What. You're either exaggerating or insane.

You could try pulling the bombers aside, drawing the flaks to them (hopefully).



Could always just do it the hard way, you can't always expect people to not be prepared for the "easy" way.

Most common counter I've seen isn't one you would like. Even more Heavy Cruisers. If your opponent invested in a decent amount of flak and you didn't bother with strikecraft, you should have a slight edge in production, unless they have a vastly superior economy.

Other counters that I've seen work to some effect...

Vasari can use Subverters. Their area of effect attack, the Distortion Field and the Heavy Cruiser tendency to bunch up during attacks makes them extremely vulnerable to even a relatively small number of Subverters. Properly micro'ed, they can chain hit the Heavy Cruisers while the rest of your fleet attacks them.

Advent can employ the Guardian to use Repulsion with massed Illuminators. A pure Heavy Cruiser fleet lacks the range to get to a Guardian using Repulsion while Illuminators can get close enough to use their weaponry (while still staying out of range).

You already mentioned Malice and Cleansing Brilliance, but they're a wonderful combination.

And Returning Armada, which can just beat the fleet by attrition.

I haven't seen any really effective counters for TEC other than the aforementioned "more Heavy Cruisers" but with their economy it is possible.

It's also worth noting that there have been significant calls no nerf all four of these units and abilities. We can hope that doesn't happen, or if it does happen they will not be too severe, but in general if you want to kill anything in the game, you need to do LRMs and Heavy Cruisers or go home.

The problem with heavy cruisers + flak is that the flak are tough puppies.

It seems really lame to me that the only solution for beating flak + HC is more HC or obviously OP units. There really should be something to counter HC (light frigs are supposed to, but do a seriously crappy job due to HC's only doing 25% less damage to them.)

Actually, bombers get good damage numbers against them, but the carriers they fly from are too costly to be worth it, and the bombers themselves are just a bit too weak.

Actually, bomber DpS/supply ratio vs target armour (in this case very heavy) is the worst DpS/supply ratio vs. target armour. of any combat unit in the game, by a fairly heavy margin. Using bombers at all is pretty much just not a good idea. You're more or less always better off building LRMs or more HCs. Bombers are occasionally cool for guerrilla hits on enemy infrastructure (since all orbital platforms are 'very-heavy' targets and the cruisers can just hang out on the edge of the grav well...), but relying on them as a decent portion of your fleets DpS 'hammer' is not a good idea.

It sucks. Mostly because bombers suck, and because late game TEC support cruisers are nowhere near as interesting or useful as the other races late game support cruisers. Seriously, comparing either the hoshiko or the cielo to the subverter or the iconus is just laughable.

They are weak because they are weak man. LRM units deal almost as much DpS/Supply against heavy armor, despite the serious damage penalty that anti-medium takes against very heavy targets. Anti-Very-Heavy doesn't even get a DpS bonus against very-heavy. It just has the distinction of being the only damage type that deals full damage to that armor type. And the flat out DpS/Supply of the bomber squadrons is F-ng pathetic, it really is the worst ratio of any combat oriented unit in the game. I swear, do the math. Yes, bomber squadrons deal about 20-21 DpS per squadron to very-heavy targets. But that's 8 supply. That's like 2.5 DpS per point of supply against the armor type that it's supposed to kill. Unlike Assailants, which deal ~20 DpS to their armor type for 6 supply, (3.3 DpS/Supply) or even Cobalts, at ~13 DpS to target armor type for 4 supply (Again, about 3.3 DpS/Supply). And these units are full fledged units, not paper mache constructs incinerated by the nearest fighter squadron or flak frigate, nor ferried about by a defenseless and fragile cruiser chassis.

Ok, granted, they -barely- do the most DpS/Supply against very-heavy armor. But they have a lot of liabilities and they're useless against -everything- else. I think they are really more or less only viable as a counter if you're playing vassari, because they benefit from phase missile upgrades. Otherwise, just build more HCs.

(As an aside, I think fighters are pretty well balanced... They die a little bit quickly to flak for my tastes, but they do deal a pretty sweet amount of damage to LRMs.)