Nerf impact of Strat Bombers

A single Strat Bomber with air coverage can ruin the ecconomy of an entire team and decide the outcome of the game all by itself. Basically when you see a Strat running amok at the 20th minute mark eating up one mex after another both teams might as well agree to quit right there.

The problem boils down to ASFs being the only cost-effective counter at the detriment of Land and Navy players. Neither T3 Land AA or T2 Cruisers can prevent a Strat from infilitrating the backline and SAM sites can easily be avoided on large enough maps.

I'd like to see T3 Land AA or SAM sites be reworked to effectively combat Strats across the map. Maybe double or tripple their range but make it so they fire only once every 30 seconds while only being able to target Bombers? Whatever the details are i think a drastic increase in range is necessary.

When talking about the min 20 mark, the strat isn't the problem but the lack of skill of the airplayer. I can totally see a min 10-11 strat completely crippling an entire team in the lower/mid ranked players, but not after min 14 cuz that's just a "normal" airloss and the abuse of either Gunships or strats.

When talking about air, a rebalance is going on aka. there are quite some experiments. You can even get an air rebalance mod in the vault and play around with it to see how the change of values behave.

If you die to a strat bomber “running amok” at min 20 that’s a you problem.

1. You can kill strats even with a 1:20 asf disadvantage, especially in low rated lobbies where nobody properly screens with air scouts.

2. Beyond like min 13-14, you should have a sam in your core base which protects game losing damage like your t2 pgens dying.

3. You should be shielding your t2 pgens with a t2 shield to stop strats earlier than min 13-14.

4. You can spam out ints for a minute or so if you notice your air is late.

5. If you have like 12 t2 mex to be stratted and no t3 tech, you got greedy and got punished, you issue.

Yea, I'm afraid that's a clear case of skill issue. Even a bunch of interceptors can take out a strat if microed properly, and at minute 20 you're going to have to be well into either T3 air or T3 land.

Unfortunately one of the absolute top teamgame players and a very long time veteran of the game also got hit by an enormous skill issue yesterday when my 110 mass income strat bomber arrived before his t3 pgen prompting him to quit the game!

In fact I recall myself being hit by such an skill issue on falcon stone river when tagada made a strat from front slot (my opposite) and killed my entire team with it. Also there was one such occurrence of me greeding with 1 air fac vs yudi who stratted my entire team because he made 2 air facs on some mapgen game.

Imagine a world without skill issues. I'm certain the theoretical optimum of airslots correctly scouting that the enemy is not going for pgen snipe, and then rushing t3 air to prevent the opponent from killing their team with a strat, is exciting indeed.

Now, in contrast, imagine a world where the theoretically optimal airslot gameplay included building inties, t1 bombers, gunships, fbs and attacking vulnerable locations, before eventually transitioning into t3 at a similar time to the land players. Could such gameplay in fact be more engaging and fun?

Not sure what's with all the sarcasm when they were clearly talking about how dying to a 20min strat is a skill issue, and not the fast strat at like 10 or 11 minutes like you are talking about.

@femtozetta said in Nerf impact of Strat Bombers:

Not sure what's with all the sarcasm when they were clearly talking about how dying to a 20min strat is a skill issue, and not the fast strat at like 10 or 11 minutes like you are talking about.

Depending on your rating there's always a threshold. If you die to a 10min strat I can just as easily call it a skill issue, because you should know how powerful the strat is against t2 and therefore be working to get to t3 as soon as possible.

Maybe for one map the threshold is 10:00 for 2200, 10:30 for 2000, 11:00 for 1800 and so on until for 800 rating the norm is to hit t3 air at 20min or such. You will never get anywhere by just telling people to get good. Everyone has a skill issue.

Eventually, at the top you converge on a meta where strat rushes are no longer a thing (although given my counterexamples, it still sometimes happens to top players in faf!), because everyone is playing a counter strategy to them (fast t3 air i.e. do the same thing yourself), which is what we've seen at the top level for 10 years. Just because people know how to deal with a strategy doesn't mean that it's healthy for the game.

I’ve played tons of games where my team had late t3 air and it was fine. Tons of top dudes fall into “nothing I could do dude” moments when they got 120 mass income and t2 tech because it’s SUBOPTIMAL to tech up yet because my mirror isn’t!!!!!

Most of the time dying to min 10 strat is also a skill issue. Losing some mexes doesn’t end the game. Especially since you can keep power + core base safe with 2 shields most of the time.

Like you mention these games where strat wins games (like falcon river) but me and farm faced you on falcon river where you went t3 air against our team’s grand total of 2 unsupported t1 air facs and the strat didnt do anything but kill mexes which had no real impact on the game state. Everything critical for the win was kept safe.

@ftxcommando said in Nerf impact of Strat Bombers:

Like you mention these games where strat wins games (like falcon river) but me and farm faced you on falcon river where you went t3 air against our team’s grand total of 2 unsupported t1 air facs and the strat didnt do anything but kill mexes which had no real impact on the game state. Everything critical for the win was kept safe.

The unfortunate reality of faf when your team is so outmatched that enemy can win even after losing 12 t2 mexes + storages to a single unit

Yeah, usually caused by the enemy team doing better damage.

@blodir said in Nerf impact of Strat Bombers:

Now, in contrast, imagine a world where the theoretically optimal airslot gameplay included building inties, t1 bombers, gunships, fbs and attacking vulnerable locations, before eventually transitioning into t3 at a similar time to the land players. Could such gameplay in fact be more engaging and fun?

That’s 1v1 or 2v2 gameplay and exists in every theater for those game modes. You don’t do this sort of continuous mass investment into units as land or navy in big teamgames either. Or, well, you do just enough to not get immediately pushed out of the area with no chance to recover. Big teamgames are always about minimal unit investment until you reach some timing that abuses a particular unit or strategy.

The exception is maps where winning middle decides game etc. But even then, air player investing into t1-t2 to win mid wins game over t3 air rush which doesn’t do anything until your team already lost.

Strat bombers are fine in my opinion. For one it is very easy to snipe them either if there is only one or 20 it takes some very high level play to keep them from getting picked off.The main thing they will target in the late game will be smds or game enders. The change I would like to see that would consequently nerf strat bombers would be another nerf to nuke. Also regarding early strats the exact same thing will happen if no one on your team rushes t3 land. there will be some type of t3 unit being dropped everywhere and will kill absolutely everything