Played against a cogs team in a friendly skirmish they brought out the old double pya and 4 mercs... It was slightly ridiculous. We couldn't save the galleon even with three engies at the hull.
Essentially there is no approach if they can see you.
The Gentlemen took two sniper pyramidions against Skrimskraws galleon on Battle of the Dunes. Me and Vetta were gunning Lumberjacks on the port broadside with a Merc on top.
As soon as one LB starts hitting even just one shot of each clip;- the pyra loses a gunner because the Balloon needs fulltime attention;- two bullets per clip and the pyra captain has to move out of sight.
They both ended up hiding in the tubular structure trying to snipe from cover;- but as soon as they got spotted or moved slightly in vision they were getting slaughtered just by the LB broadside.
We took them 5-0 twice in a row;
If you have gunners with Lumberjack experience and a Captain that knows what they do;- mercs don't stand a chance - their best effort would be to keep disabling the guns - straight up;- the LB will win everytime on equal hits
Another moral to the story is that the best defense is a good offense - if you see the enemy uses Mercs before the match starts and you insist on using two close range ships;- obviously you can't just facecharge them to get close range. Use one long range weapon yourself and force the enemy captain to move or take out enemy guns
The only reason mercuries are so powerful is because the captains that are facing them let them be efficient.
If you're still in the lobby and you see two pyra's against you that have mercs either on front or on their side and you decide to go with a light carronade or hwacha you're just kind of asking for it;- I know it sucks to use loadouts you don't prefer but a really big part of becoming a good pilot is using guns that work against your enemy;- not just guns you like.
I'm a huge Lumberjack fanatic and people still disagree with me that it's a much more powerful long range weapon than mercs;- if not the most powerful weapon in the game - I'm trying to convince captains to use it more often and allow gunners to train up on them
