#Countering Sheldon ball / spam

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tawny gyro
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What are your counters to Sheldon ball / spam, i.e. Sheldons accompanied by radar bot for LoS (and potentially jammer bot)?

List of tactics I've tried which have been OK-ish at best:

  • Get my own Sheldon ball and win the micro war (success depends on terrain and micro diff).
  • Spybot self-D / Paralyzer drones / EMP and then something fast or long range to wipe the defenseless Sheldon ball (not too bad).
  • Juno nuking the radar bot / jammer bot (but only mitigates their effectiveness until they produce some more).
  • Transition to T2 Veh and outrange with T2 Arty (works OK but hard on eco, especially energy).
  • Ignore Sheldon ball, maneuver around the map and raid eco (works better in 1v1s, less so in teams).

I've tried looking for older answers on the server and it seems like the meta is that Sheldons are dominating the early T2 (along with Hounds), and eventually get out-dominated by Snipers (when the eco can sustain them, and if you play ARM) or T3 (when eco can sustain it). Is that a correct assumption?

I respect that this powerspike exists (and abuse it myself...) but I'm curious on more ideas to mitigate and overcome it, or outright counter it.

tranquil scaffold
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Basically it comes down to outscouting and outranging, or catching them by surprise. paralyzer drones work really well, artillery (static or morties or something) + scouting or juno works well. Pure mortie armies have a really hard time pushing past individual ticks, which can be very cheap and easy scouting if you're arm

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Something cheeky I like to do is build a small army of pyros or jaguars depending on which faction I'm playing and hide them under a radar jammer and just move it as close as possible before rushing them down

tawny gyro
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interesting, I can see that working when combined with a Juno to destroy the LoS from radar bot

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basically as soon as the Fiends see the Sheldons via LoS, you rush in because they have almost the same LoS without support

tranquil scaffold
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It probably doesn't work more often than it does tbh emothinxD but sometimes it's all I can afford

low belfry
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Ignore Sheldon ball, maneuver around the map and raid eco (works better in 1v1s, less so in teams).

Definitely works in teams as well, you put minimum effort into stalling how fast the ball approaches your base, while you help put pressure on another front

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and the closer they get to your base, the longer their reinforcement line is

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and to then stop them, either use turrets that outrange them, and/or a mass of light units to overrun them

slender swallow
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So what makes sheldons scary is their range, and enough speed to kite things.
But for their 410 metal cost, they have trash DPS (66). And only the same amount of HP as a plasma bot.

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Pop-up arty can stop a push from them (may need to ground fire against a jammed blob, until you get vision)

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And anything small and fast, like infantry, scouts, or even crawling bombs, can force them to walk backwards, or strap a expensive and slow moving can/mammoth to the blob.

wheat steppe
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hounds can get in range to them if you're lucky and you hide the hounds with a jammer

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sprinters? are expensive but can also get in nice and close and be effective if the Sheldon's are unguarded

rigid dagger
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something fast that i can afford is normally my go to, like grunts, ticks, but less effective if they have sumo or even fiends with them. just use set target to take out the sheldons as you run in and past.

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spy bot emp is also good

wheat steppe
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where both of those fall down is commonly where they've got a line of fiends as well

rigid dagger
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vehicle arty is good as it is half the metal cost and has aoe damage and more range. only problem is they cant shoot back, so best to just take out as many sheldon as possible

rigid dagger
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if you turn back and try to run, 9/10 times they die anyway as they are slow to turn and move. so might as well hold a line and take out as much as you can

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sprinters like cow said are a nice counter. fiends too.

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static t2 pop arty are good also

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really depends on the whole situation and what i have available at that time as to what i try to counter with.

low belfry
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it really depends on the exact composition what works

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an army with lot of lower ranged units will not be easy to overrun with fast units, but also wont have as much ranged power

zinc mason
long pewter
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T1 bombers can take them out easily, a bit harder if they split and dodge the bombs

chrome granite
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I imagine beside bombers rolling bombs could be useful if the enemy doesn’t see them coming. Although I don’t know how much damage they deal it’s likely more than enough to kill clusters

wheat steppe
jade slate
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good sheldon player will have few cans or pyros supporting and have his own spies that you may not hit with junos

chrome granite
slender swallow
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If sheldon+pyros, both of those are fragile and vulnerable to counter-battery fire (pop-up arty, T2 vech arty, T1 bombers, ). And pyros do not have the range to kill crawling/rolling bombs without suffering losses.

If sheldon+cans, the cans slow the entire thing down, leaving them vulnerable to being flanked, and cannot retreat to a defense line easily.

lucid mango
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the problem I have with bombs is their high energy cost and buildtime makes it hard to get enough of them if you're already struggling, however they are excellent at stalling, especially combined with spies

lucid mango
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sheldons virtually always come with pyros and it's a solid composition, just keep in mind sheldons are fragile, slower, and harder to replace so they're costly for your opponent to lose.

outer coyote
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Mines