HI,
I play Aeon, and I use LAB's in with my regular army spam. For the following reasons:
1. They are useful for breaking off and killing individual mexes and engineers. In need to keep my Aurora together, so little expendable squads of LAB do nicely for mopping up, or run-bys.
2. Their shorter firing range means you have an inner firing line, which kills only those tanks that come into range.
3. The Aurora are tin foil units, and I find that tanks will sometimes retarget LAB's in favour of the Aurora. If a tank is within range of my Aurora - I would rather it target LAB's - which can dance.
4. If I give a move/attack command, the Flares run ahead, to act as scouts. That way, I have time to pull the Aurora back. They've actually "saved my bacon" a couple of times
In that siduation, I can have them dance, while a couple of Aurora sit back and snipe... Usually, they don't know they're loosing, till they're dead.
5. They are useful for bumping a retreating ACU. Because, Aurora like to stay at maximum range. I like to send the LAB's in instead.
They are good for the initial raids. However, the are less effective then they used to be. In 3599 my micro was good enough to kill several tanks with 2 (or even 1) LAB. But I have noticed in FAF, that my job is now a lot harder. I can still kill a tank class unit, with LAB, but I don't always have 100% success. If anything, I would suggest a slight increase in DPS, and reduction in build time. I'd actually like to see LAB's as a counter unit for Percies
But they don't really have enough DPS. I'd like to see a bit more.
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Reading through everything. Yes, I agree LAB's are terribly underpowered. They are still useful in the mid to late game. But they would be more useful if they could do more damage.