Defending against Air Vs Land

[bigcrap757]

I could be very wrong on this, but in my experience it is much easier to stop air from attacking a base then it is to stop land. One obvious reason is T3 anti-air. But anyways, doesn't this make air a lot less useful then it could be? For example,when was the last time you saw an army of strats dismantle a base with T3 AA? Maybe this is necessary to prevent air from being op, and maybe im completely wrong, but I want to hear your thoughts.

[yeager]

Air can pick and choose there targets freely, and bombers can assassinate cons and exps. Also it doesn't matter how much as and shields you have, eventually bombers will break through (minus 40 scus assisting a sera shield)

[bigcrap757]

Air can pick and choose there targets freely, and bombers can assassinate cons and exps. Also it doesn't matter how much as and shields you have, eventually bombers will break through (minus 40 scus assisting a sera shield)

So there strength is denial of map control?

[Col_Walter_Kurtz]

He is right. It's very hard to kill a base with air. You might be able to snipe that late game target, but damn it will take you 25 strats to do it. And your own cloud of asf to clear a path. Putting about 100k mass on the line yourself.

A good air player knows his primary role is to defend against a quick strat that can take out those juicy T2 mex with storage, mercies or a pack of gunships on a com. From about minute 20 there will be clouds of asf, shields and other aa methods to prevent such big problems. You can then maybe snipe some outlying eco or unprotected targets, or possibly attack a naval fleet with your torp bombers when they build no cruisers or hover flak. That's it. You will really have to dominate the other team in order to use air to ground other than sniping on a one way mission / kamikaze style from mid to late game.

[lextoc]

Air usually gets used to snipe specific targets (such as ACU's, monkeylords, early T3, etc). Biggest advantage of air is their speed, biggest disadvantage is that they are very vulnerable once the opponent has anti-air. If you're lucky and your opponent didn't see your air coming (15 gunships for example) you can easily attack a base if you've the apm for it. Or you can take map control back if you haven't got it, but then the opponent will have AA up in time by the time you get to his base.

As for T3 air, this will almost always get scouted as you can't really get it that fast.

I'm talking mostly from a 1vs1 perspective here...

[da_monstr]

Barring an insane amount of multi-layered T3 AA, it's close to impossible to prevent a large strat snipe from coming through and killing your com in one pass. Air is good for taking out single targets, not bases. (unless you have Ahwassa/ SR)

[lextoc]

Barring an insane amount of multi-layered T3 AA, it's close to impossible to prevent a large strat snipe from coming through and killing your com in one pass. Air is good for taking out single targets, not bases. (unless you have Ahwassa/ SR)

I heard shields are quite effective tho

[zeroAPM]

I heard shields are quite effective tho

Not anymore.

[lextoc]

I heard shields are quite effective tho

Not anymore.

If you move your ACU to the back of your base and protect it with shields and build SAMs at the front of your base your opponent should have a really hard time killing your ACU, especially if you have some ASF as well. Ofcourse it depends on how well you are able to execute your defense strategy, sometimes you just didn't scout or whatever and can't protect your ACU in time.

[zeroAPM]

I heard shields are quite effective tho

Not anymore.

If you move your ACU to the back of your base and protect it with shields and build SAMs at the front of your base your opponent should have a really hard time killing your ACU, especially if you have some ASF as well. Ofcourse it depends on how well you are able to execute your defense strategy, sometimes you just didn't scout or whatever and can't protect your ACU in time.

I was talking about the shield nerf that effectively caps the maximum amount of HP of a shield grid of arbitrary size but whatever.