[TF2] Flying The Extra Mile: The Air Strike 

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.

9:42 you lit up the battalion's backup for 'damage' and the buff banner for 'protection'

this video is good because i have a small cameo

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.

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 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.

>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

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

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.

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.

5:01 oh my GOD this bit is so funny, the little sound effects as he counts and adds, I love the sarcasm

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.

Awesome video! (Zesty at the end had me laughing lol)

I recently wanted to try something new so I had started using the air strike and it's an interesting and fun alternative.

The Zesty ending was perfect! 🤣

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)

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.

1:10 holy saxton thats a burning flames tean captain!1!1!!

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!

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 :)

1:07 you did them a favor now they have a burning flames team captain

Bro said Mr Simons and I’m like “wait did he go to the same high school as me?”

that bit with the spy in the intro really reminded me of goku letting frieza off on namek

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 really enjoyed this video, particularly because of all the SFM integration. However, throughout several segments of the video I found the pacing to be slower than it needed to be, particularly with the dialogue in the SFM segments. Something that could have helped with this without restructuring the video would be more sound effects or music; in fact, I think you did have music for most of the video, but it was often too quiet. Taking a stronger stance or direction in your review may have also helped you write more concise talking points. As for my thoughts on the airstrike, I like to use it with a shotgun and jump right into enemies. Since rocket damage is calculated from its distance to you on impact instead of the distance it has traveled, firing rockets and then landing where they hit helps ensure good damage... at least if I was good at the game 😮‍💨

1:07 OMG UNUSUAL TEAM CAPTAIN BURNING FLAMES!!!

1:08 burning flames team captain

0:19 THATS THE EXACT SPY OUTFIT I HAVE!!

Aka "how to use the airstrike when the enemy team somehow forgets to have a sniper for once"

Technically one downside of the parachute is that it kills horizontal velocity when you might want to be closer for max damage ramp up. The rockets already do less damage, you're not helping it if you're floating some distance away instead of rapidly closing in.

13:00 Good times when it could be opened more than once, very good times.

I haven't use the B.A.S.E. Jumper since they've nerfed the parachute launching ability, and frankly I think most of the TF2 community has as well. I used to remember seeing a soldier with the Jumper on on every server, trying to get market garden kills by spam-chuting. Nowadays a chute soldier is almost completely non-existent whenever I join pubs (the constant nuisance of aimbot snipers also doesn't help the chute extinction). I feel like I'd kill myself with it accidentally, since I always loved spamming the chute both for the sound and the button pressing as I descend to my death. it was weirdly calming.

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!

1:45 This is why you should never trust a Frenchy.

it has a hidden downside of even less explosion radius while blast jumping, if they got rid of that then it would be better or have it do reverse damage fall off while rocket jumping

I will use the liberty launcher just to spite my enemies. Other than that, I think the air strike itself is fine, even enough to use on yhe ground, despite it's downsides; but god I wish the base jumper gave max amo up and some sorta other benefit. Like, + 1 rocket in the clip at the start of your life. Meaning, 9 total rockets for the base jumper, and it would have some use for the other launchers. Giving ghe stock more sustain, the blackbox an excuse to not pair with the conch, the cow mangler...? The uh.. Rocket jumper..? Oh! The liberty launcher would have 6 rockets, I guess..? But hey, that's just my idea. Like the video, keep up the good work. (PS no I do not know how useful it would be for the direct hit in that case, because who the hell fights in the air against other air targets other than trolligers?)

I've tried this with the base jumper in the past, but I've found more success with it while using the gunboats. Just play on the ground untill you have a decent time to bomb and fly in. The panic attack is also not a terrible option. Playing on the ground isn't super punishing, either, because the extra -20% blast radius mid air doesn't apply. Play safe till you have a few kills, then jump in and out.

Look Mah, a new Fran video just dropped! 🎉

This is the most underrated video on the planet

I see a lot of people not even use the upside of the air fire-rate bonus and just the +1 clip size on kill

For a better viewing experience, I recommend shortening the goofy skits by a second or two. Regardless of that, I really enjoyed the video and those skits are actually well animated. Awesome video dude.

tbh it aint that bad on the ground, if you want to get your full 8 switch your secondary to the panic attack, shoot someone with it *then* with the airstrike and boom now you have 5 rockets *there is nothing saying you need to get the kills while airborne* and if you feel the panic attack is useless after 8 switch to a different loadout that has the air strike so you dont lose your snowball

In my opinion, anything the airstrike does, the beggar's bazooka does better. Only exception I find is when taking down exposed sentries in open spaces from afar, like in badwater first stage or some in Borneo.

My problem with the airstrike always is that i never survive one life long enough to enjoy killing enough enemies and having those 8 rockets to blast out at other groups of enemies. That slow crawl back up to 8 every time i respawn is enough to make me want to switch back to another rocket launcher after awhile

I personally wouldn't add the ammo on kill, instead I would make it so the explosion radius stays at the same reduced rate of 10% instead of increasing it to i think it's around 25% to make it more consistent

airstrike gunboats might be better for survival but airstrike mantreads is amazing for strafing into really weird positions to magdump bomb someone

Fun fact: for whatever reason if you kill a demoknight with the airstike, it will take there heads

Tbh I think the air-strike is one buff away from being a genuinely good side-grade to stock. The main problem I have I have with it is the fact that the damage is either too low to really begin increase the clip size of it. Or that I find myself reloading for longer periods of time because of its higher clip size when getting kills. If it got a buff to slightly increase the damage, blast radius, and or reload speed, then it would see more use. But its damage is way too low compared to most other rocket launchers, along with it granting you few to no advantages compared to other rocket launchers outside of rocket jumping with it. Like I said before, it just needs a buff, one good buff and it will be a genuinely good. But as of right now, it feels too unfinished or gimmicky to warrant much use. Especially since the Beggar's Bazooka exists, and is just a better version of the Air-Strike.

I picked up the airstrike a while back and i never reverted i find the airstrike on cqc or long range maps extremely good while certainly its not as good as stock with the 4 that does not mean its unusable or bad. Take for example enemy solider throws you in the air you automaticly win unless a crocket hits you its always you that wins becuse you just threw 3 rockets back at em. Not only that but the airstrike with 0 kills still is a incredibly versitile mashine giving small radius of shots in air and a relatively normal one on ground. For me this thing while not as good as stock on ground thanks to the added kills you get it realy does not loss in many cases esspicaly if you run the right loadout while many choose the base jumper to combo with the airstrike in my opinion the best is the gunboats or the conch are great to pair as with gunboats you can take to the skys alot more times than normal and with the counch become an unstoppable force a nature on the ground. Bring this along with the escape plan which is preety goated in my opinion youve got a license to kill and erase the enemy team no matter the situation. The only issue that the airstrike has and this solely is why its not op is ammo your going to find yourself out of ammo alot and thats the weakness. Many more times than not your be damaging your self to gtfo with the escape plan for ammo.

Gunboats and airstrike is the most aggressive bomber and maybe even playstyle Since you can use the airstrike as a melee

While I get that the Air Strike has its uses, it's not _bad_ but nor is it that great. I do think it is a bit overhyped simply because of the factor of downtime. Not only is the airstrike an objectively worse rocket launcher (*on the ground), you will have to spend a lot of time out of the fight to recover health from rocketjumps/falldamage, finding ammo and reloading (especially bad with 8 rocket clips). It may not seem like much, but that time certainly adds up over the course of a 10-15 minute match, especially on maps where medium/full health packs are scarce or no medics are around. You can easily lose 2-6 minutes of shooting people to scrounge for health/ammo which is a long time when you put it into the context of TF2 where the default respawn timer is 10 seconds to a maximum of 20. That means you're essentially dead 6-18 times over the course of a match if you hit that 2-6 minute downtime threshold.

12:20 I don't mean to say this, but in call of duty Warzone (battle royale) there can literally be more than one. many players do infinitely in any high drop moment. I know there's nothing about that, I just wanted to talk about a game that does that.

I forgot about this weapon ngl Probably should start using it since it's been literal years just like every other weapon

I would combine the Manntreads with the B.A.S.E. Jumper to give both items a collective buff.

What I would change would be to remove that one stat 'smaller blast radius while blast jumping' it makes this weapon inconsistent and I don't like it and maybe like +4% faster reload time on kill which I'm surprised it doesn't have

Been a very long time since i used the airstrike. They changed it stats already??? I still remember seeing the 25% dm penalty...

Me and my pals did wave 666 with five people as airstrike + base jumper soldiers and a single battle blutsauger medic that was practically immortal with how much health he gets back

Extra ammo capacity would be nice. Giving the Airstrike the -25% rocket jump damage stat back would be good too. You mentioned how the Airstrike works best with the BASE Jumper but I'm not sure that's the case. Gunboats and the Conch/Buff Banner work well with it too. Hell the Manntreads might even work well thanks to the increased air mobility. Likewise using the BASE Jumper with other rocket launchers is interesting too. The Liberty Launcher acts like an Airstrike-lite with it, The Beggars also can barrage an area with full damage rockets. And the Black Box can offset the damage you take from rocket jumping though you'll only have about 2 rockets at the apex of your jump.

I think that the air strike would be alot better if the downsize were active only on ground. Like when u are rocket jumping there are no downsize but the moment u hit the ground they are back

Personally I prefer to use the Buff Banner with the Air Strike. The mini-kritz negate the damage falloff and give the rockets that little extra they need while on the ground.

In order words, the soldier upgrades himself from human soldier to a GODDAMN TACTICAL AC-130 PLANE WITH LEGS anytime he uses the air strike- perfect xD if I can find a cheap specialized killstreak kit for this baby, Ima apply it and start mowing down my enemies lol

I think they should have two air strikes. one that shoots slower and does more damage, and the one we have now.

Its also really good at tank busting in mvm with crit canteens

Clipsize sounds like a good argument imo since you are using more ammo with the clip, maybe just provide one additional rocket for ammo each clip increasement. I never learned how to rocket jump sadly :(

I've almost thought of a really dumb downside/upside joke stat and that is after blast jumping, the moment you land down, you nuke the area. Downside, you die. Upside, Everyone else dies too. Why this? It's literally a discarded warhead refurbished into a rocket launcher, why the hell not?

You can carpet bomb with the Sticky Bomb Launcher... oh wait a second. The Sticky Bomb Launcher is a secondary, but wait a minute. How do players use the Scottish Resistance to carpet bomb enemies? Hmm... My personal opinion of the Air Strike? If you have the Base Jumper open, then give it a 15% increase in blast radius and damage, but a 5% slower firing rate and a less random damage spread while in the air. This way, you can just try to hit opponents with more precision while using the base jumper, and if you aren't using the Base Jumper then you are instead running away from enemies as quickly as you can with this weapon.

This video makes me want to get better at The Air Strike

Airstrike pogos are nuts, and using this shit with gumboats is F U N N Y

0:39 accurate to what people do to engies

90% of the sfm is amazing minus the clipping issues but that’s more due to the cosmetics than your actual skill. Bravo that’s an amazing job

I do belive that it works well with the gun boats aswell.

8 Is greater than 4 but it doesn't matter when their sniper has 14k hours into the game and is a sniper main popping your head before you even decided to shoot a rocket under you to rocket jump.

The Airstrike for the most part is decent weapon in my opinion. Though I think I would add an alt-fire to fire a cluster of your rockets. Also the Base Jumper can act as “training wheels” for someone like me who doesn’t rocket jump much as a Soldier.

you forgot one *tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny* bit of info there: WILE you rocket jump, the blast radius from your rockets is again 20% smaller, making the blast radius *over all WILE youre in the air 33% smaller.* This is actually a big "ouchy" for a weapon which is suppost to use from the air and "spam" down rockets. you have to hit them and since they are not faster than stock rockets, literally everything which is not literally "standing still" can easy avoid those rockets. It sounds sad and it sadly is. Its not even that the air strike over all is bad but it feels like it literally "hinders" itself by doing what you *should* do with it. I played a long time with the airstrike and it is a fun weapon but for what it is, i do pref stock or, no joke, the Liberty launcher (because even you didnt understand the LL for how it works~ and yes, the LL is my nr 1 pick on soldier).

Tbh the base jumper should have two parachutes. The main and the reserve. Could give it more viability

finally, a perfectly balanced sidegrade

I would make it edible. Yeah, I don't really have any better ideas- It's a neat weapon tho, definitely fun when used right.

It definately needs something like 30% rocket jump dmg decrease.

The Liberty Launcher isn't bad, you're bad

And then there is me, who uses the air strike on ground with conch or shotguns, the air strike always felt fun for me whenever the situation, good video and explanation, i think the ammo holding increase per kill could be fine. Also i niticed the sonic heroes and hat in time music, good choices.

I love the Air Strike, but I am FAR to inexperienced to use it effectively lmao

Beggars bazooka is the true air strike

A good rework for the air strike is to have a damage increase while only in the air. Knockback's don't count.

Why would you be doing a roll out from spawn while already having been at the front to secure those kills though?

The intro feels like rise of the epic scout and it's so nostalgic

Rocket jump. Barrage. Land with mantreads and/or market gardener

man, I still stuck at rocket jumping... dont play soldier much though so cant really talk..... still learning flare jumping with the detinator though

Here’s a request, for your next video why not talk about the cowmangler? I barely see anyone talk about that launcher anymore.

I miss the good old days when the liberty launcher was good. it wasn't the best but had 1 less rocket instead of dealing less damage and you know what, I liked it. now its the worst rocket launcher but I still like it just for design. oh wait what were we talking about again? ah yes the air strike. its good, I wouldn't change a single bit about it. I'm a pyro main tho, I don't play soldier that much.

Revert the base jumper, I don't care how many years its been

0:30 you missed a huge opportunity to recreate the scene from 300 which all the arrow but as air strike rockets. I know he kinda had it later on with the heavy but still. Otherwise good vid

welcome back!

The only thing it needs is a reload speed buff, honestly

this weapon is my first weapon LOL

Bro got the banners mixed up lol

Don't use the Base jumper use the concheror. The rapid fire is a Trap for new player use it like Stock.

Hey, can you make a live commentary of a soilder gameplay? Kinda like "the mind of a heavy" from Big Joey

9:14 Wrench?

I don't CARE that individually an air strike is bad on ground... What if it wasn't individual? If you have anything to say, please take it up with the line of four airstrike soldiers over there, they've all got over 4 kills and aren't even in the air yet! Have fun.

I just use the airstrike and base jumper because... carpet bomb solder go brrrrr. (In MVM.)