Sera/Aeon late game

[Aulex]

From what I've seen Harb rush can be devastating as aeon. They force your opponent to stop their t2 spam an upgrade quickly, which can be annoying if they JUST get everything set up. Aeon double gun and shield is also rather effective against any t2 phase.
When you have weaker land units I think the key is drops. As phim, ilshy drop in the right place can do a SHIT load of damage. High raf and DPS allows them to take out large quantities of engis easily and quickly, while still being able to destroy buildings with some efficiency. IMO Air doesnt make that big a difference with most factions. Everyone has access to gunships, everyone has access to flak. Swifties can be fantastic at t2 stage but t2 is often skipped and asf's will mow the t2 down.
Against percy or brick spam, Aeon has to throw plenty of GC's in the mix with the harbs and sera has to throw in lots of chickens. Chickens are the 2nd cheapest experimental after ML, and are buildable while doing t3 spam, the AOE can be great if your opponent isnt taking the time to micro and spread the seige bots out while attacking.

In a 1v1 t2 air is not skipped unless the map is 20x20, even then t2 air isn't skipped that often

[theeggroll]

In a 1v1 t2 air is not skipped unless the map is 20x20, even then t2 air isn't skipped that often

Ah. even then sera is still screwed But considering we're talking about late game, Aeon has restos that can be really useful late game. Again, sera is screwed either way with no special advantage. Asswashers are only good with full air control, but are pretty much gg

[Kalvirox]

Auroras are annoying, but not invincible, especially against mantis. Being the slowest unit vs the fastest unit and all...

T2 air, even on small maps? I can see that if you get it early, but the same with any other faction -- all have t2 gunships.

And yes, this is mostly for 1v1, in team games you can help your allies rush a Monkey, but any team game strategies are welcome as well.

On 5x5 maps you can normally win with just an aurora/OC com push as aeon. If that fails guncom is best.

Aeon t2 air is better than the rest because swiftwinds trade better against inties. And I would argue that aeon t2 gunships are best, close second being uef. Aeon t2 land does not stack up too well against the others, so I would rather rush t2 air (this is for maps bigger than or equal to 10x10) and abuse my air dominance a bit. Infact it is possible for you to ignore t2 land and use t2 air as a stalling tactic to rush harbies.

I hate aurora becuase a critical mass of them rapes everything that is t1, so with good unit positioning it can stop everything, I like to rush my t2 land so that it finishes just before aurora critical mass is reached whilst raiding as much as possible.

[codepants]

I hate aurora becuase a critical mass of them rapes everything that is t1, so with good unit positioning it can stop everything, I like to rush my t2 land so that it finishes just before aurora critical mass is reached whilst raiding as much as possible.

I'd be curious to see a replay of this working against someone slightly higher ranked than you, if you have one. I say that because often people of the same rank will not know how to react to a well practiced strategy.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just curious. I've never achieved that "critical mass" of auroras (at least not one that wouldn't have been a critical mass of strikers, mantis, or thaams), but maybe I just suck at aeon.

Aeon t2 air is better than the rest because swiftwinds trade better against inties. And I would argue that aeon t2 gunships are best, close second being uef. Aeon t2 land does not stack up too well against the others, so I would rather rush t2 air (this is for maps bigger than or equal to 10x10) and abuse my air dominance a bit. Infact it is possible for you to ignore t2 land and use t2 air as a stalling tactic to rush harbies.

I was more referring to a few flak on small maps. I have played many a game where I go t2 aeon, my opponent scouts it before I even get the first gunship out, and there's a flak in every corner of the (small) map. T2 air dominance is meaningless if your opponent mixes in flak, which at my level, most people are smart enough to do.

[Aulex]

And I would argue that aeon t2 gunships are best, close second being uef.

Cybran gunships are hands down the best, it has the lowest dps of 60 (same as sera), but aeon only has 65 dps and uef 66.6 repeating, so the difference is tiny, but the key thing is the aoe. The aoe will wreck t1 quickly and in large quantities of t2 gunships wreck t2 land (assuming no flak).

[TheKoopa]

Cybran gunships are hands down the best, it has the lowest dps of 60 (same as sera), but aeon only has 65 dps and uef 66.6 repeating, so the difference is tiny, but the key thing is the aoe. The aoe will wreck t1 quickly and in large quantities of t2 gunships wreck t2 land (assuming no flak).

Cybran gunships can't fire while moving.

As a result they can't "dodge" flak.

[Aulex]

Cybran gunships are hands down the best, it has the lowest dps of 60 (same as sera), but aeon only has 65 dps and uef 66.6 repeating, so the difference is tiny, but the key thing is the aoe. The aoe will wreck t1 quickly and in large quantities of t2 gunships wreck t2 land (assuming no flak).

Cybran gunships can't fire while moving.

As a result they can't "dodge" flak.

That's not really that big of a drawback in comparison to having aoe seeing how you can only really do that when you have small amounts of gunships.

[Kalvirox]

Cybran gunships are hands down the best, it has the lowest dps of 60 (same as sera), but aeon only has 65 dps and uef 66.6 repeating, so the difference is tiny, but the key thing is the aoe. The aoe will wreck t1 quickly and in large quantities of t2 gunships wreck t2 land (assuming no flak).

Hmm.. I did not realise the DPS was so close. It doesn't feel that way when I use them. In which case I will side with you.

I'd be curious to see a replay of this working against someone slightly higher ranked than you, if you have one. I say that because often people of the same rank will not know how to react to a well practiced strategy.

I'll find one for you when I get home.

The tricky part of aeon earlygame is getting to that critical mass of aurora and not having everything being raided constantly. This is probably why lower rated players find aeon not as good. Because this "defending expansions" bit is something they find difficult. I got to 1300 1v1 rating by using pure mantis spam to kill expansions ect, so I know this well.

I was more referring to a few flak on small maps. I have played many a game where I go t2 aeon, my opponent scouts it before I even get the first gunship out, and there's a flak in every corner of the (small) map. T2 air dominance is meaningless if your opponent mixes in flak, which at my level, most people are smart enough to do.

There is no point getting T2 air on maps smaller than 5x5.

Maybe this is because the time between your t2 land and t2 air is quite big. A replay of this would be nice to compare against mine. Don't let them scout it. "T2 air dominance is meaningless if your opponent mixes in flak" is not true but it is difficult to explain why. If you cannot kill the army, kill the expansions. kill whatever they have exposed and when the flak comes into position, back off. Force them on the defensive. With aeon you have OP stun t1 bombers. So you don't need to stick to gunships, you could just bomber spam to damage the army.

I will also try to find an example of this for you.

[Kalvirox]

So I attached a good game of air dominance with aeon. And the link below is to an old tourney where the first few rounds have a lot of aeon in them. This should show you how to use them properly rather than showing how aeon aurora's mince everything.

One does not simply attack a metric shittonne of aurora without t2. t1 mobile arty is a stall, not a solution.

[codepants]

That is a game of air dominance, but IMO it was only useful because of the harby drops, which were only possible because Adjux got T3 waaaaay before Taffy did. They certainly played a part, but it seemed to me like Adjux was already ahead and those just sealed the deal. Additionally, the gunships did get a few kills between them, but in most cases less than they were worth... Taffy put flak everywhere. That's exactly the problem I was talking about -- it's easy (even on a map of that size, apparently) to cover all your assets with enough flak to moot t2 air.