My rant about the avril. Dont flame me...

[Boy Racer]

As said before, don't flame me.

Basically. Whilst the topic is about avrils and how overpowered they are, the 2nd thing i want to bring up is mantas...

Im a manta fan as I liked risky yet skilled kills. My main complaint is that almost all missiles lock on to it.

Raptors I accept as they have to be good at something.


Scorpions Im a bit miffed about it, I mean scorpions can easily outrun a manta, Now that is, I mean with the turbo it now has and the pathetic plasma pellets the manta has the scorpion can escape it easy. Still it aint a major threat, as long as the manta expertly uses the area to escape by jumping around.

Avrils though are the worst. They go faster than a manta (Raptors too but they aren't great lock on) and trying to dodge an avril is harder than doing a tightrope with 10 players launching the stingers secondary fire at you. Its potent death to a poor manta player. Which brings me on to the clincher.

The sole purpose of a Manta is to kill footsoliders. Now thats taken away now with the avril. Any hope of getting a kill is gone and before you get a chance to get out he/she all ready has the avril out and its killed me. How annoying.

Another thing is that the manta has got worse at dodging. One suspense match I thought a great Idea was to circle the slow lethargic tank to circle it. I circle it but for some reason the Arm of the cannon is moving pretty fast. It blew me to smithereens. Flak cannons and stingers, the most generic tool of an arsenal, damages the measly 200 points of the manta.



This may seem like im hating on the avril, im not, Im just saying that a few things has been overpowered, and to be honest the mantas been downgraded a bit. Perhaps lower the speed of the rocket avril or perhaps lessen its damage?

[Wrathchild73]

U might be approaching it wrong. A manta is great for surprise attacks. The key to kill foot soldiers is to try to run him down from behind, even with out Avril a skilled player can slow or prevent you from running him down from the front with Shock cores and Flak. Dodging an Avril is great(jumping motion) but always getting out of the manta is better(there are so many time you can dodge a Avril before one finally gets you), they key is never give the vehicle to the enemy so attack from behind to avoid this. Best vehicle against manta is the scorpion, You see one get way out of its way, even a poor skilled player can kill a manta with a scorpion.

mantas main duties are not just focused on killing foot soldiers. Actually that is the spawn killing point of view. mantas first and for most duties relay on two basic principles:
1. Fast Transportation: Foot soldiers, ORB Carrier, node building and attacking.
2. Surprise attacks: Prevent enemy from building nodes, killing heavy duty vehicles like tanks, paladin, bender etc... The speed of this vehicle is the key anticipate the movement of turrets and always be in its back. NO the turrets do not move faster then you, only the Bender shock turret can move fast because it has a small diameter for rotation. Key is always anticipate its movement.

The manta like the viper is a light weight vehicle meant for quick transportation and surprise attack don't expect to have a manta live for ever. It is one of the fastest to re spawn so to don't worry to get killed, die like a man and grab the next manta that spawns.


If you want more details or training lessons on vehicles come by our neck of the woods if you are a PC gamer. WWW.pubgaminclan.com

[Infra`]

If anything, I would argue that vehicles are more "overpowered." :P

[chilau1]

yea it got less overpowerd in ut3...you see you can carry like 3 avril ammo by default and in ut2004 u can carry 15 by default

[commiecat]

Mantas should be weak against avrils. They're probably the lightest vehicles in the game. I don't think you should be looking at it compared to 2k4. If you do that, then yes, it is harder to dodge because in 2k4 an avril was almost useless against a skilled Manta pilot. The Manta is more quiet now and you just need to learn to use the terrain. If you're on a map with mountains and/or obstacles, it's not too hard to escape an avril aimed at the horizon. You will have trouble against people who launch avrils straight up in the air and then lock it on your Manta from above.

As far as tanks, that's just poor flying as far as I know. 9 times out of 10 I'll take out a tank w/ a Manta. Just hop over the tank when the turret is almost aimed near you. If you're trying to strafe around it then you're more likely to get hit w/ a shot or splash damage.

Like all the other weapons and vehicles, the Manta is as powerful as the person using it. Just takes some practice.

[Mr Evil]

If you spot an Avril-user, don't try to run him over, but start shooting at him instead. The rockets are large and the Manta fires fast, so there is a pretty good chance that you end up unscathed while your opponent is blown up by his own Avril.

Alternatively, if you are in close, keep circling and jumping over him as fast as possible, as this makes it very hard to lock on with the Avril. Not too close though, or even an un-locked rocket will probably hit you.

[Moloko]

Mantas should be weak against avrils. They're probably the lightest vehicles in the game. I don't think you should be looking at it compared to 2k4. If you do that, then yes, it is harder to dodge because in 2k4 an avril was almost useless against a skilled Manta pilot. The Manta is more quiet now and you just need to learn to use the terrain.

True, but this was balanced by a better, more solid, accurate feeling shock in 2k4, with a lot more knockback (prim and sec fire) , it was nearly always possible to kill or at the very least force pilots out via use of the shock. In fact, against the real skilled pilots it was the shock R as the weapon of choice .

I think nerfing the shock so dramatically, when it had been so utterly dominant in 2k4 soured a lot of 2k4 player's initial impressions. I know when I first shot the new version in the UT3 demo it was like ..... Like it more now, but against two fast mantas it remains next to useless.

[Tailsnake]

You might have a point if you're talking about the console version where there's more noticeable knock back from weapons and you can stop a manta in it's tracks with the stinger secondary, but in the PC version the Avril is the only option for defense vs light vehicles (other than the IH secondary which results in the foot soldier getting damaged). Mantas are **** near overpowered as is, it only makes sense to have a few ways to take it out, especially considering that it's a light assault vehicle.

[Mr Evil]

Flak primary and triple-rockets are quite effective. Shock balls aren't half bad vs. Mantas and Vipers either. And then there's the Shock combo, which will kill a Manta driver and let you steal the vehicle. Hard to pull off, but quite possible.

[Belgian General]

Manta is a great vehicle for easy kills. Take away the avril and you take away the only chance for poor foot soldiers to survive them.

[Rhykker]

How do I become manta?

But seriously; at the demo release, everyone was complaining about the manta being overpowered. Now the opposite holds true?

[Helscream]

IMO the only thing overpowered about a Manta is the facted you cannot hear it unless your already roadkilled. Sometimes i wear headphones and have that **** all the way up just to get into that ''unreall'' feel. And i still don't hear it coming. Viper IMO are more of a pain in the *** from my personal experience. Since its narrow and not wide (like the manta) the hitbox from a players view is smaller. When lookg head2head of course.

Scorpions those (especially in avalanche) rape the **** out of vipers which i really enjoy. But most noobs just exploded the ****ing scorpoion imeddiately after entering the vehicle.

And maybe this is just a person rant of mine but i think the helbender could use some twiking. I dislike the rear turret because you have to ''wait'' for it to charge itself instead of manually chargining it like in 2k4. And it feels less powerful to me. Because use to in 2k4 when you charged it it would do alot of damage (fully charge) and have a serious knockback on lighter vehicles.

The ammo of an Avril though is either scarce or doesn't exist. The only map that has an abundant of ammo is Necropolis. Other maps is out of the way to get. Like Suspense for example.

But the Manta IMO is made for suprise attacks like the other dude was saying. Rush in roadkill people then get the hell outta their before you get locked on with a avril.

[Sanch3z]

here is a modded Hellbender which is more like the 2k4 version:

http://utforums.epicgames.com/showth...lbender+deluxe

I also dislike that the shock is nerfed and the avril is now the #1 weapon vs vehicles. I am currently testing a manta mod with increased engine volume and ability to tow multiple hoverboarders(6). My next mod will be shock rifle which will have knock back equal to 2k4. It would also be very possible to slow down the avril rocket speed.

[Xyx]

The sole purpose of a Manta is to kill footsoliders.

Even if it could not kill people at all by running them over, the Manta would still be a very powerful tool. It's fast and it has an insane damage output. Great for raiding nodes.

I also dislike that the shock is nerfed and the avril is now the #1 weapon vs vehicles.

Imagine that, a dedicated anti-vehicle weapon being the #1 weapon against vehicles. Who'd have thought that of the Anti-Vehicle Rocket Launcher?

[Boy Racer]

I see your point, the thing is alot of things get the manta, so its hard NOT to killed when your suprising.

About the hellbender, I hardly use it, its slow and although its shock combo attack is decent, its secondary attack is USELESS, apart from picking off raptors, where it does well, I do wish they had the charge and go that they had in ut2004