Opinion: The Anti-Aircraft Cannon may not be what you think it is

Team Fortress 2 Classic has introduced some weapons that are vastly different than what we see in live TF2. One of these weapons is the Anti-Aircraft Cannon, which combines hitscan with explosives to create a single-fire minigun for the Heavy. It has limited range, deals some splash damage, and can mini-crit airborne targets. Many players have complained about the AAC so far. Some about the way its bullets work, others its mini-crit capability, and a handful think that the concept of a single-fire minigun is just plain ridiculous.

These criticisms are not warranted, not without being properly challenged. That is exactly what will be done in this article. Putting more structure into what you have heard many times before, and hopefully reaching to a more concrete conclusion as a result.

The AAC can certainly feel a bit powerful at times, but so does the minigun. Heavy is meant to be powerful. He is slow, can be easily overwhelmed, and is always the main target in a firefight. These are the things he has to deal with. There is a reason that the minigun in live TF2 has damage and accuracy ramp-up for the first second of revving, along with increasing damage penalties to level 2 and 3 sentries (15% then 20% respectively): it has the highest DPS in the entire game! Without these nerfs, it would be too powerful.
In TF2C, however, that first second penalty while revving the minigun is not present. Moreover, the minigun winds down faster, allowing the Heavy to switch weapons at a noticeably faster pace in comparison to the live game. This means that Heavy’s minigun in TF2C is much more powerful than we are all used to, and you can put in real work with it.
So, to challenge your perception and make sure it stays objective, I propose a question for the next time you die to an AAC Heavy: Would you have died if he was using the minigun?
If the answer is yes, then the arguments above already did their work, and I rest my case (for the frag that killed you at least).
If the answer no, then I move on to ask if you have tried switching up your strategy, considering the fact that it is a different Heavy weapon, and have worked with your team to play against it differently? The AAC trades high DPS and close range damage for consistent mid range damage. Like every other unlock in comparison to its stock, it also has weaknesses waiting for you to exploit, while having advantages you need to avoid.

I will have to concede to two points though. Let us start with what we all read earlier this month in the progress report the TF2C development team released for the mod’s upcoming Steam release. They have stated that beta testing has begun, that they are focusing on specific features, and that the Huntsman has been reworked to hopefully make headshots more accurate and fair. There, they have also said that a “similar rework is also coming to the Anti-Aircraft Cannon”.
First, some information for the unaware. The AAC’s hitscan bullets have a 6.5 x 6.5 x 6.5 hammer unit collision hull. To put it simpler: the bullets that it fires have a small hitbox like projectiles do. The bullets the AAC fires can hit enemies or objects, even when your crosshair isn’t on them. Right now, when the AAC hits a player’s bounding box (not the hitbox), it gets registered as a direct hit. Where the huntsman relies on headshots to deal high damage, the AAC does not. Worse, because, due to the bullet’s collision hull, you can miss the bounding box entirely and still get a direct hit.
Much of the genuine criticism I see directly addresses this, and to those people I have to say I agree. This, frankly, is ridiculous. Where the “Lucksman” prospers, the “Advantageous-Aircraft Cannon” dominates.
There was a similar issue with the Iron Bomber’s hitbox as well, where it was found to be slightly larger than all the other grenades. People began to call the Iron Bomber a direct upgrade, and that using it was extremely unfair. Despite that, when it was fixed, I myself did not notice any change in its function whatsoever. I agree with the change of course, for consistency and fairness. However, because the AAC has a much faster rate of fire, and because it is hitscan, this hitbox change will absolutely be noticeable. I think this upcoming change to the bullet hulls is a necessary one.

The other agreeable criticism of the weapon is its ability to deal mini-crits to any airborne target. This feels especially brutal on double-jumping Scouts. Losing for relying on their core strength in mobility. Note that Scout is one of four main classes in 6s competitive, and is also part of the highest DPS classes in Highlander, owing a big part of this to his mobility.
I can see where the players are coming from with this. Being punished for playing Scout the way you are supposed to is not fun. Changing it to be conditional would help, as that way the AAC would only mini-crit enemies deliberately flying through the air (rocket jump, sticky jump, jump pad, etc.).
I believe that this would be a good change for a casual setting, but it still does not address the fact that the mini-crits have no damage falloff with distance. Especially in the case of competitive, note that blast jumping is performed a lot more often, with Gunboats being the dominant meta for 6s Soldier in the past 10+ years. Where something like the Direct Hit (which also mini-crits airborne targets) requires prediction and timing to get an airshot, the AAC does not as it is hitscan. Because of this, the AAC can easily dish out mini-crits with no real skill on the Heavy’s part.
One solution would be to remove the mini-crits and instead replace it with a +x% bonus damage to airborne enemies. This way, it stays true to the idea of an anti-air weapon while not rewarding the player with too much easy damage.

My overall opinion on the AAC is that it is a somewhat balanced weapon that could definitely use some tweaking as mentioned above. Changing the mini-crit mechanic from mini-crits airborne enemies on direct hit to deals +x% bonus damage to blast jumping and jump pad using enemies on direct hit would be a great one. Granting bonus damage instead of mini-crits lets Soldiers and Demomen move a bit more freely around the map, while making its bonus damage conditional gives Scouts some much needed breathing room. While we do not have much information on the bullet collision rework at the moment, I think it will be beneficial for the weapon and the game. Despite technically being a nerf, it is only fair, and I do not see any reason why the weapon should be left as-is. I believe these changes will make the weapon feel a lot better to fight against.

What do you think about all this? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments.

6 Comments

Icarus

Great article. It brings to discussion what makes the AAC extremely infuriating to be play against while showing visual representation of its hullbox.

July 31, 2025

f

Many great points in this post, the AAC on paper isn't broken, it trades close-range burst for midrange damage, which is fair. But minicrits on airborne targets is a bit much, especially when it’s hitscan and not projectiles. Glad the devs are tweaking the bullet hull and changing how it works. If it ends up being bonus damage instead, that’d be way better, especially in competitive.

July 31, 2025

jr

Honestly my main problem with it is that it just completely denies movement as a scout in close range and sure it's a different to the minigun, but I believe that it shouldn't be to the degree it is right now, no matter how hard you make yourself to hit as he can just shoot the floor and your dead and unlike soldier you don't really have the advantage of being faster at reload + shooting or counting his rockets.

July 31, 2025

elektro

10/10, no notes, especially with comparing it to the huntsman. It feels infinitely more 'spammy', yet doesn't have any of the drawbacks of traditional projectile weapons.

August 1, 2025

JoeV8313

The hitscan and explosive properties of this weapon make it rather unfun to approach, and flee from due to it using the bounding boxes and rather large hull bullet; so it virtually makes it impossible to miss and hard to mix up the heavy using the weapon, unlike the minigun. I've done some test with a friend without bounding boxes and it works perfectly fine as you can actually miss and have to be more accurate. In contrast to the minigun.

August 1, 2025

Jaws

It feels to me like the primary downside of the weapon is supposed to be that you can miss your burst shots and end up with a lower damage consistency compared to the minigun due to the longer refire time... But yeah, right now you can't miss. People complain about the splash but I'm actually pretty sure the hitbox is so big that it's genuinely difficult to hit someone with the splash radius without direct hitting them! So we really don't know how much impact the splash has, haha.

August 1, 2025