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Air buff?

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4 years ago
Currently, it seems that air has no place late game, its the only fac that gets completely shutdown mid-late game by aa. A couple of chainsaws or an Artemesia can destroy an air player's game. I propose either an existing plane buff, mostly hp by a lot or to add new late-game air units like super bombers with high hp and damage to keep the fac alive late game. (This post was meant to be much better but due to a lack of time I will prob update it later to make it more uniform and better).
+0 / -2

4 years ago
Give repair pads a 4X Build power buff so it is like a plane is sitting on its own caretaker.
+2 / -0
4 years ago
While a good start, you can only repair planes that make it back, an Artemis can kill a licho in 2-3 shots.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
Also late game, palens aren't able to deal with the critical damage they should be able to, the power creeps mobile aa has is too much. 5-6 crashers that destroy 3-4 ravens before they can bomb and retreat.
+0 / -0
Often the ground-based AA you're referring to costs as much or more than the bombers themselves - at which point you can go on using your bombers for defence, where their AA cannot reach, and start putting your resources into something else (e.g. nuke).

It's not like land units can casually waltz into enemy territory at that stage of the game either.
+7 / -0
4 years ago
Then comes the chainsaw and screamer which shut down all life for the air fac, no other fac is this badly eliminated from the game by a single unit or 2... Air should at least get some late-game units like krow or cyclops or Griz....
+0 / -1

4 years ago
I think that some gs/planes should fly higher and all gs/planes should have much higher ascending speed. That would be a buff against flex aa, motly riots.

I disagree that air has no place in lategame - as Aquanim said they are great at defense. Also the moment you destroy the Artemis/Chainsaws with say tacnukes or catapult or even stun it with Widow - the area suddenly becomes open.
+3 / -0
Deleted my first post since I thought you were talking about both GS and Airplane.

But here is my response:

On getting shut down:

Getting shutdown due to air means that the AA on the enemy side has increased to such a point that planes can no longer fly through without being shot down.

This seems to be the case with Chainsaw and Artemis, which easily blasts most planes out of the sky.

However: Once AA has progressed to that point, there are generally 2 options - Their army is weaker due to them spending more on AA, or if not, then you are seriously losing.
In the second scenario, consider resigning. In the first, your options are to either strike their army with a ground force due to being weakened, or hit them with a special weapon.
Once the enemy force has been engaged, they will suffer from attrition, and this is likely to be their mobile AA as well, which means your aircraft should be able to Thunderbird/Wyvern the remainder of their army to death. Same thing with Static AA: Go for the Static AA if your army is weaker first, as it allows air support, then do the same thing as previous: Thunderbird/Wyvern the remainders to death.

Another option is to make decoy AA such as Swifts, flying them over AA whilst in boost means they will waste the AA's shots, and allow your actual strike planes to come in and deal damage. This is particularly effective against mobile AA since they have reloads and cannot deal with being baited easily. If the army has so much AA this does not work, then go for the ground assault as shown in previous paragraph.

Finally, you can simply THROW MORE PLANES AT THE ENEMY
The most brutish of options, you go for their army with strike planes (preferably Wyvern) and proceed to bomb them without caring about your losses. Or their AA. Just make sure you turn the tide since planes shotdown using this method WILL be easy to reclaim by your opponent.


Essentially, you must find a way to allow your high burst damage to get to valuable targets without being shutdown. These 3 options are simple ways to do so. But if your air is strong enough, once AA cover goes down, your opponent's army should be absolutely savaged by your airstrikes, which allows you to forgo an army that is capable of going toe to toe with your opponent. All three options still work even in lategame, you just need more units to do so. If you fac switched since you hold an economic advantage, this should be relatively easy to accomplish

Opinion

Planes, I think, should be easy to shutdown in the form of AA. This is because they have extremely high amounts of burst power that can easily turn battles in your favor. If planes were made stronger so that it takes more AA to take them down, then planes will have an easier time savaging armies on the ground, and means that the third option, yeet more planes at them, will be more viable, which I think is unhealthy for an RTS game, since it makes the player with an economic advantage even stronger if he fac switches to air, which might just make him unbeatable due to air's extremely fast reaction time.

Here's another thing to consider: If the planes survive and kill a target, they have managed to cost your opponent metal without costing you any metal. This means that planes gain an exponential effect, as each time the planes succeed, the weaker your opponent gets whilst you remain the same strength. This will lead to lopsided battles where the planes win simply by being strong enough to attrit your opponents down while not being whittled down themselves, as they cannot be traded against once they are at strength.
+5 / -0
4 years ago
For the 900 metal needed in the chainsaw, you can down nearly 2000-3000 metal worth of planes. AA is a way to overpowered, it should at least be an equal metal investment in aa and the planes. Also, most facs have ways to deal with defences such as arty, air has nothing...
+0 / -2

4 years ago
I got to admit, I would hate playing 1v1s against air where I have to spam 100% AA against the planes player to do any battle with the enemy. Using my slow ground troops in a large ball so the fast planes don't just roflstomp separate groups with superior speed and firepower, giving up all the territory that the AA is currently not in. Sounds like hell.
+5 / -0

4 years ago
Non-diving ravens getting shot at by llts is like wtf? Non-diving ravens getting perma-stunned by faradays is full retard. Like, what's the point of having air if it has literally no advantage vs porc relative to ground units?
+0 / -1
4 years ago
I played a game where one faction was centered around air units, having endgame viable (rather than situational) units. That faction was the uncontested number one faction in the entire game, to the point where RvR (random vs random) team games would often be decided in the loading screen when one team got said faction and the other one didn't.

ZK maps are way larger, so in the worst case scenario significant air buffs may render other facs pointless as map size grows.
+0 / -0
Relative to ground units, Airplane brings extremely quick, hard hitting damage that can wipe out units quickly, or at least badly damage them.


Consider how Thudnerbird makes units useless by disarming them. Within 3-4 seconds, an entire ground army can be rendered ineffective. No other ground unit can do this without extremely cheesy play to be effective, or risk serious damage to your own forces if you want to be consistent. Imp/Snitch are examples of this, since they either need to be flung, cloaked, or used as mines, all of which have their downsides such as terraforming, extra cloak cost, and even just plain old friendly fire when the mines are decloaked.

Same with Missile silo: Extremely strong, but costs a lot more than just 1 Thunderbird.

All the Thunderbird has to care about is getting shot down, and unless the AA is so strong it wipes them out of the map, even 3 Thunderbirds can render an army of >2000metal useless, even if 2 get shot down.

I will concede the point that this is in ideal conditions, but considering how rarely Thunderbird strikes fail, due to them being able to have a wide AoE and able to move in response to manuvering target, but it shows how the Thunderbird still brings an edge over ground units, namely, the rendering ineffective of them. Against porc, yes they can be shot down, but stationary targets are even worse off with Thunderbird strikes. A few decoys, or a push of ground units rapidly shuts porc down by Thunderbirding it and lowering casualties on your side.

I do concede that Ravens are not that good against porc and actually need ground forces to support them when they bomb a defended area.

For Wyvern: Its fast, its strong. It can repeatedly bomb porc to death, and unless it is shot down, it will rapidly make cost against static defenses since it almost always survives doing a bombing run. Its advantage over ground units? The fact it doesn't need to walk over ground allows it to support forces far away, such as raider groups or a group of units that have penetrated deep through enemy lines, giving your army anti-porc support well into enemy territory. Did you consider how it is on-call? Unlike artillery, Wyvern does not care about having to get there to do something, or even deal with ground units that are trying to hunt it down. If the AA is so strong that even the Wyvern gets blocked, then in all likelihood, a raiding force will mot survive long and should probably be focused on not being turned into reclaim.

Again, the reason I think Airplanes should not be stronger vs late game AA is their ability to decimate armies outside of protective AA. If AA is to be made weaker (directly or indirectly), this allows the planes to be both a viable defense option AND a devastating offense option. This will just result in a)skilled players destroying unskilled ones with air b) giving the player with an economic advantage even more military advantage if they swap to air.
+3 / -0

4 years ago
quote:
I will concede the point that this is in ideal conditions, but considering how rarely Thunderbird strikes fail, due to them being able to have a wide AoE and able to move in response to manuvering target

I conclude that you've never used a tbird before. Unlike krows they cannot be maneuvered once they start bombing. They're stuck in a straight line and if it ain't the right straight line then too bad. They're a serious pain to use because of that.
+0 / -0
FIrankFFC
4 years ago
Only good anti air is Artemis and Swifts. Nothing else stops the bombs from being dropped.

Buff aa
+1 / -0
quote:
I conclude that you've never used a tbird before. Unlike krows they cannot be maneuvered once they start bombing. They're stuck in a straight line and if it ain't the right straight line then too bad. They're a serious pain to use because of that.

Incorrect. If you use the manual fire, or override the attack order with a move order after the bombing run has begun, the Thunderbird is entirely capable of turning while firing.

(Also, even if you had been correct, your belittle-ing attitude was unwarranted.)
+5 / -0

4 years ago
quote:
Incorrect. If you use the manual fire, or override the attack order with a move order after the bombing run has begun, the Thunderbird is entirely capable of turning while firing.

I tried that and it did not work. I haven't tested it recently but maybe the behavior has changed idk.

quote:
Only good anti air is Artemis and Swifts. Nothing else stops the bombs from being dropped.

Except faradays.

Hacksaw: 220 metal, kills one bomber.
Faraday: 250 metal, kills like half of the bombers they send, given an llt or two, and the whole set is just as strong vs ground. Two faradays and three llts will kill like 75-90% of the bombers they send.
+0 / -0

4 years ago
Air is weak for newer and inexperienced players to use.

Air is NOT weak for guys that know what they are doing.

That's because the air fac is tricky and situational to use. Consider what you are getting: a bunch of relatively tough units that move very fast and can deliver immense burst damage while being immune to most weaponry. An air player is the backbone of the team. He can deliver enough damage to tip an offensive his team's way, and can deliver pin point strikes to rear targets like singu where no other unit can. An air player is also the last line of defence for her team. She is the one that has to deal with that shieldball or mass of tanks NOW or her team loses. Air is perfectly suited for that. BUT IT IS NOT AN EASY ROLE.

Secondly, to address Artemis and Chainsaw: my reaction is, so what? An air player has an entire team to support them, and if nobody can figure out Silo kills those two dead, then they deserve to lose.

Air is never going to cut it against mature porc.

Forget it, almost no single units can make a difference. I've been in games under severe Bertha and Tremor fire, and my porc keeps on trucking. To expect Likho to come in and clean it up is laughable. What you need is a combined arms assault with emp, swarms of raiders, tanks, and probably silo too.

If air was buffed to the point where it could zip through Artemis without a worry, the next thing that happens is that games turn into airspam with clouds of swifts being the chief units on the battlefield.

Air IS balanced, but air is also HARD.
+9 / -0
what you need against porc is a team that understands the game enough to prevent porc from being build at all. i am convinced that if all players in a 10v10 would spam raiders and other units later, porc would only be able to exist on very narrow maps. but since most cluster-players wait a few minutes before they move their shit out of their base, the middle is usually already full with defenses.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
At the very least, please nerf the faradays capability to hit the air, which is completely unrealistic. Also, buff the hp of air units in general.
+0 / -3
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