Noobie: Tar cloud, yes or no?

[Macde]

Ello all! As the subject says, I'm relatively new to this game. Started about 2 months ago, level 13 pilot (the main pilot of the crew I fly with.)

We typically fly the squid, one of our favorite ships even before the patch that buffed it. One of my favorite pilot tools to bring is the tar cloud. If somebody is directly behind us, I tar cloud them. If we're retreating and my enemies haven't marked me, I typically throw tar clouds if the engines are in good shape. Occasionally I'll even do offensive maneuvers with it, such as flying top speed past an enemy chasing my teammate and landing the cloud directly on them. I even have a few recorded kills from doing this in my statistics.

However, I barely see anyone else using the item. None of the ships I've fought ever throw tar clouds on me, and the one ship I even saw carrying it threw it purely defensively and never caught me team inside. Is it considered a more skill based weapon which isn't oft seen at low levels such as mine? Is it just bad in general?

[RearAdmiralZill]

All in personal preferences. I haven't used it in a long time, but that's not to say it's useless if used properly.

I don't use it on a squid as the engines are life when it comes to a squid. I try to take minimal means to damage them. Instead I throw mines on the back if I'm running away. That said, I know plenty of other squid pilots that will paint the skies black all day long, thus, personal preference.

[c-ponter]

I rarely play pilot but I can say that being caught in tar Is absolute hell for the engineers, especially if the captain can't get out quickly. As far as I know it is useful but as you say I havnt really seen many lower level pilots use it. From what I can gather with my limited flying experience it is good but often just having another mobility tool is more versatile

[DJ Logicalia]

Tar is one of the most situational tools around. Most ships can't use tar effectively, but the squid is definitely the best ship to use tar on. You sound like you're using it correctly, so keep going.

There are some high level pilots who use tar really well, but it isn't as common as kero or claw. It's a great tool, but most people don't want to sacrifice one of their other tools for it, and those who do can use it well

[Sammy B. T.]

Tar has always been very niche. There was a growing number of users before they totally reworked it. You used to be able to basically tar for free though the damage both to one's own engines and other's components was much lower back then. They then reworked it by making it damage the engines a large amount and compensated by making it damage other ships a whole lot more. While balanced, this put the role in a whole new light as more of a weapon as opposed to the escape mechanism it was previously.

There is a place for it, but its tricky thus the low use. Imbalanced carronades also don't help bu that is another story.

[Ightrril]

In the current patch I've started using tar quite a lot on my Squid, still often when I need to escape or I'm not in a situation where I can use my guns. As I'm sure you're aware it can be very effective if timed right and in the right place. If you find it works for you then keep using it although you might find yourself in some situations where other tools would be more useful (which I think is probably why it's not used much, many people prefer to have Hydrogen to get out of some situations for example).

[Thomas]

Tar is a great tool for a squid, but I generally have a hard time finding a place for it among the other pilot tools I feel are essential. But when you can find a place for it and learn where to position for placing the tar, it can be an amazing tool. An absolute game changer against a lot of opponents.

Tar will mess up engines and guns quite a lot, and do minor damage to the hull and balloon. Enemies will eventually drift out of it, but if you play well you can keep them in the tar almost continually. With the negligible damage it does to the balloon, a lot of people will escape by going up or down to get out. In a squid, you can generally follow them pretty well and tar again, but I might recommend either a flamethrower or carronade as the rear weapon. A carronade will work against everyone, and if they're not chemical sprayed a flamethrower will let you really mess up their ship in a serious way. Even if they are chemical sprayed, the decent damage it does to the balloon and the fact that the engineers have to run around rebuilding and repairing everything increases the chance dramatically that they'll miss a chemical spray cycle. Mines also work on the back, but it's a little harder to aim those when you can't see them.

[Crafeksterty]

I never use tar as i never fly ships that use Tar Well.

Squid-Junker-Pyra i think are the best ships to use Tar with. Squid can use tar in any way, junker uses it for situational offencive purposes, while pyra defencive for escape.
Its just in the manner of choosing it and sacrificing other tools.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Macde if Stamina gets added, you'll see more people using it cause they won't need to bring kero to make squids move at a decent rate. Heck my 1.1 loadout for squid was chute, hydro, tar. I was notorious for tar use and invented tarcide before Muse patched it out. If I could take you back to classic squid, you'd be in tears at how glorious the ship was to fly. It'd fall apart if you spit at it, but so fun. Only advanced pilots ever flew them and those that mastered them were unstoppable.

Tar since 1.2 is very niche. They nerfed the hell out of the Squid's speed and turning. Engines too. If the engines take any damage you lose what little speed you have. The buff is currently it is a good step in the right direction but not enough. I honestly won't fly with it cause the trade off is too great and kero is too important still. Just stick a mine launcher on your rear end and hit the kero. Works better than tar and more viable.

Only hope is that the squid coming back to some of it's former self shows the last holdouts at Muse that people don't like flying brick shithouse turrets.

[Dryykon]

Perhaps it was just random luck, but over the past few days I've seen 5-8 uses of tar by enemy ships. That being said, a only 2 of them were used well. 1 caught our ship, the other allowed the enemy to escape.

I don't pilot much, but I'd rather my captain take other tools.

[Kamoba]

Tar is a difficult tool to use effectively, but used correctly it'll aid a squids escape and add survivability, one skrim last night, Ightrill kept his squid alive the whole match despite taking heavy disable damage, why? His effective tar use, and to add to it, he dropped mines in the tar, making giving chase very difficult!
It is a good tool for fast ships, Squid, Fish and Junkers.
But it is not easy to use effectively, also it can be avoided if your enemy is using trifecta or bifecta on a Pyramidion, Squid, Goldfish or Junker as their angle between you, tar and them is enough that as you whizz away and tar, they naturally go around it, however should the enemy be charging head first, tar them.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Yeah I've used it on Junkers more often. But only on Desert Scrap. If you are against munkers and they are holding the point, just turn around between the clouds and let the tar go. The wind blows it right into the point. Timing it right, you can effectively cripple every ship in the point. However, this is kinda moot now due to the point cap reductions.

Again thats a very niche case. More often you'll find kero more useful all around and the times you'll need tar are times when a vet pilot will just avoid it. You aren't going to catch them in a cloud very easily.

[HamsterIV]

When you are flying a sniper ship and you run out of space to back peddle, a good strategy is to go full throttle forward and try to pass what ever ship is charging you. If you drop some tar as you pass there is a chance you will catch the charging ship in it.  This has a low probability of success, but well worth it if you pull it off right.

[Kamoba]

When you are flying a sniper ship and you run out of space to back peddle, a good strategy is to go full throttle forward and try to pass what ever ship is charging you. If you drop some tar as you pass there is a chance you will catch the charging ship in it.  This has a low probability of success, but well worth it if you pull it off right.

Add a trade winds catapult to this and you have a good acceleration boost to pull it off more shockingly