How does one effectively use (and counter) a Spire?

[UndyingUndyne]

I just plain can't figure out how to use this ship. The few times I have used it (it's currently my least-used ship), I wind up being the target of the majority of kills for the other team while being unable to get any kills myself. Meanwhile, whenever I go up against an enemy Spire, it always manages to kill me before I can even scratch it, and my only hope is to bring a Blenderfish and hope I can stay above the arc of its guns.

So how are you supposed to fly one of these things, and what kinds of guns are you supposed to bring with it? I've tried every loadout I can think of, but they're easily beaten by the enemy ships. It's easy enough to blame Novice Engineers who don't understand the concept of Gungineering, but my consistent failures seem to suggest I'm doing something completely wrong here. Not to mention I can't seem to figure out how to beat a Spire myself without resorting to a Blenderfish. How does everyone else manage to do it all?

[DJ Logicalia]

I love the spire, but it has serious drawbacks, which is why I won't take it in competitive. It's my most flown ship.

With the spire, it's kill or be killed. It has the highest damage output of any single ship, but it's also very frail. So, when it's time to engage the enemy,  you need to be sure to take advantage or the spire's strengths. Make sure you're positioned advantageously, and your crew has to be shooting all the guns. Not off the guns repairing, they need to be shooting. If the hull goes down, the pilot can get off and fix it. Hwacha spires are the safest, because ideally you disable them before they take out anything major, like your guns or balloon.

However, the most effective counter to the spite is to shoot it. That's it. If your spire gets ambushed or disabled first RIP. It's a dangerous ship to fly, and it's not worth it in a lot of situations.

[Schwalbe]

I probably speak bullshit, but this is how I remember I flied spires. Point out bullshit, please.

1. Long-kill build
Heavy Flak + gatling downstairs
Hades + artemis/banshee/gatling/mines (respectively left and right top)

Hades for long range armor strip, gatling/s for whenever on close range, so the flak can finish off.

Chute vent in case enemy ship tries to escape underneath, to which you skewer him to the ground
Bumpers instead of claw to fend against ramming.
Moonshine because this is deceptively good for ramming - imagine that.
If they have balloon poppers, switch either bumpers or shine for drogue chute.

Try keeping distance, strip armor, kill with good heavy flak shots. Classic.
When top right is gatling: when enemy closes too much, engie goes for second gat, so two can shoot at the same time.
When top right is artemis: both engies stay upstairs when in distance, one firing off hades, another destroying guns and components.
When top right is mines/banshee: this is captains gun. No, seriously. Wait for bastard to ram you with bumpers, and after he does, go for it, pack some punch for few seconds.

2. "Fuck you" build

Heavy carronade + mine launcher downstairs
Mine launcher + banshee/mine launcher topstairs.

Tools stays the same.

This is absolutely insane build invented by Disaster. Don't ask me how to handle that, I never tried it, just reporting that this exists and can be used in advantage. Short range, extremely aggressive. Carro pops balloon, mine launchers make sure every-fucking-thing stays down, including an ally.

3. Hwacha build

I don't remember it exactly, but I believe it's middle-short range, downstairs it's hwacha with gatling I believe, upstairs it's hades right and banshee or gatling right. Gatling for too-close-range armor strip, banshee to help secure the kill.

Believe it or not, but this is not aggresive build - you are trying to stay close enough to land hwacha and gatling shots downstairs, but yet, hades should have enough range to surpass the arming time. You are not getting too close with that thing. Unless there REALLY is a need, hwacha waits for armor break to maximize damage output both to hull and guns. The only excuse for shooting hwacha earlier is to make sure hwacha on the other side does not fuck you up.

(This is all I had time for, sorry if unsatisfactory)

[Fynx]

I probably speak bullshit, but this is how I remember I flied spires. Point out bullshit, please.

I apologise, but speaking from "effective" point of view, that'll be most of what you wrote.

I just plain can't figure out how to use this ship. The few times I have used it (it's currently my least-used ship), I wind up being the target of the majority of kills for the other team while being unable to get any kills myself. Meanwhile, whenever I go up against an enemy Spire, it always manages to kill me before I can even scratch it, and my only hope is to bring a Blenderfish and hope I can stay above the arc of its guns.

First, as you noticed, the weakness of spire lies in it's structure. It's easy to hit it with hades or lumberjack and guns positions are focused so it's also easy to disable it. Long range ships armed with hades/lumberjack/mercury/artemis are going to be effective against spires.Anything that destroys balloons effectively from close range and rams the spire into the ground will work too.

Regarding loadouts: spire is not a good long range ship. If you want to use it effectively long range, bring a lumberjack and some long range guns. That requires a good crew as either the enemy will get disabled and killed or you will. It'll be still countered by mobulas and long range galleons. It might be effective against junkers, but then, spire is very easy to disable and vulnerable to hades and artemis. Still, it's a good and versatile loadout, due to enormous firepower that spires have.

In close range hwacha is the best option. Add some piercing (gatling/hades) and some explosive (flak/banshee/mortar) and you have an actual scary loadout that is viable in close range maps in competitive. It's an aggressive build that allows you to get close to the enemy ship, disable it, destroy its armour and deal a substantial permahull damage if it doesn't die instantly. Kill or be killed.

Heavy flak is less than effective at 1000m range, that pretty much forbids using flak spire as a long range loadout. However, so called Loch Spire that Schwalbe mentioned (heavy flak + at least two piercing guns) is occasionally seen. It's a rather close or at least medium range loadout. Heavy flak can kill really really fast. The problem is, you have to get the enemy armour down fast, count on your gunner doing good job on the heavy flak (that is probably the most difficult gun in the entire game) and finally, the only thing it can do is killing. Tryhard-wise hwacha spire is always preferred in close range.

Heavy carronade is not recommended as the heavy gun choice. It was nerfed, along with heavy clip in order to reduce the number of blenderfish flying around. Now, the blenderfish is balanced, the carronade spire isn't.

There were many successful attempts to use minotaur, but it's still unreliable and pilots prefer to use other heavy guns. If you want to use it, try experimenting on your own.

[Daft Loon]

One of the keys to effective spire use is to recognize when not to use it. The classic situation being large open maps vs ships with long range loadouts, a spire on dunes vs a mobula with mercury + 2x artemis will lose unless its crew are much better at almost everything than their opponents.

The other main vulnerability is being charged down in closer range maps by blenderfish etc , my favorite solution to that is to have a minelauncher in the top right slot and fire it myself as pilot while the crew repair/shoot the other guns. It takes a bit of practice to time the mines right and leave the ships throttle in the right place for the situation but done right simply nullifies about 90% of attempts to ram etc.

[BlackenedPies]

Brawl spire can be great for brawling, and ranged spire can be great against brawlers, but ranged is deadly to spires. Brawl ships can quickly kill/cripple a spire (gat/mortar/hwatcha), but the idea is to overwhelm them before that happens. It's risky fun

Bring kero, claw, hydro as pilot for brawling, or kero, drogue, hydro if your balloon will be frequently popped. Hydro before you're popped, drogue until your balloon is 2 seconds from rebuilt, and hydro as soon as it's rebuilt if you expect to be popped again. You can survive quite a while this way

I'm a fan of hwatcha-artemis spire. It might sound redundant to have both a hwatcha and artemis, but it's extra insurance that you won't get shot while the hwatcha is reloading. You can have a top light flak/mortar to switch to when their armor breaks. Lesmok gat is good on the bottom deck for longer range

Lumber spire with hades flak/banshee. With a good lumber gunner you can keep them popped from range while the hades and flak/banshee kill. Try it on a big map like fjords against a hwatcha galleon first

Flak spire is very risky and I don't recommend it until you're comfortable. Lumber is better at range and hwatcha can both kill and disable

[BlackenedPies]

Some people run their spire with two engis on top and the gunner below. My advice is to avoid this unless you have to. You repair slower, shoot less, and use more stamina because it takes much longer to go back up. Unless there's a reason you need your gunner using both bottom guns then avoid having two engis up top

[Daft Loon]

its roughly 4 seconds from the balloon to the bottom left gun and 6 to the top left gun. Jumping down the ladder to the balloon from top left is also about 4s but sometimes gets stuck. The repairs on the heavy gun do suffer though.

The main benefit to having 2 engineers topside is that the engi responsible for the balloon is shooting the forward facing light gun rather than the armor engi and its safer to ignore balloon damage to keep shooting than to ignore armor damage. If the top left gun is interchangeable with the bottom left and the main gun is flak, lumberjack or carronade (no long reload to fire the other gun during) then 1 engineer per level is certainly better.

[ZnC]

Spire is the only ship I fly and I've studied it for a while. It's not as versatile as the Mobula at the moment and is much more situational. I'll start off with maps since they usually determine if you should even consider the Spire.

Maps
Canyon Ambush: Best (Fog, narrow paths, sufficient cover)
Paritan: Good (Narrow paths, sufficient cover)
Northern Fjords: Good (Fog, fog, more fog)
Duel at Dawn: Average (Too many flanks, but small map)
KOTH: Average (Spire is good at brawling, but too fragile to hold the point)

Fight over Firnfeld: Bad
Water Hazard: Bad
Crazy King: Bad
Dunes & Sepulcher: Terribad (Dust cloud makes it hard to approach, and a blind person can see a Spire coming)

Like Fynx says, Spire is a poor choice on long range maps. Its optimal range is close to mid. It will never beat Mobula in a head-on, long range engagement. Spire is a large target, while Mobulas are much harder to hit. Lumberjack is also out-classed in range by Artemi and Mercs due to their high projectile speeds, hit-box and ease to repair.

Mindset
The Spire is a gunship - if you're repairing most of the time, you're doing it wrong (or your allies are). Getting a good initiation is important. You want to stay hidden and charge in with all guns blazing at the right time. When the chance presents itself, get in fast, take down a ship, and finish the engagement fast. If the Spire gets hit, there's a good chance it will die.

I'm happy Spire pilot whenever I have a Galleon ally poking the enemy and drawing fire. Or a Squid that scouts the enemy position while I stay hidden, looking for an opportunity. But almost all the time I get Junkers and Goldfish that stay behind me, expecting a Spire to take point.

Crew management
A lot of engineers are used to repairing - making everything scratch-less and spotless is their priority. This is not how a Spire should be crewed. Only call for repairs when there is little chance of fighting back, which happens often when you get hit by disable weapons.

I run both engineers top deck (all the time). The main advantage of this is that the Gunner gets a second gun to shoot (note: it's the ONLY ship with two guns this close). Back when stamina wasn't implemented, a Hwacha reload is 11 seconds for your Gunner to not do anything. A second Gatling firing would help break armor for the Mortar and second Hwacha volley. With novices I'd still teach them to run top deck - some perform well, some don't. With that said, it is up to the pilot. I have seen many pilots and engineers saying one is better than the other. Practice and discover what works for you.

Tryhard stuff here. If you have a good buff engi, put him on Side Gun, Armor, and Main Engine; keep them buffed when possible. A buffed Main Engine helps a lot in your approach or kiting, and Armor will give you a better chance at surviving. Also, bring the ammo type for the forward-facing light gun, just in case your engineer is busy repairing and misses hull breaks or important Merc shots.

Builds
Firstly, these are the builds I use, and there are many variations that other players use. So, you can have your own builds, and I totally respect that.

Hwacha Spire
1. Hwacha 2. Mortar 3. Gatling 4. Gatling

It is easiest to see the Hwacha Spire as a combination of a Hwachafish + Metamidion. Hwacha disables the opponent, and Gat Mortar quickly takes them down. Remember the Gunner should be shooting the Gatling while the Hwacha reloads (unless the situation calls for him to stamina-reload).

Lumber Spire
1. Lumberjack 2. Merc/Hades 3. Flare Gun 4. Banshee

Good build for Fjords; lots of mid-range killing power. One of the best at quickly taking down Galleons. This is what I would call the meta-Spire or the signature Spire build because reasons.

No Minotaur please - the Hwacha is much better at everything, besides nudging ships. Something similar can be said about the Heavy Carronade. It is good against Mobulas in close range maps, but so is a Hwacha.

Beating a Spire
There are ships that are weak to disables, and there are ships weaker to straight up kills. Spire is weak to disables. Getting a full Hwacha volley on a Spire means they're out of the fight for a good amount of time, while being completely vulnerable to a quick kill. Artemis and Mercury are also strong weapons to wear down a Spire. Attempting to kill them without disabling usually means receiving a murderous amount of firepower.


To end this off I would like to say...

damn you Mobula.

[Spud Nick]

Blender Spire

1. Heavy Carronade
2. Gatling gun
3. Flak
4. Artemis

Gunner uses both lower deck guns. Lochnagar, Heat sink and heavy clip ammo. Buff engineer is on the gatling gun with lesmok or greased. Hull engineer is on the artemis with burst ammo.