I feel like T3 Air rush is too easy, but maybe I'm missing something
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Any balance argument that amounts to "play better" or "play different games" is just a huge cop out. At best you are helping the reader work around an aspect of the game that they don't like, while offering no systematic solution for anyone else.
People complaining about t3 air on the forums have popped up consistently, like clockwork, since I joined in 2013. One more chorus of questionable gameplay advice and recommendations for different maps or team sizes is not going to do anything.
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A little blast from the past: do you know why we have blackops units in the game? Because zep got so tired of people complaining about strat rushes that he decided to integrate t3maa.
It appears that it was not enough seeing as we still see these threads regularly almost 10 years later. Maybe air really is fundamentally broken. Who'd have thought?
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The point of bringing up t2 air is that nobody ever demands it gets nerfed but everyone always wants t3 air nerfed even though it’s just objectively not as strong. If the thread begins on the premise of t3 air being too powerful, it’s different than arguing all air is too powerful. Just doing a random nerf to t3 air won’t change anything because it already isn’t the best move in most circumstances.
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As someone closer to average rank, do I think T3 air is OP? Not really (if anything, it's weak vs T3 AA and MAA). Strat rush can be devastating but usually only when there is a power crush or huge imbalance in air, which generally means one team is already way behind.
One thing mid-level players often do is too much "optimised" eco. Turning this style of build into a strat rush isn't hard. The problem is largely team mates expecting not to need any inties or AA and not doing enough aggression.
There is a very big gap between inties and ASF, which doesn't make things easier (excepting Aeon).
... perhaps one of the biggest issues in FAF is that among mid-level players, eco-heavy defensive builds work just often enough that many players choose this approach too often. Then, when put on a mixed team, the lack of coordination causes the whole team to do poorly vs a coordinated but mediocre team. I'm not sure how to fix this. (Dedicated team captains? Forced voice chat?? Give up.)
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@ftxcommando said in I feel like T3 Air rush is too easy, but maybe I'm missing something:
The point of bringing up t2 air is that nobody ever demands it gets nerfed but everyone always wants t3 air nerfed even though it’s just objectively not as strong. If the thread begins on the premise of t3 air being too powerful, it’s different than arguing all air is too powerful. Just doing a random nerf to t3 air won’t change anything because it already isn’t the best move in most circumstances.
I would argue this is because there is counterplay against t2 air on low-tech stages (inty, t1 aa, flak), but the only direct counter to a strat is to have T3 air yourself.
Of course, as discussed, higher-rated players know that there are many things you can do to slow down a strat rush or to mitigate its damage. But it's not the higher-rated players that find T3 air frustrating. It's the 800-1400 rating bracket, where it frankly feels like every other game ends with a strat rush, and counterplay is limited.
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You can easily kill a strat with enough ints/t2 air if it doesnt have enough asf
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@thewheelie said in I feel like T3 Air rush is too easy, but maybe I'm missing something:
You can easily kill a strat with enough ints/t2 air if it doesnt have enough asf
Would you say first strat can pay for itself most of the time even when the opponent has enough to ints t2?
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idk, air is literally the most boring thing about this game
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@nooby said in I feel like T3 Air rush is too easy, but maybe I'm missing something:
The issue is map design that has a dedicated "air slot" that allows this.
Balancing air for allowing a player to do nothing but eco and build T3 air, while keeping T3 air balanced on maps without a dedicated air slot is an issue.not really, even in 2v2/3v3 t3 air rush is a very dominant strategy, and a well handled strat that doesn't fly into a cloud of inties/bunch of aa can singlehandedly end the game if the opponents dont have their own T3 air. Of course this is less prevalent on 10km maps with a dense concentration of mexes (hilly,pyramid), where the strat has less free space to fly around in
the timing won't be 10-11min, rather 12-13, but the principle stays the same
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@ftxcommando said in I feel like T3 Air rush is too easy, but maybe I'm missing something:
The point of bringing up t2 air is that nobody ever demands it gets nerfed but everyone always wants t3 air nerfed even though it’s just objectively not as strong. If the thread begins on the premise of t3 air being too powerful, it’s different than arguing all air is too powerful. Just doing a random nerf to t3 air won’t change anything because it already isn’t the best move in most circumstances.
inties can catch up to t2 bombers, but not to t3 bombers. spamming ints in reaction to t2 bombers makes sense, spamming ints in reaction to t3 bombers does not
inties also trade poorly into asf, so it's also a poor solution in the long run
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Nobody spams enough ints to beat a t2 all in just as nobody spams enough ints to beat a t3 strat rush. In 2v2s where you spam an assload of ints through the whole game because it just makes sense, even if you’re 2-3 minutes behind on t3 air nothing comes from it because the strat barely pays off and is highly likely to fly into a swarm of ints. You need a decent 10-15 asf to properly handle an int swam without instantly dying.
The dynamic surrounding t3 air in big teamgames is strictly an issue that comes from t3 air rush meta, but on many maps the dudes doing the generic t3 rush meta can be punished at t2 stage quicker and the game can be concluded faster. You don’t need to time it so that your asf is out when the strat is 30% done in the factory.
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I will try this. Thank you.
