I wouldn't be so quick to categorize me as strictly a jet jockey; I enjoy the ground fight just as much as the next guy. Fallen is my all time favorite map followed by Orel and Carpathian. Nor am I trying to convince anyone that my point of view is the correct one. I only offer my comments as a dissenting opinion in order that the whole story might be told lest the devs make poor decisions. "He who is silent is given to consent when he could speak and had opportunity to do so," is a fine maxim to live by, IMHO .

Let the devs sift through what's right and wrong here. It's their mod and so far I feel that they've been able to take feedback in threads like these and make positive changes to their project overall - in stark contrast to what EA/Dice were able to deliver.

That being said, I try to carry a balanced opinion about what is effective and what's not; about what is fair play and what's not. I was all for the Frog's beating with the nerf stick and all about seeing improvements on the MANPADs. I wouldn’t be piping up and telling people on public channels how best to intercept jets if I weren't. Keeping quite would have been the best choice if I were interested in maintaining my status quo as a pilot.

I can say this, however, the pain that PoE aircraft bring to ground forces is nothing compared to what I could deliver with vanilla’s aircraft (before the J10 got ubered), and I’ve yet to see them deliver the kind of pain that guys like Santa and Mantis consistently dish out after 1.70 (Mantis in a tank = run away). That’s probably small consolation but perhaps it might put things in perspective a little.

In discussing similar issues in the 5th's private channels, I've commented on how the data on the PoE warboard reflected that these PU kits were not being used and that, according to their recorded stats, people were being killed by "Parachutes" (yes, you read that right, by parachutes!) at a better KDR than MANPAD could deliver on its own.

Have a look at this table I whipped up at the time and compare the SA7 and Fliegerfaust to Parachutes down below. Parachutes had a KDR of 1.4, tying the SA7 while the Fliegerfaust fell behind at 1.3, lol.

While the sample size is relatively small, I just about fell off my chair when I first saw that little nugget. I didn't even know "parachutes" were recorded as being something people could die upon let alone that they credited a kill to somebody, lol.

I expect that now if people work in teams and with the buffs that MANPAD received, we should see a vast improvement over what was recorded pre-1.70. I mean, they were clearly effective in tandem before hand. They can only be better now. Besides that, people only need a handful of kills to realize that a MANPAD squad is a heck of a lot of fun and that they are having a significant impact on the map's topography. Also, if you look at the warboard now, the MANPAD kits have increased in KDR since my last snapshot... Now if only the PoE Devs would reset the warboard with the new patch so that we could see exactly how the new data compares against the old. =\

And regarding Lucky's observations against my own, I can only say that the view from the ground is different from the view of your jet's tail. However, I think that we are both agreed that a MANPAD with a lock tone on a jet is a dangerous thing. It's very hard, if not all but impossible, to shake once the missile sees the jet and acquires its tail.

In any event, I think I've delivered my point as clearly as I can and I don't want this to turn into an argument about who likes what and why he wants it improved/nerfed/whatever. I'm agreed to disagree at this point.

Cheers.