Opinions on the season 8 unit/Elite Attack Aircraft

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    • My current game with day-6 EAAs, no gold. Yeah, I don't think I can achieve this with SFs.

      For those arguing against them being OP, give me one other elite unit that can make 3 unit line obsolete at once: Strike Fighter, Helicopter Gunship & Attack Helicopter (4, if you also count Elite Attack Helicopter)?

      Besides the fact that EAAs teabags SFs on a daily basis, the Helicopter line's strength is their higher attack power against specific type (soft or hard) and taking no damage from SAM, in exchange, their attack range and speed is heavily nerfed. Well, this unit outdoes both heli type in term of damage while having longer reach & faster flight speed, oh wait, holy shit, it's cheaper too? And guess what? Its specific design destroys SAM with the extra HP and extremely high attack power. Specialization? How about a complete upgrade and more?

      For all of the other elite unit, even the widely praised Railgun, they have a detrimental nerf that can be countered by their own "normal" variant (for Railgun it's their max range, which allow normal MRL variant to do hit & run). or some nerfs significant enough for players to not eat the additional research cost & time and just use the normal variant instead (like Elite Attack Helicopter have increased cost on top of the additional research to balance out their increased damage). For EAA, it completely dwarves the main strength of SFs while the nerf barely touches those weakness of helicopters.

      Basically, "it's not OP, but if I were to go against one who can use them and one who cannot, I'll go with the latter 10 times out of 10."

      The post was edited 5 times, last by vynical ().

    • vynical wrote:


      My current game with day-6 EAAs, no gold. Yeah, I don't think I can achieve this with SFs.

      For those arguing against them being OP, give me one other elite unit that can make 3 unit line obsolete at once: Strike Fighter, Helicopter Gunship & Attack Helicopter (4, if you also count Elite Attack Helicopter)?

      Besides the fact that EAAs teabags SFs on a daily basis, the Helicopter line's strength is their higher attack power against specific type (soft or hard) and taking no damage from SAM, in exchange, their attack range and speed is heavily nerfed. Well, this unit outdoes both heli type in term of damage while having longer reach & faster flight speed, oh wait, holy shit, it's cheaper too? And guess what? Its specific design destroys SAM with the extra HP and extremely high attack power. Specialization? How about a complete upgrade and more?

      For all of the other elite unit, even the widely praised Railgun, they have a detrimental nerf that can be countered by their own "normal" variant (for Railgun it's their max range, which allow normal MRL variant to do hit & run). or some nerfs significant enough for players to not eat the additional research cost & time and just use the normal variant instead (like Elite Attack Helicopter have increased cost on top of the additional research to balance out their increased damage). For EAA, it completely dwarves the main strength of SFs while the nerf barely touches those weakness of helicopters.

      Basically, "it's not OP, but if I were to go against one who can use them and one who cannot, I'll go with the latter 10 times out of 10."
      Sounds to me more like confirmation bias; while 62 cities in 12 days is pretty impressive, you really gonna tell me you made absolutely zero progress before day 6? It's also worth mentioning that the usual lack of anything resembling AA dramatically cuts down the time required to let your aircraft heal.
      While I agree in general that the early damage output paired with the low building requirements is pretty insane, I really don't agree with them making Helis obsolete (especially the Elite Heli).
      About their design specifically destroying sams: Yesn't, while it will definitely give sams an incredibly hard time due to the mix of high HP and "true" dmg it will still receive dmg when attacking it, the funny thing is that this makes the relationship between EAA and SAM similar to the one between MAA and Helis: It becomes a deterrent at best and needs ASF to finish the job.
      The high radar signature make the EAA a lot easier to track/target than if they had a low signature and something that IMO gets underestimated.
      Thinking about it, it makes them incredibly similar to Helis, where you build SAMs to zone out/yeet enemy ASF going after your aircraft and give space to your aircraft to safely operate in with the only difference being that SAMs also hurt enemy EAA.

      Honestly at this points its pretty much guaranteed that the EAA is gonna get nerfed, not gonna happen mid-season tho.
      I am The Baseline for opinions

    • Teburu wrote:

      Sounds to me more like confirmation bias; while 62 cities in 12 days is pretty impressive, you really gonna tell me you made absolutely zero progress before day 6? It's also worth mentioning that the usual lack of anything resembling AA dramatically cuts down the time required to let your aircraft heal
      Sounds to me like nitpicking and strawmanning the argument. The example is to show how strong the current EAA lineout against SFs, comparatively. Sure, with ANY semblance of AA, ANY air attack would be slowed down, other news at 7. That's not the point, Sherlock. Even my description clearly stated that if I were to use SFs instead, I wouldn't be able to achieve the same result, assuming the same situation of little to no AA from neighboring countries, that is.


      Teburu wrote:

      ...I really don't agree with them making Helis obsolete (especially the Elite Heli)...
      ...Thinking about it, it makes them incredibly similar to Helis...
      Yes, of course, EAA is incredibly similar to Helis, apart from the fact that it has longer range, faster speed, more HP, take less damage from MANY ground troops apart from SAM, can perform double duty of both heli at a much higher damage rating, cheaper than even the normal variant of Attack Heli while dealing higher soft damage than Elite Attack Heli, and this is on ALL tier, not just the beginning. Oh wait, did I mention that it's a fairly good counter to Helis as well???
      Basically it is much more versatile, offers much higher power output (specialization, what's that? why not both?), at a cheaper cost, but it's very disagreeable that it would make Heli obsolete. Well yes, of course. Your current smartphone doesn't make the rotary phone of your grandpa obsolete because your grandpa's phone can rotate while the smartphone cannot, and that rotating feature is underestimated, very much so.

      The main point comes down to, with the existence of this unit, would you even bother to spend resources to build Heli under normal game progression?

      Frankly speaking, if I see my opponent uses Heli at this point, I'm just going to send single EAAs to teabag their Airports to show dominance.

      The post was edited 2 times, last by vynical ().

    • vynical wrote:

      The main point comes down to, with the existence of this unit, would you even bother to spend resources to build Heli under normal game progression?
      Honestly, I wouldn't really spend resources on Helis even without the EAA, their high specialization and low signature make them a pretty solid pick for competitive games; but they simply don't really fit into the pace of public matches and the general skill level means that they simply just not needed. Strikefighters have their reputation as Noobfarmers for a reason.

      vynical wrote:

      Sounds to me like nitpicking and strawmanning the argument. The example is to show how strong the current EAA lineout against SFs, comparatively. Sure, with ANY semblance of AA, ANY air attack would be slowed down, other news at 7. That's not the point, Sherlock. Even my description clearly stated that if I were to use SFs instead, I wouldn't be able to achieve the same result, assuming the same situation of little to no AA from neighboring countries, that is.
      Not really, the initial point was that without any sort of AA, ofc Aircraft will enable you to conquer as fast as your Infantry can move and IMO EAA doesn't really boost that factor by much.
      But tbh its not like I really disagree that much, I just like arguing, we both pretty much agree that the early dmg output is kinda insane and the building requirements are a bit too low. I just disagree over details like e.g: it making Elite Helis obsolete, but that's really all.
      I am The Baseline for opinions

    • I have just tested them In a game with russia I fought romania, serbia, itally, norowayand my team fought greec in a 2 day war
      their team controlled europe
      those units are pretty strong they are VERY similar to helios I'd say they have 1.5 of helios efficiency for less research (I mix them with asfs)
      I don'[t have elite helios sadly but I think they would still do better in the early game later helios would out scale as mixing asfs won't do good via day 18 or so

    • Teburu wrote:

      ... their high specialization and low signature make them a pretty solid pick for competitive games...
      I could agree that it WAS a solid pick for competitive games. I find it hard-pressed to say that Heli's specialization is still a specialization at this point when the sole reason for their specialization after all those drawbacks compared to SFs is to avoid SAM while most of EAA buffs compared to SFs were for countering SAMs and much more. All the while EAA can be used to counter Heli as well.
      Meanwhile, using Heli means you will get hurt more fighting any unit other than SAM and frigates while giving you one additional hell of a counter: MAA. But wait, MAA have 25HP while SAM have 15HP. So, in a typical ground stack with both soft and hard target, Heli's attack power to MAA effectively got slashed. MAA hard counters Heli even with their so-called specialization while the same stack with SAM replacing MAA can barely survive against EAA. The only effective counter to EAA is ASF, period. And ASF also counters all type of Heli, much harder than its counter against EAA, so what's the point of Heli?

      You might have to search for the definition of obsolete at this point if you keep clinging on to the "Heli hasn't yet become obsolete" hill based on your prior experience before the existence of EAA. You barely raise any spec of Elite Heli that can makes it better than EAA, all the while Elite Heli is several step behind even at the starting point with its lower stat, higher building requirement and higher cost.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by vynical ().

    • vynical wrote:

      Teburu wrote:

      ... their high specialization and low signature make them a pretty solid pick for competitive games...
      I could agree that it WAS a solid pick for competitive games. I find it hard-pressed to say that Heli's specialization is still a specialization at this point when the sole reason for their specialization after all those drawbacks compared to SFs is to avoid SAM while most of EAA buffs compared to SFs were for countering SAMs and much more. All the while EAA can be used to counter Heli as well.Meanwhile, using Heli means you will get hurt more fighting any unit other than SAM and frigates while giving you one additional hell of a counter: MAA. But wait, MAA have 25HP while SAM have 15HP. So, in a typical ground stack with both soft and hard target, Heli's attack power to MAA effectively got slashed. MAA hard counters Heli even with their so-called specialization while the same stack with SAM replacing MAA can barely survive against EAA. The only effective counter to EAA is ASF, period. And ASF also counters all type of Heli, much harder than its counter against EAA, so what's the point of Heli?

      You might have to search for the definition of obsolete at this point if you keep clinging on to the "Heli hasn't yet become obsolete" hill based on your prior experience before the existence of EAA. You barely raise any spec of Elite Heli that can makes it better than EAA, all the while Elite Heli is several step behind even at the starting point with its lower stat, higher building requirement and higher cost.
      tbh now I'm thinking of using Eaa is a heli
      I mean I research asf any way and 1 extra research for Eaa won't hurt that much
      I'd still go for helios and mix Eaa in as non stealth Ellite helix
      I didn't test that yet to see how damage distribution would go but seems good especially for high production countries
      I still can remove the Eaa in case of sams danger over all a very versatile unit with a lot of potential

    • vynical wrote:

      Teburu wrote:

      ... their high specialization and low signature make them a pretty solid pick for competitive games...
      I could agree that it WAS a solid pick for competitive games. I find it hard-pressed to say that Heli's specialization is still a specialization at this point when the sole reason for their specialization after all those drawbacks compared to SFs is to avoid SAM while most of EAA buffs compared to SFs were for countering SAMs and much more. All the while EAA can be used to counter Heli as well.Meanwhile, using Heli means you will get hurt more fighting any unit other than SAM and frigates while giving you one additional hell of a counter: MAA. But wait, MAA have 25HP while SAM have 15HP. So, in a typical ground stack with both soft and hard target, Heli's attack power to MAA effectively got slashed. MAA hard counters Heli even with their so-called specialization while the same stack with SAM replacing MAA can barely survive against EAA. The only effective counter to EAA is ASF, period. And ASF also counters all type of Heli, much harder than its counter against EAA, so what's the point of Heli?

      You might have to search for the definition of obsolete at this point if you keep clinging on to the "Heli hasn't yet become obsolete" hill based on your prior experience before the existence of EAA. You barely raise any spec of Elite Heli that can makes it better than EAA, all the while Elite Heli is several step behind even at the starting point with its lower stat, higher building requirement and higher cost.
      The big thing is tho, that you can't see Helis coming because that'd require a lvl 4 awac at the very least, and unless you extend the peace period, that simply won't happen.
      The roles for units still stay mostly the same even when using EAA.

      ASF to yeet other aircraft
      SAMs to yeet/zone ASF and establish a safe space
      Helis/EAA to kill SAMs
      Artillery to yeet any ground unit

      Key difference now is that when you don't build Helis, the other guy has very little actual reason to invest resources into it, freeing them up in return.
      EAA are also limited in numbers, not sure on the exact day you'll get to in terms of research, but you wont be able to field more than 10-15 of them in total. It's also limited in terms of availability cuz season unit.

      MAA is not much of a hard counter to helis, its used as a deterrence. Because its small range and inability to detect the unit its supposed to be used against mean that the main strength aa has of having a chance to hit units on approach and then again when getting directly attacked.
      I am The Baseline for opinions

    • I find the new elite SF overpowered, but not in design, merely in "damage curve".

      I don't think a 10-10 to 15-15, for what the unit achieves, is... balanced. By that i mean that i find odd that a unit would be good against all ground targets... but better than their "specialised" counterparts.

      The "gained curve of power" of the unit is on par with the elite helicopter, in terms of "ludicrousness", and yes, i think the elite heli should be nerfed too.

      I however like their general design, and, as Teburu said, the fact that it's a plane that can be the equivalent of attack helicopters, but for SAM ---> a Hard counter that exhanges 1 to 1.

      Their real weakness, as you pointed, are ASFs.

      Currently, in T3, a player can align 4 stacks of those elite SF.

      Each stack has 180 HP, and hits with the firepower of a nuclear cruise missile with bunker buster ability. It's also cheaper than SF. I thin the problem is here. The unit is cool and fun because it's a power fantasy.

      Let's make it a bit more "logical" while keeping its uniqueness.

      The + of the units :
      - It's bulky
      - It's strong against every ground target
      - It's cost efficient (competitors are weakers and more expensive)
      - Unbeatable front damage value for any air units, even ultra specialised.
      - Better range than the specialised units.
      - You can do enough to not need any other air to ground units. (10 in early, 15 in mid, 20 in late)

      The - of the units :
      - Weak to ASF
      - Slow, for a plane.
      - Ugly Paintjob




      T1

      From 25 HP to 20 HP. (On par with Strike Fighter, and keeps the European Strike Fighter as a Doctrine + )
      From 10-10 to 8-8 damage ( Best all-rounder, but marginally "less" good than supposed "specialists. It's the damage output of a T3 Strike fighter, after all...)
      From 600 to 550 range (Closer from the middle between Planes and Helis)
      From Airbase 2 to Airbase 3.
      Unit Limit : From 10 to 3 (Honestly, i don't know what crossed their minds.)

      T2

      From 30 HP to 25 HP
      From 12-12 to 11-11
      From 700 to 600
      From Airbase 2 to Airbase 3
      Unit Limit : From 15 (lmao) to 5.
      From Day 14 to Day 11 (Considering you can't spam them, i would find fair they get on the field more early)

      T3

      From 35 HP to 30 HP
      From 15-15 to 14-14
      From 800 to 700 (i don't think, for balancing reasons, it should ever get other planes range)
      Unit limit : From 20 (stop it, really) to 10.
      From Day 21 to Day 18.


      I'm okay with the principle of an elite Strike Fighter that is, in some way "good against everything better than the specialists", but i disagree with such a superiority being so spectacular , and i dislike the fact that in many ways, with the current limits, this unit elite acts as an outright replacement.


      TLDR :
      Please reduce by 20% the HP of the thing
      Please reduce by 20% the early damage of the plane, and by 10% in mid and late
      Please reduce its range by 10%
      Please make their availability on par with other good elite units (3-5-10)
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.

    • Opulon wrote:

      I find the new elite SF overpowered, but not in design, merely in "damage curve".

      I don't think a 10-10 to 15-15, for what the unit achieves, is... balanced. By that i mean that i find odd that a unit would be good against all ground targets... but better than their "specialised" counterparts.

      The "gained curve of power" of the unit is on par with the elite helicopter, in terms of "ludicrousness", and yes, i think the elite heli should be nerfed too.

      I however like their general design, and, as Teburu said, the fact that it's a plane that can be the equivalent of attack helicopters, but for SAM ---> a Hard counter that exhanges 1 to 1.

      Their real weakness, as you pointed, are ASFs.

      Currently, in T3, a player can align 4 stacks of those elite SF.

      Each stack has 180 HP, and hits with the firepower of a nuclear cruise missile with bunker buster ability. It's also cheaper than SF. I thin the problem is here. The unit is cool and fun because it's a power fantasy.

      Let's make it a bit more "logical" while keeping its uniqueness.

      The + of the units :
      - It's bulky
      - It's strong against every ground target
      - It's cost efficient (competitors are weakers and more expensive)
      - Unbeatable front damage value for any air units, even ultra specialised.
      - Better range than the specialised units.
      - You can do enough to not need any other air to ground units. (10 in early, 15 in mid, 20 in late)

      The - of the units :
      - Weak to ASF
      - Slow, for a plane.
      - Ugly Paintjob




      T1

      From 25 HP to 20 HP. (On par with Strike Fighter, and keeps the European Strike Fighter as a Doctrine + )
      From 10-10 to 8-8 damage ( Best all-rounder, but marginally "less" good than supposed "specialists. It's the damage output of a T3 Strike fighter, after all...)
      From 600 to 550 range (Closer from the middle between Planes and Helis)
      From Airbase 2 to Airbase 3.
      Unit Limit : From 10 to 3 (Honestly, i don't know what crossed their minds.)

      T2

      From 30 HP to 25 HP
      From 12-12 to 11-11
      From 700 to 600
      From Airbase 2 to Airbase 3
      Unit Limit : From 15 (lmao) to 5.
      From Day 14 to Day 11 (Considering you can't spam them, i would find fair they get on the field more early)

      T3

      From 35 HP to 30 HP
      From 15-15 to 14-14
      From 800 to 700 (i don't think, for balancing reasons, it should ever get other planes range)
      Unit limit : From 20 (stop it, really) to 10.
      From Day 21 to Day 18.


      I'm okay with the principle of an elite Strike Fighter that is, in some way "good against everything better than the specialists", but i disagree with such a superiority being so spectacular , and i dislike the fact that in many ways, with the current limits, this unit elite acts as an outright replacement.


      TLDR :
      Please reduce by 20% the HP of the thing
      Please reduce by 20% the early damage of the plane, and by 10% in mid and late
      Please reduce its range by 10%
      Please make their availability on par with other good elite units (3-5-10)
      Im surprised you didnt mention the army boost of 2/4/8 which is frankly insane and completely unnecessary when paired with bunker buster.
      I am The Baseline for opinions