Another spaa nerf? why gaijin

Machinery of War Discussion Ground Vehicle
143

Neither APDS removal nor raising its BR will “balance” the Falcon. The problem is not with the vehicle.

The problem is the community screaming that SPAAG kill tanks at all. Yes, I am dead serious. Why? Because current War Thunder gameplay for all gun-armed SPAAG encourages, if not outright requires that SPAAG engage tanks to be considered “effective.”

SPAAGs at any BR can only react to incoming planes and not be proactive against them, as planes can just run away at will. Yet planes know exactly where SPAAGs typically are - cowering in their own spawn. For the average player, SPAAGs are perceived as too weak to move beyond their own spawn unless 1) they can kill tanks easily or 2) they are cap-rushing in a very fast one to get a plane quick. Moving an AA around the map expecting to kill tanks also happens to make said AA more effective vs planes, because your AA is now exactly where CAS do not expect it to be, allowing you to surprise and rip them apart before they can react. But oftentimes, in order to reach such locations, you’re going to have to kill a tank or few in order to secure your position before looking for planes to kill, because nothing attracts enemy tanks faster than seeing an AA’s tracer stream or hearing one firing nearby (“monke SEE free kill” “neuron activation” meme).

Snail has been trying to “balans” SPAAG for years by nerfing their anti-tank capabilities - it hasn’t worked, at all, because it can’t. You aren’t going to make people use a particular vehicle in a particular way by disincentivizing them from using it in any way else, especially when those unconventional ways are being practically demanded by current gameplay. All you get is people either using them wrong (sitting in their own spawn uselessly where CAS expects them to be) or not be played at all.

I firmly believe that it’s overdue to completely reverse course on this issue and force the community to accept it. Because more anti-tank capability nerfs will not fix any problem with SPAAG, and even buffing their ability to swat down planes will have limited impact when they all sit in their damn spawn!

Essentially, I’m proposing giving every SPAAG that is possible to be the “2S38 treatment.” Expect them to hunt tanks. Give them any and all missing rounds to do so. Undo old idiotic nerfs to autocannon APDS, all APCR, SPAAG belt compositions, and SPAAG AP(FS)DS ammo count limits. ALSO enhance their ability to kill aircraft (short-ish range lead markers for ones without radar, actual AA gunsights, etc), and intentionally put them at BRs where them killing tanks is seen as completely and utterly normal.

And if someone complains, ignore them. Because it should be painfully obvious that said people will always find something else to complain about the moment whatever they were doing so with gets butchered, leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces.

8 Likes
144

Yes, giving them better AT performance definitely wouldn’t increase their BR where they’d perform worse against planes, in some cases making them nearly useless.

The clear winner in all of this would be CAS players.

145

no -1
AA with apds and aphe are begin abused and running gameplay.

it does not it instead of killing tanks now you just gonna kill planes

146

Snail has to alter how they consider SPAAGs “balanced.” Current gameplay demands that all gun SPAAGs hunt tanks to reach areas of the map where CAS will want to congregate. Nerfing SPAAGs does not make people start using SPAAGs purely for anti-air work, because CAS players with more than one brain cell avoid going at the enemy spawn where the SPAAG are now all sitting at.

What I am in effect calling for, is heavily rebuffing their anti-tank abilities, and simultaneously lowering their BRs, while telling the people complaining about tankbusting AA to go shove it. And while doing that, also buffing their ability to actually hit planes, which all non-radar AA badly need via some form of aiming help.

If you give them just the aiming assist lead indicator, they will still sit in their own spawns uselessly, and be unable to defend their team against CAS.

Nah, my goal here is to make as many SPAAG as is possible actually fun to play in ways that the average player clearly want to use them. Which is hunting tanks with a side of swatting planes when opportunities arise. Also to make them effective at hunting tanks intentionally in spite of the people complaining about them.

147

No they are not being “abused.”

Current gameplay flaws encourage them to be used as “anti-tank pseudo-IFVs with a side of swatting planes.”

We’ve seen repeated nerfs of SPAAGs for years.
Has it made them any more useful in their anti-air role? No.
Has it made people use them for anti-air more? Also no.
Has it made them get any better at using them for anti-air? Again, no.

In what universe do you or anyone else think that trying the same thing and expecting a different result is going to “fix” this?

I’m currently playing my Falcon, and frankly, it’s not even that good at tank-killing without extreme luck and extreme stupidity on the part of opponents. It’s slower than every single MBT it queues alongside. It has so little armor any casual .50cal spray annihilates it. Even though its closed-top, artillery landing near it hurts it like its open-top. “Shell Shattered” makes its APDS rather unreliable unless the target is perfectly flat-on to you, and with only 53mm pen the APHE relies on buggy exploits to get through most things it runs into unless fighting something particularly thin-skinned.

You and others are over-reacting to the Falcon, and always have been.

3 Likes
148

maybe your play style is wrong others can easily get nukes with it very easy to use.

no i am not i won’t say we.
it’ AA should only have anti air rounds to kill air targets.

149

And what will you go to complain about the moment this proposed change happens? Will you actually be “satisfied,” or will you go ruin something else just because it killed you one too many times?

People like you are why SPAAG anti-tank capabilities should be re-buffed, and your screaming afterwards ignored intentionally out of spite.

Seems entirely down to luck when every single common opponent is faster and better-armored than you are. If you don’t just so happen to stumble upon an unaware person at very short range who is completely flat-on to you, forget even trying to pen him.

1 Like
150

i won’t complain that’s just my personal take it’s not fun at all to face these AA i saw ton and ton of people going around with AA and after they die they just leave and not only APDS all AA need to get there APHE rounds to be removed as example the flakpanzer 341 you can get nukes with easily !

but i also think gajin should remove SP cost for spawning these AA and give double rewards if they remove these ammo types.

and many people don’t use AA to kill planes and just focus on ground targets that’s from personal experiences in last years

151

Make the BR even HIGHER? So the spaa will be totally useless against CAS?
And the gap for UK spaa will go from 5.3 to … what?

Here’s a suggestion: If you want to destroy tanks, go play an MBT or SPG.

152

You really, really, do not seem to get how gun AA are expected to actually function.

To actually hit planes reliably prior to acquiring radars and extremely high-velocity guns, you need to be quite close. This requires moving outside of your own spawn and finding a good location to look up at potential planes.

Except average players will not move outside their own spawn if the AA in question cannot reliably kill tanks. Even radar-armed ones.

As a result, you in your MBT get slaughtered by CAS even though your team had AA.

Which is more important to you - CAS having working counters or SPAAG occasionally being rather annoying via track & barrel torture? Personally I care more about the former, as the latter’s solution is to change how barrel damage works, not nerf antitank capabilities of AA.

1 Like
153

Better yet - undo every. single. nerf. that all gun SPAAGs have had to their anti-tank capabilities.

Then intentionally lower their BRs, with the publicly-stated threat to lower their BRs more the more people scream about them.

Current gameplay will always encourage AAs to hunt tanks, unless you change the maps and objectives, this is always going to be the case. Hence why I personally think AAs hunting tanks is the far lesser of all the potential evils, and should be encouraged instead of vilified. Snail has tried vilifying them for years - and it has not worked at all in solving whatever problems were meant to be solved by doing so, like making them go shoot at planes. Rather instead people still continue to use them incorrectly and drag their teams down, if they even use them at all anymore.

1 Like
154

Buffing SPAA might force them to be used purely for AT, as their flying enemies might just get too strong because of the BR increase. ZSU-57-2 is a clear example of how an AA can get practically useless at anti-air because of it’s AT performance that inflated it’s BR.

This is pure nonsense and isn’t happening.

Buffing vehicles outright across the board and then lowering their BRs will make them fun to play.
Who would’ve thought, you must be a genius.

Yeah sorry, but this is pure lunatic take.

1 Like
155

i still disagree.
a solution is adding another AA with radar maybe from south Africa or UK if they still have more AA could be added.

156

And yet it needs to happen - sometimes people complaining about something need to be kindly told to go shove it. Because those same people will always find something else to complain about while the rest of us pick up the pieces left behind by their fake victimhood.

And that is why they need AT rebuffs alongside AA ability buffs AND intentional (spiteful) BR decreases, with the public threat to lower them more the more people scream.

If people can accept bombers being useless baggage in Air RB, they can be made to accept SPAAG killing tanks.

It really isn’t. It’s just like the CAS debate over the years when you think about it - all the weaponry nerfs in the world do not fix any of the structural problems with how CAS is implemented and what it is expected to go and do.

Nerfing SPAAG AT is not going to make people go sit there bored out of their mind hoping a plane shows up. The problems are maps being too small and cramped which allow AA to get to spitting distance in the first place, globally overperforming APHE rounds on all tanks (which these same screamers voted against nerfing), and more broadly CAS implementation in general giving them not all that much to shoot at a lot of the time.

You listen to a schizophrenic community, you get a completely messed-up nonsense game. Hence why I have settled on the following:

Fuck over the people doing the complaining intentionally opposite to what they are demanding, and ignore them afterwards. Eventually after crying themselves to sleep they will grow a set and adapt, or go demanding a counter if a good one doesn’t exist already.

2 Likes
157

Unless the gun has a 4km effective range and radar to match, it’s not going to mean anything at all. And a gun that potent will be placed at a BR where it is unable to be effective half the time like the M247 is.

Even the 8.0-8.3 radar AAs have fairly short effective ranges on their guns when planes aren’t cruising in a line, which requires them to move outside their own spawns. And why do they move outside their own spawns? Because they have some decent AT ability. Take that away and they all sit uselessly in spawns dragging teams down the toilet.

2 Likes
158

True, gaijin, please put za35 at 6.0 and when hellcat players start complaining, just say “nuh uh skill issue cry more”

159

screw this thing

remove its SAP as well and make into a real AA

160

Whining that a 30mm Autocannon can rip through a lightly armored sideplate is silly beyond belief. It shouldn’t be surprising that your side on early MBT is gonna get torn apart by an Anti-Aircraft cannon; you got flanked and should be punished.

The Falcon is strong, no doubt, but I swear people treat it like the boogieman. It’s practically made of cardboard and still slow for its weight, so just shoot the damn thing anywhere. There are significantly more problematic SPAA than the Falcon, such as the Gepard and ItPsV.

All whining about the Falcon does in 2026 is show people that you rush SPAA, thinking they’re a free kill, or get mad when you’re ambushed or flanked. Just get better and stop blaming 30mm APDS. I haven’t even died to a falcon in actual years.

6 Likes
161

Not to be a dick or anything, but this is 100% your own fault. You like to play lightly armored tanks at that BR. The Leopard, Type 74, XM-1, Type 87, and such are obviously going to get melted easily when shot at, so the fact you’re complaining about not tanking autocannons is ridiculous.

I love the Type 74 and all, but if I get caught on the side by an autocannon and die, that’s my own fault. I don’t come on the forums and cry about 30mm APDS being OP because it can kill my Type 74 side on. Hell, even if it kills me frontally, I still understand that it’s a 30mm autocannon and I’m a tank built with mobility as my armor, not steel.

Once again, I’m not here to statshame, but you don’t exactly have the best KD across your WarThunder career. As a result, calling something OP doesn’t matter much, since you don’t know how to truly judge it. Your initial treatment of the original poster doesn’t make your point more valid, either.

It’s okay to not be the best player in the game, but you’re being hotheaded when you don’t have ground to stand on here. You can obviously tell people how you feel, but aggression just makes you look desperate to have a Deus Ex Machina.

162

You have played the Falcon and only maintain a 1.25KD in it. If it’s OP, why is your KD not better?

Could it be that it’s extremely situational?

From my experience with the vehicle, and while maintaining nearly a 1.5KD in it, I find the vehicle useful purely when enemies rush around corners without thinking or when a horde of light tanks needs to be stopped. While it is true that the vehicle was initially very OP years ago, it has long been increased in BR, belt nerfed, and power crept by other additions.

3 Likes