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Useless static AA

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8 years ago
Some static AA is almost useless. Nobody use Hacksaw and u can rarely see Cobra.

Lets start with Hacksaw. Whenever u need fairly cheap static AA u choose between Razor and Hacksaw. And as u see Razor is always better.
When u build Hacksaw u get a paper tower with tiny range which is only useful against Ravens. One hacksaw - one died Raven. But unlike Razor it is useless against anything else.
When u build Razor u get a black cylinder from the hell. It have good range, okay dps and it is indestructible (Razor don't give a shit even about nuke). Razor is good against planes, gunships, felons, funnywebs and nukes.
I think Hacksaw can be something like a big AA defender. It should have more range, more rockets and faster reloading and less damage. So it should be used as anti-bombers, but it still should be useful against gunships.

Now about Cobra. I only have seen Cobra in ffa and when banshies ball was op. But now huge gunships or planes balls are pretty rarely, so two razors are better than one Cobra. I think it should have lower weight, so it can be used against gnats balls and drones instead of Razor.
+0 / -0

8 years ago
I have found Hacksaw to be kind of nice against Thunderbird runs. Razor doesn't do much against those since you need very high burst damage or the Thunderbird gets a full run off. Even Defenders usually end up killing the Thunderbird too late.
+0 / -0

8 years ago
i would like to see the hacksaw to fire 6 instead of 2 missles (each missle keeps its damage). with its really low range and its paper hp, this would be okish to try out.
+2 / -0
8 years ago
2 hacksaws take down a wyvern tho afaik, so it def is useful. now with short range it is not so likely wyvern will actually get in range of both but even 1 hit does a lot of damage. if you have some amount of other aa that may just be enough.
+0 / -0


8 years ago
A powerful Hacksaw would shut down bomber play. That is why it is only going to be as powerful as it needs to be in order to stop bombers dominating. If nobody builds Hacksaw and bombers don't dominate then the unit is not needed. It is rare at the moment but I am keeping it around just in case.
+0 / -0
Than what about give some HP to Hacksaw, so it can be built near the front line?

Also, what about Cobra?
+3 / -0

8 years ago
I almost don't use hacksaw. Olde version seems worked better and was used frequently. At least in team games.
Cobra is good when need guard object like berthas. Sometime it works as good trap. Especially vs slow diving bomber. And they work good with faraday tower. Also cobra is usable vs drones, ship drones too and swifts. Swifts die fast to cobra.
However is prefer chainsaw or razors in team games. Chainsaw for great range and razor for cheap tank unit.
+0 / -0
Skasi
Cobra is op against clumped air units. It has incredible sustained DPS and very nice AOE, but almost no burst. It should be pretty nice against gunships (which seem to be replacing the plane meta). Perhaps the entry price is a bit high.
+3 / -0
Yeah, Cobra is great for protecting high-value targets such as singulos or nuke silos.

At a stage when a large flock of ravens is a possible threat, cobra is the best solution. (Screamer/Mercury works too, but can be countered by a competent opponent).
Chainsaw and razor simply do not have enough DPS for such situation, while hacksaws/defender forests dont have the sustained DPS.

Hacksaw is pretty bad, yeah. A cluster of 4-5 defenders is superior for most situations. The exception is probably whe you are getting licho'd - in such case hacksaw might be helpful if you position it properly and the opponent is too careless.
+1 / -0
Skasi
Phew, I almost forgot to post something about Hacksaw!

1) Remove it.
2) ???
3) Watch people spamming Newtons. (=PROFIT!!!)
+0 / -0

8 years ago
To reiterate my hacksaw plan:

1) Make Disarm damage destroy bomber ammo.

2) Make Hacksaw disarm.

3) Give it enough damage that it can send a Licho home.

Nice alternative to the all-or-nothing bomber play.
+3 / -0
TL;DR: Air has changed a lot recently so changing AA is probably not a good idea right now. Flak and Hacksaw do have (narrow) niches so the only real reason for a change would be to foster gameplay where AA can be sniped by land forces to facilitate bombing runs and more cooperation.

We've tried many times to dislodge Razor is the go-to AA turret, since we want singular points of failure for AA that land players can snipe out to facilitate attacks from their air allies. The Razor was meant to serve more as a dependable backup in games where there is artillery flying everywhere and you just want something that can at least fight back. However, it's usually as much as you need and when you want to add more AA power, you just add in more razors or jump straight to Chainsaws.

I think this mostly comes down to coverage-for-cost. Two razors cover a lot more area than one flak does, and the DPS and AoE (Which you rarely need) of flak is just not enough utility compared to the utility and safety that the HP of a razor offers. This is why people jump to chainsaw, it offers superior coverage. However, upping the range of Flak isn't a total solution: The Razor is just at the right cost point to be a good first response to enemy air (About the same cost as a plane/gunship).

Hacksaw, on the other hand, is meant to be a spot-defense. It's meant to defend single high value targets, for when you absolutely need to kill an incoming bomber. Google nerfed it because he felt it muscled out bombers, but Ravens were too strong, and now that Ravens are nerfed I think we have a much healthier air game, a higher choice in second factory, and more dynamic game that doesn't lock you down under your static AA cover, and less oppression of high-cost low-HP units like Mace, Penetrator or Pillager: Not to mention comsniping. I think this is much better than having that strong counter mechanic where Ravens are mandatory and hacksaws are also mandatory.

But with the weaker Raven, Hacksaw is better against it. If it's not worth building because there are not enough bombers in the metagame, that's probably fine: But it should probably still be alright for when you absolutely must kill that Thunderbird, Licho or Raven. We don't need to discourage bombers any more than we do.

Maybe if AUrankAdminGoogleFrog still feels the same way about that design goal we could look at Flak vs Razor to facilitate a gameplay where land forces or artillery can surgically take out AA: Maybe to the point of just swapping their cost and weight. But air is in a very new, very different place right now so there is not that much need to shake it up: Flak does still offer the utility of AoE, which is sometimes a thing.

Gotta say I don't mind Pxtl's suggestion though, killing planes before they drop a bomb, or after they do to assure attrition, is kind of the only interaction you have with them. Would be nice to have a way to deny air in an area without the plane player suddenly losing his whole investment.
+2 / -0
I don't think each of the six (!) different flavours of static AA needs to be equally (or even nearly equally) viable.

Hacksaw is a little bit sad but earlygame (when decoys are not so easy to throw away) it front-loads its damage a little better than Defenders and is a bit cheaper for killing a Raven/Thunderbird.

Along the lines of what AUrankAdminGoogleFrog said it has a purpose as a safety valve.

Cobra seems totally fine to me. As a late-game thing it fills a niche (the AoE stacks up in later-game situations).

If Disarm removed bomber payload Racketeer would ruin air IMO (it's already pretty good).
+0 / -0

8 years ago
AUrankAdminAquanim

Right now disarm makes the bombers circle uselessly and get shot down while they wait to rearm. They may as well go home.
+2 / -0
Racketeer was designed to be flex-AA, since Thunderbirds wreck(ed) shieldballs and shieldbot has the lightest AA in the game.

It's not quite as good as it was initially, it used to rise faster, now it mostly hits bombers only after they start their run, because Google fiddled with it since it was so OP on release. Once anything gets hit by Racketeer once, it is now perma-disarmed as long as the Racketeer keeps firing, so like CArankPxtl said it's almost better to just return to base.
+0 / -0
quote:
We've tried many times to dislodge Razor is the go-to AA turret, since we want singular points of failure for AA that land players can snipe out to facilitate attacks from their air allies. The Razor was meant to serve more as a dependable backup in games where there is artillery flying everywhere and you just want something that can at least fight back. However, it's usually as much as you need and when you want to add more AA power, you just add in more razors or jump straight to Chainsaws.
quote:
Maybe if AUrankAdminGoogleFrog still feels the same way about that design goal we could look at Flak vs Razor to facilitate a gameplay where land forces or artillery can surgically take out AA: Maybe to the point of just swapping their cost and weight. But air is in a very new, very different place right now so there is not that much need to shake it up: Flak does still offer the utility of AoE, which is sometimes a thing.

What about making Flak and Razor almost the same cost and weight? So it would be the same situation as with Gaus and HLT: one is better against enemies, but another survives any artillery and even nuke. So people would prefer to make Flak whenever it can survive and Razor where Flak cannot survive.
+0 / -0
i think razor is mostly built as a meatshield tbh, and to provide the impression of that there is actual aa in the area. its quite bad at hitting planes and unless you have several they well generally fail to down any bombers. concentrated gunship attacks also have little trouble taking them out.
+0 / -0

8 years ago
Hacksaw has exactly one good use.
It can donate its superior model to Chainsaw before being removed.
+2 / -0
Wait, we don't like the McMissile chainsaw? I love the golden arches.

RUrankbanana_Ai

but nobody builds gauss turrets.
+0 / -0

8 years ago
There's a problem one faces when making static AA: the best case scenario is that it kills some air and is spotted by said air. If it's actually guarding valuable territory then being spotted is enough for it to almost certainly go down to arti or tac nuke soon afterwards. This is particularly true for chainsaw, as screamer has the range to affect an area from outside arty range. You're then back where you started but now you're having to deal with both arty and air, and you're down 900 metal.

The way around this central point of weakness is smaller more resilient aa, and none is more resilient than razor. It also stops felon balls dead and body blocks for your turrets too. It helps against planes a little but it's sort of a token tickling.
+0 / -0
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