Countering Blender Goldfish

[Sonaes]

Hi there!

In my games today we encountered a heavy carronade goldfish with a really good pilot and gunner. Obviously resulting in permanently dead balloons and everything.

It got quite frustrating so we tried different tactics to try and counter it. Last attempt was artemis junker , but i think being on paritian meant that it didnt really work out.

Im wondering if there are any good tips or strategies i should know that help me counter those incredibly annoying ship setups? It doesnt suffer from lacking damage on the small carronades, can literally oneshot your baloon and does enough damage to even get dangerous on the hull.

[Imagine]

Drogue Chute (I think that's how you spell it?) helps quite a lot, minimizes the speed at which you fall.

Pyramidions are also a pretty good choice to take against them as quite often the carro hits will also hit the hull covering the balloon, forcing 3-4 shots from the carro to be shot before the balloon is taken down; given how long the reload time is you can often kill a fish during that time.

Keeping yourself at long range is often an option as well, artemis/hades/light flak is good. Sticking a merc somewhere can also solve your problems, provided you hit the right component with it.

Heavy Carronades also do poorly in vertical arcs, so being above the level of a blenderfish will do wonders.

That having been said, yeah, on Paritan Blenderfish are ruthless. They're also pretty good on Duel at Dawn, ok on Canyons depending on where the fight takes place, but don't really do as well on Fjords or Dunes.

[Omniraptor]

Be a spire with an artemis and lumberjack.

[Dutch Vanya]

Anything that kills them before they bring you down to the ground.

[Kyle Zephyr]

There's very few hard-set counters to things. It's all relative to how good a shot you are and how good the pilots are. It sounds like anything that could effectively disable the carronade would give you the edge you need.

Heavy shot hwacha rounds can do a lot of damage, if you can get an opening against the ship. Hit it from the side or front and you're almost guaranteed to knock out the carronade. Plus, it's got longer range.

On a more open map, lumberjack is also a possibility, but that implies that you don't mind keeping him down from afar. Plus lumberjacks are notoriously difficult to shoot.

Drogue shoot combined with impact bumpers would definitely slow and soften the fall.

As mentioned above, a good merc shot would do the trick as well. If you can get close enough, flamers would also do the trick of disabling the carronade. But in that case you could also use a gatling gun with incendiary rounds. Those all require that the foe not have chem spray up on the foregun, though. So that could be a bit of a problem.

[Crafeksterty]

Continues gattling fire on the front of a godlfish gun is always a good thing.
If you have a Light carronade, 2 heavy clip shots or 1 is enough to take out the heavy gun.
Artemis guns as stated, but not junker. Junker has a big baloon.

Ships that counter it well are squids with carronade and flamer. Your gonna get shot, but you bring them down to a panic.
Spire with a carronade will outgun the goldfish no matter what, make sure to tell the crew to be firing instead of repairing. You can also bring a Lumberjack with arteimis and a hades. Difficult build but works very well. You can also Bring a Hwacha.
Galleon with a set of hwacha and carronade themselves works very well. Not the best but a head start in terms of who sees who first is advantagous.


Dont forget to bring drogue chute on ships you want to stay up while the gunners gun their gun down.
In the end, i fear hwacha fish more than Carrofish because how the carronade forces them to use only the carronade at all times. This limits the goldfish generaly. So ships with good disabling power will always win back.

[IvKir]

To all this i add one more thing. Use terrain and map. Goldfish can kill you balloons only up front, so everything, that can outmaneuver it will have advantage in difficult terrain.

[vyew]

Weaknesses of the Goldfish:
-Exposed balloon
-Flimsy armor
-1 light gun on each side
-No guns behind
-Only 1 front Heavy gun that is very exposed


Weaknesses of the Heavy Carronade:
-Can't shoot down
-Very inaccurate without Heavy Clip and thus effective range is actually less than the maximum range
-Not very long maximum range either
-It's a Heavy gun, so it's easy to hit and takes a while to rebuild


Set up your ship to attack one or more of these weaknesses and you should be fine!
(Easiest way is to take a Pyramidion since the front of its balloon is armored except for some small exposed areas)

[HamsterIV]

Artemi don't shoot upward, so once you have been hit by a carronade they are effectively useless. Gat/Morter is your best bet for fighting your way out of the situation. Both guns have a decent vertical elevation so they can shoot the blender fish once you drop below it's gun arc.

Here is how to handle balloon loss from a blender fish:

Ask your ally for help - A blenderfish is about divide and conquer. It can not score a kill against two ships working together.

Pick your landing spot- The moment you loose balloon, you must  pick where you will make your stand. Ideally it should be a flat piece of ground so your ship will not bounce around too much from ground impacts. If you are feeling confident try and maneuver to a spot where the blenderfish might collide into a level artifact as it follows you in.

Cut your throttle - When you hit the ground (and you will) the more forward momentum you have the more damage your ship will take. lessen the impact by halting lateral movement when you are over a good spot.

Turn gat morter to face the target - self explanatory

Help with repairs and use pilot items to mitigate the dammage- once you are on the ground it is a race to kill your opponent before the ground kills you. You can prolong the race with impact bumpers, drogue chute, or helping with repairs.


Things not to do:
Go full repair - unless you are certain your ally is going to sweep in and save the day have at least one person shooting that blender fish at all times. Knocking out the gun will give you more time and draw enemy engineers off hull repair.

Attempt to lift off the ground - Once you hit the ground you are there untill the blenderfish dies or gets  scared off. Attempting to get altitude will only result in a harder fall back to the ground.  sitting on the ground making minor contact will do less damage over time thanrising up 5-10 meters and crashing back.

Throttle up your ship - horizonal speed while on the ground will increase the damage your ship takes. Moving horizontally should be use only if you are about to get goomba stomped.

[RomanKar]

Snipe the carronade.  That is all.


PS Use Drogue Shute.

[Mysterious Medic]

As someone who flies a blenderfish quite often- the only way to really hard counter a blenderfish is take a pyramidion and don't let the blender get behind you.

[Spud Nick]

A pyramidion with a gat and carroande will counter any Goldfish build. Heavy clip gat will take out the front gun while the carroande works on the balloon. Most pilots will have one engineer repair the hull and shoot the side guns while the other repairs the balloon and engines. With the balloon down and the hull taking damage both engineers will be away from the engines witch means the pilot can't use a lot of engine tool to get away.

[Thomas]

Pyramidion is usually a good counter to any carronade. It should be slightly harder to take out your balloon, giving you a little more time to deal damage. Since they have to get close, you could try something brawly (gat-mortar, gat-flamer, double flamer, gat-carronade, carronade-flamer, etc). Basically you want to deal plenty of damage every time they come in to pop your balloon. Break their armor and make them panic a little. Following up with some explosive damage or disables from flamers/carronades can force them to back off while you repair your balloon damage. And of course drogue chute can slow your descent dramatically, giving you more time to punish them for getting so close.


And of course depending on the map, you can just bring a longer range type ship and kill them before they get close enough in the first place.

[Omniraptor]

The other advantage of pyramidion is high vertical drag, so they fall very slowly.

[Devinstater]

Drogue Chute (I think that's how you spell it?) helps quite a lot, minimizes the speed at which you fall.

Pyramidions are also a pretty good choice to take against them as quite often the carro hits will also hit the hull covering the balloon, forcing 3-4 shots from the carro to be shot before the balloon is taken down; given how long the reload time is you can often kill a fish during that time.

Keeping yourself at long range is often an option as well, artemis/hades/light flak is good. Sticking a merc somewhere can also solve your problems, provided you hit the right component with it.

Heavy Carronades also do poorly in vertical arcs, so being above the level of a blenderfish will do wonders.

That having been said, yeah, on Paritan Blenderfish are ruthless. They're also pretty good on Duel at Dawn, ok on Canyons depending on where the fight takes place, but don't really do as well on Fjords or Dunes.

I am confused by your point about he Heavy Carronades poor vertical arc? They have a very poor down arc but can aim up extremely well. You can avoid it by going underneath the Goldfish, but then you are closer to the ground. If I am missing something please explain.


PS: Glad to see the Fish is finally getting some love.