The Strela problem in Arcade needs to be addressed

Game Discussion Arcade Battle
1

In Ground Arcade Battles,the Strela-10M2 is objectively the best SPAA in the game for its ability to instantly lock and kill any jet or helicopter flying into the air.

It has the second highest KD of every top tier SPAA (not factoring rarely played SPAA like the SAMP or the HQ11),just behind the newly added Pantsir SM-SV. Here are the proof:

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Note that the only non-USSR SPAA that comes close is the Type 81(C) which is also extremely strong but it’s somewhat manageable. In short,an 11.0 SPAA is more effective at killing air vehicles than a 12.0 SPAA which in GRB simply wreaks havoc.

What are the reasons of the Strela being so powerful?

  1. Its IRCCM,coupled with the photocontrast mode is literally the strongest in the game,to the point of it being able to front aspect lock an aircraft going cold,spamming heavy flares and spamming rockets in front of it and still being able to connect. You can do all of that and even hard maneuver to make the missile lose some of its energy and you’ll defeat it less than 10% of the time.

  2. Despite having the same visibility as vehicles like the Pantsir S1/SM-SV (250%),or having a higher visibility than stuff like the BUK (214%),it is always harder to spot it in time before it launches a missile, meaning that the player using it will always have the upper hand

  3. There is no standoff option for planes nor helicopters to deal with the Strela in Ground Air Events: with jets you typically spawn 5-6 km away and have either unguided rockets or unguided bombs,while helicopter spawn at 4km max and have ATGMs,but they’re still in close proximity to the Strela. This also creates the problem that the missile has simply too much energy in order to be defeated properly.

  4. It can shoot on the move,which is a thing every IR missile carrier can do,but coupled with all the points above this mechanic makes the Strela able to evade the few munitions that are able to land near it.

  5. It is able to ignore the LDIRCM mounted on the Mi-28NM and the Ka-52 for some obscure reason, which is something that no other IR missile can do either in GAB or in GRB

All these reasons create the result of people playing this vehicle and then ignoring all the other SPAA present after it, which makes sense logically: why do i need to even research the 2S6 and the Pantsir if they’re worse than the Strela in Arcade? It defeats the purpose of grind entirely.

The efficiency discrepancy between GAB and GRB is a bottomless pit in this case: in GRB the Strela sits at 10.3 and it’s not that good simply because it doesn’t have a radar so it can’t properly see incoming aircraft,and at that BR you start facing guided munitions that could make your missiles useless. This is translated to its poor KD which is several times lower that its GAB counterpart

What are the solution to this problem?

You can’t raise its BR because it is already brought into top tier super regularly,and you can’t remove the possibility to shoot on the move because it’s not the problem.

You can’t remove its IRCCM in Arcade because as far as I know,no munitions are gimped in Arcade compared to Realistic.

The only solutions are to either add stand-off weapons to events aircraft,or rework the missile entirely and thus making the Strela more ineffective at GRB as a countereffect.

2

I’ve seen enough, these are rookie numbers.

Add another top tier Russian AA

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Ironically Gaijin forgot to see,when adding the SM-SV,that in Arcade the Strela beats even the Pantsir at top tier.

They should’ve simply moved the Strela to 12.7 lol, considering its 20th century seeker is stronger than the IRIS-T which is just a couple years old.

4

The only way to solve this problem is adding another russian SPAA which is even better so that strela is not in the top 2 anymore but it becomes top 3 instead

problem with this thing is that missile is too fast and goes in a straight line, im not sure if its actually 700m/s it seems faster like 1000/ms bcoz HQ17 which is 885 m/s falls behind everytime even with direct fire mode, the missile cant also be tracked to be destroyed with AHEAD and is simply way too fast to be intercepted by other missile as it’ll simply outperform and ignore it, i also noticed that it always gets the first shot as it didnt had any target lock problem as many other SPAA do even at the same tier or above

if you compare it to the Antelope which is not even 1 whole br below the difference is abysmal, its odd

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Yeah i noticed that too,sometimes it’s even faster than the ADATS. And yes it can’t be intercepted by anything on the ground

That’s because Gaijin messed up the code for this vehicle in order to super gimp it. The seeker head has a 1° FOV with a 40° gimbal limit and 20°/s scan rate,which already is something ludicrously unrealistical considering it is better at maneuvering as the R-73 which has Thrust Vectoring. Moreover,has a form of IRCCM it has FOV,meaning it simply uses its small FOV to ignore flares that are typically seen from behind or laterally of an aircraft.

The problem resides in the fact that,according to all of these info,the easiest way to avoid the missile is to go towards it,spam rockets and then hard evade: the missile considers the rockets as your IR fingerprint and follows that,and it will not go for you because the 1° FOV will prevent that. But no,even if you do that the missile will catch you instead of the missiles

It also has an alternative TV tracker,but the problem persists: Optical Detection uses the cross section to ignore stuff like flares,but if i create a cloud of fire between me and the missile,the contrast seeker is blinded. In the game this does not happen and you’ll end up with more advanced missiles (like the Stinger or the Antelope or even the FB10) to eat flares or rockets

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yea this thing is odd, when you play tanks its not as noticeable but when you play another anti air besides a teammate who’s playing it theres something that feels off, and i have a similar feeling with the pantsir SM-SV in the other hand the regular pantsir seems to be decent and reliable but not in an overpowered way, its just strong, dunno maybe with the last example of the two pantsir its my idea but thats what i think

arcade is poorly balanced in my opinion for the aircraft/coopter/spaa, specially the spawns.