I love Air

[psycho_dmr]

i just want to show you a (imho) nice tactic with air-tanks.

At first you should buy Helicopter and Light Plasma and try to get as much tanks as you can get, upgrade your weapon asap and then safe your money for Air Ship. With Heli skill Rocket, Board cannon and Speed - not the other skills!

if you got the Air Ship skill the red lightning skill (forgot the name of it Oo), speed and board cannon, if you can, skill the plasma rain too.
Now try to get as much tanks as you can get, keep in mind that you skill hit the enemy immediately so you can steal frags rly nice from your mates... (*hrhr*)
safe your money for 4000Gold, buy Plasma Waves, upgrade them asap. if you got upgraded plasma waves you can kill the enemys tower on the map rly easy... so try to get them
if you got 4900Gold, go back to base and sell your light plasma, then buy Light Fantastic now you're imba xD
next you should buy gold hull, then second light fantastic, then air tank... then you can upgrade you're light fantastics (not before you got air tank!)

if you got a bit luck at start, you can get air ship at lvl6, then this tactic is the best i know, if you still have no air ship when you're lvl9, then don't chosse this tactis, you'll suck then with air ship & light plasma... its better to buy mid hull then and choose another tactic.

here is a replays where i used this tactic... okay, i had noob enemies..nvm ^^
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[Batto]

keep in mind that you skill hit the enemy immediately so you can steal frags rly nice from your mates... (*hrhr*)

I dont like that part in your idea, but your tactic is a good one, used a lot.

You should add:
it's nice?

yes, but hard

tooo easy.... you noob! xD

nah, it's a bad idea

Yes, i rock at it !

Because if you use it a lot, its easier then playing ground tanks if you ask me!

[psycho_dmr]

added... but you have to re-vote now... ^^

[Shift1]

i never sell weps until all slots are full, especiall not if i upgrade them before

[Billy_Talent_ll]

while playing with skilled player, u ogotta buy a hull always, if u don´t wanna feed....

[Kenny]

I don't think any players have had success rushing an Airship+ against me. Sure in one-on-one combat, creeps involved or otherwise, the Airship+ will have the advantage against a Helicopter with an Iron Hull/6,000g+ of weapons, but if the Helicopter player has good foresight your Airship+'s strong points are nullified, and during your own cooldowns will most likely give you a hard time with superior firepower. The greatest difference is he screws himself over in the endgame because he can't farm gold from creeps and probably can't kill me. If I'm outclassed across the board (tank, weapons, items) all I have to do is avoid the tank in question and farm gold to victory. In most cases I'm only outclassed because I'm 4,000 gold from a Frost Robot or something. 8)

Here are examples of how I usually deal with an overpowering opponent, whether we're searching for kills or one of us is attacking a base.

Opponent uses nuke
I flee and heal before he can land a second (Or in the case of a low level superior tank, hopefully get rid of both ability threats while taking precautions to avoid getting scrapped by his actual weapon.)
Try to encourage him to use his other (likely present) nuke.
I flee and heal.
I fly in and beat him up if he doesn't flee in advance, farming gold in the process. Meanwhile he's generally restricted to farming minimal creeps with one or two minor weapons.

If he's actually trying to push or something, I land any nukes I can without placing myself in danger of death, maybe a few weapons here and there, and go heal. Then I go back, smash him up some more... The result is if he keeps trying to push, especially at 50%- health he'll pay me off, if he flees I've successfully defended the base and increased the time I have to clobber the opposition with gold.

[ancientsurvivor]

Theres one thing that I would chnage... I would get me a second LP then grdae both- THEN get a HULL .... the most enemies just think u still have 1k hp until they died 3 or 4 times... except of HT users who actually know that you must be scrap ans then look... after that I would go for GoboAircraft then for either Laser (medium) or 2 Plasma Waves.

Thats my comment

[Vomitus]

I think most tactics changed since that times. Since Infernal was buffed, since creeper was added as a startup weapon, since creeps become more valuable to kill.
Now it is much more useful to start with a bow rather than any other weapon. Gold income on creep kills increases twice with bow in the beginning giving you significant advantage prior to you enemies(unless you will be dying too often).

[RedNova]

The biggest drawback of an air ship is it's low HP, one skill less, and lack of stun spells (save for heli). For same gold you have a 1000+ hp advantage on mid-term tanks (vs AirShip), and you better be good using SkyTank, because you HAVE to buy hulls to keep up at that point, thereby reducing your damage potential. Once infernals and frost robots are in the game, SkyTanks are usually a liability for defending and attacking waypoints (which force players to be close).

Unless you manage to win before that, which is completely feasible if you use the only real advantage of air ships: the ability to fly. Too often people use that in a bad way however. Using only long-range weapons (bombardment and such) is incredibly risky against a crafty opponent. But using a hit-and-run tactic, flyers can be a real pain to counter.

Short range flyers are very good tower destroyers because of their ability to get out quick, and long-range are better for player harassment. Both have their strength and weaknesses.

However, if you have a hard time against flyers, here is my little techniques. Most work out well, but the real way to win is to be able to reach late-game tanks. At that point, even the SkyTank as severe HP problems and mobilty will not be as important as before.

- Anti-air weapons: Sure there ARE anti-ground weapons. In fact, only one worth of mention. If you buy it you are commited to staying air (and close range migth I add). But there are MANY anti-air weapons, and as such you have more leeway into countering airships. Nets (3 second immobility) are good, but not if you can't reach the ship quickly. Still, immobilize a ship that does not have armor or repairs and he may quite be dead given the right situation (fleeing half-dead flyers come to mind). Anti-Air (the weapon) is nice but ONLY against flyer players, at short range. Therefore, if the flyer has any brains, he will never go in contact with you (unless nets, but nets make a flyer GROUND for it's duration, thereby making him invulnerable to the weapon). Also means you are commited to fighting flyers. If they switched, you lost 3k gold. The best anti-air is plasma fragments. Why? Good damage, firing rate, dual-mode (air-normal) and 1k range. In air mode, you will only target two things: air creeps (few and far between) and flyers. Considering that the air creeps will die soon, you can consider the plasma fragments a 600 DPS player only weapon against flyer, at 1k range for only 6k gold. Using two of them usually means you can kill a SkyTanks with a gold hull in 10 seconds, not considering any spells, other weapons and contengency measures. The best thing is when you know you will be fighting against something OTHER than air, you can switch the mode and still use your anti-air weapon against anything. You do not have to sell that weapon if there is no air players anymore, making the plasma fragment a no-risk investment against flyers.

- Speed and Teleport: Apart from flying, the big advantage of flyers is speed. They need skill points to get it (therefore reducing their potential damage output using skills), but they usually have before ground tanks. That is until you get speed upgrades, or better yet, a teleport, or even better, both (speed pack). Unless the flyer is short range, teleporting dead center below a flyer that is not surrounded by creeps (happens a lot since they use different routes) is usually bye-bye for that flyer, as ground tanks got more skills, HP (usually). Besides, if the flyer switch to ground, he's got to buy at once a speed upgrade to match yours or he will be greatly disavantaged. Good players have this in mind.

- Pressure: Usually flyers are bad for pressure, especially long-range ones. If you keep the attack going, flyers make poor defenders for the main base, not having much damaging spells for buildings and low HP. If flyers are retaking your waypoints with ease: let them. Attack their main base and they will have a hard time switching strategy (from a fleeing one to defensive one)

Of course, there are many GOOD strategy with flying tanks. But you must always be ready to switch when it does not work, and the large majority of flying players i've seen are hard pressed to do that when countered. You just to be aware of your shortcomings, and I hope I pointed a few of them for air-lovers out there.

Seen you in the battlefield!

[DerSatan]

nice article. 8)


but im quite sure that this:

nets make a flyer GROUND for it's duration, thereby making him invulnerable to the weapon (anti-air gun).

...is not correct. an air unit catched into a web counts as ground, yes. but he still fires his bombs, and can still be attacked by the anti-air gun.

thats not logical, i know, but its like that. however, a catched air unit can be targeted by ground only abilities like goblin hammer.

[Exodus]

By that logic a catched air unit cannot be targeted by an anti-air-weapon. Its true that Bombs will still fire, but the units counts as a ground unit and thus, the Goblin Hammer can be used but the anti-air-weapons not.

[DerSatan]

does that mean if a goblin shredder with an "AA Gun" webs a zeppelin with "bombs", the bombs still fire at the shredder, but the aa gun doesnt fire at the zeppelin? hock: hock:

thats embarrassing i think.

[psycho_dmr]

nope, because his art. will shoot at the zepp then (if he havent an ground-only why he web him then? ^^)

[Exodus]

I think his main problem is, that the Air Ship still has his advantage of the Bombs, while the Goblin's Flak wont shoot on the Ship for the time being.

Maybe I can disable the Bombs while Air Tanks are captured by the net, we'll see.

[RedNova]

While this little bug is agravating (netted unit becomes ground, thus cannot be targetted by AA weaponry), the main usage is to prevent mobility.

Usually if you have AA weaponry, just being close is often enough. But if a fix can be found, then all the better.

[DerSatan]

im fine with the AA Gun unable to attack webbed units, thats not the point.

i just think it should be changed (fixed) that webbed air units still fire their bombs. this is unexpected to everyone whos familiar to wc3, and also unfair against the AA Gun.

[ancientsurvivor]

My appreciationto RedNova.

I'm just going to the early game or midgame and the short range thing. MDo here are my thoughts and experience. Um, the Bombarding rocket can be used good as a Heli... but only at the lanes where you are able to navigate this way that the Bombarding can ONLY hitthe enemy tank... and thats what this map is about at all. That's the pro, the con is that you get very low amount of kills. To solve that problem i recommend to buy a machinegun asap (not grade bombarding) and grade that machinegun or get another one.... don't forgett a hull inbetween. The Pro of this is that you can get a few tankkills until the enemy rly notices that u have a shortrange and a long range covered by your weapons and the creeps are still weak enough to die "as the flies" you would say in german ... that's actually translated word by word :oops: :!: The con is that you have no medium range which needs you to skill Jetpropulsion and rocket or a nice amount of skill usingthe creeps asshield. This canbe solved by speedpack again... which is also really great to escape. Mention :!: DON'T SKILL JET IF U GET SPEEDPACK :!: .

All in all this is based on using your ability to move more agily then every landunit. If you are not ableto do that you'll propably get less kills, will be outdatedand shreddered by your enemies. I see whether I'm possible to upload a replay of this playing type so that you can see yourself.
IfI'm missing space charackters it's because the keyboard here at school, where I'm actually located, suxx.
Yourssincerely FCL

[RedNova]

Haha! Dont worry about me. I'm using a few builds for flying tanks right now and I must admit that most average players have a hard time countering flyers. I've even begun to use the long range strategy and it is quite a pain for others, but quite manageable if an opponent knows how to position itself (as I always try to see the weak point of any build I use).

Now, to give the opposing view to my other post, here is a compendium of my own air builds.

Note: EVERY build I do have an anti-creep weapon. With upgraded creep bounty, you'd be crazy not to have one (at least early and mid stages).

- Player hunter: Begin heli, get a multi-bow, upgrade it and racks in cash for about 5 minutes. Get a bombarding rocket. Then get a airship. Get another bombarding rocket or energy torpedo. At that point you should not have any problem creeping, thus getting a steady influx of cash. If you can (and you should) try to get a few kills here and now out of players using range as your allies and your skills to clean creeps around targets (especially the ultimate). Get a death magic next. Then switch airship to skytank if you need HP, or get another death magic. The trick using this build is to ALWAYS get in 1300 range of a SINGLE opponent. Since death magic only targets players, creep cover is zilch. At 300 (or 400 if upgraded) damage a pop, you can destroy any mid-game tank in about 10 seconds. If he does not have speed, teleportation or long-range himself, he is as good as dead. When you get two Death magic, you can even kill people on their own CPs without danger. Needless to say, to counter this you must NOT let that kind of player getting an edge on you. Since that build focuses on players only, you have to rely on your team to destroy buildings. Getting a soulstone later will let you kill creeps, which will become a big problem with player-only weapons. Variants: get hail rockets (the 6k long range in mid shop). It targets creeps but still able to damage players on CPs. Better yet, get a mix of both (death and hail).

- Death from above: Begin heli, get a 750 range weapon and multi-bow first (i recommend multi-bow first, since you wont have the cash for both a start). Then get a hull, at least steel one. Then get one or two others 750 range and below for 3-4k total. You should now have a multi-bow, a good hull and 2-3 weapons geared toward mass damage. Invest into Jet (the speed skill). You can reasonably kill other players and towers at this point, but it is likely that others players will have mid-game tanks by now. But you should be able to tussle with them with a bit of skill, despite the fact that you are still an helicopter. Next in line is the almigthy teleporter. Now your strategy is this: spot a weakened opponent, preferably alone and on comeback duty to heal. Then teleport near him. Waste him and get out. Rinse, repeat. Get airship and more close range weapons (or powerful ones), and a better hull or repairers if possible. By picking off stragglers you can rack a serious amount of kills. I've one been able to get Ultimate pack, Power pack and 4 poison magics on a single sky tank. Deadly. Variant: If you are SURE that opponents will stay ground, get one or two bombs (6k, mid shop, player only). Like I said, death from above. This build is astonishingly difficult o counter. You must match firepower and HP, as well as mobility. Like most build, you must not let an opponent gain an edge. The plasma fragments I mentionned in my earlier post work well against this strat.

Enjoy!