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
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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
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. 😏
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)
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.
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. 👍
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
this is a great video. that opening animation goes insanely and you really did a good job talking about the weapon's upsides and downsides. i agree with giving it an ammo increase on kill, but i think a reload speed increase as you get more kills would also help, because especially with all eight rockets you'll be reloading a *lot*. thanks for taking the time to talk about one of my favorite weapons in the game :)
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.
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
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.
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.
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”
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!
>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 maintain that the best use for the airstrike is what Fran showed in the intro: Sentry busting. Apart from maybe the wrangler, there is NOTHING that an engineer player can do to save his sentry from an airstrike player, even with only the 4 rockets you start with, that's enough to demolish a sentry from full health to nothing before the engineer can even react, and because damage falloff doesn't work on sentries, you can do it from as far away as you like, well out of the sentries range and it doesn't reduce the damage you do.
16:04 Its secret penalty, the airstriker when firing in the air has even less blast radius than the stast so you rely on direct hits, added to its low and shortened damage and base explosion radius finishes putting a bit of salt to the wound.
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.
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).
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
Awesome video! Good to see someone actually remember the Air Strike exist, as someone that has put a LOT of hours on the Air Strike i want to give some observations and opinions on the video, i may not be the best Soldier player but atleast i know a lot about the Air Strike. First is that yes the Air Strike is not the best rocket launcher in terms of damage, but is probably the best for movement while i think the Beggar's is amazing for vertical movement, the Air Strike is the best for horizontal movement, using the gunboats one rocket jump does 14 damage, meaning you can rocket jump a lot without damaging yourself, which is why i think the gunboats is actually the best weapon to use it, or at least the more fun one, the base jumper is really good at dealing damage to a certain area but you be so much vulnerable while on the air, while the gunboats exceeds on movement and single target combat. There are many tricks you could do with the Air Strike, like not jumping too high if you know you wont survive the fall damage, observing if it's worth even engaging with certain fights, so the best thing you could do as a Air Strike soldier is be carefull of your health and your enemies, also there a lot of bugs with it, firstly a rocket can be fired if you hit the ground after a attacking in the air which is very useful on low cealing areas, and just finishing of enemies, you also can bhop to extend the air rockets just like you can extend a market gardener you can extend air rockets while doing a bhop, you can also use other explosions to gain you a advantage on single or multiple targets and while you have more rockets you can do rollouts much faster and easier, and the additional rockets can really help if you are being ubered it can allow you to be more agressive without thinking of reload. While the Base jumper is the safest option to use with the Air Strike for me the gunboats is just better if you learn how to use it right, so in my opinion the Air Strike is NOT useless without the base jumper (but thats from a guy that put a lot of hours and effort on one stupid weapon hehehe) but really fun video! (also i'm from Brazil, sorry if the english written here is bad)
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
things ive learned from about 2 weeks of air strike: 1: gunboats allow for 10 hp rocket jumps. i think of them as adding about 50 HP to any bomb. 2: when you bomb, go for a close but safe position but keep 1 getaway rocket. 3: dispensers are your lifeline. don't chase people too aggressively, they have the advantage in a 1v1 4: pairing it with shotgun or panic attack can make single target bombs incredibly lethal. 5: the banners + an 8 rocket clip turns you into a brawler. my personal favorite is the conch. 6: there are situations where stock is better, so dont be afraid to switch if you need the extra power on respawn. 7: i use the escape plan for resupping, this gun is not great for prolonged fights. if you are a powerful gamer you could use gardener instead. i love this gun so much, it has incredible potential.
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 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.
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.
The air strike/base jumper combo is very strong when you play soldier more like an assassin than anything, like how you said with it working best on unaware enemies. I find it works best on defense, but its good on offence as well as this thing shreds sentries like nothing else. Also the rocket jumping requirement works with enemy rockets as well, so if you get bombed and knocked into the air, you have anywhere from 4 to 8 rockets to shred through whoever made the mistake of jumping you. The best tip for it I should mention is that if you do use this combo, avoid using the parachute at the apex of your jump. Parachuting almost right above your enemy really helps with damage falloff and aiming rockets in the first place. Basically just a regular divebomb, but you parachute above their heads to get your full airstrike clip off. Horizontal jumps into parachuting at head level also work pretty well. Also yeah, anywhere with really low ceilings is gonna suck with this thing. Ceilings like with borneo last don't really make an impact, and lower ceilings can work if you do smaller rocket jumps, but don't bring this thing to somewhere like 2fort.
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 find that this is a good rocket launcher for working with engineers. You get the health and ammo you need from the engie, engie gets a more explosive spy check and a friendly airstrike. With that in mind, I would actually give this weapon a reload-speed increase on kill to lower downtime when your onto higher kill counts. This way you can spycheck more often while you wait for the dispenser to heal you, giving skilled soldiers a duel-purpose. But this is also how I end up playing the launcher, base-jumper or not.
its really nice to see helpful and quality tf2 content in this day and age, honestly you convinced me to use the air strike, ive been looking for a way to not suck and also use the base jumper haha
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!
A change I have in mind that could make the Air Strike *a bit* better is increasing the reload time on the ground slightly, and heavily lowering the reload time whilst in the air. It would make up for what the Air Strike lacks in terms of ground combat, since if you're low to the ground with the base jumper equipped there won't be enough time to get away before any enemies nearby kill you. Being able to retaliate when on the ground would be much more useful. It would also make the cycle of bombing and retreating much easier, as the increased reload time on the ground would help your 8 rocket clip to be reloaded to full. The decreased reload time in the air balances this out but may also slightly hinder how easy it is to kill enemies that haven't died to the horde of 8 rockets shot at them in the first place. It's a worthy disadvantage for the decreased time to reload between bombings and could definitely help with quite a few of the problems mentioned in this video. Love the work, Fran!
I thought of a balance change where the air strike does 10% incresed dmg while rocket jumping and change base jumper into "open and close it how often you want but it can only be open for a certain duration" instead of "use it once"
I use the airstrike with the conch, it reduces the time you take scrambling for health and makes it so you can use the airstrike like a normal rocket launcher due to the increased sustainability. This combo is better for being useful in general instead of just being good in specific situations. I recommend pairing it with the disciplinary action or the escape plan so you can run away or help increase rollout efficiency depending on if you want to be more supportive or self sustainable (Loadout is may not be for everyone)
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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
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
@@Yackim_Mouhin I know my fellow communist.
bunny hoops
@@Yackim_Mouhin or any other Arial buff
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.*
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
No i personaly thing making damage fallout affect ti less is better than reload speerd
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.
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.
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 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
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.
The SFM bit at the beginning was really well put together. Absolutely Badass!
0:19 THATS THE EXACT SPY OUTFIT I HAVE!!
What if it was you!?
@Googie_Oogie GASP
I AM FAMOUS NOW!!!
I would love to see an entire lobby full of airstrikes
Battlefield fortress 2
I really like using the air strike with the gunboats
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.
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.
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.)
I like the fact you can essentially paint a nuke silly colors or kickass cool colors. It'll still be intimidating regardless.
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
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
This is an incredibly well done video. Great job man, keep it up!
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 ☠️☠️☠️
Don't forget. The base jumper used to open as many times as we wanted it to.
My heavy model speaking is GOOFY
Yes it is
0:38 Sliding acroos the sand- classic soilder move.
And also I 100% agree on that 16:05 (what you suggested)
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. 😏
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)
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.
I can't remember the last time when this many people collabed in just one video. Loved it!
This is an underated video and needs more views
Bro said Mr Simons and I’m like “wait did he go to the same high school as me?”
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. 👍
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
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...
5:01 oh my GOD this bit is so funny, the little sound effects as he counts and adds, I love the sarcasm
this is a great video. that opening animation goes insanely and you really did a good job talking about the weapon's upsides and downsides. i agree with giving it an ammo increase on kill, but i think a reload speed increase as you get more kills would also help, because especially with all eight rockets you'll be reloading a *lot*. thanks for taking the time to talk about one of my favorite weapons in the game :)
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.
1:35
"I've seen enough. Look into my eyes when you die. Knowing that all hope has abandoned you."
+ Dangerous
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
Something about the scout, medic, heavy, and spy all screaming at the same time is terrifying
good >:)
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
Note: if you max out blast res, clip size, firing speed, reload speed, and health regen, you can stay in the air forever
pov making a video about the air strike week before this
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.
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.
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”
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!
finally, someone else who enjoys the airstrike
>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
Your editing is so on point dude
I maintain that the best use for the airstrike is what Fran showed in the intro: Sentry busting.
Apart from maybe the wrangler, there is NOTHING that an engineer player can do to save his sentry from an airstrike player, even with only the 4 rockets you start with, that's enough to demolish a sentry from full health to nothing before the engineer can even react, and because damage falloff doesn't work on sentries, you can do it from as far away as you like, well out of the sentries range and it doesn't reduce the damage you do.
As the tf2 community lives on, it finds love for weapons no one was expecting getting.
16:04 Its secret penalty, the airstriker when firing in the air has even less blast radius than the stast so you rely on direct hits, added to its low and shortened damage and base explosion radius finishes putting a bit of salt to the wound.
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.
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).
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
I recently wanted to try something new so I had started using the air strike and it's an interesting and fun alternative.
9:44 “damage” *highlights battalion’s backup* “or protection” *highlights buff banner*
Awesome video! Good to see someone actually remember the Air Strike exist, as someone that has put a LOT of hours on the Air Strike i want to give some observations and opinions on the video, i may not be the best Soldier player but atleast i know a lot about the Air Strike.
First is that yes the Air Strike is not the best rocket launcher in terms of damage, but is probably the best for movement while i think the Beggar's is amazing for vertical movement, the Air Strike is the best for horizontal movement, using the gunboats one rocket jump does 14 damage, meaning you can rocket jump a lot without damaging yourself, which is why i think the gunboats is actually the best weapon to use it, or at least the more fun one, the base jumper is really good at dealing damage to a certain area but you be so much vulnerable while on the air, while the gunboats exceeds on movement and single target combat.
There are many tricks you could do with the Air Strike, like not jumping too high if you know you wont survive the fall damage, observing if it's worth even engaging with certain fights, so the best thing you could do as a Air Strike soldier is be carefull of your health and your enemies, also there a lot of bugs with it, firstly a rocket can be fired if you hit the ground after a attacking in the air which is very useful on low cealing areas, and just finishing of enemies, you also can bhop to extend the air rockets just like you can extend a market gardener you can extend air rockets while doing a bhop, you can also use other explosions to gain you a advantage on single or multiple targets and while you have more rockets you can do rollouts much faster and easier, and the additional rockets can really help if you are being ubered it can allow you to be more agressive without thinking of reload.
While the Base jumper is the safest option to use with the Air Strike for me the gunboats is just better if you learn how to use it right, so in my opinion the Air Strike is NOT useless without the base jumper (but thats from a guy that put a lot of hours and effort on one stupid weapon hehehe) but really fun video!
(also i'm from Brazil, sorry if the english written here is bad)
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
things ive learned from about 2 weeks of air strike:
1: gunboats allow for 10 hp rocket jumps. i think of them as adding about 50 HP to any bomb.
2: when you bomb, go for a close but safe position but keep 1 getaway rocket.
3: dispensers are your lifeline. don't chase people too aggressively, they have the advantage in a 1v1
4: pairing it with shotgun or panic attack can make single target bombs incredibly lethal.
5: the banners + an 8 rocket clip turns you into a brawler. my personal favorite is the conch.
6: there are situations where stock is better, so dont be afraid to switch if you need the extra power on respawn.
7: i use the escape plan for resupping, this gun is not great for prolonged fights. if you are a powerful gamer you could use gardener instead.
i love this gun so much, it has incredible potential.
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 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.
"Not going anywhere for a while? Good."
*spends the next 10 minutes reloading*
The Zesty ending was perfect! 🤣
I haven't seen anyone else mention this!
You didn't need to go that hard on the intro but oh man is it appreciated
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 watched this while taking a shit in the outhouse at work
first minute gave me the feeling that this was a "how it feels to use the air strike" video
The air strike/base jumper combo is very strong when you play soldier more like an assassin than anything, like how you said with it working best on unaware enemies. I find it works best on defense, but its good on offence as well as this thing shreds sentries like nothing else. Also the rocket jumping requirement works with enemy rockets as well, so if you get bombed and knocked into the air, you have anywhere from 4 to 8 rockets to shred through whoever made the mistake of jumping you.
The best tip for it I should mention is that if you do use this combo, avoid using the parachute at the apex of your jump. Parachuting almost right above your enemy really helps with damage falloff and aiming rockets in the first place. Basically just a regular divebomb, but you parachute above their heads to get your full airstrike clip off. Horizontal jumps into parachuting at head level also work pretty well.
Also yeah, anywhere with really low ceilings is gonna suck with this thing. Ceilings like with borneo last don't really make an impact, and lower ceilings can work if you do smaller rocket jumps, but don't bring this thing to somewhere like 2fort.
As someone who has soldier as one of my least played classes, this makes me want to play him
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
The intro feels like rise of the epic scout and it's so nostalgic
Imagine if the Market Gardener gave the Base Jumper 1 redeploy, acting as a back up chute
The one soldier weapon i wanted to master very much.
Also, haven't heard from samwiz1 for a while.
1:07 you did them a favor now they have a burning flames team captain
Aka "how to use the airstrike when the enemy team somehow forgets to have a sniper for once"
that bit with the spy in the intro really reminded me of goku letting frieza off on namek
I find that this is a good rocket launcher for working with engineers. You get the health and ammo you need from the engie, engie gets a more explosive spy check and a friendly airstrike.
With that in mind, I would actually give this weapon a reload-speed increase on kill to lower downtime when your onto higher kill counts. This way you can spycheck more often while you wait for the dispenser to heal you, giving skilled soldiers a duel-purpose. But this is also how I end up playing the launcher, base-jumper or not.
1:10 holy saxton thats a burning flames tean captain!1!1!!
its really nice to see helpful and quality tf2 content in this day and age, honestly you convinced me to use the air strike, ive been looking for a way to not suck and also use the base jumper haha
funny thing you can do is if you time your bhops after you rocket jump, you can basically use the airstrike on the ground
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
"What? Real life parachutes don't do that, so clearly fictional ones don't!"
Warzone: hi
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.
The intro has " then i tell him, that's not a cow that's my wife" energy
I remember when you could open and close the base jumper repeatedly, such a sad feature that got removed only a year after it was released.
1:07 There's more than one way to get a burning team captain
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 love the airstrike. Honestly one of my favorite rocket launchers.
A change I have in mind that could make the Air Strike *a bit* better is increasing the reload time on the ground slightly, and heavily lowering the reload time whilst in the air. It would make up for what the Air Strike lacks in terms of ground combat, since if you're low to the ground with the base jumper equipped there won't be enough time to get away before any enemies nearby kill you. Being able to retaliate when on the ground would be much more useful. It would also make the cycle of bombing and retreating much easier, as the increased reload time on the ground would help your 8 rocket clip to be reloaded to full. The decreased reload time in the air balances this out but may also slightly hinder how easy it is to kill enemies that haven't died to the horde of 8 rockets shot at them in the first place. It's a worthy disadvantage for the decreased time to reload between bombings and could definitely help with quite a few of the problems mentioned in this video.
Love the work, Fran!
Samwiz when The Ground Strike walks in:
1:07 OMG UNUSUAL TEAM CAPTAIN BURNING FLAMES!!!
Man, I had just finished cooking dinner and was about to go search for a video to watch.
Perfect Timing!
I loved the small animated bits
Damn,What a scary hero voice from air strike force
I thought of a balance change where the air strike does 10% incresed dmg while rocket jumping and change base jumper into "open and close it how often you want but it can only be open for a certain duration" instead of "use it once"
I use the airstrike with the conch, it reduces the time you take scrambling for health and makes it so you can use the airstrike like a normal rocket launcher due to the increased sustainability. This combo is better for being useful in general instead of just being good in specific situations. I recommend pairing it with the disciplinary action or the escape plan so you can run away or help increase rollout efficiency depending on if you want to be more supportive or self sustainable (Loadout is may not be for everyone)
Bro i love these sfm gags