hoom, on 02 November 2019 - 02:22 AM, said:
So you finally admit that most of the bombers are practically unplayable in the current state of the game.
I don't just need some skills, I need to buy the T9/10 Germans, a 15pt crew, token skip to Specialist & mount Ultimate Equipment.
THAT MEANS THEY'RE BROKEN.
If I a relatively good player can't make them work and you a 'bomber specialist' say they're pretty much unplayable how the heck is a regular potato going to make them work?
You'd need the skills, the air crew, the camo, the gear.. then it becomes balanced.. and even then.. only at high tier and only if the heavy fighter human on the other team isn't -actually- competent.
Otherwise... Bombers are, frankly, the single hardest class to play successfully, MRFs/GAA are tied for second most difficult to my mind, light fighters being significantly easier, and if you cannot do well in a heavy fighter... then your computer or you are a potato in actuality. Rip off a 20k point game in a fighter? A noob can get lucky and do that. Hard carry game after game after game in a bomber of varying tiers (not just high)... Only the literal most invested bomber pilots can generally do that without one -heck- of a wing on their side... and even then.. it's entirely conditional on the other side being doofy enough to spend half the game fail-chasing you because "ERMARGERD! BoMBER SCarRY!"
So yes, I suppose I do think they're broken.. just not in a way that means "DURRR! LET'S NERF THESE PLANES MOAR! CAUSE BIG BOMBS SCARY AND I CAN'T DEAL WITH THEM NOT BEING A FLYING XP BALLOON" like too many folks seem to think and I think that may have been a misunderstanding of -key- importance between you and I in that I assumed/misinterpreted/misunderstood you to think bombers were some sort of insanity of over-poweredness like well.. far too many seem to? For that... my bad. I've gotten so used to everyone complaining because most of the time the people who run bombers well.. are pretty darn good at them. You are, parsing your stats (pretty good at bombers).... but I also understand the entirety of your frustration with bombers -now-.. I just.. wasn't completely making the connection before.. :/
Anyway, point being is that if you invest the time.. a Bomber is a tool of multiple forms... but scoring well and winning aren't always the same thing in a bomber either and that doesn't get you a reward. Sometimes flying a bomber, especially/specifically middle tiers, is about dragging the enemy away from a node and trying them up. With the nerf to turrets.. that just means you pull them to the edge of the map and die.
At t7-10.. bombers become... well.. better. T8 is where the Russian line gets its first really good bomber IMHO (Tech tree and RB-17) (The T9 is a regressive step backward in bomber capacity for the Russians to my view). The B-32 is still beasty at T7, I can't say the German is good or bad.. the Russian is.. meh-ish. T9 German Bomber... is made of paper and kerosene, but is fast with good bombs so it's quite workable. Just expect that if a heavy lights you up there's a 90% chance you'll die in their first pass. T10 EF-131, less papery, slightly more speed but otherwise the same bomber as the T9. The Su-10....
I am going to dedicate an entire paragraph to the Su-10 because of one simple fact: It's -actually- overpowered. Go ahead, get -near- either end of my Su-10 and I will shoot you out of the sky. The forward guns aren't a joke if you know how to use them and the turrets are just... pre-nerf B-32 levels of asinine. It's -only- weakness is bomb accuracy, but since you have -twice- as many of them it doesn't -actually- matter and while it's slightly slower on reload than a 131, it has -just- enough less speed that it basically works out to the same amount of traveled distance to reload. Which is to say you need to s-curve between nodes. Or, you can just put bombsights on the thing and suddenly you can one shot most targets because the bombs stop going off target.. sure.. your reload stays at stock and goes up a -tiny- bit, but it doesn't matter when your reload is double that of the other bomber at your tier when you have -twice- the bombs. And again.. getting back to those turrets.. I should -not- be able to cap an entire node with nothing but the turrets on a bomber, but with the Su-10 you can. Then there's the current meta of flying the Su-10 which.. WG has tried to address before about bombers... which is to fly along at basically GAA height and just tap bombs out where accuracy doesn't matter... I mean.. great for me because I get to shoot at you more easily, but it also ensures that turret has no blindspots to take advantage of . It's brilliant, and it's -actually- the only bomber I find to be broken.. and it's also why I don't fly it. It's almost as fast as an EF-131, twice the bombs, twice the turrets, a forward gun, way more ability to take a hit, -and- it doesn't really suffer any significant ill effect due to altitude (either direction) or trying to climb. It's the only bomber I have actual difficulty killing even -knowing- its weaknesses, because it doesn't -really- have any. EF-131 I can crit a couple times, set on fire, and "oh look.. it's burning wreckage." SU-10... "ok.. crit.. not.. wait.. I shot it like a thousand times.. how the heck is it only missing one engine? Alright.. let's try.. oh look.. the turrets have killed me. Nevermind.". I just.. can't wrap my head around the logic of releasing the Su-10 to the public in its current form. The entire bomber needs re-done, there's no single thing you could change about it to re-balance it properly... but again.. after thousands of hours in bombers.. it's probably the only one I'd call OP. Everything else is either fine or more likely -under- powered.
Editing to add:
NO bomber is good in stock or even elite form. I don't even care... spec and a 7-9 point crew is essentially your -bare- minimum to be effective. The fact that the outboard weapon slot is locked on every bomber til specialist is just.. ridiculous and the single biggest reasons all bombers are trash until specialist... and camo is a must-have on -all- planes in my opinion, but in a bomber... it's half your capacity to avoid flak because it's not like you're going to be dancing around.
Side-note: To those folks trying to kill bombers. Use Camo. It reduces my gunner damage a not insignificant amount... also.. stop trying to come at me from 6k feet and directly behind. Seriously.. why would you think coming at the end that has the guns is the right way to go about this job? Either come at the bomber from the side or the front (unless its russian).. or.. if you want to try to actually -kill- me.. get under me and in front and pull straight up and run through my belly with your guns. It's not rocket science here.. stay away from my guns and stop trying to tunnel vision and get a bomber in one pass unless you have the guns to do it. If you don't.. let us go on.. you did your part. We're hurt now and if we come back your way you can kill us.
Edited by Stygian_Alchemist, 02 November 2019 - 04:38 PM.
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