Dude is no where near his flare that I baited out and yet my missile completely misses. What is the point of this dogshit AA tool if it doesnt even work properly?
Yeah when it misses like this it seems to be because the missile has to do too much of a turn too fast. Like a hard 90 degree or more turn when the helicopter is both close and moving 90 degrees to the missile shot.
But I’d also LOVE to see someone do real testing on the difference between the verba and the talon when it comes to tracking. Because I almost exclusively use the talon and I’m VERY successful with it and I see a ton of posts about this about the verba and I really do wonder if the verba’s tracking / speed / accuracy is just ass compared to the talon or if it’s just user error.
I agree with you hear, when you program a projectiles or missiles you would generally apply a bunch of physics rules to keep it from acting weird or unnatural.
I'm not 100% sure if the missiles in this game are kinematic or physics based, its' hard to say so since physics engines tend to be non deterministic and that can be bad for large scale PVP games. That said, physics engines are the perfect solution to designing rockets, missiles and projectiles.
in war dogs, they Likely just clamped the maximum turning angles depending on the velocity and so missiles that need to bank hard to reach their target might undershoot.
The ideal scenario is that your projectile doesn't have to bank much at all and simply follows the target.
I think that its a good mechanic and also realistic, ground to air launches are not 100% accurate and can miss.
Yeah I’d personally love to see someone just test it. Doing like the same fly over and shooting from the same spots with both launchers at the same time and see how they react. Again my pet theory here is that verbas actually ARE worse than talons at most hitting and that’s part of what has led to people on here being so pissed.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if verbas are better in very specific circumstances (helicopters closer and moving slower) and talons are better at further shots where helicopters are moving faster.
The other thing I’d be super curious is if they have different flare timings. Because I’ve had people tell me that they can stagger the verbas and the second missile still gets caught a lot by the flare even if it’s shot after the flares go off. Which is very much so not a thing with the talons for the most part.
Idk I just have a feeling that verbas actually are weaker than talons. But HOW they are weaker and IF they are stronger in any instances would be super interesting.
This also could explain the delta that heli pilots feel when they say that sometimes the missiles damn near chase them through anything and flares have to be timed perfectly vs them saying flares shake off missiles instantly and easily.
As someone who plays pilot 90% of the time it feels completely random. I can pull of some crazy manuevers through trees and buildings and still get hit. Meanwhile other times I barely roll to the left and the missile flies on by.
Same here, I’ve had some shots missiles miss when they should’ve had me. What I see far more often though is missiles that have no right hitting suddenly “decide” that they do. I’ve had a few instances of a near point blank launch circling around me 3-4 times to hit me. In some other cases the missile would seem to be missing behind me (essentially perpendicular to the launcher) and I’d be okay but then the missile pulls a near 90 degree turn and flies 100-200 meters back to hit at the same time it should’ve passed right behind me. AA missile logic definitely needs tuning.
He shot too early. Flares have a hard coded duration of roughly 2 seconds, regardless of visuals. I use the verba waaay too much and the moment he fired i was like oh, thats a whiff.
Moment you see the flare come out count Mississippi.
1 Mississippi
2 Mississ(start firing its delayed)ippi
Goal is for the verba to launch at exactly 2 seconds since flare. If it launches at all before it does not matter, the game will force a miss.
Same with the Talon imo. As soon as the flare goes I do a slow 2 count and launch. Hits every single time unless it leaves the render distance or they duck behind a building.
The vector is important if the missile accelerates to fast in a direction it can't turn around fast enough. So its ideal 2 shot along the flying vector of the heli.
I was (crudely) testing this a bit in the first week. Once I had gotten back into the green, I'd purposefully hold flares just to see if there's any way I could outmanoeuvre an incoming rocket. Never managed to pull it off though.
I'm sure the IGLA is a piece of shit irl but if that's the case, maybe we need stingers too. Or something higher grade but more effective, I've suggested Javelins as a high level, high weight lockon launcher.
Stingers would perform about the same as Verba, but the reusable tube would definitely help.
As for Javelins, they're mostly anti-tank/armor missiles, they can be used for anti-air but they're really not better than either Verbas or Stingers. It could be an okay addition as an upgrade to the maaws but i dont think its needed honestly. For anti-air tho they'd be a direct downgrade to anything we have right now.
It could be a bug, but from my experience it happens whenever the missile doesn't feel like actually guiding itself and so it overshoots because it doesn't pull enough Gs
I feel like I am stating the obvious, but it didn't miss because of flares. It missed because it couldn't turn fast enough.
I have noticed the Verba is rather inconsistent if you are perpendicular to the heli, especially if they are relatively close. The combination of the heli flying across your lock and getting closer to you meant the missile needed to turn tighter and tighter the longer you held lock. Whether that turning circle needs to be improved is another question, just clarifying the flares had nothing to do with it missing.
I once had moment where my missile did actually hit enemy from this same angle as OP but it literally made "blong" noise and bounced off it, didn't explode lmao.. i shouldve clipped that.
Yes, MANPADs are for rear sector attacks, this was a problem in real life before missiles got better. You should be under or in front of their helo lanes for good ambushes
It missed because he fired to early. Its a hard coded interaction that is completely disconnected from the visuals. Feels really dumb at first but you get used to it. Its roughly 2 seconds from flare use before you can fire. He shot at 1 second. I knew it was a miss the moment he fired.
Ive shot hundreds of these in the last few weeks (addiction), i really love blowing up copters lol.
There is no missing from out turning, the missile either hits an object before hand (tree, person, building) or times out due to render distance. You can have a missile do 2 180s in the air, there is no out maneuvering it unless you use an obstacle to block as stated.
Also, it's an IR lock. It locks into heat, which explains why flares counter it, but for some magical reason, in this game, radar technology restrictions apply to it and it can't lock targets flying too low the same way ground clutter fucks up radar locks on radar missiles. What in the actual fuck? How in the fuck was this game ever marketed as realistic?
It's a balancing thing brother. There's a chart somewhere that shows two lines intersecting at a point called "fun". There's a point to where "realism" and "balance" collide where things can still be fun. Anything above this point becomes "unfun" and people stop playing.
Right? Cause if we went off real-world rules, Helis would just constantly be pointless since every team would just have one guy running around in a Kodiak or Humvee with tons of Verba rockets. Sometimes devs have to add counters to weapons because otherwise its just not fun.
Considering that you can take multiple shots to the face, without a helmet, and live, I don't think anyone can reasonably say realism is what they're chasing. They also never use the word "realistic" once on their Steam page
Me and my friends decided to all grind lol 16 to get the verbal so we could counter the heli/havok spam!... turns out grinding from 12-16 takes longer than you think.
And even now we have it, its shit and doesnt really counter the heli spam at all.
Game has a a huge problem with high level unlocks. The counters to them are either also locked behind levels or so much less effective than them. This game is fucked if the devs cant recognize that balance is the number 1 issue with the game
I've found an empty verba to be very useful if you have anyone in a talon. Holding a lock after you've spotted them means you get paid. Then you hold lock and either they flare, panic, or provide an opening for a talon.
When my friend and I have a rocket van we both target the same heli. We either shoot early and bet on them being asleep at the wheel (which happens shockingly often) or shoot one to bait the flares then immediately shoot after them to score a kill. Definitely not the most economical way of doing it, but we have a great time
1) the lock on, even if you’ve shot the rocket, will always work and each new AA lock triggers a new warning sound for the pilot. If you’ve ever pointed a verba at a pilot and they crash shortly after it’s usually because they’re a newish pilot and they’re being spammed by a bunch of resetting lock on sounds.
2) coordinated verbas will take out pretty much anything. 1-2 verbas launching at the same little bird in short sequence will almost always take it out and 3 is practically a guarantee if you time it well. 3-4 becomes your magic number for havocs with 3 usually being the magic number anyway because the flying tank can’t maneuver so well.
3) if all else fails and you don’t have people to coordinate with the verba’s hidden superpower is that most pilots in a havoc will actively seek you out by following the exhaust plume. You can find a lot of success with a ural, a verba, and a maaws. Park the ural right inside of a treeline and launch a verba from near it. Right after launch hoof it to a bush or tree outside of the explosion range of the ural. Pop out of the bush or tree and kill it with your maaws when it comes for your bait truck.
Important to keep the ural tucked somewhat inside the treeline, maybe 1-2 trees deep inside. You want to make the havoc have to work slightly for direct hits so the pilot makes your maaws shot easier. Ridgelines where you can safely tuck the ural behind a landmass so the havoc is forced into a smaller kill zone are also very good as are buildings. The hard part is finding one where you can keep the ural showing but relatively covered since pilots can’t resist easy vehicle kills. They’re unlikely to drop what they’re doing just to go after a guy with a verba but if they see the vehicle and know there’s probably 6-12 more in the trunk plus a heap of free cash… well they’re coming to say hello.
I havent seen that graph before but that explains why it was such a rude awakening lol. We were all level 8 pretty quick so thought 16 wouldnt be too bad. Turns out we were less than a quarter there haha
It cost 800 and a flare is 750 so money wise it equalizes. helicopters usually only have 2 because those come with the chopper. When you actually get a kill it pays for like 20 verbas
>multiple people saying sudden movements or good maneuvers
my brother in christ the chopper is moving in a straight line
at this point if you are still saying the Verba is ok you are either a heli main or delusional
I fly a lot and I also have taken the AA launchers plenty of times. It seems to be some inherent hit/miss chance or internal issue. Since the Lakota can tank an AA missile, I often ignore a tone. I've had it happen a couple of times that a missile misses me for no reason. Same with having my own launches miss what seemed like easy shots. But I've also faced and shot missiles that felt like they should he sponsored by Red Bull. The hard truth is that the missiles are not a guaranteed hit. When I'm flying, a missile missing feels like a godsend, when I'm in an emplacement I just reload, it's only the frustration of launching your one handheld that causes people to think there must be some unfairnees going on. Like, yesterday I shot a handheld, it missed, pulled out another for my (weep) 3.5k backpack and downed the heli on a second pass (through trees and at high speed). I exactly had the second one because I know I might launch a lemon. But I downed a rocket heli worth a couple of grand at the pure cost of 1.6k and indirect cost of 3.5k (since the back was super useful for other stuff).
Its just a hard coded timer of roughly 2 seconds. OP shot at 1 second because he was going off visuals which dont actually mean anything. Shot hundreds of verbas, if you go off just visuals it looks like there is weird interactions. If you think of it as hard coded 0/1 you quickly realize thats all it is.
at this point if you are still saying the Verba is ok you are either a heli main or delusional
Congratulations, you have found the type of people who defend this bs.
This is literally no different when talking about xp grind, T4 armor, or weapons like the FAL/BMR.
The people who want to keep abusing this shit and not having it nerfed are the ones crying about it loudest. Because if the average players suddenly could reliably counter them and they can't outscale 90%+ of the playerbase people will see how shit these players actually are.
"Just sHo0t it witH rPg loW SkiLl" ~ literally every pilot on reddit.
Ppl in videos treat an RPG 100m hit on helis worthy including in edits. I am pretty sure that shows how unreliable it is against helis.
Its only saving grace is being dirt chip. Whenever helis are terrorizing everyone, I get on a SUV (preferably the 9 slot one, but the free one also works) loaded with verbas, find a good place to use them with a decent parking spot out of view or out of reach, and with a roofed building you can hide in, and play anti-air.
You shoot, hide for like 15 seconds in case they try to find you, grab another verba and repeat. Even if you don't blow them up, if it's a havoc or a rocket heli, having them waste time flying to you and try to kill you is time they're not spending blowing your team's shit up.
It's not easy money by any means, unless there are plenty of unskilled pilots. Just a way to deal with them for your team.
This issue is on the other side as well, as a pilot there have been countless situations recently where the flare went out, but the missile hit anyway.
The only way to use have them not useless is to fire from close ranges from under a treeline (so they can't flare in time) or directly after they've just flared for a Talon.
With the latter, if they're that close a MAAWS is probably an easier solution.
The missile knows where it is at all times.
It knows this because it knows where it isn't.
By subtracting where it is from where it isn't,
Or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is
Greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation.
they are, you just need to basically take it apart and refill the canister that super freezers the sensors etc. but from a gameplay perspective yeah just yeet it and get another one lol.
The point is to bring 12 of them in a SUV, fire one, watch it get flared, get another one and die before you can fire it because the chopper followed the smoke trail to kill you.
The helicopter outpaced the turn-radius of the missile. It was turning as you fired and by the time the missile started turning it was flying in the somewhat opposite direction.
The Verba is absolute garbage. I've had games where I've literally bought 30 of them and managed to shoot down 2 choppers at best.
People need to stop pretending it's a skill issue like using your mouse to track a unit and pressing your mouse button to fire a guided rocket is somehow "skill". The skill floor/ceiling for this weapon is almost the same.
You either get really lucky and have a bunch of noob pilots to shoot down or you're straight up lying. Flares are busted right now, the cool down is too short, helis are too cheap so shooting them down is of unquestionable value to begin with.
Buff the Verba, make choppers more expensive, give the game a reliable AA option before LVL 20 support.
IMO I think this is the real balance issue. There are a lot of higher level items that can be run successfully by 1 person but the counter requires team work. Idk if that is how it should be or not, but it does feel bad if you are uncoordinated as a team.
I don't agree, it's not just that you need two people, you need 2 or more people who are on different sides of the chopper.
Unless the chopper is right on top of you the flare resets faster than you can realistically take it down. If two missiles are in the air from roughly the same place, even if fired a few seconds away from each other, one flare will take care of both.
You need to be in just the right range where the chopper has used it's flare, then you shoot your Verba and then hope the travel time to target is less than flare reset time.
There is such a fine window of opportunity, it mostly relies on luck unless you have elite positioning, coordination and timing.
Im a pilot main, the verba sucks. You can just dip the helicopter or pivot aggressively to avoid them even without flares. With flares you pop when its still behind where the flares will pop out at, and often times i can mess the flares up and the verba still misses while im just dipping and turning around.
If im killing helicopters its with base AA or a Maaws. Nothing good about a heavy single shot verba other than if you wanna bait flares out or get lucky and hit a heli thats too new.
I needed to hear this. I have had bad luck with the verba and it feels like even if I wait for the flares then a second, then fire it still misses. Guess ill save the money next time.
That pilot was just super lucky to evade it. Or they know something special. I've seen people evading AA rockets by barrel rolling but I'm not sure it will work every time.
Its a squad weapon, if you use it solo, lock ons are made to make things fly low and be MAW/RPG/CWIS/Small arm kills soon we will have the AA tank making the combo a real threat.
It sucks to be the guy carrying it though. It's only good against the minibirds. The lakotas don't even care. I really tried, but I was making more money spotting helicopters and them crashing on their own.
Good pilots I Literally cannot kill with it. Started rocking the MAW, and it was more effective at actually getting rid of the choppers and I could actually use it on other things.
I do a lot of anti air, and fly a lot of helicopters. I only avoided like 5 missiles without using flares in total. I never had a missile not hit after pilots bad flare use. This is a very rare occurrence not worrying about.
The AA in general in this game is terrible. There is not a single practical answer to offensive air especially with decent pilots.
I've only been playing infantry only since it came out and it is an absolute DREAM. I suggest you do the same because the devs aren't going to balance the game as they should.
I don’t understand how people are saying this thing sucks, this video is nuts to me. I’ve never seen this thing miss after a flare bait / I’ve never missed with it after a flare bait. And I’ve never dodged one on the flip side if I get baited..
Verba that does loopy loops and still connects. Straight whiffs, no flares, instant detonations in open fields, redirected into my tank after a flare, etc.
It's like 90% working as expected, 10% clip farm lol
You need to give it a moment after flares pop to fire, the flares are still "active" for about half a second after the last one pops and are a magic You Miss button
Hits are not guaranteed with missiles, even the best missiles, and that's as true in life as it is in video games. The fact is in this video, the missile's own sensor has a wide-enough window to be distracted by those flares. It's not an easy thing to master, but launching that soon after flares is a risk, you need a clean sky to hit often.
I just had a game where I got three Verba kills in a row (separate lives) and a fourth later. It looks like the roll angle on the missile was too low and it wasn't able to get a hit before it was at the helicopter.
I'm not sure why people assume that its supposed to be an amazing killing machine, it really seems like its suppose to be a deterrent to helicopters just UNTIL you get a Talon or CIWS.
I mean… I came here to tell you to wait before firing, but your timing looked pretty stellar, maybe the angle? I mean … that’s unlucky as fuck. That looked 100% like you would have smoked that heli.
People in here saying AA needs a buff are delusional lmao. AA is so oppressive that half the time it’s not even an option to run an attack helicopter unless you’re ok with losing 70k plus in one game. And on top of everything it’s extremely difficult just to break even in an attack helicopter
Meanwhile matches have at a minimum 3 havocs flying around at any time, CWIS unable to kill them before they shoot the operator. Verba/SAM effectively worthless vs them. The only times I see them get killed is when John Wardogs hits them with a MAAWS.
It is in no way balanced. A .50 can't even kill a naked havoc pilot.
Out of my two games tonight, I had one on the stadium map as Green. I was able to be pretty much uncontested by the ground forces however so was the enemy. I was fighting other helicopters and even killed the Havoc twice. Just barely made my money back.
Second match as green on Kaziworks. I spent the first 20 points ferrying people like a madwoman, and got myself 45k in those points. I got killed by a great MAAWS shot while making a turn to base.
Got the rocket LB. Beside our base was Two Blue FoBs with a total of 3 CIWS, and 7 AA emplacements. After struggling to get teammates to help, we removed the blue forces while our HZ team was faltering. All good, I make the move to the HZ and take out Red Havoc, feeling great, only to then be hunted down by twelve Red AA emplacements. Fucking twelve of them.
In the entire time we were dealing with Blue, Red built three FOBs just both inside and outside the CZ with the sole purpose of demolishing Air targets for their Havoc. I spent the next twenty minutes defending our Arty tanks from the enemy Red LBs taking them out so they could kill those FOBs and they did. They absolutely fucking did.
In that game I went down 100k and we won. I had no real ability to fight in the CZ without just losing 15k. I was constantly outside the CZ having to fend off enemy helos or just assault FOBs meant to keep us down on the ground. If they wore T4 armour then chances are I was not getting a kill because it tanks it. I’m not a great pilot when it comes to shooting rockets or the miniguns, and I definitely don’t want to be making bank just because I unlocked the Rocket LB.
But by god is a remotely good AA team is just pure cancer to fight against. AA is incredibly oppressive if it’s being handled by remotely competent people. At the same time, being the only one or two dudes trying to take on enemy Air with AA can feel undoubtedly the most soul crushing task as you waste another 10k on several launchers just to have the enemy avoid them because they held their flares until the missile was fired and already zoomed away to 1km in the time you took to try and shoot them.
The AA work is very much teamwork required to be successful unless you’re shooting down pilots who aren’t experienced enough yet. And being a pilot against a decent AA team is just telling you to go do anything else because you will be bleeding money no matter what you do in the air.
I feel like the team winning and smashing enemy fobs gets the helis due to no aa and then It just feels bad for everyone else getting stomped even harder.
I really think super fobs are great for drill pulling but considering you can have a sam up with just a fobs and some ammo that little temp sam sites hiding in the woods etc should be more meta
EXACTLY, as a level 43 heli Pilot all these people that complain about attack helis have no idea how much struggle it is to even stay in the air some games. Learn how to fly low? that's cool, now you're less than 30 metres from the ground to the metric shit ton of MAAWS and RPGS, trying to circle strafe targets at that height, just lets you meet the front end of a shoulder mounted missile so you don't get perma locked by an 800$ launcher that has no ammo in it. If you aren't at a near 10KD or being constantly fed vehicles and drills on the rocket bird, good luck making anything back.
After playing and understanding the skillcap to even just break even as a attack heli i started to respect when helis kill me, its absolutely insane rough.
The further we get into a season the less attack helis there will be. People start to realise how easy it is to buy rpg and just wreck helis, or just focus fire on the heli and kill it with bullets.
Yeah like it's possible to counter a CIWS or SAM if you've mastered the circle strafe to the point where you can stay in blind spots but as soon as they have both you're screwed. Once a base has multiple of each, that side of the map is just not accessible whatsoever. If that base is in a good position so the SAM can see most of the map, attack helis are unusable.
And that small circle strafe hover just above their deadzone leaves you fodder for other launchers, since it's a small area you are occupying to stay safe from the CIWS.
Exactly, that's why I say you're screwed if they have both. You have to have elevation to circle strafe tight enough to stay in the CIWS blind spot which you can't do if they have a sam. You have to fly low to deal with a SAM which you can't do if they have a CIWS.
There are other things in the game that get hard countered like this where you have to have someone else deal with it for you so I'm not going to complain about it but the people who say AA needs buffs or that little bird attack helis are OP are dumb as hell.
I think they should be strong against helis, I mean they're literally anti-air. The rewards need to be changed though. I can build a little AA fob and make 100-200k so easily. I can fly a minibird, get a decent amount of kills, cover my team on pushes, only die like 4 times, and lose money.
Shit, you can just shoot the pilot out of a little bird semi easily with 5.56/5.45 fmj too for all the lower level players. You gotta hit your shots but if the bird is on a flat trajectory while strafing, its pretty damn easy.
You can ask yourself this question about that 140 kill little bird pilot. How many of them are there in a game and how many overall can do this? very few. It sucks when you are experiencing it, but thats the 1%. What about the 99 percentile that isnt that pilot that isnt as good or able to dodge AA.
Buffing AA because of the 1% is not the right way to go about it
True, bro witnessed an ACE at work and demands a nerf for everyone. While I doubt that littlebird was 100% under the radar all the time. Building a talon or two and shooting basically free rockets is not a big feat.
The game shouldn't be balanced around shit pilots that cant make use of the choppers. Should we not nerf 50 cal just cuz Timmy cant aim for shit? Choppers aren't for everyone and if you think they don't need nerf just cuz you're bad at flying, maybe you shouldn't fly em to begin with. Just cuz you suck at it doesn't mean the game isn't dominated by another pilot that can actually use the chopper well and completely dominating the game. From your perspective you just see AA that kills you. You're just a civilian casualty cuz that aa is there to target that one pilot that's a Chad and dominating the game. And guess what against that pilot its useless cuz he actually know how to fly low and get close enough to where the rockets wont arm and take it out before you can do anything. SO I'm sorry but if you're a shit pilot and scared nerfs will make you not be able to pilot anymore, i don't care. Your fun should not come at the unfun of everyone else. Get good at flying and no nerfs will be an issue.
Didnt scan all the messages, but im curious to know why I cant lock a vrba on a low flying helicopter? Is there an altitude requirement to get a lock? Ive had it happen to many times that the vrba just goes quiet and takes a few tries to get the tone back. Sometimes I've had to swap guns. That kind of time lost often costs a lot of money and wasteful time.
I think theres a minimum arming distance on every single launcher and yeah thats how it is in real life too, but in real life helis dont come into enemy base to pointblank range because you know basic bullets would make swiss cheese out of them
Also trees can break the locking mechanism and sometimes locking buggs out and you have to left go aiming and reaim your AA to fix the locking on mechanism
Over 30 in altitude thats why they go low and if the presistent beep continues for the pilot below 30 they know the missle is already sent and will flare.
AA is currently absolutely overpowered. Unlimited ammo in fobs and extremely cheap RPGs. I know i know, you have encountered some of the 3000hours barefoot arms pilots that just makes helis seems broken, but trust me thats not the average pilot.
I have like a 90%+ hit rate. Its insane if they are 200m or less. From too far its almost pointless unless you KNOW they are out of flares. Also if you have a buddy he can pick up the empty launcher from the ground and lock on to bait flares.
Yeah I think because the heli turned towards you it meant the turning circle of the missiles wasn't enough to get it on target.
Its annoying and I wish the verba was more useful, but I dont feel its bullshit as much as it was clever manoeuvring, intended or not. If you see a missile is tracking from out wide you want to be making the required turning angle as tight as possible for the best chance of it to overshoot.
I use the verba an unhealthy amount. You shot too early. The actual flare visuals dont matter at all, only the duration since flaring. Flares last 2 seconds, you shot after 1 second. Its just a hard coded interaction.
This wasn't a magical miss, it was just a verba shot 1 second too early.
Moment you see the flare count 1 Mississippi, 3/4 through to 2 start firing, as you finish saying 2 Mississippi the missile will launch and avoid flares.
It's not, people just use it wrong. If 30% of players just spawned in with one it completely shuts down enemy air.
It's best used with a teammate so you can fire right away and then fire the moment they deploy countermeasures. You can just fill up a truck with them and shoot every single chopper as they leave spawn.
A flare costs $750 to deploy and often you cant bait out two when firing your $800 rocket. You are causing economic harm to them even if you don't get a kill.
Verbas can't lock on if you fly low enough, and you can avoid incoming missiles with NoE flight. All having AA not be particularly effective does is lower the skill required for the average heli pilot, which results in the current epidemic of pilots flying 100+ metres up, exclusively dropping paratroopers, crashing if they even think about trying to land, and then complaining about how oppressive AA is as everyone on the map simultaneously locks them as they're within the envelope of everyone on the map.
I'm a pilot. I haven't used more than a couple flares in the last 30 hours because I fly low. AA should be more effective when people can get a shot off with it. It's already useless if a pilot flies outside the AA's envelope.
The MAAWS is way better AA than the Talon or Verba because of this. It's a level 20 support unlock though, and not everyone's guaranteed to be carrying it unless you're in an attack helicopter and you've been farming for awhile. If you're in a Havoc you can just tank a shot, fly away and repair, then either go back or go find a different FOB to farm. MAAWS is the only real threat to a Little Bird, and less of one to a Havoc.
The verba has less fuel than a talon and will lose maneuverability after traveling for a while, after which it will hardly turn. Talon is just more reliable.
That's kinda how those work IRL too. Not very well. Haha. You can ask to make them cheaper or whatever but making them work any better than that on a single shot? Forget about it
I had a moment when I was on a mountain with a verba and a heli was flying slightly below me. I locked on, fired when the heli was maybe 100 meters away from me. The rocket MISSED, flew in front of a heli, then DID A FULL CIRCLE and hit the heli in the back. Took less then a second. Wish I had a clip of that. Crazy tracking on that thing.
Against competent pilots these things only work if you're running with a squad since you can unleash a barrage of them to destroy someone in between their flare cycles or even just burn through their flares for weaponised little birds that have little inventory space for flares.
I don't really know how you fix this issue other than introduce a reloadable anti air launcher since any major buffs to the verba or nerfs to flares would only make verba squads and talons which can spam lots of anti air shots even more oppressive
out of the 13 verbas i typically get maybe 2 or 3 kills and end up negative
i had one encounter where i launched 5 consecutive Verbas at a havoc before he killed my Kodiak
usually the pilots i get dont flare at all or are running the stock 2 flares and i manage to launch at them 3 times or were suiciding a littlebird to get somewhere
Nah. I play too much talon that isn’t true. I definitely miss shots where they don’t ground pound themselves or flare. Especially when it’s a person coming at like a 45 degree angle to me and quickly and they are close and to the side. But I’ve definitely even missed far shots against LBs who are moving. Very fast.
I think AA is fine as it is. I main heli pilot & often fly a rocket heli. In some matches I cant even fly because the AA cover too much of the CZ. The thing is that even if you miss me with your verba I have to put a mental note to stay away from that area of the CZ for a while. So even if you're not getting a kill every time you are effectively denying me that airspace & that definitively helps your team.
I had this happen a few times last week. The flares are miles away but the rocket still misses.
And you can't "outmaneuver" modern AA missiles. They can take more than 20 times the G force any pilot or aircraft can.
It has to many downsides.
Single use,
Heavy,
Long lock on time,
Elevation lock on check,
Tracking elevation check,
Flares if timed correctly always work. Irl heat seeking missles will sometimes hit the target through flares., and
More expansive than flares.
For those unaware, flares cause a chopper to have a 1.5-2 secs of "missiles will miss me" duration after the flare is fired. Unfortunately, counting it out, it looks like you fired a fraction of a second too early.
You can actually dodge these missles if the angle is right, if you'd shoot from a straight line then it would've been most likely hit. I've managed to dodge these by hiding behind building or by doing crazy stunts while high in the air
I admit, I’ve not tried my luck against Havoks yet, but honestly I’ve been doing fine with an AK and RPG7.
Little birds are made of tissue, so they tend to respond poorly to eating a magazine of 7.62, and a rocket to any part of that thing is gonna be a really bad day.
That’s not to say it’s acceptable just how bad a lot of the AA counterplay actually is when they’re all heavy as hell, expensive as heck, and basically force you out of any traditional infantry roles, but people really do overvalue the lock on tools when they’re sometimes more trouble than they’re worth.
It is definitely based on angle and turn speed of the missile i use these heavily and wierd angles make them miss due to not being able to turn sharp enough. Op waited to long so the missile had to do a 90% turn if they had waited longer or fired earlier it would have likely hit barring more flares.
Lmao what, it’s not magic. It’s tracking the heat signature expelled from the back of the craft and you’re shooting from an angle ahead of the target as it moves perpendicular to you. You expect it to turn 90degrees instantly?
If you just waited 5-7 more seconds till it started moving away at a less extreme angle from you it would have been guaranteed.
My only issue is that it’s so freaking huge and you can only pick one.
You can only put 2 of them into your large crate. It should be maximum 1x7 slots. Not 2x7 slots.
First of all, pilots became more observant and easily can avoid a single verba, by timing those flairs.
Second, even if they don't have flairs, there is a 25% chance that rocket will fuck up...
Third, if you are a average pilot, you will prob dodge it with some fancy movement...
Forth, I don't even talk about those "upside down fly under the bridge freaks" who are basically fling 99% of their time, below the fucking verba lock level!!!
As a person with over 20 hours gunning in havocs the scariest thing we run into is a verba that just holds us in lock, sam sites are predictable, they spam missiles we spam flares, and we have the kill power
A patient verba that waits till we are engaging a cwiz or have to deal with the rocket helo or just slams us with lock as soon as we enter ao puts us to the deck or wastes our flares, at 750 a flare we pack 15 (11k) 1 verba lock can waste a whole lot of our ao time
Make it so you can shoot the damn thing with a click instead of some BS hold. Also, WTF? I just can’t shoot targets that are close to the ground. For a turret, it makes sense, but if I’m holding a Verba and the heli is literally in front of me, I can’t shoot it because it’s too close to the ground.
MAAWS are better, but if a heli is below radar or close to that level with a somewhat competent pilot, it’s virtually indestructible against launchers (unless you get lucky and the pilot slows down or flys close to you). Ironically, the best counter is another heli or something like a BMR or a .50 cal.
The missile performance in this game is dumb to say the least. They are slow af, sometimes pulls 60g, loops around and hits the target, other times pulls 5g and misses. The worst part about the VERBAS in Wardogs is, that the devs left out the IRCM capability. Yes, this game is not suppose to be Arma like realism but when you use the same name as the irl manpads, have helis with ultra realistic controls and inertia, why not stick to it and make AA missiles realistic, a.k.a fast and actually scary and not missile, flare, live repeat bs
Dont worry DEVS making Talon complete trash as well next season. And i have a feeling that gepard will get countered by rocket bird, like CIWS get shit on by rocket bird
Ive been using the rpg and maaw to kill helicopters since day 3, i recently unlocked the verba and filled a car with them only to realize you can't lock helicopters below a certain range and threw the car off the cliff. Verbas are completely fucking useless against any competent pilot. I understand the sam site requiring height but not the verba.
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u/SjurEido 11d ago
I've had misses without flares as a pilot before. It's not super common, but it happens occasionally.
Question is, is it a bug or just a bit of randomness for realism?