LET Flak Worthiness.

[[Ninja-7]]

Just to try and spark a debate really. Attack dogs aside, what LET flak is worth keeping around in an alliance setting. Most advice you see in help posts says to mass your primary units, but is there any merit in using units such as:

VD
Privates
Autos
Humvees
Marines (obviously there is, but for completeness)
Werewolves
Gargoyles
Skeletons

And why? For my money I wonder why you don't see more VD or Autos about especially. Their survivability/cost ratio is really good. Humvees too. I know you need a massive numerical advantage in your flak to work effectively, so which of these do we think satisfy the cost/benefit ratio?

 

[Cyrus]

VD, Marines and Hummas are very useful

 

[Chris_]

Don't get ed started on private flak

 

[Max]

LET flak only works when you are considering 1 or 2 players working together. The moment you look at a battle that includes lots of players fighting on the same tick (e.g. 3 vs 3) the numbers of lethals involved are already so great that using lethal flak is worthless.

So I think that the answer to your question will be "yes - but only in specific circumstances".

I think the biggest reason to think about buying LET flak is a low eta point of view. If you are an alliance suffering from eta 3 harrier rushes, you might find your Prot-TL players arriving too late. In this situation, having them rush in lots of VDs can be a game changer.

In terms of "usefulness" as lethal flak (which includes eta and cost/survivability) I would rank my top 5 as follows:

1) Dogs (insanely cheap)
2) Golems (surprising health AND health damage)
3) VDs (insanely high health)
4) Humvees (insanely high armour/cost)
5) Autos (surprisingly high health)

In my opinion, naturally.

 

[LuckySports]

I'm not a big fan of lethal flak except in a few situations, most of the time, when someone has lethal flak, they would have been better off spending it on a unit that actually does something.

With that said, I do find these useful..

1. Dogs - very cheap, low eta, and hard to kill. Makes them invaluable in most situations.
2. Marines - These barely count as lethal flak, they do quite a bit of damage, and are stealth. Makes them multi-useful.
3. VD - You can call them lethal flak, but really they munch poms quite nicely last-tick.

 

[Elevnos]

Dogs are not just LET flak, last tick they help a hell of a lot in making sure you get land because of their low initiative and ALL targeting.

 

[timtadams]

My favorite would probably be golems. Not only can they absorb a heap of damage, but they rape gardener flak well. Though they are kind of sacrificial they tend to do well in the typical battle of approx 4 v 4.

Privates would be useless in an alliance as flak, but for solo striker they can work rather well, especially in the absence of Marines.

Of course dogs are wicked flak as that's their point, but they pack a hell of a bite last tick.

I couldn't really rank them as it's like comparing apples with oranges.

 

[Franny]

werewolves are awesome against any rush...

 

[Elevnos]

Autos are generally not used because PA are much better in many ways. They kill better, scare off attacks better, etc.
Other robo routes ofc use Shields and Nanos, both of which are very effective (Shields very hard to kill and cheap in comparison to the rest of the route, Nanos have quite a bit of both HP and AP and are a lot more fun to use).

While Autos can be good LET flak, they're not needed that much because of PAs.

 

[Garrett2]

you shouldn't be using autos as flak. that money should be spent on more pa and cw.

hummers are great to help with that pesky sa rush. ig's are decent in a fair amount of situations. if you don't have hummers then jeeps work.

even tho hummers are armour - you can deter smaller harrier rushes because the targetting will be messed up (if you have enough hummers) and so the intended bounty gain would be minimized, plus the other persons units (presumably the cw which munch munch munch the paper planes IF they get to fire) will be able to obliterate pesky harrier rusher long enough for you both to rebuild whatever losses happen.

 

[Dimitar]

Jeeps and trex.

 

[Twigley]

I've always hated using let flak in alliance play.

Marines are epic though.

 

[Stargazer]

Really seen how amazing dogs are recently,why do ally route set ups not include like 5 dogs players?

 

[Twigley]

Then youre just flakking dogs with dogs half the time.

 

[Stargazer]

Not if you have them in the correct time zones surely?Also why no mention to witchs as banging health flak?

 

[Dimitar]

I've always hated using let flak in alliance play.

Marines are epic though.

This. Only dogs are really useful. And marines for deterring rushes on the striker players. Anything else is too expensive to be good flak. If your flak isn't more than the unit it's flakking, it's pointless imo.

 

[Iamsmart]

marines are probably the most cost effective unit in the game and the best LET flak (other than dogs) and I'd still never buy any unless I had already won the round. Solo play is a different story, humvee's/shields/IG's/marines/PA's/jeeps/privates all have their relative essential uses (in my solo play style, anyways).

Having 1 attack dog is essential, 2 is best, 3-4 you have to be willing to not have any PB players which is fine if you can get past the ~2 days of early weakness (risky depending on the alliance).

 

[flameharvester]

In ... Fashionably late after everyone but me and tiger were zeroed (when we lost rank1) jeeps as let flak were essential to my survival and therefore my ability to defend.

I am mentioning this just to point out that in alliance play it depends on the situation. There is really no golden rule.

 

[[Ninja-7]]

Have any alliances done well with a flak-focused set-up? As in using probably Robos, Dragons, probably Harriers for AD, in 12 players places, but then have a flak section of say 3 Strikers (Marine heavy) 2 dogs and an RPG with mass humms.

I'm leaving 2 places for the obligatory PoMs here...

Seems survivable enough, problem I can see is rushing of the Flak-massing guys....

 

[Max]

Generally, one-two contactable dog players are really the only LET flak you need tbh, at least that was the case last round on The Boat. No need to have a setup built on it.

Having said that, I've toyed with leading an eta 2 Jeep+Hummer massing alliance before But that's more for novelty value!