You realise you can first spawn SPAA right
So what about ground main that plays just tanks?
Your suggestion is not to „aim up” but „spawn only SPAA”
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So everyone should first spawn SPAA then? Since then CAS won’t be a problem surely
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Thats fine
Also not what I mean
Not what I mean.
The reason you all are complaining about the CAS problem is because people dont play the game right. Ground battles is a MIXED BATTLES gamemode. It was designed and made to be as such. You cant play Air RB and complain that someone shot you down can you?
If your team can’t adapt then thats not my fault. Yes getting bombed sucks, too bad should have had better SPAA. Getting schwacked by SPAA from 5 KMs away sucks too. Sucks for me that the enemy knew what he was doing / got a lucky shot. SPAA is overpowered ESPECIALLY AT LOW BRs because there’s nothing a CAS player can do about one. “Just use missiles” doesnt work at low BRs because there are none. The SPAA can shoot at you endlessly without any fear of being attacked. The second you commit to an attack on an SPAA you’re a sitting duck. It shouldn’t take 3 aircraft to kill one SPAA. Such is life.
If you’re going to complain about CAS because it’s untouchable then you’re complaining about the T-95 because you cant figure out how to kill it, despite it being rhe worst TD in the game.
I disagree with the notion that low BR spaa is OP vehemently most of the time they don’t move out of their spawn and don’t have the range to cover the actual battlefield effectivly.
It may be anecdotal but one of my favourite CAS aircraft is the tempest (Vickers P). The only time I die to SPAA is if I try to go after them directly. Other than that they’re comically easy to just avoid.
Edit: And before you say this is an “SPAA skill issue” they cannot move forward to cover the main battlefield without extreme risk to their own vehicles from tanks. They cannot keep an eye out on both the sky and ground at the same time, especially when optimal positioning to deal with either vehicle type is different
Im still making proper answer to the previous response (dont worry its coming) but I do find it funny youre saying this to ULQ_LOVER, considering how well he plays low tier CAS.
I mean you can say that but thats really more of a low tier player issue. Take the Staghound for example, 2x .50 cals that shred low tier aircraft theyre high velocity and easy to aim. People just dont know how to use it.
I tried it out once. Strafed a Hellcat 8 times before I got obliterated by an American Spitfire
I wont comment then because I love playing SPAA and I advance all the time. I love getting into ratty spots and blasting the enemy aircraft out the sky
I dont know anything about them lmao. At the end of the day as long as we’re all having fun we can all have our own opinions. We know that gaijin just wants to spite everyone. Stona, for legal reasons this is a joke
Let me put it this way - If you two were to have duel, with you in supposedly OP SPAA and him in CAS, id bet real money on him.
I mean yes but I also have a skill issue lmao.
The exact same excuse is levied every time by CAS players.
‘Get Good’.
SPAA requires - outside of high tier - vastly more skill to execute effectively than the majority of CAS weapon platforms. That is a massive balancing issue. That is especially true at low to mid tier.
No - you are not some skilled god at this game unless you are playing like Spookston, Phly, Oddbawz or others.
Skill floor/ceiling matters for weapon systems in terms of their playability if you are looking for number sustainment in any game. We are currently at the point where CAS outweighs most SPAA heavily in this regard.
Long term trends based on similar instances(WoT for example with arty) indicate this is going to incur a player loss if it hasn’t already. It needs to be addressed.
I think CAS players need a skill floor like SPAA are routinely subjected too. I see regularly players using CAS as a COD kill streak reward - rather than the tactical/strategic application it should be.
To me this indicates that CAS is not balanced correctly in some instances. It needs to be more difficult to acquire and use, or SPAA needs to be more effective on average in countering.
The average to above average player experience here needs to be the baseline. That is the best element to balance around. That clearly shows in many cases CAS is not being sufficiently checked.
As I stated to Pangolin Fan when he tried this argument - this isn’t Top Gun. Go play ARB if you want that experience.
If we’re discussing GRB then something needs to be done.
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You’re missing my point entirely
When have I ever said I was anything better than average.
CAS has been around for over 10 years the number of players have grown substantially. Over twice the concurrent player amounts in 5 years
And what should it be like
This isn’t Fury. This is mixed battles. Go play custom battles if you want that experience.
No, I’m not missing your point.
It’s the same CAS deserves privilege and a lack of skill argument vs SPAA that most CAS players levy.
Watch the history of WoT, then tell me that unbalanced indirect fire isn’t going to drag down the player base long term. It absolutely will. Wot’s player count today is less than 20k versus what it started with. This will be WT’s end result without addressing this issue.
I already indicated what it should be like. Deflect more because your bias outweighs your logic.
I’m aware this is mixed battles. That doesn’t mean you are pirouetting in your chosen aircraft over the battlefield in your dismal attempts to be the Red Baron. That means its a somewhat balanced and enjoyable experience for us all. Not just Air players trying to run from ARB.
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It is what You mean.
You can’t just „aim up”, You have to spawn SPAA not a tank.
Doesn’t change anything when talking about balance.
So Again not „aim up” but „be in a good team”.
Sorry but that is just skill issue at Your part.
My stats in CAS like Yak-9K/UT or F4U-4B proves that.
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GRB might be mixed battles, but in low to mid tiers there is an imbalance of power between ground units and CAS - even when spaa are selected. You realize there are more than a few nations lacking decent spaa at multiple ranks, right?
It’s also not a role-playing game and barely a team game. So, since using a vehicle like a tank which gives better chance at killing other ground units and survivability to move forward and Cap, players will always choose tanks over spaa.
You don’t need to be much of “team” to cap, die and jump into an air unit so that you can now dominate ground units and pump up your score. Which is what a lot of CAS players do - even at the expense of their team, which might be losing because there’s not enough ground units to hold the Caps. Some really dumb-ass players will jump into a plane when the team already has 3 planes in the sky, and zero caps.
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0.38 air kills per spawn does not seem like a vehicle that can “shred low tier aircraft”.
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There are SPAA mains at higher BRs but there are very few that do that. Realistically the only good SPAA for tanks/CAS is the OTOMATIC.
“I am not willing to play the counter to CAS, why can’t i do anything about it, this is so unfair”
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„In order to play a tank and have a change against the air You can’t play tanks”
Pure Genius
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You are free to play other games if you don’t like the mechanics.
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What you’re describing is a classic false equivalence fallacy.
You’re treating two situations as if they were comparable, when in reality they operate on completely different levels of impact they have on the game and aviable counterplay.
A short, 15ish second spawn protection window for SPAAs and tanks is not even remotely comparable to the broader issue of CAS dominance over ground vehicles.
The SPAA “invulnerability” is temporary and predictable. Hell, when in CAS plane, all you have to do is wait a few seconds before engaging. That’s it - no resource cost, no strategic tradeoff, no meaningful limitation.
In contrast, when a tank is being targeted by CAS, it usually has no effective counterplay whatsoever. The vast majority of tanks cannot meaningfully engage aircraft. Even those with commander MGs can only effectively engage aircraft up to certain distance, and beyond that theyre just announcing with their tracers “HEY IM HERE”. Not to mention relatively limited firing arcs of those MGs. Not to mention that single 7.62mm wont likely do diddly squat to an aircraft most of the time. What options tankers have?
- hope that friendly spawns SPAA or CAP plane (and i hopefully dont need to explain how relying on average warthunder player to cover your back is terrible idea)
- Jout of a tank and respawn as SPAA, wasting the tank spawn and SP, only to end up with vehicle with inferior tank fighting capability
- Jout of a tank and respawn in a plane, wasting the tank spawn and SP. at least now you can do something i guess, but youre out of luck if you need to capture a point.
Until anything of the above happens, the plane is effectively untouchable.
That alone already breaks the comparison.
It gets worse when you look at what happens after the spawn protection expires. Most SPAA are extremely fragile, short burst from aircraft cannons or even machine guns is often enough to incapacitate the crew, especially the gunner, leaving the vehicle defenseless. Meanwhile, CAS aircraft retain the initiative, speed, and engagement control at all times.
And at lower tiers, especially in WWII lineups, against things like Pe-8s, the imbalance is even more obvious as SPAAs simply lack the range, firepower, or tracking capability to deal with high-altitude bombers, which don’t even need to enter effective SPAA range to deliver their payloads.
So no, this is not “the same situation” in reverse. One is a brief safety buffer to prevent spawn camping, the other is a systemic lack of counterplay for an entire class of vehicles.
There’s also a deeper layer to this imbalance that makes the comparison even less defensible: CAS doesn’t just counter mistakes - it actively punishes good play.
A skilled player who wins a ground engagement should, in principle, be rewarded with initiative and map control. Instead, that success often puts them at greater risk. By destroying an opponent, they effectively hand that player the opportunity to respawn into CAS—assuming said opponent earned enough spawn points.
At that moment, the dynamic flips in a way that has no real equivalent on the SPAA side. The less successful player now gets to dictate the terms of the next engagement simply by choosing what to spawn. The better player, who just outplayed them, is reduced to purely reactive gameplay. Due to fog of war, the better player cannot even make an informed decision until opponent already spawned and is close enough to be detected.
Yes, the skilled player could immediately leave their tank after the kill and try to anticipate a CAS respawn, but what does that achieve? At best, it results in a mutual loss of vehicles, completely negating the advantage they just earned through superior play.
This points to a broader issue with the SP economy - it systematically favors teams that can field more CAS, not necessarily teams that play ground combat better.
Over time, this erodes the agency of strong ground players, they lose the ability to reliably convert skill into sustained impact on the match. The game shifts away from rewarding better play, and toward opportunistic punishment in a sense of catching a good player off guard and dropping a bomb on them.
That’s not a symmetrical interaction, and it’s certainly not comparable to a short, predictable spawn protection window for SPAA. It’s a structural imbalance that changes what “playing well” even means within the mode.
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