Did Gyrocopters always feel so bad to use?

[Soji]

It's been a while since i've played dwarfs, but playing with Malakai and i feel life if im not constantly baby sitting this thing it'll just stop what its doing half way through doing it. Click an enemy and if it moves 2 meters from where it was first targeted the thing just stands there and forgets what it was doing. Sometimes even going from point A to B it'll just stop.

Don't particularly remember this being the case before.

[BIG E.]

Yes.

They were like this since the dawn of time.

[Firpo]

they are useless like this

[Alan]

Just started a new dwarf campaign and gyrocopters are definitely a LOT worse than they used to be. They pretty much just refuse to shoot a majority of the time now. They also don't move or turn to follow the enemy they were firing on when you do manage to convince them to attack. They're broken as hell.

[Triple G]

Imho it´s a general problem with WH3. These things weren´t a problem before. Perhaps it´s more visible on some units than on others.

[Aluminum Elite Master]

I find them to vary by type:

Standard gyrocopters are, and always were, kind of bad for actually targeting and following the enemy I select. I don't think it's a new problem (though plenty of new problems do exist with TW:WH3).

Brimstone gyrocopters are relatively decent. They do target accurately as far as I can tell.

*Both* have wonky pathing though. Not sure if it's because of flying over tall terrain, or losing visual on an enemy that enters a forest, but I notice that they won't fly to the target and start attacking if I give the order too far out. Generally I now move them until they enter their attack range, and only then give the attack order, which works most of the time.

[chickabumpbump]

They can also get stuck in an animation loop when shot by arrows, very annoying

[Many-Named]

easy, don't click on enemies, just let the gyro shoot at whatever comes its way, you can also use it to ''range-flank'' enemy formation and yes they are a micro heavy unit but you could try learning the game.

[Farsha]

They are micro intensive units.
But they are only units that need micro on whole dawi roster.
Rest of the army you can put in formation into guard mode and forget that they are there.

Gyros are no much worse that shock cav. Same as them they are pretty strong specially against AI if used correctly.

[HAF DoomsDay]

Since 5.1, Dwarfs in multi-player land battles are dominating with gyrocopter spam.

[AkumulatoR]

Gyros are fine, better than ever in fact. It's the game that's broken and units drop attack orders all the time for stupidest of reasons. CA tried to fix it and failed. That's why things like that babysitter mod exists. It's not perfect solution because you still have to babysit vulnerable units not rushing headlong into combat because their target shattered, but it's better than everyone stopping and just standing there 2 seconds after you look the other way.

[CrUsHeR]

If units stop following orders, then it's probably the Guard Mode doing it.

But yeah they are super micro-intensive units. Try flying them to a spot where they can fire at passing enemies for a while.

[Fendelphi]

Gyrocopters are fine. Better than that even.

1) Make sure that you do not have Skirmish mode on. The standard Gyrocopter has fairly low range, so it will rarely get to shoot against enemies if it tries to avoid them due to Skirmish mode. They also have a fairly narrow cone of fire.

2) The Brimstone variant does not have fire whilst moving, and have even shorter range than the standard version(same narrow cone of fire). So they will have an even harder time of it, depending on your positioning.

3) Make sure you are not blocking your fields of fire by having too many units of Gryocopters stacked ontop of each other. They have 3x the unit count that they used to, so it is easy for them to end up blocking each other.

Currently, they are much stronger than what they used to be.
Better ranged and melee damage output(great for chasing off routing units), while being more vulnerable to losing models(more models, but each model has less health).

[Soji]

i appreciate the tips, I've already given up on Malakai for reason outside of the Gyrocopters feeling unresponsive but maybe somebody else will find these useful in the future.

[Aleera]

Originally posted by Soji:

i appreciate the tips, I've already given up on Malakai for reason outside of the Gyrocopters feeling unresponsive but maybe somebody else will find these useful in the future.

Don't worry, someone else has found gyrocopters usefull since game 1.

[Pönnukaka]

Originally posted by Soji:

i appreciate the tips, I've already given up on Malakai for reason outside of the Gyrocopters feeling unresponsive but maybe somebody else will find these useful in the future.

Few maps tend to bug them out, so they don't shoot. Also, guard mode and/or groups sometimes bugs them so they don't shoot. It's not inherently Gyro-unit problem. It's CA spaghetti code and not fixing bug problem. Just look at what Legend had to experience: https://youtu.be/S-f_FJpqfyg?t=16641 (4:37:45, dunno why it doesn't jump to that time when I click it normally, I pasted it with time)

Notice how units don't shoot, and he has to try multiple solutions to fix it.

If anything, I suggest using Community Bug Fix mod.

I think, even with recent nerfs(5.1) to them, they are amazing units. Micro-intensive, especially against good ranged units and fast melee flyers, but they are able to dominate early game if you make a fast stack and give Malakai and 1-2 engineers hide & stalk. Trollhammer torpedoes are insane if you can manage to stack 2-3 of them per army. They are hard to use at times, but can yield amazing results.