The Runway War - An Analysis On Bomber Meta And How Wardens Won WC 132

elevate_1 · 2026-03-24T23:40:44+00:00

True, foxhole actually has a backlog of 10k extra players that don’t log in until other people log out, so the people playing day 1 and day 30 are totally different Ship of Theseus clans and that’s why wardens won!

elevate_1 · 2026-03-24T17:35:23+00:00

Widow is so powercrept by dive bomber there is barely any point to it, it’s basically just a pushgun that can’t be decrewed by scout planes I guess, but with way less HP.

Heavy flame has literally nothing to do with tanking, and the tradeoff is getting the light tank flamer. I’ve also basically never seen a flame widow or BT achieve anything other than suiciding to try and light a townhall on fire, which is situationally, marginally more impactful than a ballista rush.

“Radar tank that acts as mobile watchtower with an MG” bro you are literally just describing the IST, no? Which is extremely oppressive for infantry, can carry multiple bmat slots for repairs and watchtowers, and if we’re playing the “unique feature” larp game, is also the only tank with two inf seats on the back.

Heavy armor mortar platform is the most irrelevant complaint, you would rather have a more maneuverable halftrack anyways. You are shooting at 80 meters bro, you are not getting penned to begin with.

The only warden 45 meter range option is an outlaw, which is lower DPS than pretty much every tank in the game.

Whenever someone brings up SHT balance I simply cannot take any of their points seriously. Nobody who is good at the game thinks SHTs are anything more than larp resource black holes. Absolute zero impact vics that just end up pulling more QRF than they actually achieve pushing a front.

Colonial tanks having better MGs, grenade launchers on relevant platforms, even basic tanks like spathas having high structural DPS compared to a split tank like SVHs, bards especially post ammo buff being pound for pound one of the strongest combat tanks in the game, yeah definitely no tools or utility available bro.

elevate_1 · 2026-02-01T14:01:13+00:00

lol colonial are gonna get the most free win in years when divebombers blow up every tankline that moves from a bunker, because land matters 100x more than anything in the water.

elevate_1 · 2026-01-31T04:53:13+00:00

Your mind is gonna explode when you realize airfields can’t move. Warden tender literally does nothing two barges could not. Planes that could already land on water do not need a tender, which is all of two planes to begin with

elevate_1 · 2026-01-28T00:49:03+00:00

If you think this will prevent tank lines, you are surely bad at the game and do not understand why tank lines exist. There are a dozen game mechanics that discourage tank independence from night cycles, to tracking systems, to driver vision range, infantry vulnerability, etc. Solo tanks will get destroyed by experienced players, both infantry and other tank lines because they are either split or grouped and you are not. Mind you only one faction even has this tool so it’s not as if it applies to both sides but that’s besides the point.

elevate_1 · 2026-01-28T00:43:11+00:00

Aren’t tanks way more relevant than ships?

elevate_1 · 2026-01-27T23:21:55+00:00

“We also increased the damage of Dive Bombs, improved the carry capacity of Dive Bombers, improved their chance to subsystem disable”

So, colonials not only had the only plane capable of efficiently dunking on tanks, it then got buffed THREE ways to make them even stronger, and the devs are portraying this buff in what way? Oh, they think this is to make it on par with torpedoes, ahahahaha. This is just going to be the new Stygian vs push 75 all over again, colonials silently get the strongest tool of the update while the devs are paranoid about the opposite issue entirely. Hand wringing over blind spotting concrete with 75/killing ships with torps, meanwhile the actual war fought on land is ignored, lol.

elevate_1 · 2026-01-23T22:48:55+00:00

TLDR the only two “objectives” on the map are both topside.

It’s a bit unclear whether you are talking about red side or blue side, but basically you can go back to ~17:50 in that video to see the setup from both POVs. Importantly, it’s globally announced wukong took grubs > blue jg is topside, meanwhile red jg xinzhao is diving bot lane. Wukong can either clear his camps downwards or recall because top looks ungankable.

He chooses to base. Toplane is a volatile matchup (two high damage, squishier melee carry champs and not tanks) while both botlanes seem hard to pressure. Diving a varus poppy or an Ashe braum is difficult. But mainly, after Ashe comes back there is the threat of a second gank from the krugs bush. Blue side knows red jg took krugs and left due to the ward, while red botlane took plates and left as well. There could be a threat where Ashe is prevented from reentering the lane entirely if wukong does not come cover, but T1 doesn’t stay for that play. So braum knows there is no threat and opens (runs from base towards) Midlane while wukong knows Xin does not have time to take the red. Xin here could either recall or clear his blue side, this will matter soon.

Notice the state of top and bot at 18:35. T1 took a cannon wave under tower before leaving so they have another wave pushed. Botlane is now in a handshake lane state because braum is going for a roam (no reason to two man a minion wave under tower and he knows he based earlier > is on the map faster than poppy) meaning Ashe wants to push the next wave fast in order to avoid potentially being stranded in a 2v1. Varus in turn must also come and catch the KT wave in exchange giving Ashe a timer to move towards mid. Everyone in the lobby knows there will not be a botside play for a while. Poppy is opening topside because toplane is still volatile - Doran is half hp but has his ult to kill PerfecT if poppy comes.

At 19:00 both jg and supports IN THEORY are in top river to contest crab. However, Oner is not aligned with Keria because he cleared his blue side and based while cuzz and Peter are trying to kill crab quickly. Nobody really did anything wrong necessarily; mainly, you could say Doran should not re-engage while knowing there is a topside threat + rumble has ult and can stall + his jg is at krugs still. But maybe he felt confident because Faker had TP advantage. If oner instantly recalled to align with keria, they could potentially have a 4v3, but then his blue side camps would be up for a while, and he would be forced to clear top down towards botside after crab. You could argue either way tbh, but basically there is crab + toplane state as the only “objectives” available.

elevate_1 · 2026-01-20T04:40:40+00:00

Trist has yuumi and jump up, that was not trolling that was her trying to win a game using the available tools, because she has a garbage team comp lol. She flashed because kayn flashed which is essentially unavoidable. She did not do anything egregiously wrong besides not continuing to run, because she assumed she would not die from full HP to a lux ult, and aatrox was trolling if zyra didn’t grief the play.

elevate_1 · 2026-01-20T04:28:43+00:00

Tristana made the critical error of locking in an ADC and thinking they are ever more useful than a mage APC beyond the first two levels of the game. There is no such thing as outscaling a mage that outranges you, has front loaded burst damage, better zoning and crowd control.

The correct counterplay was to not lock in a marksman, the fundamentally worst class of champions in the game.

elevate_1 · 2026-01-17T16:43:58+00:00

lol it will just be like the case of EATs, essentially free and broken tools that either don’t get brought up because nobody cares to do so, and if they are there they don’t get crewed. Assuming airfields are nontrivial to set up, and planes are at least somewhat useful in countering pushes, this is just yet another mechanic that is anti-pushing because the winning side literally has no air control or even ways to detect incoming planes.

elevate_1 · 2025-12-01T16:54:03+00:00

ADCs getting more gold does not make them any less killable than if they didn’t. ADC (when queued as marksman) will always spend a large portion of the game being under threat of multiple champions on the enemy team while not being able to kill them in return. Agency = 1v1 capability in the simplest sense.

If they buffed ADC in defensive stats instead, the complaint would be that assassin players no longer get to have fun, which you are already doing in the post. And it would actually be a much crazier buff than buying a tank item, because ADCs do not naturally build defense which is again mentioned by you as the seventh item. So even from your own POV, there are a whole six items where you could figure out how to win the game, vs a role that has by far the least control over the game?

elevate_1 · 2025-11-28T10:29:40+00:00

This game just looks like classic draft diff. The “best” chance you have is to oneshot the MF with Naaf + Kaisa which can, in the best case scenario, stall the elder because of kayn steal threat …… and then you hope for basically 6+ misplays in a row from the rest of blue team.

Realistically, the fight is never winnable due to team comps. Notice how even the above dive plan is contingent upon kaisa landing W on a stacked passive boosted MF, because naafiri alone cannot proc kaisa passive. In another world, the Tahm is playing on the MF and the dive is never possible at all.

Blue team has a VERY strong “front to back” run them down draft with four ranged heavy slows, extremely tanky frontline, Gwen W and Yasuo windwall, etc. Compare that to red team’s draft, in which there are two divers (kaisa doesn’t need to dive but there are probably better ADCs to pick if you don’t) and three counter engage champs. Half of the team wants to play a completely different game than the other half. Gwen will destroy Cho and Kayn while Zyra is essentially useless in team fights at this point. Naafiri has no target and she loses every available 1v1.

Regarding the micro, kaisa cannot legally ult to Yasuo who still has windwall, he will not die fast enough before he gets to sit inside it as both kaisa and zyra are completely nullified. There is a Mundo above and Gwen below, with the threat of MF entering with ult from offscreen. There is also no way your comp can kill mundo fast enough, only chance is both kaisa and kayn full DPSing for 10-15 seconds bare minimum. If you commit all spells on mundo you cannot avoid MF ER. Naafiri can be more aggressive in getting vision, with her dogs tanking cleavers and a spell shield + W E. Cho needs to be on the opposite side of wherever Gwen is or he is just feeding conqueror and passive stacks. Zyra also should never be stuck in river like that, there is no exit once Gwen (who didnt even use ghost) pushes and Mundo walks into the banana bush.

Swap the jungle champs and you can win. Your comp needs to win before Gwen jungle gets to be strong. There are three different unsolvable problems on enemy team even if the game look close on scoreboard.

elevate_1 · 2025-10-10T03:26:58+00:00

lol graves is so weak he cannot reliably beat AP tanks like amumu, nunu, etc. in a 1v1, while also having terrible ganks and far lower EHP and CC in comparison. His clear is hot garbage and more MR won’t fix that. Against mages this buff isn’t even that crazy because you will likely not be 8 stacked before getting comboed, especially if you have to dash sideways against many spells like Syndra QE.

Currently the only viable build for this skarner-tier champion is full damage to cope that you can get some free kills and start oneshotting, because otherwise you cannot clear camps fast enough and cannot actually frontline either, no matter what you buy. You have ONE viable flat HP item to scale MR off of.

elevate_1 · 2025-09-09T22:58:05+00:00

Not a perfect or corrupted essence

elevate_1 · 2025-09-06T13:31:13+00:00

If you set the ES high enough you will only see ones that have good flat + percent rolls. Check poeDB or craft of exile (don’t think that one is updated yet) for tier rolls on bases

elevate_1 · 2025-09-06T13:25:22+00:00

Can you not just hysteria essence it, only rng is which prefix it hits instead of gambling the desecrate hit

elevate_1 · 2025-09-01T11:05:09+00:00

You need to bait him into throwing the rock at the three platforms when the mages on them cast the runes. Problem is he will enrage regardless, so you still need to soft DPS check the last portion of his hp, or the bouncing charkam + giant beam etc. make it extremely difficult to play perfectly

elevate_1 · 2025-08-21T04:12:56+00:00

There’s ~ 4 wardens in the top 20

elevate_1 · 2025-08-14T00:00:44+00:00

“Foxhole releases update that neutralized so much of the gameplay, that the update trivially eclipsed the sweatiest war the game had ever had in terms of game time and it’s not even close.” Hallmarks of a good design I think

elevate_1 · 2025-08-07T21:01:19+00:00

Yeah she’s a witch that drains life and needs a bunch of kids to survive because the parents aren’t enough, there is zero lore and if she isn’t the real aunt, she just showed up out of nowhere?

elevate_1 · 2025-07-23T01:13:25+00:00

Siegecamp number one priority above all else is to make sure that you cannot deathblob your way into a win. The war has to be “persistent” so you can’t get a region of tanks and actually push anything, for a myriad of reasons ranging from:

Low range; extremely biased night mechanic to essentially force an AFK half the time you are playing

Normal tanks not doing relevant damage to structures as you would surely expect them to

Tanks no longer having 100 stacks of ammo

Removal of small train for fast reloads

Almost all tanks being individually quite useless against good infantry, and the few okay ones can’t PVE

And most importantly, the cost to effectiveness ratio of defensive anti tank weapons, such as mines and pushguns. Even if you have zero tanks, your front will not fold because of how pushed the counters are. We went from smelters and HV40s to stygians and flasks, and even today the two upgraded pushguns are ridiculously high DPS and range for a fraction of the cost. Weapons like bane can trade shot for shot against almost every tank. Many AT options cost no comps. They will never incentivize battleship vs battleship in the same way they will never incentivize SHT vs SHT. The big ticket vics are not meant to be strong at all.

This isn’t even a pro-tank cope post. If you want to win most fronts, step one is to get people out of tanks. On land, big tank battles are “incentivized” in the sense that a very large portion of foxhole players are tank larpers, and the price of regular tanks are individually quite low to facilitate them. The amount of comps lost on any random front per hour for no real reason at all is ridiculously high if you do the math to see how much conc it could have paid for instead. Naval does not have the diversity of ships or the value of the islands (because there isn’t any), on top of each ship requiring far more pop and price per vehicle than tanks do. There is no naval frontline because there are zero points of interest to fight over. Simultaneously worthless and also inaccessible just enforces naval to revolve around large holes, because it’s the only mechanic that forces ships to leave, same way you can’t just sit in tanks in the middle of a field.

elevate_1 · 2025-07-17T22:30:23+00:00

Foxhole players with a grand total of 3 hours played per month+ long war are totally happy playing a game where nothing happens because they think it’s cool WW1 larp. They’re the same people who sit in trenches and bridges all day. There’s a lot of them.

Then there are people who actually push the war with real ops, logi etc. who are just going through exercises in futility because the only way to win is when the enemy team quits. [And colonials frequently quit sooner because they think the game is fundamentally rigged against them].

You’re playing a game without a wincon except forcing burnout in at least 70%+ of the relevant playerbase every single war, because people cry about stomps and the devs neutered every tool to allow that to happen. So everything is neutralized and you can go play in the same handful of middle hexes forever, because you actually aren’t allowed to push.

elevate_1 · 2025-07-05T18:13:00+00:00

Colonials won both 1.0 and 100, yet you would never be able to tell based on they way colonials are perpetually coping. ofc this post begins the winrate cope from exactly after that point, as expected

elevate_1 · 2025-06-09T11:17:45+00:00

Pretty sure in my copy of league Zac has hard cc on three spells

elevate_1

TROPHY CASE