Me and my friends used to help each other practice rocket surfing with the airstrike, the decreased blast radius and odd fire rate made it so easy when you were up against a conventionally better rocket launcher that wasn't the direct hit. Just have alot of good memories with this weapon.
This is a bit cliche but: "The best offence is a good defence" and "The best defence is a good offence" Since the BLU team usually needs to go directly into the RED team to win and RED have the better positioning for balance reasons, you are actually better off using protection to push and damage to hold I learned that one from medic 101, Krits is most effective on defence and stock on offence
@@imwithmilk8162 I acknowledge your viewpoint. However the Battalion's Backup doesn't directly contribute to damage, and the Buff Banner doesn't directly protect the user or their teammates. Yes, being able to push further into the enemy fortifications *allows* you to get more damage in, but that is solely because of your increased resistances. With the Buff Banner. You *might* be pushing the enemy advancements back, but that is solely due to the increased damage you deal [minicrits].
@@jonathansmithers2763 I suppose if you mean literally then yes the buff banner increases your offence and the battalions increase your defences, but in practice those buffs are better to do the opposite of the initially expected role because of the design of the game, with the exception of the battalions being good on RED if it's a chokey part like sunshine last or 5gorge mid, that's what i assume they meant by saying the buff is for protection and the backup is for damage
I would possibly increase it’s direct hit damage by a bit. Like +10% maybe. This would reward you for hitting those rockets you can’t really use for splash damage anyways without just making it a better stock. This would also slightly improve its ground game, and wouldn’t increase the rocket jumping damage you take
Honesty, what I think would be more fun is a reload speed buff per kill. The clip doesn't mean as much if you have to reload for an absurd quantity of time to get it setup up
Air Strike is always a fun niche to use and is always satisfying to kill a bunch of people together, especially if you get a random crit. If this thing had some extra upside like a faster reload, it would be something I would use a lot more!
No. Two of the large parts of soldier's balancing is the fact reloading is slow, and you only have four rockets in a clip. You're allowed to negate one of those, for lower damage. Having a faster reload would make it somewhat of a perfectly accurate tap-firing beggar's bazooka.
@@zzyxxyzz5442 I propose a gradual speed up in reloading per rocket per session. first one is slow, second is average, third is say 5% faster, ect. It would ensure the burst damage playstyle still remains while not making the soldier wait an entire respawn time to fill the entire clip.
6:55 Fun fact:If you bunny hoop with the airstrike you keep the firing boost as long as you maintain the bunny hoops,becasue the game still considers you are rocket jumping while you bunny hoop.Really cool tech.
I remember playing with the Air strike in an MGE I did with a friend, I killed him and I hit 4 direct hits, literally traced him but I didn't kill him, I wonder how it would be for it to have the reverse ramp up while rocket jumping like the Crosbow currently have
Pairing the airstrike with a shotgun can be pretty fun too. I usually shoot my entire clip while in the air, and follow it up with the shotgun to get rid of any stragglers that survived the rocket barrage. Sure, it's not 'ideal' but when it works, it really works. The reduced self damage is already plenty incentive for me to drop the gunboats, so I feel like having another method to do more damage is always welcome. Also, while I haven't tried it yet, maybe pairing it with one of soldiers other backpacks could be nice.
The airstrike can definitely be a fun weapon paired with the base jumper, if only I could hit shoots on land. (Also I wonder if that is your real teacher lmao)
That intro animation is something I've experienced many a time as somebody who really loves playing Soldier. I'm glad the Air Strike is getting the love it deserves. I hardly see anybody using it because of the Trolldier circlejerk, stock purists and whatever the black box conch Soldiers hope to accomplish.
Man TF2 content creators are seriously some of the most talented people of any game's fanbase I've seen. So much time and dedication to making the video entertaining with SFM animations and little animated gags in between lines; I can't imagine how long it took just to get some of the shorter animations done like the duck hunt sniper one. I've been watching your vids since 2019 and it's been a blast to see how much the quality of your content has improved since then.
I play almost exclusively with the air strike and tend to pair it with the shotguns where I will bomb in then go pellet crazy. Edit: If it could think of a change change would want. I would want the blast radius thing to be reworked. Have the blast radius penalty on the ground but not in the air or something to a similar thought.
Correct me if I'm wrong, the base jumper USED to open and close the parachute at any time, giving extra mobility for the soldier/demo but it got nerfed. Open the parachute once, you live only once.
Decided to start farming my strange Air strike and made me relise it is my favourite rocket launcher. Though I don't run it with Base Jumper as i find it more fun using either Gun boats or Buff banner. Gunboats make jumps harder but more rewarding. It helps with the damage fall-off and makes everything a lot faster. With less self-damage and gunboats, you take very little damage from jumps. Fall damage is still a problem. If you plan your jumps, you mitigate the fall damage. Buff banner, is for whenever you're struggling and playing on the ground until you have rockets or a banner. Using the banner and being able to spam 100dmg rockets across the map is fun. One thing about it is that your opponents can never be sure how many rockets you have. You can still play with it as a stock rocket launcher, you will just need one extra rocket. Surfing another soldier rockets to get the airborn stats can feel so amazing if you can pull it off. Don't think it needs any changes. Maybe +10% more ammo, but I do not think it is needed. Great video, so many good edits. 👍
If you like Air Strike + Gunboats, I've really gotta recommend Beggar's. It doesn't have a dmg penalty, so it's also just way more usable on the ground. I've got a few ideas for what I'd want to do with Air Strike, but I think replacing the snowball mechanic with a flat clip size of some sort (5 or 6?) would probably be a good starting point. For a weapon as fun to be dumb and aggro with as Air Strike, it is criminal to make you go back to 4 rockets on death.
The beggar’s is worse for ground movement because of the rocket deviation and smaller explosion radius, and can only put hold 3 rockets. You’re still able to hit directs more reliably with the air strike and you can have 8 rockets before you need to reload
@@crazycactus717 Air Strike also has a grounded explosion radius penalty and the damage penalty fucks with damage thresholds. Air Strike literally can't do over 100 without other damage modifiers. Because of this, anecdotally speaking, I find that some fights end up taking longer than anticipated + I more frequently see that I lose fights by a tiny bit of HP when using Air Strike compared to Beggar's. Plus, the fact that Beggar's can only hold 3 rockets doesn't matter too much because tap firing is shockingly fast, and being the Beggar's, storing 2 or 3 full damage rockets and barfing them onto whoever is around a corner is pretty effective in pubs. The deviation can be pretty gnarly, but you can still hit directs at closer ranges (not just point blank) fairly easily, letting you abuse that lack of dmg penalty. For the record, I like both guns! I started with the Air Strike a few years ago before moving towards the Beggar's because of the stuff I talked about above. I just wish I had more of a reason to use Air Strike as a gun besides sniping sentries, seeing as their movement capabilities are somewhat similar.
Yes the video explains very well how you're suposed to combine it with the base jumper since it helps more against groups of people, but gunboats has a lot of synergy with it (when you have at least 1-2 extra rockets), you deal less damage when you are far from the enemies when in the air, but when you close in while jumping, the rockets are closer to each other making it just 1 big blast instead of alerting them with the starting ones (every rocket deals more damage individually because they deal less damage depending on how far you are from the enemy and not for how long they have traveled) also, you get away at the cost of less health and since you are more mobile you can spend more time in the air and get more people off guard with the faster firing speed anywhere instead of making it very situational. Im not saying this combo is irrelevant, just wanted to see the choice mentioned in the video but i guess Zesty already covered it. Cool video.
The deployment nerf to the BASE jumper to make him easier for *SNIPERS* to hit soldier was one of the stupidest balance decisions ever made, as though the most powerful class needed any more help terrorizing the game.
massively disagree on base jumper being the only viable secondary when airstrike+gunboats makes you take absolutely tiny amounts of damage when rocket jumping. Being able to rocket around with the only worry being fall damage>firing a few more rockets in the barrage while sitting in the air like a sitting (floating?) duck any day of the week in my book. Because while the damage and blast radius penalties hurt, you never really touched on how generally useful having a massive clip is even when you're grounded. Even if your rockets are worse you can kinda just, keep firing them. paired with the knockback explosions have you can easily save your hide by constantly rocketing someone attempting to chase you. The weapon's big issue imo is requiring a lot more skill for not a whole lot of payoff. You need to be better to get those first kills with an objectively worse rocket launcher to become the 8 clip infinite rocket works, but you're always shackled by the burden of worse rockets and if you can do well with the air strike you can do well if not better with stock or cooler stock special shoutouts to air strike+buff banner because while I've never tried it, it's a very funny concept
Personally i'm suprised you didn't mention the mantreads. I know a Trolliger that uses them and the gardener to be a BEAST on hightower. I show know, I'm his quick-fix GF X3
I have been using the air strike for a while now and for some reason, I love it too much, some would call me an air strike main. with the weapon, you have made a great example but try it out with some of the banners, I haven't used the base jumper (rip base jumper, still a very haha weapon in a good way) and I have seen myself go on in the top three MVPs. But in all words, the air strike is still a very good weapon and I love it, slow starts but quick moves to the end. PS, very funny to see pyros' try air blast them all away, I've had it happen to myself, lol. great video in all words.
Big help for the air strike would be a faster reload speed either as a flat increase or a scaling increase compared to how many kills you’ve gotten… yes your clip size gets bigger with each kill but it also makes using a full barrage take abysmally long to fully reload if you are doing good. That along with with a clip size increase (could make one of the downsides stronger to compensate) and the gun would be made a lot more usable
Even though my go-to loadout for Soldier uses the Air Strike, my secondary of choice is actually the Buff Banner! The combo is fun because it allows for some insane burst damage in the air & great sustained DPS when fighting on the ground! I honestly think that the best Soldier to use a stock Übercharge on is one with this loadout, with max heads & full banner, of course. The damage & blast radius penalties make the weapon really punishing for inaccurate shots & especially make you outmatched by other Soldiers (unless you have a banner popped), but I think the Air Strike is super rewarding for those who can consistently aim & know how to position themselves to ambush their opponents! The Buff Banner is especially good with it because its mini-crits can still one-shot light classes! The Air Strike is one of those weapons that will probably get you killed if you're caught with your pants down, but, under the right circumstances, can absolutely obliterate entire teams! PS: A max-head, Buff Banner-boosted Air Strike can deal OVER A THOUSAND DAMAGE in a single clip, so... Yeah, it's a pretty fun loadout. 😏
Personally I think the ait strike needs to be adjusted so its better at taking short quick bombs closer to Solder by making him reload faster or make him a better long range bomber by reducing his rocket damage falloff/rate so he can take out clusters of enemies more consistently Personally stat wise I would change: For every kill increase max ammo size by 25% Every extra rocket you use will reload slightly faster by 4% stacking on each other upto 16% While rocket jumping you reload 10% faster Explosion falloff rate increased by 25% Remove explosive radius reduction when rocket jumping This way the airstrike would be less polarising to get kills but requires more skill to use to max effect since you need to choose when to reload & have hit your shots more consistently For base jumper I think it needs a combination of the changes by Higps & Fishonastick servers where: Reduces rocket jumping dmg by 25% Increases air control by 100% Can be held open for 6 seconds max Taking dmg reduce the time & 100 dmg will close your parachute Demoknights can jump once while charging This way the base jumper is a decent short term utility/bombing tool & useful for demoknights I would add a melee that's the rambo knife made by the same creator for the base jumper & it's stats would be: While equipped : your rockets have delayed travel until you switch away You have 200% increased gravity Weapon deploys & holsters 40% faster No random crits
As fellow Air Strike enthusiast, I would like to state that the Air Strike is the definition of a journey where you're more rewarded to be worthy of it's power if you know how to manage and keep yourself alive.. outside of a few uncontrollable scenarios. If you manage to prove yourself with 4 kills, you are blessed to use a huge advantage that no other rocket launcher can give you. More rockets to fire, greater momentum (especially with gunboats), and being able to deal burst damage like no other rocket launcher! Also this thing can be a killing machine if used with the buff banner in the right hands. Consider this, for a few moments (unless the enemy team has an ace up it's sleeve against this such as Battalion's), you have can have up to *8 NORMAL ROCKETS* with no falloff and slightly extra damage that well makes up for the damage penalty even when rocket jumping (where that at least gives you extra firing speed to make up for it). The only concern in this scenario is that blast radius, but if you can land your rockets consistently it's really no concern. Just be aware though, this thing isn't so great if your in a scenario where your team is struggling to even land one kill with no room for error and it ends up being more of a hindrance considering you need kills to get this extreme momentum-filled, killing machine to even start killing as promised. In these scenarios it's better to use ol' reliable or any other for the job. Edit: It also came to my attention that the Airstrike isn't too helpful if you're playing in a map like Junction. Without the air, there is no strike.
as a airstrike user who has a strange killstreak airstrike named NATO, i can safely say there's nothing more satisfying then jumping in (without the BASE jumper, gunboats are better.) and making the enemy eat 6+ rockets, bonus if atleast one of them is a crit. (unless you can't aim for shish and the rockets land around them doing atleast 28 damage, also the airstrike is best on hightower.)
The only time i used that weapon, was in harvest, rocket jumped to the roof, killed the sticky spammer enemy demo, then killed an engi, and just didn't make more because my friend wanted to find another match.
I mean Air Strike + Conch is my favourite Soldier load out In my personal experience the ammo doesn’t tend to be an issue as you can take it from the guy you just threw 8 explosives at A reload speed on kill would be a nice buff so I don’t have to spend a majority of my game watching the animation
I had a lot of playing with the air strike in the past, using it mostly to rocket jump around, because of the reduced self damage. But recently I've been having more fun with the liberty launcher. I think the liberty launcher is just more reliable.
I picked up the airstrike a while back and i never reverted i find the airstrike on cqc or long range maps extremely good while certainly its not as good as stock with the 4 that does not mean its unusable or bad. Take for example enemy solider throws you in the air you automaticly win unless a crocket hits you its always you that wins becuse you just threw 3 rockets back at em. Not only that but the airstrike with 0 kills still is a incredibly versitile mashine giving small radius of shots in air and a relatively normal one on ground. For me this thing while not as good as stock on ground thanks to the added kills you get it realy does not loss in many cases esspicaly if you run the right loadout while many choose the base jumper to combo with the airstrike in my opinion the best is the gunboats or the conch are great to pair as with gunboats you can take to the skys alot more times than normal and with the counch become an unstoppable force a nature on the ground. Bring this along with the escape plan which is preety goated in my opinion youve got a license to kill and erase the enemy team no matter the situation. The only issue that the airstrike has and this solely is why its not op is ammo your going to find yourself out of ammo alot and thats the weakness. Many more times than not your be damaging your self to gtfo with the escape plan for ammo.
The Air Strike is another one of those weapons i haven't used much - but it just works too well with my Gunboats addiction and my already very "in your face" playstyle. A really fun weapon for sure which i should probably use more often!
I actually already did the liberty launcher. Unfortunately it got age restricted tho (still don’t know why) but here it is! :) th-cam.com/video/ktw8CxQlvto/w-d-xo.html
tbh it aint that bad on the ground, if you want to get your full 8 switch your secondary to the panic attack, shoot someone with it *then* with the airstrike and boom now you have 5 rockets *there is nothing saying you need to get the kills while airborne* and if you feel the panic attack is useless after 8 switch to a different loadout that has the air strike so you dont lose your snowball
I actually use the air strike every now and then, and my favorite thing to pair it with is the buff banner, allows me to barrage people at long range without worrying about falloff
I haven't use the B.A.S.E. Jumper since they've nerfed the parachute launching ability, and frankly I think most of the TF2 community has as well. I used to remember seeing a soldier with the Jumper on on every server, trying to get market garden kills by spam-chuting. Nowadays a chute soldier is almost completely non-existent whenever I join pubs (the constant nuisance of aimbot snipers also doesn't help the chute extinction). I feel like I'd kill myself with it accidentally, since I always loved spamming the chute both for the sound and the button pressing as I descend to my death. it was weirdly calming.
Another change I would like to see added to the airstrike is removing the flat self-damage resistance and add an increasing self-damage resistance with each kill you get. Similar to how the Eyelander would give you increased movement speed with each successive head you get.
Actually in 1982, argentinian soldiers realized that if they flied to close of the ground, the radars won't detect them, so they did it and worked very well
I thought about it and honestly imagine if the base jumper had maybe a -10 to 20% damage falloff while active, that way shooting rockets with it active is more worth it. It doesnt super buff anything, but it adds a little bit of flavor while soldier is essentially making himself easier to hit in the air (where a lot of weapons can obliterate him).
This was really well-made, i enjoyed it. I have the "Good Job" (c8) voice command bound to middle mouse button so I REALLY related to the bit at the beginning lol As for the base jumper, my two cents is that it ironically kinda works against the air strike in some ways, particularly before you have a bunch of mag upgrades from kills. Rockets deal more damage the closer you are to the impact site when they explode regardless of where you are when you fire them, so being up in the air still when they hit is leaving damage on the table. I like to jump really high to fall really fast directly on top of people with sync rockets, squeezes a fat chunk of extra damage out of the same shots by being right on top of them when they hit. The catch is you pretty much need the gunboats for it to work without getting rekt, but this has it's own general upside: you can use your rockets to pad your falls with the blast and take way less damage than the unmitigated fall would have dealt, and you can do this all the time when you get used to doing it. When considering the Air Strike's self damage reduction on top of the gunboats you take next to no damage, I've had situations where i rj away from a fight with
I would get rid of the "Smaller blast radius while jumping" stat. It's completely counter-intuitive to the design of the weapon. If anything it should be the opposite, where being on the ground decreases the radius and being in the air makes it normal again. This would encourage players to use it for what it was made for.
In order words, the soldier upgrades himself from human soldier to a GODDAMN TACTICAL AC-130 PLANE WITH LEGS anytime he uses the air strike- perfect xD if I can find a cheap specialized killstreak kit for this baby, Ima apply it and start mowing down my enemies lol
I've gotta add my 2 cents onto the pile and say that the liberty launcher is under appreciated. And used incorrectly 90% of the time, where players would attempt to use it exactly how one would use the normal rocket launcher. I have been using it for almost a year now, and just like the demoknight, the liberty launcher is a class in and of its own. It takes all the "best" qualities of all of the soldier's primaries and mashes it into one. Rocket speed, clip size, and less damage overall especially for rocket jumps. Pair it with your shotgun of choice, and you have a slightly better roaming soldier loadout, only this time, you have the magic of splash damage. Jump past enemy lines and become an even more distracting pain in the a*s than a spy could ever be. Pick of light classes, force tankier enemies to always make a 180° turn effectively making them _LOOK AWAY FROM YOUR TEAM_ where your team then _swoops_ in and clears the area. TL;DR The Liberty Launcher should be played as a sub class and more like a support weapon.
>Sonic Heroes music in an Air Strike video essay. _"What goes up must come down_ _Yet my feet don't touch the ground_ _See the world spinning upside down_ _A mighty crash without a sound"_ Perfect
I’d allow Soldier’s other equipped weapons to get kills to increase the air strikes clip Using the Air Strike with shotguns is no good because you won’t get an extra rocket if you finish someone off The Air Strike and Reserve Shooter would be my favorite combo of getting a mini-crit shotgun kill would increase the air strikes clip size Same with the market gardener if that was possible!
So there's this one MvM community server that has some classes with massive powerups, such as the Engineer can build 3 sentries and 3 dispensers, ubercharge is like 1 secons to charge so can spam that, Medic's syringe gun you could turn into an A-10 Warthog, and much more. But my favorite part of it is what they did to the soldier. You have your soldier equip the Direct Hit, the Battalion's Backup, and whatever melee and you turned Soldier into a literal god. Let me explain: In this community server, they not only made the Battalion's backup give you 2200 health instead of 220 health, instantly charge the rage, and the rage lasts for at times an entire game, but they also made by default the Direct Hit have massive damage per missile. And if you play Ghost Town on that server, where they give you enough automatically to max upgrade your class (AKA buying every upgrade on that class) while having more than half the points left, let's just say you're going to be able to walk up to a juggernaut enemy and put them down easily with losing little to no health. And if you got a medic with a Kritzkreig, then may God have mercy on those robots. The only downside to that is even with max firing rate, reload speed, clip size, and ammo reserve it takes a good while to reload and you do burn through ammo real quickly if you don't have a nearby dispenser.
While I get that the Air Strike has its uses, it's not _bad_ but nor is it that great. I do think it is a bit overhyped simply because of the factor of downtime. Not only is the airstrike an objectively worse rocket launcher (*on the ground), you will have to spend a lot of time out of the fight to recover health from rocketjumps/falldamage, finding ammo and reloading (especially bad with 8 rocket clips). It may not seem like much, but that time certainly adds up over the course of a 10-15 minute match, especially on maps where medium/full health packs are scarce or no medics are around. You can easily lose 2-6 minutes of shooting people to scrounge for health/ammo which is a long time when you put it into the context of TF2 where the default respawn timer is 10 seconds to a maximum of 20. That means you're essentially dead 6-18 times over the course of a match if you hit that 2-6 minute downtime threshold.
I think the airstrike B.A.S.E jumper combo was a pretty good choice for casual prior the deploy and re-deploy nerf on the B.A.S.E jumper due to soldiers being too good at using it mid-air. Now it's just kinda mediocre, which is unfortunate.
I enjoy the Air Strike with the Gunboats. Just zooming in and out for cheeky Market Gardens, escaping ridiculous fights and *sometimes* getting those fat group kills. Fun weapon!
Glad there is another video. I would agree with you when you would get more amo on kill. I would say 25% faster reload speed in the air. That is what I would add
you forgot one *tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny* bit of info there: WILE you rocket jump, the blast radius from your rockets is again 20% smaller, making the blast radius *over all WILE youre in the air 33% smaller.* This is actually a big "ouchy" for a weapon which is suppost to use from the air and "spam" down rockets. you have to hit them and since they are not faster than stock rockets, literally everything which is not literally "standing still" can easy avoid those rockets. It sounds sad and it sadly is. Its not even that the air strike over all is bad but it feels like it literally "hinders" itself by doing what you *should* do with it. I played a long time with the airstrike and it is a fun weapon but for what it is, i do pref stock or, no joke, the Liberty launcher (because even you didnt understand the LL for how it works~ and yes, the LL is my nr 1 pick on soldier).
When I use the Air Strike, I actually prefer to run Gunboats or a shotgun like the Reserve Shooter as a secondary. Ammo isn't really a massive concern because when you kill someone, they drop an ammo pack. I also primarily use it on the ground in order to get the initial kills before I start bombing with it. Even if I'm not bombing with it, 8 rockets per clip is a LOT, so even with that slight damage penalty, it ends up being ridiculously strong in my eyes. I never bomb with it if I don't think I'll get a kill with it, but running a shotgun as a secondary allows me to finish them off more often than not. In some cases, I sometimes land with a rocket or two left in the clip, so I'll definitely look to pop them in the air.
an eyelander demoknight, an enemy air strike soldier (and maybe an bizarre bargain sniper) can steal your extra rockets because they are considered heads reduce the hidden blast radius penalty when you fire after blast jumping give 5% faster reload and projectile speed for every "head" capping at 20% for the base jumper: have it slowly reduce your horizontal velocity over time, slightly decrease its air control penalty and let you put the chute away and redeploy it once (reserve parachutes exist)
So your argument is... That it performs the best, when enemies... Are not noticing you, turned away? I have a slight feeling that this would apply to every weapon and class.
Honestly the parachute probably isn't the best way to use because of damage fall off, you'll get more use out of each individual rocket with something like the gunboats, basically turns it into a damaging rocket jumper.
I'm one person who uses the Air Strike all the time when playing as Soldier. I, however, Play with the Buff Banner to further buff the rapid burst strikes that you can do to annihilate groups or other fortified positions with the 8 rockets and banner you get from obtaining said rockets, it negates the damage downside, and that gets very, very far in my experience.
I kinda want the soldier to force feed him the information to the spy like “since you’re here looking pathetic, the air strike is a weapon equipped by the solder class from team fortress 2”
Hey yo wasnt sure if anyone has said anything but i wanted to leave some audio levels feedback. When i started teh video i was going deaf cuz it was so much louder than most anything else on youtube right now. I then turned the volume in youtube down to about a third and it was still too loud. Turned it down again, then as soon as you started talking i couldnt hear anything. Turned it back up. Now im sure ill have to turn it back down... strike that, your now starting to shout in the video... and i think im gonna just maybe pause or stop.
9:41 My man, I'm sure you knew this, but the Buff Banner is the one on the right and the Batallion's Backup is the one on the left. You got them mixed up.
![[TF2] Punishing Pyros: The American Way](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tFHEHN6bnEg/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TF2] Punishing Pyros: The American Way](/img/tr.png)
this video is good because i have a small cameo
famous youtuber moments
I also make a cameo in the form of a Cactus on the map
@@cactusman8980no way are you the real cactusman8980?!?!!??
Famous funny cat moment
Correction: This video *is good.*
Me and my friends used to help each other practice rocket surfing with the airstrike, the decreased blast radius and odd fire rate made it so easy when you were up against a conventionally better rocket launcher that wasn't the direct hit.
Just have alot of good memories with this weapon.
ahahahahaha pudding
9:42 you lit up the battalion's backup for 'damage' and the buff banner for 'protection'
This is a bit cliche but: "The best offence is a good defence" and "The best defence is a good offence"
Since the BLU team usually needs to go directly into the RED team to win and RED have the better positioning for balance reasons, you are actually better off using protection to push and damage to hold
I learned that one from medic 101, Krits is most effective on defence and stock on offence
@@imwithmilk8162 I acknowledge your viewpoint. However the Battalion's Backup doesn't directly contribute to damage, and the Buff Banner doesn't directly protect the user or their teammates. Yes, being able to push further into the enemy fortifications *allows* you to get more damage in, but that is solely because of your increased resistances. With the Buff Banner. You *might* be pushing the enemy advancements back, but that is solely due to the increased damage you deal [minicrits].
@@jonathansmithers2763 I suppose if you mean literally then yes the buff banner increases your offence and the battalions increase your defences, but in practice those buffs are better to do the opposite of the initially expected role because of the design of the game, with the exception of the battalions being good on RED if it's a chokey part like sunshine last or 5gorge mid, that's what i assume they meant by saying the buff is for protection and the backup is for damage
But he didn’t say offense or defense, he said damage
@@btcbuster5556 oh yea he does.. so he just fumbled then
I would possibly increase it’s direct hit damage by a bit. Like +10% maybe. This would reward you for hitting those rockets you can’t really use for splash damage anyways without just making it a better stock. This would also slightly improve its ground game, and wouldn’t increase the rocket jumping damage you take
Honesty, what I think would be more fun is a reload speed buff per kill. The clip doesn't mean as much if you have to reload for an absurd quantity of time to get it setup up
I LOVE THE AIR STRIKE! I have been using it recently and I love doing some cool jumps with it. Btw nice video I really enjoyed it
Air Strike is always a fun niche to use and is always satisfying to kill a bunch of people together, especially if you get a random crit.
If this thing had some extra upside like a faster reload, it would be something I would use a lot more!
yeah that's all it needs imo, reloading 8 rockets makes me wanna sleep.
No. Two of the large parts of soldier's balancing is the fact reloading is slow, and you only have four rockets in a clip. You're allowed to negate one of those, for lower damage. Having a faster reload would make it somewhat of a perfectly accurate tap-firing beggar's bazooka.
@@zzyxxyzz5442 simple: slower grounded reload, faster airborne reload to go with the weapon's overall gimmic
@@zzyxxyzz5442 I propose a gradual speed up in reloading per rocket per session. first one is slow, second is average, third is say 5% faster, ect. It would ensure the burst damage playstyle still remains while not making the soldier wait an entire respawn time to fill the entire clip.
6:55 Fun fact:If you bunny hoop with the airstrike you keep the firing boost as long as you maintain the bunny hoops,becasue the game still considers you are rocket jumping while you bunny hoop.Really cool tech.
Same with market gardening
@@comradpingu5745 I know my fellow communist.
bunny hoops
@@comradpingu5745 or any other Arial buff
I remember playing with the Air strike in an MGE I did with a friend, I killed him and I hit 4 direct hits, literally traced him but I didn't kill him, I wonder how it would be for it to have the reverse ramp up while rocket jumping like the Crosbow currently have
it would nerf it's effect at traditional soldier bombs and encourage long ranged choke spam
pls no
wtf is your channel banner bro ☠️☠️☠️
Pairing the airstrike with a shotgun can be pretty fun too. I usually shoot my entire clip while in the air, and follow it up with the shotgun to get rid of any stragglers that survived the rocket barrage. Sure, it's not 'ideal' but when it works, it really works.
The reduced self damage is already plenty incentive for me to drop the gunboats, so I feel like having another method to do more damage is always welcome. Also, while I haven't tried it yet, maybe pairing it with one of soldiers other backpacks could be nice.
That's honestly doesn't sound too bad. I do usually use the banners, mainly for the Buff Banner. It's actually pretty devastating.
The airstrike can definitely be a fun weapon paired with the base jumper, if only I could hit shoots on land. (Also I wonder if that is your real teacher lmao)
I really like using the air strike with the gunboats
That intro animation is something I've experienced many a time as somebody who really loves playing Soldier.
I'm glad the Air Strike is getting the love it deserves. I hardly see anybody using it because of the Trolldier circlejerk, stock purists and whatever the black box conch Soldiers hope to accomplish.
Man TF2 content creators are seriously some of the most talented people of any game's fanbase I've seen. So much time and dedication to making the video entertaining with SFM animations and little animated gags in between lines; I can't imagine how long it took just to get some of the shorter animations done like the duck hunt sniper one.
I've been watching your vids since 2019 and it's been a blast to see how much the quality of your content has improved since then.
Bro its full of clichè's and weapon analysis has been done to death. Everything he said has been said before
@@PurpleBroadcast oh at least it’s entertaining
I would love to see an entire lobby full of airstrikes
Battlefield fortress 2
The SFM bit at the beginning was really well put together. Absolutely Badass!
From subbing way back before you changed the channel name to now, I’m amazed with how well your content and channel have grown! Keep up the great work
The one soldier weapon i wanted to master very much.
Also, haven't heard from samwiz1 for a while.
I like the fact you can essentially paint a nuke silly colors or kickass cool colors. It'll still be intimidating regardless.
I play almost exclusively with the air strike and tend to pair it with the shotguns where I will bomb in then go pellet crazy.
Edit: If it could think of a change change would want. I would want the blast radius thing to be reworked. Have the blast radius penalty on the ground but not in the air or something to a similar thought.
This is an underated video and needs more views
Correct me if I'm wrong, the base jumper USED to open and close the parachute at any time, giving extra mobility for the soldier/demo but it got nerfed. Open the parachute once, you live only once.
Decided to start farming my strange Air strike and made me relise it is my favourite rocket launcher.
Though I don't run it with Base Jumper as i find it more fun using either Gun boats or Buff banner.
Gunboats make jumps harder but more rewarding. It helps with the damage fall-off and makes everything a lot faster.
With less self-damage and gunboats, you take very little damage from jumps. Fall damage is still a problem. If you plan your jumps, you mitigate the fall damage.
Buff banner, is for whenever you're struggling and playing on the ground until you have rockets or a banner. Using the banner and being able to spam 100dmg rockets across the map is fun.
One thing about it is that your opponents can never be sure how many rockets you have.
You can still play with it as a stock rocket launcher, you will just need one extra rocket.
Surfing another soldier rockets to get the airborn stats can feel so amazing if you can pull it off.
Don't think it needs any changes. Maybe +10% more ammo, but I do not think it is needed.
Great video, so many good edits. 👍
If you like Air Strike + Gunboats, I've really gotta recommend Beggar's. It doesn't have a dmg penalty, so it's also just way more usable on the ground. I've got a few ideas for what I'd want to do with Air Strike, but I think replacing the snowball mechanic with a flat clip size of some sort (5 or 6?) would probably be a good starting point. For a weapon as fun to be dumb and aggro with as Air Strike, it is criminal to make you go back to 4 rockets on death.
The beggar’s is worse for ground movement because of the rocket deviation and smaller explosion radius, and can only put hold 3 rockets. You’re still able to hit directs more reliably with the air strike and you can have 8 rockets before you need to reload
@@crazycactus717 Air Strike also has a grounded explosion radius penalty and the damage penalty fucks with damage thresholds. Air Strike literally can't do over 100 without other damage modifiers. Because of this, anecdotally speaking, I find that some fights end up taking longer than anticipated + I more frequently see that I lose fights by a tiny bit of HP when using Air Strike compared to Beggar's. Plus, the fact that Beggar's can only hold 3 rockets doesn't matter too much because tap firing is shockingly fast, and being the Beggar's, storing 2 or 3 full damage rockets and barfing them onto whoever is around a corner is pretty effective in pubs. The deviation can be pretty gnarly, but you can still hit directs at closer ranges (not just point blank) fairly easily, letting you abuse that lack of dmg penalty.
For the record, I like both guns! I started with the Air Strike a few years ago before moving towards the Beggar's because of the stuff I talked about above. I just wish I had more of a reason to use Air Strike as a gun besides sniping sentries, seeing as their movement capabilities are somewhat similar.
My heavy model speaking is GOOFY
Yes it is
Yes the video explains very well how you're suposed to combine it with the base jumper since it helps more against groups of people, but gunboats has a lot of synergy with it (when you have at least 1-2 extra rockets), you deal less damage when you are far from the enemies when in the air, but when you close in while jumping, the rockets are closer to each other making it just 1 big blast instead of alerting them with the starting ones (every rocket deals more damage individually because they deal less damage depending on how far you are from the enemy and not for how long they have traveled) also, you get away at the cost of less health and since you are more mobile you can spend more time in the air and get more people off guard with the faster firing speed anywhere instead of making it very situational. Im not saying this combo is irrelevant, just wanted to see the choice mentioned in the video but i guess Zesty already covered it. Cool video.
The deployment nerf to the BASE jumper to make him easier for *SNIPERS* to hit soldier was one of the stupidest balance decisions ever made, as though the most powerful class needed any more help terrorizing the game.
massively disagree on base jumper being the only viable secondary when airstrike+gunboats makes you take absolutely tiny amounts of damage when rocket jumping. Being able to rocket around with the only worry being fall damage>firing a few more rockets in the barrage while sitting in the air like a sitting (floating?) duck any day of the week in my book. Because while the damage and blast radius penalties hurt, you never really touched on how generally useful having a massive clip is even when you're grounded. Even if your rockets are worse you can kinda just, keep firing them. paired with the knockback explosions have you can easily save your hide by constantly rocketing someone attempting to chase you. The weapon's big issue imo is requiring a lot more skill for not a whole lot of payoff. You need to be better to get those first kills with an objectively worse rocket launcher to become the 8 clip infinite rocket works, but you're always shackled by the burden of worse rockets and if you can do well with the air strike you can do well if not better with stock or cooler stock
special shoutouts to air strike+buff banner because while I've never tried it, it's a very funny concept
You should try the beggar's bazooka. You may think it's bad or something idk, but when you get the hang of it, it's AMAZING to use
I can't remember the last time when this many people collabed in just one video. Loved it!
I recently wanted to try something new so I had started using the air strike and it's an interesting and fun alternative.
Personally i'm suprised you didn't mention the mantreads. I know a Trolliger that uses them and the gardener to be a BEAST on hightower. I show know, I'm his quick-fix GF X3
This is an incredibly well done video. Great job man, keep it up!
I have been using the air strike for a while now and for some reason, I love it too much, some would call me an air strike main. with the weapon, you have made a great example but try it out with some of the banners, I haven't used the base jumper (rip base jumper, still a very haha weapon in a good way) and I have seen myself go on in the top three MVPs. But in all words, the air strike is still a very good weapon and I love it, slow starts but quick moves to the end. PS, very funny to see pyros' try air blast them all away, I've had it happen to myself, lol. great video in all words.
Big help for the air strike would be a faster reload speed either as a flat increase or a scaling increase compared to how many kills you’ve gotten… yes your clip size gets bigger with each kill but it also makes using a full barrage take abysmally long to fully reload if you are doing good. That along with with a clip size increase (could make one of the downsides stronger to compensate) and the gun would be made a lot more usable
Awesome video! (Zesty at the end had me laughing lol)
Glad I managed to convince him to be here just for this one scene XD
Even though my go-to loadout for Soldier uses the Air Strike, my secondary of choice is actually the Buff Banner! The combo is fun because it allows for some insane burst damage in the air & great sustained DPS when fighting on the ground! I honestly think that the best Soldier to use a stock Übercharge on is one with this loadout, with max heads & full banner, of course. The damage & blast radius penalties make the weapon really punishing for inaccurate shots & especially make you outmatched by other Soldiers (unless you have a banner popped), but I think the Air Strike is super rewarding for those who can consistently aim & know how to position themselves to ambush their opponents! The Buff Banner is especially good with it because its mini-crits can still one-shot light classes! The Air Strike is one of those weapons that will probably get you killed if you're caught with your pants down, but, under the right circumstances, can absolutely obliterate entire teams!
PS: A max-head, Buff Banner-boosted Air Strike can deal OVER A THOUSAND DAMAGE in a single clip, so... Yeah, it's a pretty fun loadout. 😏
Personally I think the ait strike needs to be adjusted so its better at taking short quick bombs closer to Solder by making him reload faster or make him a better long range bomber by reducing his rocket damage falloff/rate so he can take out clusters of enemies more consistently
Personally stat wise I would change:
For every kill increase max ammo size by 25%
Every extra rocket you use will reload slightly faster by 4% stacking on each other upto 16%
While rocket jumping you reload 10% faster
Explosion falloff rate increased by 25%
Remove explosive radius reduction when rocket jumping
This way the airstrike would be less polarising to get kills but requires more skill to use to max effect since you need to choose when to reload & have hit your shots more consistently
For base jumper I think it needs a combination of the changes by Higps & Fishonastick servers where:
Reduces rocket jumping dmg by 25%
Increases air control by 100%
Can be held open for 6 seconds max
Taking dmg reduce the time & 100 dmg will close your parachute
Demoknights can jump once while charging
This way the base jumper is a decent short term utility/bombing tool & useful for demoknights
I would add a melee that's the rambo knife made by the same creator for the base jumper & it's stats would be:
While equipped :
your rockets have delayed travel until you switch away
You have 200% increased gravity
Weapon deploys & holsters 40% faster
No random crits
As fellow Air Strike enthusiast, I would like to state that the Air Strike is the definition of a journey where you're more rewarded to be worthy of it's power if you know how to manage and keep yourself alive.. outside of a few uncontrollable scenarios. If you manage to prove yourself with 4 kills, you are blessed to use a huge advantage that no other rocket launcher can give you. More rockets to fire, greater momentum (especially with gunboats), and being able to deal burst damage like no other rocket launcher!
Also this thing can be a killing machine if used with the buff banner in the right hands. Consider this, for a few moments (unless the enemy team has an ace up it's sleeve against this such as Battalion's), you have can have up to *8 NORMAL ROCKETS* with no falloff and slightly extra damage that well makes up for the damage penalty even when rocket jumping (where that at least gives you extra firing speed to make up for it). The only concern in this scenario is that blast radius, but if you can land your rockets consistently it's really no concern. Just be aware though, this thing isn't so great if your in a scenario where your team is struggling to even land one kill with no room for error and it ends up being more of a hindrance considering you need kills to get this extreme momentum-filled, killing machine to even start killing as promised. In these scenarios it's better to use ol' reliable or any other for the job.
Edit: It also came to my attention that the Airstrike isn't too helpful if you're playing in a map like Junction. Without the air, there is no strike.
as a airstrike user who has a strange killstreak airstrike named NATO, i can safely say there's nothing more satisfying then jumping in (without the BASE jumper, gunboats are better.) and making the enemy eat 6+ rockets, bonus if atleast one of them is a crit. (unless you can't aim for shish and the rockets land around them doing atleast 28 damage, also the airstrike is best on hightower.)
The only time i used that weapon, was in harvest, rocket jumped to the roof, killed the sticky spammer enemy demo, then killed an engi, and just didn't make more because my friend wanted to find another match.
I mean Air Strike + Conch is my favourite Soldier load out
In my personal experience the ammo doesn’t tend to be an issue as you can take it from the guy you just threw 8 explosives at
A reload speed on kill would be a nice buff so I don’t have to spend a majority of my game watching the animation
for a gun that can shot 4-8 rocket this shit is weak💀
-famous last words
I had a lot of playing with the air strike in the past, using it mostly to rocket jump around, because of the reduced self damage. But recently I've been having more fun with the liberty launcher. I think the liberty launcher is just more reliable.
finally, someone else who enjoys the airstrike
The Zesty ending was perfect! 🤣
I haven't seen anyone else mention this!
Im not really a fun of the snowball effect on this weapon I would rather have Just 50% bigger clip size.
I picked up the airstrike a while back and i never reverted i find the airstrike on cqc or long range maps extremely good while certainly its not as good as stock with the 4 that does not mean its unusable or bad. Take for example enemy solider throws you in the air you automaticly win unless a crocket hits you its always you that wins becuse you just threw 3 rockets back at em. Not only that but the airstrike with 0 kills still is a incredibly versitile mashine giving small radius of shots in air and a relatively normal one on ground. For me this thing while not as good as stock on ground thanks to the added kills you get it realy does not loss in many cases esspicaly if you run the right loadout while many choose the base jumper to combo with the airstrike in my opinion the best is the gunboats or the conch are great to pair as with gunboats you can take to the skys alot more times than normal and with the counch become an unstoppable force a nature on the ground. Bring this along with the escape plan which is preety goated in my opinion youve got a license to kill and erase the enemy team no matter the situation. The only issue that the airstrike has and this solely is why its not op is ammo your going to find yourself out of ammo alot and thats the weakness. Many more times than not your be damaging your self to gtfo with the escape plan for ammo.
The Air Strike is another one of those weapons i haven't used much - but it just works too well with my Gunboats addiction and my already very "in your face" playstyle.
A really fun weapon for sure which i should probably use more often!
Note: if you max out blast res, clip size, firing speed, reload speed, and health regen, you can stay in the air forever
OH YEAH! can you review the liberty launcher alongside the reserve shooter and market gardener?
I actually already did the liberty launcher.
Unfortunately it got age restricted tho (still don’t know why) but here it is! :)
th-cam.com/video/ktw8CxQlvto/w-d-xo.html
tbh it aint that bad on the ground, if you want to get your full 8 switch your secondary to the panic attack, shoot someone with it *then* with the airstrike and boom now you have 5 rockets
*there is nothing saying you need to get the kills while airborne*
and if you feel the panic attack is useless after 8 switch to a different loadout that has the air strike so you dont lose your snowball
I love the airstrike. Honestly one of my favorite rocket launchers.
Try using the Airstrike in TC2, it’s a whole different experience there
How the hell did you manage to drag Sam away from his Paradox games lol. Good video
He owes me for me dealing with his nonsense from his streams lol
@@RocketManFran lol fair enough. Considering the binge for Stellaris he is on now, you might not get him again for a while
pov making a video about the air strike week before this
Bro said Mr Simons and I’m like “wait did he go to the same high school as me?”
Don't forget. The base jumper used to open as many times as we wanted it to.
I actually use the air strike every now and then, and my favorite thing to pair it with is the buff banner, allows me to barrage people at long range without worrying about falloff
I watched this while taking a shit in the outhouse at work
3:50 bruh that's the first weapon I ever got and I'm sensible enough to not use it lol
I haven't use the B.A.S.E. Jumper since they've nerfed the parachute launching ability, and frankly I think most of the TF2 community has as well. I used to remember seeing a soldier with the Jumper on on every server, trying to get market garden kills by spam-chuting. Nowadays a chute soldier is almost completely non-existent whenever I join pubs (the constant nuisance of aimbot snipers also doesn't help the chute extinction).
I feel like I'd kill myself with it accidentally, since I always loved spamming the chute both for the sound and the button pressing as I descend to my death. it was weirdly calming.
Another change I would like to see added to the airstrike is removing the flat self-damage resistance and add an increasing self-damage resistance with each kill you get. Similar to how the Eyelander would give you increased movement speed with each successive head you get.
Trollos gang has arrived
On another note, great video I love your content
The Air Strike isn't good on the ground, but then again, neither is a plane or helicopter
Actually in 1982, argentinian soldiers realized that if they flied to close of the ground, the radars won't detect them, so they did it and worked very well
I thought about it and honestly imagine if the base jumper had maybe a -10 to 20% damage falloff while active, that way shooting rockets with it active is more worth it. It doesnt super buff anything, but it adds a little bit of flavor while soldier is essentially making himself easier to hit in the air (where a lot of weapons can obliterate him).
And also I 100% agree on that 16:05 (what you suggested)
1:07 Great job, Soldier. You've turned that heavy's Team Captain (hat) into a Burning Flames Team Captain. Now you cap sell it for big coin...
Get this man a Saxxy for that opening, holy heck.
if only those things were still a thing anymore T_T
ty for the compliment tho :)
this weapon is my first weapon LOL
This was really well-made, i enjoyed it. I have the "Good Job" (c8) voice command bound to middle mouse button so I REALLY related to the bit at the beginning lol
As for the base jumper, my two cents is that it ironically kinda works against the air strike in some ways, particularly before you have a bunch of mag upgrades from kills. Rockets deal more damage the closer you are to the impact site when they explode regardless of where you are when you fire them, so being up in the air still when they hit is leaving damage on the table. I like to jump really high to fall really fast directly on top of people with sync rockets, squeezes a fat chunk of extra damage out of the same shots by being right on top of them when they hit. The catch is you pretty much need the gunboats for it to work without getting rekt, but this has it's own general upside: you can use your rockets to pad your falls with the blast and take way less damage than the unmitigated fall would have dealt, and you can do this all the time when you get used to doing it. When considering the Air Strike's self damage reduction on top of the gunboats you take next to no damage, I've had situations where i rj away from a fight with
As someone who has soldier as one of my least played classes, this makes me want to play him
My idea to fix the air strike is to merge it with the base jumper so you can have the benefits of the base jumper without wasting your secondary slot.
As the tf2 community lives on, it finds love for weapons no one was expecting getting.
I would get rid of the "Smaller blast radius while jumping" stat. It's completely counter-intuitive to the design of the weapon. If anything it should be the opposite, where being on the ground decreases the radius and being in the air makes it normal again. This would encourage players to use it for what it was made for.
I prefer to use it with the Conch anyway
In order words, the soldier upgrades himself from human soldier to a GODDAMN TACTICAL AC-130 PLANE WITH LEGS anytime he uses the air strike- perfect xD if I can find a cheap specialized killstreak kit for this baby, Ima apply it and start mowing down my enemies lol
1:02 bro used the thanks voice command
ah, I see what you did there lol
@@RocketManFran funni tf2 youtuber commented back now i famous
i like to use the air strike with the buff banner
I've gotta add my 2 cents onto the pile and say that the liberty launcher is under appreciated.
And used incorrectly 90% of the time, where players would attempt to use it exactly how one would use the normal rocket launcher. I have been using it for almost a year now, and just like the demoknight, the liberty launcher is a class in and of its own.
It takes all the "best" qualities of all of the soldier's primaries and mashes it into one.
Rocket speed, clip size, and less damage overall especially for rocket jumps.
Pair it with your shotgun of choice, and you have a slightly better roaming soldier loadout, only this time, you have the magic of splash damage.
Jump past enemy lines and become an even more distracting pain in the a*s than a spy could ever be. Pick of light classes, force tankier enemies to always make a 180° turn effectively making them _LOOK AWAY FROM YOUR TEAM_ where your team then _swoops_ in and clears the area.
TL;DR The Liberty Launcher should be played as a sub class and more like a support weapon.
>Sonic Heroes music in an Air Strike video essay.
_"What goes up must come down_
_Yet my feet don't touch the ground_
_See the world spinning upside down_
_A mighty crash without a sound"_
Perfect
I’d allow Soldier’s other equipped weapons to get kills to increase the air strikes clip
Using the Air Strike with shotguns is no good because you won’t get an extra rocket if you finish someone off
The Air Strike and Reserve Shooter would be my favorite combo of getting a mini-crit shotgun kill would increase the air strikes clip size
Same with the market gardener if that was possible!
So there's this one MvM community server that has some classes with massive powerups, such as the Engineer can build 3 sentries and 3 dispensers, ubercharge is like 1 secons to charge so can spam that, Medic's syringe gun you could turn into an A-10 Warthog, and much more. But my favorite part of it is what they did to the soldier. You have your soldier equip the Direct Hit, the Battalion's Backup, and whatever melee and you turned Soldier into a literal god. Let me explain:
In this community server, they not only made the Battalion's backup give you 2200 health instead of 220 health, instantly charge the rage, and the rage lasts for at times an entire game, but they also made by default the Direct Hit have massive damage per missile. And if you play Ghost Town on that server, where they give you enough automatically to max upgrade your class (AKA buying every upgrade on that class) while having more than half the points left, let's just say you're going to be able to walk up to a juggernaut enemy and put them down easily with losing little to no health. And if you got a medic with a Kritzkreig, then may God have mercy on those robots.
The only downside to that is even with max firing rate, reload speed, clip size, and ammo reserve it takes a good while to reload and you do burn through ammo real quickly if you don't have a nearby dispenser.
While I get that the Air Strike has its uses, it's not _bad_ but nor is it that great. I do think it is a bit overhyped simply because of the factor of downtime. Not only is the airstrike an objectively worse rocket launcher (*on the ground), you will have to spend a lot of time out of the fight to recover health from rocketjumps/falldamage, finding ammo and reloading (especially bad with 8 rocket clips). It may not seem like much, but that time certainly adds up over the course of a 10-15 minute match, especially on maps where medium/full health packs are scarce or no medics are around. You can easily lose 2-6 minutes of shooting people to scrounge for health/ammo which is a long time when you put it into the context of TF2 where the default respawn timer is 10 seconds to a maximum of 20. That means you're essentially dead 6-18 times over the course of a match if you hit that 2-6 minute downtime threshold.
I think the airstrike B.A.S.E jumper combo was a pretty good choice for casual prior the deploy and re-deploy nerf on the B.A.S.E jumper due to soldiers being too good at using it mid-air. Now it's just kinda mediocre, which is unfortunate.
I enjoy the Air Strike with the Gunboats. Just zooming in and out for cheeky Market Gardens, escaping ridiculous fights and *sometimes* getting those fat group kills. Fun weapon!
Glad there is another video. I would agree with you when you would get more amo on kill. I would say 25% faster reload speed in the air. That is what I would add
or +15-20% always to avoid making it a exclusive base jumper meta
@@BiblemanTF yeah my man!
Finally! Another air strike freak like me.
I just made a video about advanced air strike rocket jumping and bhopping- genuinely such a cool gun.
what were the odds, two people made a vid on the Air Strike in the same month XD
I saw your vid btw, it was nice
Actually there's ONE item that makes air strike More Helpful...
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.
.
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The Concheror
you forgot one *tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny* bit of info there:
WILE you rocket jump, the blast radius from your rockets is again 20% smaller, making the blast radius *over all WILE youre in the air 33% smaller.*
This is actually a big "ouchy" for a weapon which is suppost to use from the air and "spam" down rockets. you have to hit them and since they are not faster than stock rockets, literally everything which is not literally "standing still" can easy avoid those rockets. It sounds sad and it sadly is. Its not even that the air strike over all is bad but it feels like it literally "hinders" itself by doing what you *should* do with it. I played a long time with the airstrike and it is a fun weapon but for what it is, i do pref stock or, no joke, the Liberty launcher (because even you didnt understand the LL for how it works~ and yes, the LL is my nr 1 pick on soldier).
When I use the Air Strike, I actually prefer to run Gunboats or a shotgun like the Reserve Shooter as a secondary. Ammo isn't really a massive concern because when you kill someone, they drop an ammo pack. I also primarily use it on the ground in order to get the initial kills before I start bombing with it. Even if I'm not bombing with it, 8 rockets per clip is a LOT, so even with that slight damage penalty, it ends up being ridiculously strong in my eyes. I never bomb with it if I don't think I'll get a kill with it, but running a shotgun as a secondary allows me to finish them off more often than not. In some cases, I sometimes land with a rocket or two left in the clip, so I'll definitely look to pop them in the air.
an eyelander demoknight, an enemy air strike soldier (and maybe an bizarre bargain sniper) can steal your extra rockets because they are considered heads
reduce the hidden blast radius penalty when you fire after blast jumping
give 5% faster reload and projectile speed for every "head" capping at 20%
for the base jumper: have it slowly reduce your horizontal velocity over time, slightly decrease its air control penalty and let you put the chute away and redeploy it once (reserve parachutes exist)
So your argument is... That it performs the best, when enemies... Are not noticing you, turned away?
I have a slight feeling that this would apply to every weapon and class.
Honestly the parachute probably isn't the best way to use because of damage fall off, you'll get more use out of each individual rocket with something like the gunboats, basically turns it into a damaging rocket jumper.
I'm one person who uses the Air Strike all the time when playing as Soldier. I, however, Play with the Buff Banner to further buff the rapid burst strikes that you can do to annihilate groups or other fortified positions with the 8 rockets and banner you get from obtaining said rockets, it negates the damage downside, and that gets very, very far in my experience.
I kinda want the soldier to force feed him the information to the spy like “since you’re here looking pathetic, the air strike is a weapon equipped by the solder class from team fortress 2”
Hey yo wasnt sure if anyone has said anything but i wanted to leave some audio levels feedback.
When i started teh video i was going deaf cuz it was so much louder than most anything else on youtube right now.
I then turned the volume in youtube down to about a third and it was still too loud. Turned it down again, then as soon as you started talking i couldnt hear anything. Turned it back up. Now im sure ill have to turn it back down... strike that, your now starting to shout in the video... and i think im gonna just maybe pause or stop.
9:41
My man, I'm sure you knew this, but the Buff Banner is the one on the right and the Batallion's Backup is the one on the left. You got them mixed up.
1:35
"I've seen enough. Look into my eyes when you die. Knowing that all hope has abandoned you."
+ Dangerous
9:44 “damage” *highlights battalion’s backup* “or protection” *highlights buff banner*
"What? Real life parachutes don't do that, so clearly fictional ones don't!"
Warzone: hi