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Raptor: when is it useful?

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16 months ago
Is there a scenario when the Raptor is ever useful?
+0 / -0
16 months ago
when your elo is too high and want to drop but dont want to go troll mode
+6 / -0

16 months ago
I've seen them used to protect bombing runs, they follow behind the bombers and punish any swifts that attack.
DPS and range is also high enough to chase away gunships quite effectively.
+0 / -0
16 months ago
If there is any unit in the game that Id say needs a buff, it is raptor.

Though to be honest I want my Hawks back and I know that aint happening...
+2 / -0

16 months ago
If for some reason you want to play a fighter war with the enemy air, instead of, IDK, building ground AA, Raptors deal better in long term engagements than swifts. But you need to be careful because they only fire forward, and a critical mass of swifts can out manuver poorly micro'd raptors and oneshot them one by one with missiles.

Raptors lose to nimbus. It's pathetic.

gunships can fly at then underneath Raptors, making them stop firing and slowly turn around at combat speed, dealing almost no damage with a poor circling pattern. That's how Raptor loses to Harpy. And Trident, sometimes.

Raptor dies to AA, even ship AA, cause it slows to fire, and then just eats AA fire. It's never a good idea to needlessly fly above AA anyways, but Raptor just feels worse with the slowdown and predictable movement.
+1 / -0

16 months ago
old threads about zk raptor, from about 2 years ago

https://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/32623?postID=233561#233561
https://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/31989?postID=227740#227740


In my opinion, it's mediocre at its job at stopping bombing runs or brawling with other air units. The slowdown mechanic can doom it.

suggestions :
A)
- less slowdown and an on/off toggle for it
- reduce range from 800 to 550
- double DPS from 96 to 192

or

B)
- less slowdown and an on/off toggle for it
- reduce range from 800 to 550
- triple DPS from 96 to 288
- increase cost to 400

+2 / -0

16 months ago
Raptor is crappy in general and terrible when used by noobs.

I've found it occaisionally useful when you keep it near the front to intercept enemy air.

That said, as soon as the enemy builds chainsaws or god forbid, Artemis, Raptor is flying dead metal.

It's one good point is its fairly high HP which allows it to engage enemy swifts, and retreat to repair. If you manage to build up a large ball of them they can be quite deadly. Unfortunately any competent enemy wont allow this to happen. Raptor needs a buff. If buffing its damage or speed is problematic then I'd suggest 25% more HP so that it can loiter in the face of enemy fire, becoming a kind of ultra-heavy fighter.
+0 / -0
i regularily use raptor, mostly to great success. but it is far from being an air domination tool.

e.g. dominates/kill swifts and bombers on small maps, (swifts cannot flee) Multiplayer B1502034 18 on Intersection v4.1
e.g. usefull on other maps when used to protect contested skies (not yet protected by static AA) (cannot find a battle right now)

as it slows down itself and has a pretty clumsy turnrate, it often is at a disadvantage when outmanouvered or can be outrunned (even by bombers). so i would propose to buff its direct damage, or add slow, or add a homing missle or buff its HP

also, it needs to be microed to kill single units instead of damaging all and let them escape.

also #2 raptors are not meant to fight area attack AA units, looking at you, nimbus clouds. (also nimbus area attack air is BS! who had that idea for an artillery unit??)
+0 / -0
16 months ago
i use raptor vs gs aa
+0 / -0

16 months ago
I use raptor only on Future Wars mode.
+0 / -0


16 months ago
I am fine with Raptor being niche while the following are true:
  • The things Raptor counters don't need nerfs.
  • Raptor is less interesting to use than the units a better Raptor would encroach upon.

The big contender is Swift. It has a neat boost ability that is easy to target and doesn't feel spammy. Raptor doesn't necessarily need an ability, but it is an option. The alternative would be to craft something interesting out of its basic stats. This seems tricky.
+0 / -0
16 months ago
Raptor to me feels like it's trying to be a Riot plane, but is currently stuck in the AA slot of the plane factory, which pretty much relegates it to only excelling at hosing Gunships and little else. I've noticed it also has quite a lot of trouble with being shot down by non-AA ground units due to its slow, predictable movement.

I've played practically no multiplayer, so I don't think my take should be taken seriously, but the Raptor's current design feels like it very much wants to be at home doing strafing-run attacks on lighter ground units, like a specialist Air-to-Ground riot unit.
+0 / -0

16 months ago
Rip a page from Future Wars and see how Raptor behaves there. It attacks the ground with a machine gun (low dmg) and also fires anti-air missiles.
+0 / -0
EErankNorthChileanG did tweak its stats once to make it useful. DPS and slowdamage, more HP. that was scary. it could be tweaked by costing more, but it really earned the name of being air superiority. i'll ask him to post defs and/or video.

swift is just a little bit too similar regarding AA capabilities for cost...
+1 / -0

16 months ago
Giving Raptor 2x of missiles that Swifts have would buff it enough to matter but not too much to make it OP.
+0 / -0


15 months ago
What if Raptor gained armour when it slowed down, and slowing down became controllable (like float state for amph). It could default to slowing down when firing. Then there could be a UI-level 'D' that does something like tell Raptor to move fast a second or two, to make disengaging less fiddly. This is a bit of a rough idea though. I'm not sure what to do about predictive armour.

Or even simpler, what if Raptor had a UI-level D that tells Raptor to stop firing for a few seconds.
+2 / -1
15 months ago
I think any discussion about how to make it different from how it is now should begin with finding a use case for it:

quote:
Is there a scenario when the Raptor is ever useful?


In other words, what would be a real situation where you would want to use it?
+1 / -0


15 months ago
Raptor can do what Swift doesn't do so well. So Raptor would be able to fight a sustained fight, possibly with some AA nearby.
+0 / -0

15 months ago
I tend to use Raptors when my opponent has invested in solely heavy Swift. At that point, I can freely use other offensive air with greater micro and thus less danger of their swifts being useful. As well, by this point, any team generally has strong enough ground AA to deter heavier air options such as Likho.

As well, Raptors are a better response to Krows and Nimbus, which are not exactly rare in recent experience. And, they have the added benefit of beating Swifts comfortably.

I would love the ability to toggle slowdown during firing on Raptors, or the armor suggestion, which would also make them capable of fighting Nimbus. Though, it is well worth noting that Raptors do beat Nimbus per cost, and per most proportional numbers of each. I think the armor would make them more capable of fighting over medium-light AA, which I think is something they should have the ability to do, as higher cost air superiority fighters.

However, as a relatively inexperienced air player, I may not have the most worthwhile viewpoint here.

+0 / -0
15 months ago
quote:
What if Raptor gained armour when it slowed down,


how about as a ability to gain armor for a short time, the idea for ingame lore would be it using some kind of chaff forcing some of damage away from the raptor.
+0 / -0
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