Vasari counter to strike craft

[Magistar]

I have never played a lot of Vasari. What is a good counter to strike craft? I often run into enemies that have like 260 bombers. But my strike craft are only bombers, not fighters. Currenly I construct opressors. The tiny ships die too quickly. Any other suggestions how to deal with 260 bombers?

[Commisar Jon Fuklaw]

The counter is to kill the enemy's carriers. That kills the bombers.

Oppressors, while a strict upgrade over Skirmishers, will not provide enough PD in an unmodded game against extreme amounts of strikecraft, though a significant blob of them will eat through TEC and especially Advent strikecraft. They are, however, quite good at killing light carriers, which gets rid of the problem directly. Then again, so are Kanraks.

The only hard counter Vasari have to strikecraft swarms in the Vorastra titan, which can kill infinite numbers of strikecraft by jumping onto them, but that's late game and Loyalist (Exodus) only.

[Nongenti]

According to an interview on gamerrant, the free update on tge end of March is planned to add fighters and a PD frigate for vasari.

[Zindai]

Best bet is to use you ships ridiculous tanking/regen ability and just gun for the carriers.
Vassari have arguably the best ships in the game due to their survivability. Be proactive with them.

[Nightskies]

Adding to Zindal and Fuklaw, don't just counter their ships based on your firepower, but theirs too.

Oppressors will be the go-to against mass fighters, as their durability and firepower is better against bombers and their carriers. Naturally.

But if the enemy has a bunch of anti-cruiser and little or no anti-frigate, Skirmishers might be better. And if they are Vasari with lots of bombers, the Defensor and Raider might do better too. Pay attention to what the enemy is good at killing, and don't build that.

[K]

Defensors and skirmishers. Oppressors I think are too expensive and they themselves are countered by bombers. Meanwhile, bomber DPS are wasted on skirmishers, so if you just charge them into their carriers, you should get a better trade out of it. Defensors I think are decent second choice.

[Brave Sir Robin]

Originally posted by Nongenti:

According to an interview on gamerrant, the free update on tge end of March is planned to add fighters and a PD frigate for vasari.

I hope they are also going to rebalance the Advent PD to be cheaper and lower tier. Advent vs Vasari is just an awful matchup right now.

[Tetriandoch]

Originally posted by Nongenti:

According to an interview on gamerrant, the free update on tge end of March is planned to add fighters and a PD frigate for vasari.

Interesting, are they gonna rework the Defensor or will it get removed outright?

[Nightskies]

Originally posted by K:

Defensors and skirmishers. Oppressors I think are too expensive and they themselves are countered by bombers. Meanwhile, bomber DPS are wasted on skirmishers, so if you just charge them into their carriers, you should get a better trade out of it. Defensors I think are decent second choice.

If its a human player or Vasari going strikecraft, yes, there is some merit in that, but AI uses more fighters than bombers. Which counters corvettes. Also, while bombers are much better against mid durability targets than fighters, they're still getting a lot of mitigation against capitals and heavy cruisers.

By the base numbers against bombers, the Skirmisher has 252 effective HP per supply point, while the Oppressor gets 301 effective HP. The Oppressor matches the Skirmisher's DPS- and then some with its PD weapon- and are much better recipients of single target buffs (particularly the Skirantra's Nanite Armor).

That is to say that purely against bombers, Oppressors are undoubtably better than Skirmishers. Skirmishers are better if the enemy has other ships good against heavy cruisers, like a bunch of battleships or Kalevs or Illuminators.

[K]

Originally posted by Nightskies:

Originally posted by K:

Defensors and skirmishers. Oppressors I think are too expensive and they themselves are countered by bombers. Meanwhile, bomber DPS are wasted on skirmishers, so if you just charge them into their carriers, you should get a better trade out of it. Defensors I think are decent second choice.

If its a human player or Vasari going strikecraft, yes, there is some merit in that, but AI uses more fighters than bombers. Which counters corvettes. Also, while bombers are much better against mid durability targets than fighters, they're still getting a lot of mitigation against capitals and heavy cruisers.

By the base numbers against bombers, the Skirmisher has 252 effective HP per supply point, while the Oppressor gets 301 effective HP. The Oppressor matches the Skirmisher's DPS- and then some with its PD weapon- and are much better recipients of single target buffs (particularly the Skirantra's Nanite Armor).

That is to say that purely against bombers, Oppressors are undoubtably better than Skirmishers. Skirmishers are better if the enemy has other ships good against heavy cruisers, like a bunch of battleships or Kalevs or Illuminators.

Skirmishers are faster, much easier to replace, and require no research. Oppressors are worth a lot more each and a bigger threat. I think bombers will be pretty happy taking out Oppressors than having to deal with Skirmishers when they could be sniping capitals or carriers. Also bombers could be killing Assailants as well.

[Commisar Jon Fuklaw]

Originally posted by K:

snip

Due to how pierce vs durability works, you need nearly half a dozen skirmishers per oppressor to tank a similar amount of damage from bombers, despite oppressors not having a massively larger health pool. Likewise, an equal fleet supply of oppressors will kill most things quicker than skirmishers. This includes carriers.

Yes, each oppressor lost is more expensive than each skirmisher lost, but it takes more to kill them and they do more damage while alive. They perform the exact same role as skirmishers and do better at it. If you are military 3 and can afford the crystal cost, there's not much excuse to avoid using them.

[Malloc]

I, so far, have found that micro-ing carrier targets with massed phase-missile volleys works best for me.
Jarrasul Evacuators are also usefull as anti massed soft targets support with their Subspace Rupture ability and PD pulse guns. I sometimes mix them with my Vulkoras Desolator and Ravastra Skirmisher carrier hunter fleets.
It also helps to have some massed forces of your own, since Sins fighter and bomber squadrons tend to hive-up onto single targets, spending the same amount of attacks on frigates as they would on capships, effectively wasting that firepower.