One of the really dumbest / laughable / saddest things I keep reading all the time on the Air Raider is the "problem" of his self-defense.
It's ridiculous, because Air Raider has no problem in self-defense. The problem is that most players have no clue how to play it or want to play it Ranger style and he sucks playing like that. And yes, any class could have self defense issues anyway, all that is required is that you don't know how to play them either.
Up to hard, the game is mostly a training mode once you get fairly reasonable at playing it. Up to that difficulty, the vast majority of the weapons will work, since the majority of enemies are slow and will miss most of their attacks. But if you don't learn how to play with the Air Raider efficiently you'll be creamed in Inferno in a snap.
This is not the only dumb thing said about Air Raider either. Being the most difficult class to learn due to how many different options and different roles he has, there's a plethora of other dumb stuff that is said about him. Namely:
- Air Raider sucks in solo.
No, he doesn't. Quite the opposite. And on the most messy and complex missions, he's usually the star anyway. That does not mean that he doesn't suck on a few missions, but go wonder that happens to all classes doesn't it... He can even solo online several nasty missions, without needing a ton of armor, so another proof that he sucks solo...
- Air Raider needs to do everything from afar
Nonsense. Air Raider can and is the most aggressive class by far, of course thanks to its vehicles. Solid proof? Air Raider can do M108 Scorched Earth on 5 and 147 the boss fight on 6 by standing ground on the spawn point and crushing all waves without running away. Which other class can do it with similar levels of armor? Er..... None? What a surprise...
- Air Raider's useful weapons are limited and most are trash
Really smart. Air Raider has by far the biggest variety of viable weapons. But some are specialty ones, and won't always work, and most players don't even bother to learn them. And yes, even with his stupid weapons, there will be missions you can solve with them. I'll return to this anyway
If you insist on these misconceptions you're just shooting yourself in the foot. But if you're happy... Fantastic!
By the way, there's a huge difference between asking and trying to learn, and asserting and claim what you don't know. Learning is always good on EDF games, no one is born with all knowledge and it doesn't fall from the sky, and yes you'll be learning on EDF for a really long time. That's the spirit anyway to get good in these game.
So let's return to the main laughing matter.
The main objective of AR is even more on 5 and 6 than 4.1, to unleash very powerful attacks, usually within a large area and / or on a long range. But since most of his kit is chance based you can't assure that everything will die, so yes, some stray elements will come and you'll have to deal with them. Or many at once...
That does not mean he can't or doesn't have solutions for closer and more personalized attacks. He does.
However, if you're constantly having to deal with close range mobs you have to ask yourself if:
- you're using the right tools for the mission so that you wouldn't need to deal with regular stragglers so many times, so stop using fun and silly weapons and use effective ones
- if you know the mission flow and details, so that you can play it in a way to solve it faster, more efficiently and in an easier way; most people just want to dumbly shoot around with no plan, this will seldom work on harder difficulties and more juicy missions
- don't use anything that takes too much time with aiming and needs a lot of attention, those are Ranger tools and AR is ineffective and ultimately a crap when he uses them (that's why even something like Tempest is only useful on specific occasions and missions)
On the vast majority of EDF missions that could be troublesome, you have deal either with finite aggroed mobs or infinite mobs coming from spawners that are usually not aggroed after a while (examples would be Dense on 4.1 and DLC 2-6 on 5). These take different approaches, but again AR will have as many self defense troubles as the others, and in most of them, he can even have a LOT less self defense troubles than the others.
The self defense troubles of Air Raider are pretty obvious on EDF 5 anyway, poor guy manages to achieve no shooting runs on some nasty missions, including 94. 😜🤣😋😋😂😜
Let's start with solo.
Your options to deal with incoming near you enemies is:
On 4.1:
- NPCs
- turrets
- wire guns
- vehicles
On 5:
- NPCs
- turrets
On 6:
- NPCs
- backpack items
- drones (don't get too excited😂🤣)
- vehicles
NPCs
It's laughable that I seldom read anywhere about NPCs. They're one of the most amazing aspects of Sandlot's EDF games, and they invested a lot of time and resources to improve them from 4.1 to 5, and from 5 to 6. So they're there for some reason, aren't they?
Many groups will be able to handle quite well incoming hordes of enemies. Their size and toughness will depend on the NPCs you have available and how you're using them. Yes, some NPC groups will be downright underpowered and incompetent to deal with most of the enemies in the mission. But most are quite good, and some even excellent.
So learn to rely on them. Yes, they will solve MANY problems. And then you'll have time to deal with what matters. If you insist on stupidly handling every incoming ant, spider, bee and tadpole yourself, you'll always suck with AR. That's dumb Ranger mentality.
On 4.1 stupidly, only Ranger could recover the health of NPCs by picking crates (or using recovery guns). Air Raider could use recovery guns or posts, or ones to lower the damage they incur, but this would use a weapon slot, and with only 2 possible, it was sometimes hard to take them.
On 5 and 6 all classes will recover captured NPCs armor when you pick health crates. Sometimes it's even essential to pick them, not to recover your health, but to keep them alive or in top-notch condition.
Like with all classes it's still essential to know when to use them as defense or bait, when to keep a few and sacrifice others. This is part of the game and what can make some missions much easier than they seem.
Turrets
Turrets are the bread and butter of the Air Raider Arsenal to deal with incoming mobs, either air or ground ones. You can solve many of the more troublesome missions in 4.1 with pairs of ZEXRs (and a vehicle of course). You can solve pretty hefty missions on 5 just using turrets.
They were greatly improved in 5, and you got flames and laser ones too. And they were rebuilt in the background which was a huge plus. They made him amazing on cave missions, where he was king except on open cave missions where he could not bottleneck enemies.
Sadly and stupidly, Sandlot gave them to Ranger on 6 to save his ass.
Use these sparingly or massively, depending on the strength and numbers of the incoming mobs.
ZEXR is the most flexible turret since it works well with ground and aerial enemies. Flaming turrets work better with ground enemies. Laser turrets work well with aerial and ground enemies, especially on open places, but badly on tunnel missions due to their terribly slow movements.
Launcher turrets are extremely dangerous to use and generally a terrible idea except in specific problems (they work very well if you can bottleneck enemies in a cave with a single incoming enemies path). ZE-GUN10 is a stupid weapon, it does little damage and it will be seldom that you can waste time laying 10 crappy turrets.
They enable tactital and strategical placement and can be activated when needed. Something Ranger did not got on 6, poisoned gift...
Wire Guns
These were quite interesting weapons on 4.1. Similar to spiders web shots, they were particularly effective against flyers. But on ground enemies the result were not that good. Their main issues were that they trashed easily your vehicles too, and that you generally would need shields to use them comfortably and so your 2 weapon slots were full. Still much more interesting than the dumb Limpets or the deplorable Suppress Guns.
Vehicles
Yes, vehicles are not only for movement. Surprising isn't it?
You should choose vehicles that will work if you need to kill anything close, but there are other important factors to weight in first, like the need to take down transports or far away powerful enemies.
On 4.1 the best vehicles were the Epsilons, Naeglings, BM03 Vegalta Firelord and BM03 Vegalta AX and occasionally Grapes. Depth Crawlers sucked on 4.1, but no other choice was available on caves. Since vehicles were flimsy as hell on 4.1 coupling them with guard posts or guns was sometimes a good idea. Power guns or posts too.
On 5 the Epsilons were stolen by Ranger, but the exoskeletons were vastly improved. Nyx ZC, Red Guard and Nyx Assault are the stars of the show. Naeglings, and occasionally Blackers and Grapes were still good and are able to defend you. Depth Crawlers were improved and still your only cave choice. Coupling the with guard posts or guns can turn the exoskeletons in particular into fearsome weapons, and you can do amazing things with them. Attack is many times the best defesne isn't it? Power guns or posts can still be useful.
On 6 the exoskeletons got a new surprise. Nyx ZC, Red Guard and Nyx Assault are still there, but the new Eiren IV is fantastic, but the points required to summon them got dreadfully higher. Blackers become more useful, occasionally Naeglings and Grapes will be necessary or viable. Depth Crawlers are mostly equal to 5 and still your only cave choice, and the dumb future missions where you can't get air support too; on some surprising occasions outside caves DCs will work fine, I leave that for you to discover.
But there are vehicles that suck!
Caravan is a dumb ass vehicle. Usually the same people that complain about self defense choose this one. Duh! What's the point of a dumb vehicle that its only virtue is to delay your death? Choose something that still moves, and has SOME chance of defending you if necessary. And attacking, missions are won by killing all enemies, not by running away and surviving longer.
Barga is another usually dumb option. If there are lots of small enemies, forget it. Barga will get your NPCs killed and you can't feed them as it does not pick crates. It will work well on specific occasions, generally when ONLY big stuff is present.
Work in progress...😋
