CAS can’t interact with objectives nor it is mandatory to have before you queue up for a game.
So yeah, I don’t think that CAS was ever a main aspect of GRB.
Those vehicles already exist in the game, you’re just upset more people have access to them now and are able to counter you.
Just be honest with yourself and say you want some cannon fodder to shoot at.
Even though it rarely happened in the past, I have to agree with MotorolaCRO here:
CAS is a support mechanic.
It also wasn’t an integral part of ground battles since 2013, since ground battles were first introduced in 2014.
The free units give all players a somewhat “full” lineup, even if they just own one tank at the BR. We have had years of complaints about one-death-leavers, who only own one premium tank and this mechanic offers some relief.
It also offers an opportunity to all players to help counter CAS.
And,
It takes 2min for helirush to cover the 4km spawn to map distance, not including climbing
4min if one would adjust direction of entry
So yes, corresponds with the fact that friendly cas is already spawned (if any) when helirush reaches the ground map
Are we ignoring imbalance under a balance topic?
So you’re proving CAS needs a 1200 point spawn minimum.
Nice.
So when people had problem with CAS, the solution was to spawn SPAA, but since they are doing it now it is bad?
If more SPAAs casues so much trouble, then spawning it was never the solution to begin with
Agreed, and I think the addition of free high tier SPAA is the single worst thing for ground battles balance since the addition of ammunition boxes a year ago.
Firstly, to describe the general scene of CAS in Ground Battles, or rather a background on player views of CAS.
CAS balance has always been a highly debated topic, but community opinion has always leaned strongly against CAS. This phenomenon is largely attributable not to the actual realities of CAS balancing, but to the intrinsic bias of Ground players in light of their interests. Here’s a relevant graphic from Data Analysis #5 by @Bruce_R1:
This data, which is of July 2025, clearly shows a massive difference between the popularity of Ground modes compared to Air modes. Why is this relevant? Well, the fact that ground vehicles are much more popular than air vehicles means that many players don’t have CAS aircraft at the same tier as the rest of their ground lineup, especially given the large amount of time/effort needed for research progression. Players of high-tier premium tanks, common at high tier, previously lacked SPAA as well.
The result is a large proportion of Ground players with a vested interest in making CAS as weak as possible. Furthermore, having scarcely played or even never used CAS aircraft, their perception of the effectiveness of CAS aircraft is vastly inflated. Player debate is consequently dominated by biased anti-CAS tirades.
Of course, that is not to say that CAS is perfectly balanced or weak overall. But it is important to note that CAS is much weaker than what average player opinion portrays it as. In reality, CAS is somewhat balanced at most BRs, with both areas of strong and weak performance around certain BRs. At high tier, especially top tier, CAS has been sharply decreasing in power since Leviathans update in June 2025. [/color]
The current environment at top tier for the interaction of air and ground forces is hostile to balance. Among SPAAs, effectivness varies, but stays above a good minimum standard. Among aircraft and helicopters, however, the pattern is the opposite: there are a few top performers such as Su-30SM/SM2 and Mi-28NM, but most CAS aircraft here are weak, performing worse than tank spawns. Is the cost of CAS, then, around 10X the cost of SPAA spawns, a balanced figure? Do the hordes of multi-vehicle SPAAs, free SACLOS and IRCCM AAs, and CAP aircraft lead to balanced or dynamic gameplay? I leave this to your judgement.
What is easier:
I couldn’t agree more the Bias Bootlickers spamming 30 Pantsirs in a game is annoying whilst everyone else gets shitty top tier SPAA. Remove the bias
how is it less toxic to leave and not even try to help your team kill CAS??
Because clearly it never was his perogative to let people actually defend themselves against CAS. Just needed something to say to cover his ass.
then:
ground battles
Battles people want to play TANKS on
Look inside
CAS within 30 seconds dominating mid to high tier
Air players: JUST SPAWN SPAA
Now:
Ground battles
CAS within 30 seconds
SPAA is spawned
IMMEDIATELY SHOT DOWN BY SPAA BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS AA
Air players: WAAAAH EVERYONE HAS AA NOW
which one is it?
These people need to just admit that they suck at playing tanks, and dogfighting, and can only achieve some level of rewards through killing people who are looking for threats at ground level.
Bit less malicious than that. Some people want to play the TANK mode in their TANKS.
Not stare at the SKY in their AA.
It’s not like aircraft have a mode dedicated SOLELY FOR PLANES but whenever a ground only mode is mentioned, the air kids IMMEDIATELY try to pull the ‘just spawn AA lol’ or something similar.
Now that everyone has AA available, every single air kid is mad that ground players can fight back with impunity. You literally cannot win.
Damn you sound like the dev, ignoring the players complain of years.
Wrong, it took me 2 minutes to spawn a tank, go capture and then die to spawn a heli with atgms.
And it should take you 20 secs to take off and be in atgm range (3km - 3.75km)
Well what you expect from a helicopter flying high and close to the enemy, to have a healthbar or inmunity? You can at least take 1 or 2 kills before dying what else you want
You wanted combined arms, you get combined arms.
Spawn a tank, take the SPAA out, THEN spawn a plane.
That’s the realistic flow.
Ground never been better than now
Funny, as someone who started with aircraft, I have long proposed something akin to giving people free AAs, but at all BR ranges. Alongside free Fighters and free CAS (with preset loadouts), just like Naval already does, which is where the current free AA feature comes from.
Why?
Because I’m tired of wondering “so when will the next idiotic ordinance nerf arrive because someone screamed too loudly?” I struggle to enjoy aircraft in their own modes because of repeated weaponry nerfs that make it unnecessarily difficult to kill more than a handful of AI ground targets with the majority of aircraft.
I have seen over the many years I’ve played this game that some people will always complain about CAS, no matter what gets changed or not. Hence I arrived at the conclusion that the only way to end the nonsense part of the arguing about it is to go after the people continuing to complain about CAS.
How, you may ask? By force-feeding every user effective SPAAG and Fighter aircraft whether they bring their own or not. Then, even the whiniest people now have effective tools to use by default. If they still choose not to use them, they are no longer able to blame the game for their CAS problems without humiliating themselves in the process. Thus all anti-CAS arguments get starved of support and die like should have ten+ years ago.
Only with the naysayers extinguished, without further appeasement of said naysayers, can we all clearly see the structural problems with CAS and actually fix those. The kill camera. Midair aircraft spawns. Helicopters spawning almost on top of the tank map. Tank maps being too small with awful objectives that keep them that way. Counters overburdened with idiotic nerfs courtesy of other people whining (especially about SPAAG killing tanks). The Spawn Point system in general encouraging abusive tactics and more broadly rendering CAS an unbalanceable powerup. Last but not least the complete and total lack of any non-antitank objective for CAS to do and thereby be a healthy contributor to its own team’s victory. Most people here are unable to see these things due to incessant screaming about “wahhhh CAS OP!!!” from all the children clogging up the forums and burying the intelligent discussions.
By stopping this nonsense, we also end up helping Air RB too. With the talk of this “Aerial Warfare” new mode, how can any objectives of actual substance be considered, let alone developed, if nearly all air-to-ground weaponry is constantly under threat of being screamed into worthlessness? Most of the meat-&-potatoes work aircraft did was ground attack or strategic bombing (severing logistics), with air-to-air acting as an enabler for one or both instead of the current be-all-end-all objective it is in the broken, stale mess known as Air RB.
LMAO no way you’re actually struggling to fight the lvl 23 rocket rush Su-25 prems. That is genuinely insane skill issue like wtf.
You remind me of that guy who called CAS OP cause he died to a B-17
Told you:
Here. We are talking about the same thing. Telling helirush is bad, by comparing it with others.
I would expect a lower SP instead of 300, or the SP trade won’t be fair: Just why not spawn a tank?
Reduced part can be added back to weapon SP ofc.