PlanetSide 2 Skyguard Tips and Tricks

PlanetSide 2 Skyguard Tips and Tricks by Baleur

So after a long time of cursing the Skyguard and how ineffective it is, I decided that I want to bloody play with it anyway.
I didn’t care anymore, I was going to learn to deal with it even if it would cost me my own sanity.
Turns out that applying common tactical principles does help both the survivability and effectiveness of the Skyguard, though obviously still not getting it anywhere near the “xp gain” effectiveness of MBTs or Infantry.

One very important thing to note about survivability. Never expose your rear.
Always move at first sound of incoming rocket fire. If only a handful of the rockets miss you, you’ll survive (you did keep the rear armor covered, right?).
The exception is if you’re getting attacked from the rear, then you stay still and fire everything you’ve got at the target.
Due to their high angle of attack (pointing straight down at you from above) or their proximity to your cover (hovering just above behind the building you use as rear cover) chances are they will panic when reaching half health, activating their afterburners before having time to correct their angle, hitting your rear cover or a nearby building.

Dashed red lines indicate areas of danger that you hopefully managed to block off.
Solid red lines on the minimap indicate the general area of danger on the map.

1 – Keep your butt safe.

Never park in an open field with your butt exposed, it will get you killed fast and send you running to the forums with tears in your eyes over how OP rocket pods are. If you keep your front and sides as the only exposed areas of easy targeting, pilots will go for this and you can sustain a full rocket barrage without sustaining lethal damage (if you move, see above).

If they go for the harder angle to hit of your rear, the environmental obstacle of choice will block over half of their rockets, or all if positioned well, allowing you to survive.

2 – Turn begin.

When you need to turn around quickly to scan the sky, or following a fast moving target that flies above you, preform this maneuver.

First aim straight up and start to swing sideways a bit.

3 – Turn mid.

Then as you near the peak of the sky, rotate fast in the same direction.

4 – Turn end.

Bring the sights down and fine-tune your viewing angle. You now completed a 180 degree turn in far less time than it would have taken by just swinging side to side.

5 – Check where hostile zones are.

Always make sure you know where the hostiles will come from. This varies depending on vehicle.
Since we’re talking about the Skyguard, your biggest threats are bases and outposts with airpads.
Indicated here in friendly ketchup & mustard for your convenience.

More ketchup & mustard layers = higher threat, higher chance of incoming air units.

6 – Get wide open views.

Try to gain a good vantage point whenever possible, but attempt to hide behind a shrub if you are on an elevated position like this. A fast flying fighter might miss you if you somewhat blend in behind a bush, especially if he/she is on the same elevation or lower elevation than you, like the Mosquito in this picture.

7 – Keep the butt safe, shrubs help conceal.

If you’re more concerned with infiltrating enemies from the rear, keep the shrubbery at your rear.
An infiltrating soldier concerned with capturing points or disabling terminals ASAP, will not pay close attention to every bush around the base.

Again we see that we eliminated the rear attack angle by putting the entire Crown behind our butts, we’re also below an airpad to further complicate things for hostile aircraft.
Note the danger zone, never ever let your rear face the danger zone.

8 – Keep your eyes up, you don’t need to see rocks on half your screen.

This is something alot of players do in many games, especially first person shooters. They aim at the ground and need half a second to move the sights up in position when they spot an enemy.

This applies even more to the Skyguard, you don’t need to look at the ground. You need your turret to be as close to potential hostiles as possible, before they arrive.

9 – Use the minimap to drive.

This takes some practice, and don’t do it if you’re not comfortable with it while you have allies around you as it will only irritate your teammates with constant collisions.

But do try to practice this, keep your turret facing the danger zone and use the minimap to drive.
Dashed teal lines indicate direction of travel.

10 – Use the minimap to drive.

Another example, but more extreme, we’re now looking at our rear.
Dashed teal lines indicate direction of travel.

11 – Building covers rear angles of attack.

Again, we’re facing the danger zone, and keeping a rock at our immediate rear armor (snug up tight) along with a building for further cover. Essentially eliminating the attack angle on our rear armor. Most incoming fire would hit our top armor instead, which funnily enough is more thick in PS2 than rear armor.

With the following tips, your Top armor is by far the most likely to get hit due to hotshot pilots that despite your cover attempt rear hits regardless. Against more timid pilots that take any shots of opportunity they can get, your front or side armor is more likely to get hit.

As these are already quite strong (enough to survive a full rocket barrage, if you move), I recommend getting the Top armor upgrade.