Ladder and bomber first.

[Ze_PilOt]

Hi,

New season starts in 3 days.

It seems that a lot of people are annoyed by bomber first (they should be, as labs, it's meant to be annoying, that's the whole point).
But it seems that some think it's OP or something.

So, you have 3 days to post replays AND ONLY REPLAYS. Can be from any FAF version as long as the lobby is able to downgrade to it. Every game you've played is saved locally.
Every other line other than a replay will be deleted.

You can say if that replay proves to you that bombers are okay, or not, and why (in direct relation something I can see in that replay).

[Ze_PilOt]

I start.

[MadStork]

OK, Vor_Tex and I were saving these for an appropriate time, and I guess this is it.

Three theta passage replays-each one features one of us going bomber-first. One (starting from the bottom attachment) where I defend using mobile AAs, one where I defend using stationary AA, and one where I go bomber-first. Each game results in a crushing victory for the bomb-first player (somewhat less crushing for me since I do not have Tex's skill with bombers and almost no experience in going bomber-first).

In each replay the land-first player tries to do everything past threads have said: build a scout first, build a scout to go with AA, counter-raid, dodge with engies, etc.). One note about this-building a scout first is proven worthless if the bomb-first player simply goes around either side of the map. When this is done, the only way to scout the bomber is an engineer getting killed.

Neither of us play perfectly as the land-first player and feel free to critique us (for example, I fail at engie dodging in the second replay, but dodging is very difficult vs. Sera bomber anyway), but neither of us are perfect players and doing everything you need to do to counter first bomber takes a very high level of skill and APM. We are both good players ranked in the top 25 (1v1), and when we both play land first we are very evenly matched (We didn't do a land-land replay, but we have dozens of those if you would like to see). Also, the air-first players (particularly me) do not play especially sharp-both us even overflow mass near the end.

One of the main problems (other than the free engie-kill to start) is that in building aa, in addition to lost engies, you get way behind in build power early and cannot recover. Also, the follow-up bombers are important-they are very effective in preventing expansion away from the base. You cannot send enough AA everywhere without falling even further behind in build power/tanks. Hopefully Vor_Tex will offer his own thoughts on this thread, but he had an idea to halve the build-time of mobile AA, which doesn't set your engie production back as much, keeps bomb-first viable and doesn't screw with late-game balance. This is a good idea, but I'm not sure it's enough to balance things (would need testing).

Enjoy.

[MadStork]

What's that? You want more? Here is a theta game vs. BrainQuerrey (who I'm rated slightly higher than) who goes bomb-first on me and crushes me in much the same fashion. Also, you can watch this replay from Vor_tex's youtube channel vs. Cola-colin-he goes bomb-first and wins easily, but there are two other games on the channel (all on theta) where they both go land-first and are both much closer games (one ends in a draw).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlK-AXfKNnw&feature=plcp

[Ze_PilOt]

Every other line other than a replay will be deleted.

[Softly]

Heres one of bomber first failing in an actual 1v1 ranked game, because you know its coming from the points...

[TAG_ROCK]

vs Isen - Bomber not OP or didnt cause any drawback on opponent.

b1-322859-TAG_ROCK.fafreplay

(98.25 KiB) Downloaded 67 times

vs Chosen - Bomber killed a few engins and advantage was noticed here but Chosen didn't respond well to it.

b2-308337-TAG_ROCK.fafreplay

(42.01 KiB) Downloaded 57 times

vs Deathly - Bomber cause some damage but nothing serious.

b3-308269-TAG_ROCK.fafreplay

(71.2 KiB) Downloaded 60 times

[TAG_ROCK]

vs Lu Xun - Lu Xun counters bomber perfectly, air first felt like a real mistake lol, see when one knows how to counter air its not OP at all, all the contrary. Thing is it takes skill to play this way.

b4-305253-TAG_ROCK.fafreplay

(65.92 KiB) Downloaded 89 times

vs Fatal - Bomber kills of expanding engineers and he quits. Didn't need to quit at that stage.

b5-305231-TAG_ROCK.fafreplay

(21.95 KiB) Downloaded 53 times

vs Blackdeath - He quits as he lost advantage.

b6-304920-TAG_ROCK.fafreplay

(25.23 KiB) Downloaded 58 times

[TAG_ROCK]

vs Zock - Bomber does nothing serious.

b7-298332-TAG_ROCK.fafreplay

(114.15 KiB) Downloaded 49 times

vs Zock - He counters bomber perfectly.

b8-298300-TAG_ROCK.fafreplay

(65.79 KiB) Downloaded 71 times

vs Zock - Again he counters and plays a good game although advantage on air side a bit.

b9-285864-TAG_ROCK.fafreplay

(91.81 KiB) Downloaded 58 times

[uberge3k]

Suicide by bomber first.

273247-TAG_UBER.fafreplay

(63.64 KiB) Downloaded 68 times

And again.

273320-TAG_UBER.fafreplay

(67.86 KiB) Downloaded 53 times

I don't learn...

268149-TAG_UBER.fafreplay

(78.85 KiB) Downloaded 54 times

Where's the OPness?

232604-TAG_UBER.fafreplay

(42.16 KiB) Downloaded 60 times