Pyramidion needs more love?

[BlackenedPies]

To repeat, the only "OP" thing about the pyra is the easy repair, buff, and chem cycles. The two forward facing guns isn't an advantage because other ships (beside squid and fish) can have 3 guns shooting a target.

Rams are primarily for knocking the target into a bad position. The last thing you want is to knock yourself off (hint: use tools and throttle). That said, to avoid rams (except with a galleon) just use tools. All other ships can easily dodge (or negate) a full speed pyra. The most common pilot mistake (besides bringing the wrong tools) is not using enough tools.

If you're scared of a pyra just put a mine in front of it or quickly kill it. Mediocre armor and hull is not a good combo. Competitive matches have demonstrated that pyras are easily countered with good tactics. Gat mortar pyra can't beat gat mortar junker.

The mobula is the most OP ship but few admit it or fully utilize it (don't bring claw!).

There is an unfortunate information gap in pub matches. This is coupled with the fact that many experienced players like to play easy mode and bring meta ships to stomp newer players. The best solution I can think of is to provide players with as much info about the game as possible. Unfortunately I haven't found any instructional videos on youtube.

[TeddyBearMafia]

I actually stole a page from Skies' book the other day and flew a double burst mortar front pyra with two buff engis, and it was shockingly successful due to the massive aoe of the secondary shatter damage on the mortars. So, I think that goes to show that there are plenty of viable builds on the pyramidion, and that is serves quite well as a bruiser ship to protect weaker ships on it's backline.

It's weak enough at the sametime that it gets punished massively for missing a target or positioning poorly due to slow turn and acceleration speeds, that I don't feel it needs a substantial nerf either.

[GeoRmr]

massive aoe of the secondary shatter damage on the mortars

wut

[Indreams]

I don't know anything about secondary shatter damage of mortars (I'm pretty sure mortar is all explosive), but buffed, charged, dual mortar on a pyramidion is a valid tactic. You can kill just about anything but a Galleon in a barrage.

I ran this on a 2v2. We won 5-nill with all five kills on our mortar engineer.

In 3v3s or 4v4s, if your allies can dish out enough piercing damage, the game is over. Nothing, even the squid armor, can be up before buffed, charged, dual mortars kill.

[DJ Logicalia]

The only time I change the names in my ships is when I fly my double moartar pyra, the S.S. Killstealer. It pairs hilariously well with an ally with more than one piercing weapon who can focus fire

[BlackenedPies]

It's double explosive but it does enough damage to break components surprisingly quickly. Most newer players tend to sit on guns while they take damage. This makes double mortar very effective at disabling (aim for guns and engines!)
Pro tip: never sit on a gun! Get off your gun every single reload no matter what. #1 mistake that crew make

I wouldn't recommend charged because it only increases dps by 5%. I've found one buffed burst and one buffed greased works well. One clip of buffed mortar can kill anything.
Charged is best for guns with 2 or less shots per clip. Otherwise the reduction in fire rate and clip size makes it too slow.

Double buffed mortar (especially burst) is incredibly effective against squids because it'll damage multiple components (weak engines) and rip through the thin armor.

Bring double mortar against pub metamydions. Use your nose to control them. 1v1 don't need piercing!! 

[Kamoba]

Making it a pub stomper ship, much better gatling Artemis for disable if you're going against anyone who has sense to do repairs.

[BlackenedPies]

From what I see, it's extremely rare that crew will repair guns when they have shots on a target. By the time they finish their clips, their guns will be broken from the double mortars.

Art gat banshee trifecta! Double buff with heavy gat on balloon. I still think double mortar is more challenging and fun.

[Dutch Vanya]

A build that fully relies on the enemy screwing something up doesn't seem like a good build to me.

[BlackenedPies]

It's not a good build but it works. Same with merc carro on Dunes. It's difficult but can work against experienced crews. Once you have control or have shots on both their engines they are dead (1v1).

Even if they do repair their guns efficiently while they shoot, one clip of double buffed mortar may still break them (depending on direct hits vs burst). Double mortar is too much for engine repairs. They also wear down hulls and balloons and have decent fire stack chance. You'd be surprised how effective double buffed mortars are against balloons. Plugging them into the front (or back) of a pyra is deadly.

Double mortar pyras are best when used with careful rams and bumps. It's usually safe to assume they don't have a buffed balloon so it's really a one sided engagement. It's not fair but it's better than stomping with meta ships. It's a slow but satisfying 1v1 disable build.
A more effective build is carro mortar. Use buffed burst to aim for components. Good vs squids and fish.

I vote buff squid hull a bit. Keep spire OP (still the rarest ship in competitive)

[Kamoba]

The squid perma hull needs no buff... Its got a pretty big perma hull... Armour buff, maybe.. Engine buff, most likely.

[BlackenedPies]

Squids have good hulls but it never seems quite enough. The squid has a somewhat ideal armor because it's quick to rebuild. I'd be in favour of buffing it as long as it still takes 4 spanner hits to rebuild.

They don't need an engine buff, just buff your engines (top two is good enough). Don't bring claw just use your throttle (turn faster at neutral). The key to playing a squid is engine jumps. If you repair engines individually you're dead.

Jump up at the last high point on the path to the bottom engine and hit the top engine. As you finish the jump you will land at the bottom engine. Then go up and chem.

[michael.hauda]

How about this question, why not fly other ships? Not for the sake of not using pyra, but as a question to those who are pyra loyalists.

Like, why wouldnt you want to fly a junker
Or a spire, or a galleon. Or any other ship?

Coming into this discussion a bit late but; the reason is that in general ramming with your balloon is a terrible idea (this is a non-issue on a Pyramidion) you can ram upward downward and side to side
-The arcs are easy to keep for your main guns (unlike Junker, no your front one isn't your main one, galleon, and squids which arguably don't have a "main" gun)
-Keeping your engines up on a spire while ramming is straining on your crew, generally a bad idea.
-Easy to crew, when I type these sorts of responses I take into account my typical non-clan game, one novice ( one guy who is ok (12) and one guy who knows what he's doing but only wants to be a gunner (20) this as you can see is not a full SAC ship, nor a full Bard ship, nor a Duck ship, put simply my crew is just ok and the pyramidion is easy to crew so I don't have to worry about someone not knowing where the main engine on my ship is located (and event hat is just usually)
-I like to ram, Pyramidions are solid ramming ships, sniping gets boring after a match or two, when I fly galleon I sing to myself "circling and circling and circling" while dying of boredom, squids are too soft for me, I do fly all the ships but mostly Pyramidions, Junkers, and Galleons ad the Pyramidion is just satisfying

That all said I do hate the meta, my main list of nerfs is currently topped by explosive damage on mortar and a smaller one on flaks (light and heavy), followed by balloon damage multipliers, and a proportionate one to balloon health.

[Kamoba]

I don't think a flak or heavy flak nerf is really needed, they're effective in trained hands but lower their effectiveness and untrained hands will ignore their existence. Mortar nerf? Yes. The mortar is such an effective killing gun in any hands as it does not take long to learn and most pilots who understand the mortar will stay close making easier targets.

[BlackenedPies]

I don't agree with the explosive nerf because many ships rely on this. If your armor breaks you die. So don't let them break your armor. Gat mortar is very powerful, but it's also very weak. The heavy flak needs its one shot kill. Kill ships are easy to counter because they rely solely on their explosive weapon to kill, which is otherwise mostly useless.
Mortars should always be a one clip kill. Buffed mortar OP.

Remember, without an armor break these weapons are mostly useless. You have a huge advantage until your armor breaks. This is coming from a person who never brings kill builds.
For newer players it's a very different story.

As for ramming, rams are primarily for bumping the target out of position. You don't need to bump hard, with a spire you don't need to burn kero for more than a second. With a spire don't worry about repairs just keep shooting.

The main reason I don't like to bring Pyramidions is that the main engi doesn't get to do anything besides run around in a circle. If I bring a pyra I either have AI, or it's for a mine trifecta.
When it comes down to it, the other ships are only marginally easier for each crew member than a pyra.
You can easily train any novice for a spire or mobula. Mobula is my default ship and it's an excellent counter to any type of pyra. I usually play with a matchmaking mix.