Double_O7, on 22 October 2018 - 01:02 PM, said:
Flying in a curved line doesn't even help
Pretty much. You have to constantly change your direction. Zig-zagging works well enough for the most part against high altitude AA. Low altitude AA might require a bit more once it starts hitting you, which is why Strongholds can be so deadly since there's no easy way to avoid all 6 guns for extended periods of time while also trying to capture the sector outside of blowing them up, and not all planes have enough ordnance to clear all of them quickly enough.
mnbv_fockewulfe, on 22 October 2018 - 03:10 PM, said:
It was just nerfed in 2.0.7.
What more do you want?
Not really. The damage output was increased, but now you can juke them to a degree. If you get shot by AA it'll hurt a lot more than previously (high altitude AA specifically), but the idea is that you avoid getting shot in the first place. On normal sectors this gives players a chance to avoid taking damage by doing some fancy flying after shooting down an AA gun. And then in comes the new Strongholds with armored AA guns, where you can't afford to dodge them because you need a lot of firepower to kill a single gun. Taking the Ju 88 P as an example, it went from one-shotting the AA guns in a Stronghold to requiring 5 shots for each gun. That means you have to stare at an AA gun far longer than usual, and in turn you're not dodging incoming AA fire and get pummeled by all 6 guns at once. The alternative is to use ordnance, which not all planes have and even less carry enough to swiftly clear them out while destroying ground targets for the cap.
That's not as bad on Bomber Escort where you usually have 5 ground pounders dogpiling over a Stronghold, but on Attrition at best you'll have 2-3, and they're not always going to be controlled by humans that understand that clearing out the AA guns is a priority. In my opinion the new AA is not that bad outside of the Stronghold, especially for planes that can dodge a lot better than ground pounders.