Fact. Maybe set the resupply stations outside the spawn as it is on axis tank spawn at hamada. you need to drive over to G Flag for resupply the tank you started driving, in southeast of the map. I like that. For the way over to G Flag, german Flakpanzer still has 1000 rounds to fire, until hes empty.
Vertial Airspace on Panzerstorm Map is not as high as it is on other maps. I think there should be more vertical room. (Same AA problem here)
Actually what you are claiming is not very clear. Because if it were clear I would agree with you - but I don’t.
I am assuming you are referring to the 8x .303 machine guns? These are a rank 1 specialization. Since all you flying experience is in bombers, I can understand that you do not know that. The spitfire VA is actually the only fighter that is pretty good right now. But I can kill a bomber with my Bf109 G6 almost as fast as with a VA.
.
Since you don’t fly fighters, how do you know that AA is useless against them? Because a decent pilot said that he can avoid getting killed by a mobile AA? That would be ludicrous. If a skilled pilot cannot avoid getting killed by a single AA (just by staying out of reach) that would mean that the mobile AA would be massively overpowered. That argument would be like saying that because I can avoid getting sniped by staying behind cover, sniper rifles are useless.
Fighters can be killed not only by other fighters, but by all other planes and by mobile AA and by stationary AA, and in some lucky cases, by tanks and even infantry using their primaries. So your claim is factually wrong. You’d know that if you actually flew fighters. And again. If a fighter can only kill enemy planes, it would not get picked. People don’t want to spend their time circling waiting for a plane to spawn. And killing infantry with a fighter ins’t all that easy. Much harder than with a bomber.
I am not a fan of having to unlock specializations, because if forces you to use an inferior vehicle/weapon to do so. That being said, having a rank 4 fighter alone will not keep you alive, you will also have to know what you are doing and have situational awareness - meaning you will need to have a certain level of skill.
I disagree. So long as bombers can carpet bomb with eight or even 16 bombs. If you can drop that amount of explosive ordinance in one go, you shouldn’t need more splash damage (which is what I assume you mean with damage area) to do good.
I’m sorry I cannot here the OP through all that Stuka’s siren whine…oh wait that is the OP himself.
Its works in progress and so far step in the right direction. I’m happy with planes getting slightly more splash damage on explosives, as long they give up the aiminng aid which essentially acts as a cheap aimbot. I don’t have any visual aid when aiming as infantry to show me the bullet trajectory or lead. Learn to aim. Also before someone interjects, there is plenty of skilled pilots who still own despite the difficulty spike. Ammo wise and cooldown wise, this is the only way to balance it out against ground targets. I doubt any infantry players enjoyed the constant bomb spam after the release. In reality you would have a chance to do one strafing run after hours of flying, so the balance has to be achieved somehow.
What about people using the V1 rockets to nuke areas? Should we not then nerf them? And why cant you shoot down a v1 rocket with planes or aa? Would that not make it more fair? And what about infantry? I’ve gotten massive kill spams using dynamite, or mines. Once in BF1 i layered a small flag zone with tnt, i placed them on the roof also for maximum effect. I waited until the base was half way through its cap and blew them up, i also had the sequential explosions stat on so that they didnt go off at the same time and i killed ever more. Tally was about 17 people on Fort De Vaux. Should tnt get nerfed then? Planes shouldnt be nerfed because of k/d and why are people so jealous of high k/d ratio people? The usual go to excuse is PTFO but clearly this actually is another issue entirely masked behind PTFO. Jealousy. Why can this guy in a vehicle who has to learn how fly or tank and is extremely vulnerable all the time get more kills than me, when i can heal and get revives and hide in small places, or get ammo or move with large groups of people or squads? Why should he have to locate players within a split second a drop a payload, then avoid anti-air, infantry, tanks, planes and other weapons, while never getting a chance to scratch his bum?!
Vehicles in BF have always required more skill. That is a fact. Now some people can sit on a hill and shell an area and get lots of kills but MOST do not, most players I’ve encountered PTFO or flank and assist. But ofc they shouldnt be able to help the team as much as me and my 3 panzernukes.
Skill? A bomber can just plane over a flag and press a button. Now it has also an indicator in third person.
I’m not here to ask another nerf… but for sure we don’t need any buff.
oh i forgot planes just drive in a linear fashion over the precise area where there is infantry and only need to drop their payload when told to by a giant count down indicator, which will automatically drop the bombs if your forehead misses the keyboard.
Also turn on the pc need skill… you have to press the case button, turn on the monitor… I’m exaggerating, no doubts, but this to say that dogfight needs skill; killing infantry with a spitfire jet’s machine gun needs skill. But have you seen bomber? You had just to plane over a flag. Do this need skill? Yes. Do this need enough skill to justify 4-6 kill per bomb? NOPE. This is my opinion… free to think otherwise.
Aye ive seen bombers, you can still be skilled in one but i agree carpet bombing is a little talentless. Simple way of dealing with this is to force the pilot to change seat for a moment in which they look out of the bomb doors underneath the plane. That way lining up carpet bombs requires a good deal of skill and you must be quick. But that would require someone in the dev department who knows what they are doing.
This game has the most lame air combat in the series.. I’m not even going to discuss the fact that any lamess bomber can get 106-2 with just bombing the infantry in some 3-4 points of a map for the whole round. They are just uncounterable, and plz dont come up with the brilliant pick a fighter argument. Every asset of the game (tanks,planes,behemoths, ships vs vs) has to be countered in more ways than just 1/2 options if we want to talk about a balance in the game..
Lets start with a huge buff to the AA Turrets, they are just useless and not even a threat to a pilot right now. Period.
The word “balancing” doesnt exist for dice…
After several months, the game remains broken bro
Public release was November 20th so a little over two month ago. Balancing can always be discussed but the most biggest issues have been addressed for me playing on PS4. From what I heard BF4 took way longer to become stable.
The reload time for the bombs on the bombers should be 3-4 minutes. Literally having those mouth breathing tards strafe you every 20 seconds is dumb af