How am i supposed to play top tier helis?

[Bismarck852 46]

I admit i bought ka50 but only to grind my beloved mi24s

The experience in top tier battles is honestly beyond horrible.. AA spam, getting gunned down by jets seconds after spawning on airfield and so on and so on.

How am i supposed to evade those AA missiles? No matter what i do, if i flare, chaff nothing ever works, no evasive manouvers work, nothing.. and all they do is spawn, instantly click and lock me and shoot missile that goes as fast as light..

 

I tried to flank, gain altitude, get low as possilbe but there are always tons of AA just boringly sitting thr whole game waiting for me..

So what the hell can i even do as a chopper in top tier battles? And i am not a new guy to top tier just helis but i cant get my head around how easy it is for everyone to shoot down a heli and on the other hand how freaking impossible is to even get into a good firing position without getting radar locked before you even spawn.. 

i just seek advice because this utterly frustrating experience to play top tier helis..

comments like get good, try harder are usefull as a bag of dogcrap 

[richthofen122 1,455]

Same. Your best bet is to fly very low and have something like a forest or hill between you and the battlefield. Also spam countermeasures. 

 

Sadly there is a lot of CAS hate, so nobody will bother with our troubles.

[Voodoo__Ranger 9]

Some timing and luck involved for when you spawn. What you described is how I felt at first as well. 
 

Switch up your tactics and your spawns. Use terrain you can get behind if you need to while you’re flaring. 
 

More missile AA and things like the 2S38 have made things more difficult for sure. 

[Zucc_Boi 656]

1 hour ago, Voodoo__Ranger said:

Some timing and luck involved for when you spawn. What you described is how I felt at first as well. 
 

Switch up your tactics and your spawns. Use terrain you can get behind if you need to while you’re flaring. 
 

More missile AA and things like the 2S38 have made things more difficult for sure. 

Flaring helps vs 2S38's optical tracker?

[Noir89 2,577]

18 hours ago, Bismarck852 said:

i just seek advice because this utterly frustrating experience to play top tier helis..

Watch Hunter, stay in the shadow of AA (not every map is Heli friendly) + the Ka-50 isnt a good premium to get hands on helis in toptier (thermal is too important), except for Heli PVE.

 

The best Helis to learn the game outside of PVE are around 9.7-10.0. At 10.7 without Thermal you face 11.0 AA on regular basis which eat you alive, if you dont have a ton of Experience/Mapknowledge.

 

For the Ka-50 the best bet is Heli PVE and hunting other Helis and subsonic Jets, without getting in sight of any AA. (Taking out AA is task of Jets or Drones anyway, and very hard for Helis in general - outside of vikhr spam - which should be patched - but for that you need to find the AA first and hope its the only one)

[Zucc_Boi 656]

19 hours ago, Bismarck852 said:

I admit i bought ka50 but only to grind my beloved mi24s

The experience in top tier battles is honestly beyond horrible.. AA spam, getting gunned down by jets seconds after spawning on airfield and so on and so on.

How am i supposed to evade those AA missiles? No matter what i do, if i flare, chaff nothing ever works, no evasive manouvers work, nothing.. and all they do is spawn, instantly click and lock me and shoot missile that goes as fast as light..

 

I tried to flank, gain altitude, get low as possilbe but there are always tons of AA just boringly sitting thr whole game waiting for me..

So what the hell can i even do as a chopper in top tier battles? And i am not a new guy to top tier just helis but i cant get my head around how easy it is for everyone to shoot down a heli and on the other hand how freaking impossible is to even get into a good firing position without getting radar locked before you even spawn.. 

i just seek advice because this utterly frustrating experience to play top tier helis..

comments like get good, try harder are usefull as a bag of dogcrap 

AA don't typically go far away from spawn, so when you're doing your thing, try to keep an eye on the enemy spawn. Going low and staying out of sight is not going to help when the AA have search radars. What you could do instead is find some physical obstacles (a hill, a building, a bridge etc) that will eat the missile for you - in case you see one coming. 

 

If you know jets are up, try to not spawn on the closer helipad, as its AA is set to do 0 damage (will fire, but aircraft don't take damage to avoid it shooting down aircraft over the tank map). And in that tone, try to assess the situation before choosing in what to spawn. Many players spawn AA if they know there's an aircraft in the air and will know where to aim right when they spawn, or know not to spawn a heli if there are many enemy jets in the air. Or avoid spawning tanks if there are many enemy aircraft in general.

 

I generally avoid helis in very open maps where hard cover is hard to come by, unless I know where the enemy is generally located and if there are many SPAA.  

[llSolitairell@psn 5,730]

Expect to die horribly if you're rocket rushing, it's scummy but you're better off rushing a cap with a BT-5 to get the spawn points for Vikhrs if you don't actually have a top tier tank to go with the Ka-50

 

Stay as low to the ground as possible - Proximity fuses are coded not to fuse below 25m, only poke above that to spot targets, try not to go above 100m+ because you will have no time to react to a SAM

 

Try to stay 6,000m or more away from the battle - sucks for Hellfires but there's no other way, because again you won't have enough time to react to a SAM and you're putting yourself in danger from MANPADS as you get closer

 

Try to be aware of where the enemy spawns are since most will revenge spawn a SAM if you actually get a kill

 

Vikhrs are dual purpose, they're Tandem ATGMs with an Anti-aircraft proximity fuse, target tracking gives you automatic lead calculation as well, there's a reason you won't get a lot of sympathy with Ka-50/52s/Mi-28NM

 

Be aware of your RWR and where pings are coming from in relation to your helicopter, it's the earliest warning you will get of an enemy jet and AA

[Dashdot_at 81]

On 31/10/2022 at 17:01, llSolitairell@psn said:

Be aware of your RWR and where pings are coming from in relation to your helicopter, it's the earliest warning you will get of an enemy jet and AA

I wanna add, that some AA can switch from radar tracking to IRST tracking. The latter one does not trigger your RWR, so don't get confused when you suddenly receive a missile warning and blow up, without hearing any radar warning - both: radar and radar-lock warning sounds. 

 

So keep in mind, there's always someone watching you, even if you think you're safe. 

[Noir89 2,577]

1 hour ago, Dashdot_at said:

I wanna add, that some AA can switch from radar tracking to IRST tracking

You dont need tracking to hit a helicopter with a SAM, except with Starstreak, you can guide it quite well by yourself even without IRST.

 

So its better to not rely on the information of that nation at a certain BR have or not have access to IRST.

 

In general i have my Radar disabled from the start, and often scan with thermal/non-thermal gunsight, only to turn it on when really needed.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Noir89