Intuitively, an airburst projectile would be expected to simply explode in midair when it came within proximity of the target, or the ground. If I just heard the name and didn't know anything else about how it worked, I would expect it to be a simple radius explosion, or maybe blasting a cone in the direction the rocket is traveling, like the Orbital Airburst Strike (which always blasts downward because it's always being aimed downward). For what it's worth too, nearly every anti-aircraft weapon since WW2 has been a gun firing airburst shells, or a rocket with an airburst warhead.
@@TheWileSpiceyah so good, good long range anti infantry sniper. The moments when I noticed I had it equipped and fired instead of the breaker shotgun 😂
I personally feel it shines on bots (for clearing the hordes of smaller enemies on helldive). Hear me out, 2 people run airburst and 2 run quasar/spear/anti tank; then everyone runs orbital railcannon and 110mm rocket pods (with the extra stratagem slot being personal preference). At this point you can mob clear, destroy structures and delete heavies as long as the team sticks together. Edit: if the 2 people not running airburst run quasar and ammo backpack then you have a heavy deleter/airship destroyer with unlimited ammo with the benefit of being able to fund your airburst user's debilitating ammo addiction.
So what is the actual use case for this weapon? If feels like it does the same thing as the Eagle Clusterbomb but less reliably in terms of clearing small targets. Like when would you pick this weapon?
Thats pretty much it. It can secure some heavy target kills on Tanks / Hulks. But otherwise there are many more stronger options, so you choose this weapon when you want to have some fun really.
There comes a moment for every hell diver using the air burst launcher for the first time when you TK your entire team and realize “oh, this isn’t a close range weapon”
something to keep in mind is that the airburst is capable of killing all heavy enemies (except for flying enemies and bile titans) although it requires carful aiming and a bit of luck. it can one shot hulks if you shoot them between the legs from the front (the back will take most of the explosions), it is capable of severely damaging chargers in one shot if you aim under them, it can one shot tanks if you can make the airburst explode from behind which isn't that difficult, and I've seen it land a killing blow on a factory strider when fired at it's belly. it also does a good job killing the machine guns on the factory strider as well. with that in mind the airburst is much better against automations than bugs mostly due to the distance of engagements. the airburst is quite unwieldy against close range enemies so the automations are my preferred targets. baby hunters also have a habit of jumping in front of the rocket causing a team wipe. it also can't kill bile titans which is why it often feels to me like it is required to bring AT on high level bug missions.
If aimed properly, this thing can oneshot Bile titans. you need to aim it at roughly half of the titans full height between the legs and the clusters will explode directly under the bile sacs and give it severe abdominal pain
I'm finding this is my go to "DEFEND" Support Weapon vs Autos. Usually b/c my Team takes up Cardinal Positions to cover. Between my Primary and my Strat's and this I'm able to hold down my Cardinal Direction all by myself and don't risk friendly fire. Mileage will vary in PUBS and LIKE THEY SAID IN ABOVE VIDEO IT'S BETTER VS BUGS.
A beast on those defence missions due to everything clumping together so much for sure. Even better if the team has good positioning like you mentioned.
In the evacuate valuable assets (tower defense) mission, airburst/500kg/double mortar is S+ tier. Airburst will take out anything besides hulks and factory striders consistently. Wait until almost the entire group is dropped from the drop ship, then fire so it detonates right as they hit the ground. EMS Mortar will stop the hulks and regular mortar will take them out. Airburst rocket launcher CAN take out the hulks, but you have to be above them and it has to detonate right behind their vents. Usually a two shot kill so I'd rather use dual mortar and maybe an eruptor round to finish them off while they're stunned. The 500kg is specifically for the factory striders. You CAN take them out with the Rocket Launcher, but it's so hit and miss I'd rather save the ammo for more large groups and rely on the eagle. Used to use the railcannon instead of the 500 but the cool down is killer on the higher difficulties, especially for it to not one shot the factory striders. Your mortars can also kill the strider is you keep aggro. Anyways, that lineup featuring the airburst rocket launcher is firmly S tier on those evacuate assets missions. Set up shop on the extract pad and you're good to go. You'll have the whole western half of the map covered so your other three teammates can team up and focus on the other side.
Slight correction I wanted to give: Brood Commanders only have Light Armor. Out of the Terminid faction only Hive Guards and Bile Spewers (not Nursing Spewers) have any amount of medium armor currently. You can tell because light armor piercing ammunition reflects off medium armor while giving white damage hitmarkers on light armor, meanwhile medium armor piercing ammunition deals full damage to light armor and gets white damage hitmarkers on medium armor. Good video otherwise, might consider bringing it on egg destruction missions
I love the ABRL but only against bots (can’t stand the reload on bugs). I can consistently 1-2 shot tanks/turrets and hulks but it all comes down to perfect placement. For hulks you can shoot between the legs if you have an angle to land it behind, but if you can get a slight angle and shoot right behind one of their feet it’s a lot more consistent. With tanks/turrets you need them to actually be facing you and you shoot at the back corner. The goal with both is to concentrate the cluster into a smaller area basically. The same logic applies for smaller bots as well. For devastators it’s better to shoot at the ground but for chaff bots you can shoot above for more coverage. I’ve also seen clips of it 1 shotting Factory Striders if you can get them all to detonate under the belly but very hard to pull off
I religiously use the airburst. I use it as crowd control and to instantly pop the abdomens on bile titans. I usually get over 100 kills more than the next player up in kill count. I love the airburst. Its a support weapon meant to control woth a bit of distance between u and your squad and the enemy.
I really want to like it, but that reload speed really kill the weapon that supposedly falls into crowd control category considering grenade launcher can shoot faster&more safer to use on medium range.
Great in the escort scientist missions. You just chill on the landingpad with resupply and EAT and take big chunks out of every bug breach while your teammates press buttons
Don't listen to this false propaganda who pretends to be more intelligent than you! We all know that baseless information on the internet can't be trusted! Always use this weapon at close range to achieve maximum effectiveness. Also if one of your squadmates uses an RL-77 Airburst Rocket Launcher, ALL OF YOU should use an RL-77 Airburst Rocket Launcher to achieve maximum area of effect effectiveness.
In the evacuate valuable assets (tower defense) mission, airburst/500kg/double mortar is S+ tier. Airburst will take out anything besides hulks and factory striders consistently. Wait until almost the entire group is dropped from the drop ship, then fire so it detonates right as they hit the ground. EMS Mortar will stop the hulks and regular mortar will take them out. Airburst rocket launcher CAN take out the hulks, but you have to be above them and it has to detonate right behind their vents. Usually a two shot kill so I'd rather use dual mortar and maybe an eruptor round to finish them off while they're stunned. The 500kg is specifically for the factory striders. You CAN take them out with the Rocket Launcher, but it's so hit and miss I'd rather save the ammo for more large groups and rely on the eagle. Used to use the railcannon instead of the 500 but the cool down is killer on the higher difficulties, especially for it to not one shot the factory striders. Your mortars can also kill the strider is you keep aggro. Anyways, that lineup featuring the airburst rocket launcher is firmly S tier on those evacuate assets missions. Set up shop on the extract pad and you're good to go. You'll have the whole western half of the map covered so your other three teammates can team up and focus on the other side.
Honestly, I love this weapon to bits and it's my go to for bug missions! Comes in handy when clearing large clusters (pun intended) of bugs at a distance. Very useful for waiting for Pelican 1 too! The loadout you recommended is mostly like mine: Incen Breaker to deal with bugs close to me and the Grenade Pistol to close bug holes and as a back up, though I rock impact grenades instead to give myself a bit of room.
Same here, its a treat to use. Chucking into hordes of bugs is amazing haha. & I Impacts are great. Think I just fell in love with stuns to stop Chargers in their tracks.
An excellent guide for a support weapon that's hardly been picked since it was unlocked! I haven't tried it again after they fixed most of the proximity issues. Hard to make it work in solo runs because of its atrocious reload, alongside other weaknesses, lol. That being said, it is a funny weapon that I'd one day love to test out with a friend willing to team reload for me in a base defense mission.
THANK YOU!! I’ve been so tired of hearing people calling this weapon complete garbage, when I’ve known it’s 100% them just using it wrong. I love using this to clear POI’s and Light Outposts, especially since it will wipe out all the enemies that can call Bot Drops/Bug Breaches quite often.
For a precious support weapon slot it is pretty garbage though. This vid just reinforces that by showing how few enemy types it's actually useful against. It needs to have higher armor penetration on direct hit.
It is pretty shit... the RNG on the frag spawns can either make you do some nice looking chaff wiping or straight up hit nothing at all... it's a poorly tested weapon like most in the game since the balance devs are.... well they're doing something alright.
You can also kill fabricators 90% of the time by shooting the circular symbol on the side of them as well. The bot cannon towers can also be killed in a couple of shots by hitting the turret ring (the space between the gun turret and the tower). I also saw someone say you can take out factory striders by shooting underneath them, but I have yet to try that myself. And lastly, don't forget that your shots can set off unexploded hellbombs so maybe give it a sec before rushing back into the kill zone. Good diving!
It's too weird of a weapon. If AH intends for the support weapons to deal with medium-heavy targets but then makes something like this to deal with the light enemy swarms, why would they intend primary and secondary weapons as anti-swarm weapons?
you forgot one very important detail sir. if you fire it while prone, it's proximity fuse deactivates entirely. thus it will only detonate on contact. obv this is super helpful depending on how you use it.
I can help shorten this significantly. Step 1 - PUB with 4 poor bastards or your frans if they aren't tired of dying yet. Step 2 - Equip Airburst and any heavy explosion resistance armor. If you are nice warn your team. (Add impact incendiary and breaker incendiary if you wanna be a complete TIMMAY!) Step 3 - GIBLETS AND LULZ!
You aren't military you're a super citizen the geneva convention dosent apply to citizens and everyone who could try and change that is dead (gamer moment)
6:16 you can actually destroy them by shooting at the back of the vent or roof (from the back!), sometimes it works too! this thing is OP, I've cleared 5-6 fabricators just by standing on a top of a mountain
This thing is very "meh". Really wish we'd had grabbed the mines. Sure was nice of the devs to dangle it next to "helping sick kids", so we had to choose between not being an asshole irl or a fun item in a video game. What's next? "Finally get the anti-tank mines OR help cure cancer! That's a balanced decision, right? A cheap video game reward vs something that kills real people?"
I was afraid when all the videos said the support strategem sucked when its preview was available, but after using it? THIS IS SO GOOD, AND FUN TOO I've only been using it on bot missions so far and it does a fantastic job for crowd control, specially for patrols and farher outposts.
I feel like they should tighten the proximity activation of the projectile and boost the damage to where a devistator with three grenade hits and maybe increase radius or amount of grenades and then it could be viable.
It's crazy because it is such a guaranteed kill on allies even with explosive resist or heavy armor, yet is so TERRIBLE at killing anything with more armor than a warrior. So most bot targets that aren't one shot by a handgun ignore the weapon and 80% of a bug population require at least 2 shooters, even though big targets should take extra damage from explosive damage. It needs to be more lethal to bile spewers because there's no chance something that has this many explosive damage outputs takes 2-3 entire rockets to kill spewers.
Since the hotfix/patch for the RL-77 to make it less sensitive this weapon has be come my go to for all bot missions. I can with about the same reliability as a quazar, recoiless, or EAT take out almost every heavy target/ tower or factory in a single shot the exception for factory striders. It all about knowing where and to shoot and hitting the correct spot. - Tanks booth types: just under the turret from any angle, the turrent's vent or front works best. can be done it one shot. - Tank towers: same deal where the turret meets the base and head on or vent sides work best. - Hulks: shoot from the front between the legs, this will normally blow out it's back or set it on fire. From the side shoot a leg same deal, normally takes one or two shots, and enough damge if not you can finish off with an impact grenade or any weapon that will damage the back. factory buildings: from the side. aim directly at the middle of the logo if your lined up striate on, if your at an angle aim for the red light near the base of the front panels if you coming up on the back. from the front aim at the base of vents. most of the time it's one shot, if not you may need to adjust your angle of attack. Note that dead bodies of med or heavy targets near by can make it explode prematurely if the rocket does not hit the target then it will not take them for the above.
I make a point to try everything in the upper difficulty of the bot battlefield and in this theatre of war…it’s useless. It’s useful against bugs at hard difficulty or below but against bots on higher difficulty it’s a waste of a strat and a waste of a backpack. Stay away unless killing organics!
I like this weapon coupled with eagle cluster to melt the unarmored troops that are usually capable of opening bug holes/calling bot drops. you'll need your buddies for the heavy units and your primary should be capable of taking down medium armor. this weapons isnt meant to be used close range so fire it many meters away from the squad and on a clump of enemies. its a fun weapon overall
It's stupid it cannot hurt chargers and biles. Arrowhead need to make all strat weapons valid as multi tools capable of countering everything, only having more of a effective side against certain things.
my annoyance is that my plas-shotgun can kill gunship if the projectile hit but this god damn launcher can't, i pondered if the rocket is medium or light armor penetration (not counting bomblets) it that pet peeves that annoyed the hell out of me but i find this rocket is very effective against robot over bugs because robot have better weakspot than bugs themselves
Proper guide to the airburst: Step 1: Choose anything else Step 2: There is no step 2. Choose literally anything else or your Teamkilling ass is getting kicked
Do we really need a launcher like this aimed at small to medium enemies when things like the grenade launcher and flamethrower exist without taking up a backpack slot?
I find it really helpful with extracts on bug planets even on helldive difficulty, taking out most if not all of the horde of bugs that beeline for the extract at a distance makes it way less chaotic. Also helpful if you're kiting away a huge group from your teammates, kite them towards a choke point and fire, I've had 40+ kills on a single rocket.
While the weapon many not easily kill heavies it still hurts them. There is value in being able to blast and area with an airburst then move in for mop up. I do not recommend the breaker with this weapon as you need to be at long range to use it. It makes more sense to bring a longer ranged gun and just stay out of close ranged combat all together. If your being effective with the weapon your not going to get swarmed. The added space will allow you to reload the launcher safer.
I find on level 9, there's too many bugs that are able to gap close while you're reloading personally. The incendiary breaker is just too good not to take as well! Definitely get good value from directly attacking the heavier targets though.
i personaly love to run a "john cluster strike" build, with the airburst, orbital cluster, and eagle cluster, along some other stratagem that is either explosive or anti-tank (you could run it with the eruptor before they removed the shrapnel, but i higly advise to take something to deal with the small bugs and straglers, like an AR or shotgun) the ability to single handedly deal with most grunts during bug breaches with 3 stratagems is prety good, but you need a team with anti tank stuff for the bile titans
Airburst not being good at anti-air in reality? One of the major revolutions in warfare in WWII was the development of airburst rounds specific to AA use. Honestly, a not small portion of the grief HD2 gets is because of how they name and describe things to us. Sure its an airburst rocket, but its mainly a cluster munition with airburst properties. So its name should reflect that.l so we dont have any misconceptions. Same for the 500kg bomb. Huge visual explosion, but tiny actual AoE. Acts more like an Armor Piercing Bomb with the anount of damage it does when it does hit. Should be named as such. Now we have the Eruptor, the non shrapnel shrapnel gun after the "nerf" And also the Tenderizer, "high caliber" its described, with its ejection port amd magazine reflecting that, but the actual thing in game is just another Liberator. Dont get me started on armor, and they need more distinct stratagem symbols, cause half of them look the same!
Oh I meant the launcher in the game specifically, not all airburst munitions. There does seem to be a mis-match with the description vs actuality on a lot of the things in game.
It's a cool weapon, butI do think you should be rewarded when you shoot between the lower tier heavy units legs. A consistent 2 shots to destroy a sack or battery pack would make the weapon feel a lot better taking a slow loading rocket imo.
Best part of the airburst for me is that you can snipe a bot fab from a crazy distance away. I'd usually suggest bring it with EAT-17s for when you need to deal with heavies too.
but internet guy, I've already used the airburst successfullly, post-patch. I told everyone it's OP, wihch it is a little. so what do you have to offer?
I have 1 shot tanks, and turrets from the side. And once from the front. I have also on multiple occasions seemingly 1shot hulks, hut it usually takes 3 I have also 1shot fabricators from multiple different angles, even the back. None of what I mentioned above is consistent
2 cents from a Bug diver that plays on lvl 7-9. Skip this weapon. 1st problem It has a 5 second reload. If you play in a random team, people will not cover you, they will not wait for you. 2nd problem. Teammate runs in front of you, or you are running in to save a teammate. You cannot fire this. 3rd problem On high difficulties, 4 bug types are dangerous. Titan, Charger, Stalker and Bile spewer. This only works vs bile spewer. Bug breach...2 chargers...now what? 4th problem It takes up a backpack slot. You're better off taking the supply pack. Seriously. You get 8 extra grenades. And the ammo and the stims. 8 grenades can be used at any time and will kill lots of things, including the 4 above mentioned bug types. I'm serious here. This weapon is a fun, nonsense idea that should be skipped on high difficulty. Nice video BTW, keep it up. ❤ from me.
I play on same difficulties and rock this all the time... with so many choices to fill the other spots you can rock anything you think is fun and be just fine. also this thing wrecks havoc vs bots
Honestly the higher the mission difficulty to better this weapon is. Plus most people are going to bring anti-tank weapons so you might as well kill all the chaff. Also do try and shoot over enemy's since anything under the detonation can actually get away without taking any damage since the bombs don't fall down
Runs well with the gatling sentry against bugs. Sentry will give you the space to fire and reload the weapon safely, however make sure you’re away from your teammates lmao. Still feel like it deserves a 3 second reload with how needy it is in other ways.
It can kill chargers but like you said its a pain, just like another comment said, its similar to killing bile titans. If you get the clusters to detonate under it correctly, it will shred the charger. Same applies to factory striders.
This guide has shown me that it is way more effective at being an accident than placing incendiary and anti-personnel mines right on the objective so my teammates have to face me and the enemy before they can extract.
Sending in one rocket and clearing an entire egg nest is one of the best feelings in the game. And I’ll admit that it isn’t a great stratagem but it is so much fun that I don’t care.
Very ideal to be wearing armor with fortified passive when using this. If it detonates close, you're very likely to survive and not take significant damage.
I tried it for abit and with the recent change to spawnrates to churn more light enemies, this thing is pretty fun. Pretty inconsistent though. I like to pair it with the plasma punisher to finish off weakened devastators
The Anti air belief probably comes from the ingame GIF that shows it being used as an anti air weapon
Intuitively, an airburst projectile would be expected to simply explode in midair when it came within proximity of the target, or the ground. If I just heard the name and didn't know anything else about how it worked, I would expect it to be a simple radius explosion, or maybe blasting a cone in the direction the rocket is traveling, like the Orbital Airburst Strike (which always blasts downward because it's always being aimed downward).
For what it's worth too, nearly every anti-aircraft weapon since WW2 has been a gun firing airburst shells, or a rocket with an airburst warhead.
Yeah that's true. Would be fun to have a proper anti air Flak like airburst weapon though. But would probably be too niche.
The other issue being that the most famous role for airbursting munitions is in WW2 anti-air weapons. As is seen in loads of war films.
Probably because its got a proximity fuse, which are effectively useless against ground targets irl, but heavily used as AAA flak
We also were teased about it as Super Earth fast-tracking production of AA weapons in response to the Bot's dropships
"Pocket Clussy"
My favorite weapon after the auto cannon it is pretty good when used against bugs and partly also against automaton
Chucking it into Bug Breaches is too good.
@@TheWileSpiceyah so good, good long range anti infantry sniper. The moments when I noticed I had it equipped and fired instead of the breaker shotgun 😂
I personally feel it shines on bots (for clearing the hordes of smaller enemies on helldive). Hear me out, 2 people run airburst and 2 run quasar/spear/anti tank; then everyone runs orbital railcannon and 110mm rocket pods (with the extra stratagem slot being personal preference). At this point you can mob clear, destroy structures and delete heavies as long as the team sticks together.
Edit: if the 2 people not running airburst run quasar and ammo backpack then you have a heavy deleter/airship destroyer with unlimited ammo with the benefit of being able to fund your airburst user's debilitating ammo addiction.
we need the mines, they would have worked on titans and such as well
Is it a bug or intended that it doesn't penetrate 6 armor?
this needs an R switch for direct impact detonation or proximity detonation
So what is the actual use case for this weapon?
If feels like it does the same thing as the Eagle Clusterbomb but less reliably in terms of clearing small targets.
Like when would you pick this weapon?
Thats pretty much it. It can secure some heavy target kills on Tanks / Hulks. But otherwise there are many more stronger options, so you choose this weapon when you want to have some fun really.
Take the airburst and EAT 😁👍
needs more drop. . .no really make it an indirect weapon
Hahaha.
you should be able to help someone reload without having the pack yourself.
100% agreed. Makes way more sense.
Reminder that neither US nor Ukraine recognized the ban of cluster bombs and the US supplies many many cluster ammo to Ukraine.
If i am running with mates i tell them i am runni g the 'teamkiller3000' and they know i have this equiped.
Hahaha, the accidental team wipe is a way of life.
that cut on the 500kg at the very end was criminal 😭😭
🤣
@@TheWileSpice I subscribed, just to unsubscribe for that
One might say-
One migh-
One might say he droped a bomb on you
@@Zane12ai yea your going to jail now
There comes a moment for every hell diver using the air burst launcher for the first time when you TK your entire team and realize “oh, this isn’t a close range weapon”
Hahahaha. We learn the hard way tats for sure.
Blast Radius: Yes
Not me though.
Why would anyone initially think a rocket launcher was a close range weapon?
Literally my first time using, what was I thinking😭
It might not be the best or safest weapon, but oh boy is it fun!
Just as much as I like the Spear!
Yeah its an absolute blast to use.
something to keep in mind is that the airburst is capable of killing all heavy enemies (except for flying enemies and bile titans) although it requires carful aiming and a bit of luck.
it can one shot hulks if you shoot them between the legs from the front (the back will take most of the explosions), it is capable of severely damaging chargers in one shot if you aim under them, it can one shot tanks if you can make the airburst explode from behind which isn't that difficult, and I've seen it land a killing blow on a factory strider when fired at it's belly. it also does a good job killing the machine guns on the factory strider as well.
with that in mind the airburst is much better against automations than bugs mostly due to the distance of engagements. the airburst is quite unwieldy against close range enemies so the automations are my preferred targets. baby hunters also have a habit of jumping in front of the rocket causing a team wipe. it also can't kill bile titans which is why it often feels to me like it is required to bring AT on high level bug missions.
I am pretty sure you can kill hulk by shooting their eye with it too
New player here what are the hulks?
@@ignis_infinitus_infernus the big robot with one red eye
thanks, i disagreed with a lot of this guys analysis and came to comments for this
If aimed properly, this thing can oneshot Bile titans. you need to aim it at roughly half of the titans full height between the legs and the clusters will explode directly under the bile sacs and give it severe abdominal pain
Interesting, going to have to see if I can pull this off for sure.
I’ve also seen a video about it killing factory striders, but I haven’t been able to try it for myself yet so idk if it’s real
The video was by Andrea FPS Games
The Taco Bell launcher
Give it an ol’ Tummy ache
I'm finding this is my go to "DEFEND" Support Weapon vs Autos. Usually b/c my Team takes up Cardinal Positions to cover. Between my Primary and my Strat's and this I'm able to hold down my Cardinal Direction all by myself and don't risk friendly fire. Mileage will vary in PUBS and LIKE THEY SAID IN ABOVE VIDEO IT'S BETTER VS BUGS.
A beast on those defence missions due to everything clumping together so much for sure. Even better if the team has good positioning like you mentioned.
I do like to use it rarely against Bots. It’s just a fun weapon to use, obliterates all Chaff, a lucky hit can destroy Devastators
*strats
Stop apostrophe abuse today. They're not for plurals (with rare exceptions); they're for possessives and contractions.
In the evacuate valuable assets (tower defense) mission, airburst/500kg/double mortar is S+ tier. Airburst will take out anything besides hulks and factory striders consistently. Wait until almost the entire group is dropped from the drop ship, then fire so it detonates right as they hit the ground. EMS Mortar will stop the hulks and regular mortar will take them out.
Airburst rocket launcher CAN take out the hulks, but you have to be above them and it has to detonate right behind their vents. Usually a two shot kill so I'd rather use dual mortar and maybe an eruptor round to finish them off while they're stunned.
The 500kg is specifically for the factory striders. You CAN take them out with the Rocket Launcher, but it's so hit and miss I'd rather save the ammo for more large groups and rely on the eagle.
Used to use the railcannon instead of the 500 but the cool down is killer on the higher difficulties, especially for it to not one shot the factory striders.
Your mortars can also kill the strider is you keep aggro.
Anyways, that lineup featuring the airburst rocket launcher is firmly S tier on those evacuate assets missions. Set up shop on the extract pad and you're good to go. You'll have the whole western half of the map covered so your other three teammates can team up and focus on the other side.
@@chandlerguy3231 airburst rocket launcher versus eagle airstrike? I’ve been airstriking bot clumps and using 500s on factories.
Slight correction I wanted to give: Brood Commanders only have Light Armor. Out of the Terminid faction only Hive Guards and Bile Spewers (not Nursing Spewers) have any amount of medium armor currently. You can tell because light armor piercing ammunition reflects off medium armor while giving white damage hitmarkers on light armor, meanwhile medium armor piercing ammunition deals full damage to light armor and gets white damage hitmarkers on medium armor. Good video otherwise, might consider bringing it on egg destruction missions
Reasons to use this weapon: I like to terrorize my teammates (when I play with my friends)
Step 1: see pack
Step 2: OOPS!
Step 3: reinforce squadmates
I love the ABRL but only against bots (can’t stand the reload on bugs). I can consistently 1-2 shot tanks/turrets and hulks but it all comes down to perfect placement. For hulks you can shoot between the legs if you have an angle to land it behind, but if you can get a slight angle and shoot right behind one of their feet it’s a lot more consistent. With tanks/turrets you need them to actually be facing you and you shoot at the back corner. The goal with both is to concentrate the cluster into a smaller area basically. The same logic applies for smaller bots as well. For devastators it’s better to shoot at the ground but for chaff bots you can shoot above for more coverage. I’ve also seen clips of it 1 shotting Factory Striders if you can get them all to detonate under the belly but very hard to pull off
I think I’ll just stick to my Grenade Launcher. Lovely edits, as usual, Spice.
Its definitely a tier above the launcher thats for sure. Thank ya!
@@TheWileSpice One-man mobile mortar team!
4:35 .....I felt that disappointment.
Was such a painful moment haha. Really is shocking against Chargers.
Honestly man, the way you present and edit, both are fantastic!
Why thank you! Hopefully will keep getting better over time.
I religiously use the airburst. I use it as crowd control and to instantly pop the abdomens on bile titans. I usually get over 100 kills more than the next player up in kill count. I love the airburst. Its a support weapon meant to control woth a bit of distance between u and your squad and the enemy.
Its for sure one of the most fun weapons to use in my opinion.
Great seeing the kill streaks stack up after a shot.
S.E.S Sword of War here to give my personal guide, dont shoot a rock.
I really want to like it, but that reload speed really kill the weapon that supposedly falls into crowd control category considering grenade launcher can shoot faster&more safer to use on medium range.
The reload speed is really punishing yeah. Would be nice if it was 1 second faster. Or if they gave it a few more clusters instead.
Great in the escort scientist missions. You just chill on the landingpad with resupply and EAT and take big chunks out of every bug breach while your teammates press buttons
Don't listen to this false propaganda who pretends to be more intelligent than you! We all know that baseless information on the internet can't be trusted! Always use this weapon at close range to achieve maximum effectiveness. Also if one of your squadmates uses an RL-77 Airburst Rocket Launcher, ALL OF YOU should use an RL-77 Airburst Rocket Launcher to achieve maximum area of effect effectiveness.
In the evacuate valuable assets (tower defense) mission, airburst/500kg/double mortar is S+ tier. Airburst will take out anything besides hulks and factory striders consistently. Wait until almost the entire group is dropped from the drop ship, then fire so it detonates right as they hit the ground. EMS Mortar will stop the hulks and regular mortar will take them out.
Airburst rocket launcher CAN take out the hulks, but you have to be above them and it has to detonate right behind their vents. Usually a two shot kill so I'd rather use dual mortar and maybe an eruptor round to finish them off while they're stunned.
The 500kg is specifically for the factory striders. You CAN take them out with the Rocket Launcher, but it's so hit and miss I'd rather save the ammo for more large groups and rely on the eagle.
Used to use the railcannon instead of the 500 but the cool down is killer on the higher difficulties, especially for it to not one shot the factory striders.
Your mortars can also kill the strider is you keep aggro.
Anyways, that lineup featuring the airburst rocket launcher is firmly S tier on those evacuate assets missions. Set up shop on the extract pad and you're good to go. You'll have the whole western half of the map covered so your other three teammates can team up and focus on the other side.
Honestly, I love this weapon to bits and it's my go to for bug missions! Comes in handy when clearing large clusters (pun intended) of bugs at a distance. Very useful for waiting for Pelican 1 too!
The loadout you recommended is mostly like mine: Incen Breaker to deal with bugs close to me and the Grenade Pistol to close bug holes and as a back up, though I rock impact grenades instead to give myself a bit of room.
Same here, its a treat to use. Chucking into hordes of bugs is amazing haha.
& I Impacts are great. Think I just fell in love with stuns to stop Chargers in their tracks.
An excellent guide for a support weapon that's hardly been picked since it was unlocked!
I haven't tried it again after they fixed most of the proximity issues. Hard to make it work in solo runs because of its atrocious reload, alongside other weaknesses, lol. That being said, it is a funny weapon that I'd one day love to test out with a friend willing to team reload for me in a base defense mission.
Yep, its been left to collect dust! Its for sure really hard to make work properly while solo, but incredibly fun with a squad!
THANK YOU!! I’ve been so tired of hearing people calling this weapon complete garbage, when I’ve known it’s 100% them just using it wrong. I love using this to clear POI’s and Light Outposts, especially since it will wipe out all the enemies that can call Bot Drops/Bug Breaches quite often.
I mean, this video literally just reinforces it as being garbage tho, lol
For a precious support weapon slot it is pretty garbage though. This vid just reinforces that by showing how few enemy types it's actually useful against.
It needs to have higher armor penetration on direct hit.
It is pretty shit... the RNG on the frag spawns can either make you do some nice looking chaff wiping or straight up hit nothing at all... it's a poorly tested weapon like most in the game since the balance devs are.... well they're doing something alright.
Love all the skill issues replying here.
so does the arc thrower not exist anymore?
You can also kill fabricators 90% of the time by shooting the circular symbol on the side of them as well. The bot cannon towers can also be killed in a couple of shots by hitting the turret ring (the space between the gun turret and the tower). I also saw someone say you can take out factory striders by shooting underneath them, but I have yet to try that myself. And lastly, don't forget that your shots can set off unexploded hellbombs so maybe give it a sec before rushing back into the kill zone. Good diving!
It's too weird of a weapon. If AH intends for the support weapons to deal with medium-heavy targets but then makes something like this to deal with the light enemy swarms, why would they intend primary and secondary weapons as anti-swarm weapons?
Yeah, then nerf the likes of the Eruptor & Crossbow haha. Always weird decisions.
Saw you auto-climbed onto the resupply. Turn off Auto Climb to never do that again.
You've just blown my mind.
you forgot one very important detail sir. if you fire it while prone, it's proximity fuse deactivates entirely. thus it will only detonate on contact. obv this is super helpful depending on how you use it.
Shut the fuck up. Is this true? I'm gonna have to test it because that's a game changer.
wow. I need to try this
Really??? That is a game changer
I've tested this a few times now & it doesn't deactivate the proximity fuse when prone.
How did you test it? Because I can't replicate it.
I have killed 30+ bots with a single rocket before. Easily my favorite support weapon!
Love watching the streak rack up after a good shot!
I can help shorten this significantly.
Step 1 - PUB with 4 poor bastards or your frans if they aren't tired of dying yet.
Step 2 - Equip Airburst and any heavy explosion resistance armor. If you are nice warn your team. (Add impact incendiary and breaker incendiary if you wanna be a complete TIMMAY!)
Step 3 - GIBLETS AND LULZ!
You aren't military you're a super citizen the geneva convention dosent apply to citizens and everyone who could try and change that is dead (gamer moment)
6:16 you can actually destroy them by shooting at the back of the vent or roof (from the back!), sometimes it works too!
this thing is OP, I've cleared 5-6 fabricators just by standing on a top of a mountain
Best weapon in the game. I use it for ground targets all the time. It’s a wonderful tool.
This thing is very "meh". Really wish we'd had grabbed the mines. Sure was nice of the devs to dangle it next to "helping sick kids", so we had to choose between not being an asshole irl or a fun item in a video game. What's next? "Finally get the anti-tank mines OR help cure cancer! That's a balanced decision, right? A cheap video game reward vs something that kills real people?"
I was afraid when all the videos said the support strategem sucked when its preview was available, but after using it?
THIS IS SO GOOD, AND FUN TOO
I've only been using it on bot missions so far and it does a fantastic job for crowd control, specially for patrols and farher outposts.
Its such a fun weapon to use. Just wait until you fire it into the heart of a bug breach on the side of the terminids!
Takes me back to BF4 where I'd counter snipe with the XM25.
"Oh hey a scope glint...THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK."
S tier for hive egg missions
I feel like they should tighten the proximity activation of the projectile and boost the damage to where a devistator with three grenade hits and maybe increase radius or amount of grenades and then it could be viable.
It's crazy because it is such a guaranteed kill on allies even with explosive resist or heavy armor, yet is so TERRIBLE at killing anything with more armor than a warrior. So most bot targets that aren't one shot by a handgun ignore the weapon and 80% of a bug population require at least 2 shooters, even though big targets should take extra damage from explosive damage. It needs to be more lethal to bile spewers because there's no chance something that has this many explosive damage outputs takes 2-3 entire rockets to kill spewers.
Since the hotfix/patch for the RL-77 to make it less sensitive this weapon has be come my go to for all bot missions. I can with about the same reliability as a quazar, recoiless, or EAT take out almost every heavy target/ tower or factory in a single shot the exception for factory striders. It all about knowing where and to shoot and hitting the correct spot.
- Tanks booth types: just under the turret from any angle, the turrent's vent or front works best. can be done it one shot.
- Tank towers: same deal where the turret meets the base and head on or vent sides work best.
- Hulks: shoot from the front between the legs, this will normally blow out it's back or set it on fire. From the side shoot a leg same deal, normally takes one or two shots, and enough damge if not you can finish off with an impact grenade or any weapon that will damage the back.
factory buildings: from the side. aim directly at the middle of the logo if your lined up striate on, if your at an angle aim for the red light near the base of the front panels if you coming up on the back. from the front aim at the base of vents. most of the time it's one shot, if not you may need to adjust your angle of attack.
Note that dead bodies of med or heavy targets near by can make it explode prematurely if the rocket does not hit the target then it will not take them for the above.
I make a point to try everything in the upper difficulty of the bot battlefield and in this theatre of war…it’s useless. It’s useful against bugs at hard difficulty or below but against bots on higher difficulty it’s a waste of a strat and a waste of a backpack. Stay away unless killing organics!
I like this weapon coupled with eagle cluster to melt the unarmored troops that are usually capable of opening bug holes/calling bot drops. you'll need your buddies for the heavy units and your primary should be capable of taking down medium armor. this weapons isnt meant to be used close range so fire it many meters away from the squad and on a clump of enemies.
its a fun weapon overall
It's stupid it cannot hurt chargers and biles. Arrowhead need to make all strat weapons valid as multi tools capable of countering everything, only having more of a effective side against certain things.
my annoyance is that my plas-shotgun can kill gunship if the projectile hit but this god damn launcher can't, i pondered if the rocket is medium or light armor penetration (not counting bomblets)
it that pet peeves that annoyed the hell out of me
but i find this rocket is very effective against robot over bugs because robot have better weakspot than bugs themselves
Proper guide to the airburst:
Step 1: Choose anything else
Step 2: There is no step 2. Choose literally anything else or your Teamkilling ass is getting kicked
Do we really need a launcher like this aimed at small to medium enemies when things like the grenade launcher and flamethrower exist without taking up a backpack slot?
So a very dangerous and very slow reloading chaff killing support weapon... Worthless, got it.
It’s kinda funny that the only thing this weapon won’t instantly destroy is aircraft
I absolutely love your giggles between your takes. Its so iconic and unique
The ultimate chaff clearing weapon. Just ignore that the incendiary breaker exists
I find it really helpful with extracts on bug planets even on helldive difficulty, taking out most if not all of the horde of bugs that beeline for the extract at a distance makes it way less chaotic. Also helpful if you're kiting away a huge group from your teammates, kite them towards a choke point and fire, I've had 40+ kills on a single rocket.
For sure, landing a rocket right in a sweet spot obliterates so much of the mess so the team can breathe haha.
The funny part that all this weapon do, the grenade launcher will do in 1/4 of the time and more.
While the weapon many not easily kill heavies it still hurts them. There is value in being able to blast and area with an airburst then move in for mop up. I do not recommend the breaker with this weapon as you need to be at long range to use it. It makes more sense to bring a longer ranged gun and just stay out of close ranged combat all together. If your being effective with the weapon your not going to get swarmed. The added space will allow you to reload the launcher safer.
You primary can hurt heavies without killing them too. That is nothing special or good.
I find on level 9, there's too many bugs that are able to gap close while you're reloading personally. The incendiary breaker is just too good not to take as well!
Definitely get good value from directly attacking the heavier targets though.
How to use the Airburst Rocket Launcher: choose the Autocannon instead.
id really like to use this thing, but the reload is too long and getting someone to do it for you isn't worth it.
aim under the bile titans, between their legs' it does more damage, and can kill them too.
i personaly love to run a "john cluster strike" build, with the airburst, orbital cluster, and eagle cluster, along some other stratagem that is either explosive or anti-tank (you could run it with the eruptor before they removed the shrapnel, but i higly advise to take something to deal with the small bugs and straglers, like an AR or shotgun)
the ability to single handedly deal with most grunts during bug breaches with 3 stratagems is prety good, but you need a team with anti tank stuff for the bile titans
Hahaha, your team must shudder in fear about how many clusters you're bringing into the fight. Sounds a lot of fun though.
I love my martyr launcher
Hahaha.
Airburst not being good at anti-air in reality? One of the major revolutions in warfare in WWII was the development of airburst rounds specific to AA use.
Honestly, a not small portion of the grief HD2 gets is because of how they name and describe things to us.
Sure its an airburst rocket, but its mainly a cluster munition with airburst properties. So its name should reflect that.l so we dont have any misconceptions.
Same for the 500kg bomb. Huge visual explosion, but tiny actual AoE. Acts more like an Armor Piercing Bomb with the anount of damage it does when it does hit. Should be named as such.
Now we have the Eruptor, the non shrapnel shrapnel gun after the "nerf"
And also the Tenderizer, "high caliber" its described, with its ejection port amd magazine reflecting that, but the actual thing in game is just another Liberator.
Dont get me started on armor, and they need more distinct stratagem symbols, cause half of them look the same!
Oh I meant the launcher in the game specifically, not all airburst munitions.
There does seem to be a mis-match with the description vs actuality on a lot of the things in game.
It's a cool weapon, butI do think you should be rewarded when you shoot between the lower tier heavy units legs. A consistent 2 shots to destroy a sack or battery pack would make the weapon feel a lot better taking a slow loading rocket imo.
I do agree. I think if it had the same penetration on impact as the other launchers we'd get that value as well.
Best part of the airburst for me is that you can snipe a bot fab from a crazy distance away. I'd usually suggest bring it with EAT-17s for when you need to deal with heavies too.
Yeah it's amazingly fun to do that haha. Though at the moment I'm loving the Spear for cross map base destruction!
This weapon is so fun. I just need to find a cool build for it
but internet guy, I've already used the airburst successfullly, post-patch. I told everyone it's OP, wihch it is a little. so what do you have to offer?
Haha, while it is strong at its niche, I wouldn't say its overpowered.
The ship upgrade doesn't work for me and I don't get a full backpack on picking up a supply, just the standard 3
Yeah unfortunately they broke the ship upgrade with the last patch lol. Hopefully fixed soon.
thnx for nice vid.... I use this thing on bugz regularly... deleting whole patrols etc. ... I use radar to send rockets at very long ranges also...
My pleasure. Same here, nothing feels quite as good at erasing full breaches.
A shoulder mounted rocket launcher with backpack and it cant kill medium targets is wild. no idea who took a dump in AHs head but there you go.
Hahaha, their balancing has been totally whacky for a while hasn't it.
I don't remember signing the letter XDD
The games still banned in 177 different countries and Sony recently added 3 more to that list. the battle was won but the war still goes on.
Yeah, not sure what's up with that. The CEO keeps telling people on twitter that its not going through, but I guess we'll wait for an announcement.
Airburst fixed today..will only trigger on enemies and hell divers
Thank god for that!
were is that armor from with the robot limbs ?
Will the clusters pop open the underbelly of bile titans if fired underneath them?
They do indeed!
This is my favorite stratagem, it is so satisfying getting 10 kills in one button
The explosion is glorious as aswell
One of those weapons that just make no sense
it can somewhat 1 shot automaton turrets
Wow so this thing is useless
I have 1 shot tanks, and turrets from the side. And once from the front.
I have also on multiple occasions seemingly 1shot hulks, hut it usually takes 3
I have also 1shot fabricators from multiple different angles, even the back.
None of what I mentioned above is consistent
2 cents from a Bug diver that plays on lvl 7-9.
Skip this weapon.
1st problem
It has a 5 second reload. If you play in a random team, people will not cover you, they will not wait for you.
2nd problem. Teammate runs in front of you, or you are running in to save a teammate. You cannot fire this.
3rd problem
On high difficulties, 4 bug types are dangerous. Titan, Charger, Stalker and Bile spewer.
This only works vs bile spewer.
Bug breach...2 chargers...now what?
4th problem
It takes up a backpack slot. You're better off taking the supply pack. Seriously. You get 8 extra grenades. And the ammo and the stims.
8 grenades can be used at any time and will kill lots of things, including the 4 above mentioned bug types. I'm serious here.
This weapon is a fun, nonsense idea that should be skipped on high difficulty.
Nice video BTW, keep it up. ❤ from me.
I play on same difficulties and rock this all the time... with so many choices to fill the other spots you can rock anything you think is fun and be just fine. also this thing wrecks havoc vs bots
I'm dedicated to the bit, you can't stop me from using this rocket
@@C6KSystem
Haahahaa . Awesome ! All good, have fun with it!
Honestly the higher the mission difficulty to better this weapon is. Plus most people are going to bring anti-tank weapons so you might as well kill all the chaff. Also do try and shoot over enemy's since anything under the detonation can actually get away without taking any damage since the bombs don't fall down
Runs well with the gatling sentry against bugs. Sentry will give you the space to fire and reload the weapon safely, however make sure you’re away from your teammates lmao. Still feel like it deserves a 3 second reload with how needy it is in other ways.
I'm ready for my 500kg launcher.
Bring it on I say.
It can kill chargers but like you said its a pain, just like another comment said, its similar to killing bile titans. If you get the clusters to detonate under it correctly, it will shred the charger. Same applies to factory striders.
This guide has shown me that it is way more effective at being an accident than placing incendiary and anti-personnel mines right on the objective so my teammates have to face me and the enemy before they can extract.
great video thank you. going to give it another try!
Thank you! It's really fun to use.
Sending in one rocket and clearing an entire egg nest is one of the best feelings in the game. And I’ll admit that it isn’t a great stratagem but it is so much fun that I don’t care.
i am using this on the automatons and having a blast
Its super fun anywhere to be fair
i just want the launcher to strip armor
Same here, it would make it so good. I would even trade a lower impact damage of 400-450 for the higher penetration.
Note: pair a cluster shot with any other anti tank as a team shot to instakill bot heavies
Very ideal to be wearing armor with fortified passive when using this. If it detonates close, you're very likely to survive and not take significant damage.
Yeah the passive helps a ton. Though I'm a sucker for Servo Assisted haha.
I tried it for abit and with the recent change to spawnrates to churn more light enemies, this thing is pretty fun. Pretty inconsistent though. I like to pair it with the plasma punisher to finish off weakened devastators
Yeah its somewhat of a gamble every time you fire it at enemies larger than scavengers / troopers. Hell of a lot of fun though.
The underrated airburst rocket launcher kill lots of hulks and tanks(both variants ) with this puppy
Very very underrated yeah! A whole lot of fun as well.