The skill gap between the top 1% of pilots in WARDOGS and the other 99% is massive. Changes to cost or damage are never going to close that gap. It slows down the top players a little, but makes the attack helicopters nearly useless to everyone else. For me, I have little issues countering these guys. Silk and pilots like him are easier to shoot down then bad pilots are. They are smooth and predictable. Even more so now cause they have to hold on targets a lot longer. I call those 'free' kills cause they are so easy. Bad pilots are erratic and barely in control. I need 2 or 3 shots to take them out cause I'm trying to predict some goofy change in dirrection. But the skill to shoot them down with rockets is not available to every player. And most players don't like waddling around the entire 45min - 90 min match loaded down with rockets. Though I am seeing more and more people using them. (yay!!!) Even if you die, re-kit with rockets, and fly back to the zone to counter these, it's hard to get set up to shoot at them without them nuking you. And even if you do, The pilots can just avoid you and go harass somewhere else on the map while you waddle around trying to chase them. That's usually what happens with me. I shoot a guy down 2 or 3 times, he avoids where ever I'm at for the rest of the match. Everyone else depends heavily on VERBAs or CIWS to deal with them. And I don't care what anyone says, those are very effective. SO much so that while skilled pilots might be able to avoid them, they are so deadly they nuke even moderate pilots. Trying to think about this, the only thing I think that can close that gap is taking away rifle aim from the controls. That alone is what gives these guys insane percision. Restricting players inputs for the sake of 'balance' is a terrible idea though. It's like setting a maximum turn rate in the game cause you don't like the gap between normies and 'aim players' (I'm cringing even typeing that). Genuinely one of the most difficult issues I've seen in games to date. The little birds are the only tool in the game players can get 100s of kills in. Their lethality mixed with mobility is unmatched by anything else. That fact alone, IMO, proves something needs to be done to them.