#Cortex buffs

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hard path
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I was thinking things like Whistler missiles on tiger tanks, flamers on tzars, light lasers on mammoths,etc

Help the faction get away with more mono unit comps to make up for the slightly more lack luster role filling in general

spice scarab
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arm kinda has a monopoly on hard cc with emp. give cor more cc, in the direct physical way of pushing things around or slowing ?

spice scarab
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I pretty much never see Tremor used, and if so not to great effect. Even on Strait, which is basically a best-case scenario, ain't anybody using them. :/

Maybe a target for adjustment or buff.

knotty basin
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i saw it used against ships
seems decent against starlight/snipers / reasoanble against missile ships
need to get the opinion of a cortex expert tho

spice scarab
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1850m. 49000e. 3000hp. 41speed. slowaf turning/acceleration/turret-speed. 1275 range.

Overall poor mobility. Gets sniped easy by a couple negotiators. t2.9 pricing; catapults and vanguards make them irrelevant. Very slow to deliver dps; can't help much in sudden conflict. Maybe op on maps with a lot of cliffs and mountains, but otherwise meh--easy to play around or counter.

brisk prism
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Strong on forge, but forge meta is massively different from any other map's meta

knotty basin
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yeah makes sense. most t2 units are subject to the t3 phase out. on the bright side it doesn't require energy to fire I guess?

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2 ambas is basically 1800 metal too tho

uncut forge
# spice scarab I pretty much never see Tremor used, and if so not to great effect. Even on St...

Tremor is good but it basically only solves one major problem Cortex has; starlight and sniper balls. It is good at forcing enemies to either engage or cede ground, but depending on your composition this actually isn't something you always want. And honestly, as far as killing starlights and snipers go, Negotiators handle the job better because they aren't vulnerable to rocket artillery, because they don't have to be stationary as they fire, and they have built in stealthy

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What cortex vehicles really suffers from is dealing with spam, which necessitates getting grunts from t1 bot

uncut forge
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Its good on forge for a couple reasons
A) enemies can only realistically approach from one angle. The more angles a Tremor has to be protected from, the worse it is
B) enemies tend to build turrets to secure their bottle neck on forge. Tremors are good at forcing enemies to either deal with chip damage or to take a hard engagement. That works pretty well in the situation that usually arises on forged

I might try to incorporate them more. I have been doing more Grunts and Banishers with guest star Negotiators and it can handle a lot of situations pretty well until the Thors come out, when they suddenly become worthless

spice scarab
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Tremors kinda worthless vs t3 in general like it's just a rainy day. :/

uncut forge
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cortex suffers from lack of options vs t3 in general, although I would actually argue t2 vehicles has an especially hard time with t3
banishers don't cut it, tremors as you mentioned don't do the job, mass quakers kind of hurt but aren't going to stop a thor from rolling up and eviscerating them, and everything else just has too little damage
t2 bots at least has twitchers to build walls, sumos to surround things that penetrate the walls, and mammoths to try to get surrounds in open field warfare. vehicles has........... heavy mines........

obtuse crescent
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And mammoths have the speed of a morbidly obese snail.

spice scarab
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If Banisher turrets worked like janus turrets and turn all the way behind them, they would be op vs t3 less than a Titan.

knotty basin
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yeah that's the dilemna with long ranged unit
you cannot give a long ranged unit speed and backwards firing

gray bolt
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how about a greater than 180 but less than 360 arc? That way it requires a bit more micro?

brisk prism
gray bolt
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oops 💀

spice scarab
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Quaker --> ~400m , x2 damage , increased size (to better visually differentiate wolverines/quakers) ?

uncut forge
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honestly more than absolutely anything, t3 just needs to be thoroughly rethought for both armada and cortex
armada has ridiculously powerful early t3 units that end games easily at 20-25 minutes
maybe demon becoming an actual unit will make things better but idk, memerauders are just too strong for their price

tardy nova
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Cough Epic Tzar Cough

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shrewd isle
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that can't be for PvP, unless it replaces the current tzar, which would be OP if rushed and supported properly

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part of the issue with core, as ever, is arm stuff is just better. so units that are competent feel 'meh', as they're compared to OP. if razorbacks and thors weren't as good, shivas and kargs would feel better. rauders are a whole different problem.

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#1143613153205301400 message
there's this summary from a while back of the core (hurr) points

tardy nova
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It should be a t3 unit, like from the extra unit pack, Epic Tzar

shrewd isle
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a core t3 tank might be something I get to one day, but it won't be the tzar

crimson crescent
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Core is supposed to have Brute force and expendable units but Shivas, Kargenaths, Catapults have less brute force than razors or vanguards.

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Vanguars have 2x HP of catapults and are significantly cheaper. Razors have more punch and speed than Kargs (altho kargs good are good with all terrain), Shivas are just a big joke of a unit.

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Only Kargenaths feel like a usable t3 unit on cortex- Behemoth and Juggs are too slow for most 8v8 maps

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Also so far all t3 lategame clashes ive seen, titans just win against Juggernauts bcz of flank dmg and higher maneuverability

vague sparrow
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i think core t3 so called brute force is if it get there it dies

spice scarab
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Shivas and Kargs are really good units in a vacuum, they just don't flesh out Cor's kit very well.

knotty basin
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shiva is just a glorified tzar

spice scarab
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Tigers --> hold/toggle hyper mode: x3 attack speed, consumes 500e per shot. (arbitrary numbers. could have upkeep instead)

For your late t2 emergency dps needs. Too expensive to abuse early t2; basically requires afus+.

spice scarab
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No one keen on this idea? xD

The concept could be applied to other t2 units to give them longevity: some active/toggle ability that consumes huge resources for acute combat effectiveness. Cloak is an example of this kind of concept, but more on a t1 scale.

knotty basin
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Tiger is okay, just need to give t3 cor a facelift

uncut forge
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the biggest problem faced by cortex as they currently exist in 8v8 environments is basically cortex t2 suffers from a lack of good options against armada t3 in general, t2 vehicles especially so

my wishlist looks like this

  1. make shiva not-shit by giving it a nerfed homing banisher missile (can target aerial units) instead of a nerfed dumbfire arbiter rocket. this affords it light AA, which helps it in its role as an amphibious siege unit, but also means it isn't wasting 25% of its DPS value all the time by firing a rocket that never hits anything

  2. give t2 cortex vehicles some sort of option for holding the line against early t3 units. I personally think that increasing the price of Tzars and making them a little more self sufficient by giving them some Behemoth-style LLT lasers would go a long way towards letting them at least not get overwhelmed by spam, and thereby be a decent t2 buffer against early t3 as long as you can solve sniper and starlight balls

  3. give cortex a t3 front line option that can handle Memerauders, Razorbacks, and Thors that isn't "wait until minute 30 and then make Behemoths". because Shivas and Kargs are simply overpriced in flat terrain due to their amphibious and wall climbing movement options, they simply cannot fight in a cost effective manner against things like Razorbacks or Thors. note that the addition of the Demon may have done exactly this; I have to test the unit out next time I play

  4. make cortex t2 vehicles not-shit by giving it at least some sort of anti-spam option without having to go t1 bots. note that the addition of the Salamander may have done exactly this; I have to test the unit out next time I play

shrewd isle
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There's a pinned thread that has a few other bits for a wishlist, some slightly redundant now

1, that would help it making it not a liability to itself, although homing onto ticks going in for a hug might be interesting. as a test/experiment, I would like to see it act as a torpedo underwater

2, I have a tzar made with exactly that mod, but rushed they could be OP. I will try to get that model out for Epic Tzar today, but swapping main game out with Neo Tzar, not happening any time soon
Once siegebreaker is out & balance tested the need should hopefully be met by that & possibly Salamanders of all things

3, I am rapidly reaching the conclusion that Core need a T3 tonk. Demon is good in theory but has 'physics issues', and isn't entry T3 pricing. I've had some thoughts about possible fire fakery, but might murder perf, will have to test

4, salamanders are reasonable at this

hard path
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  1. T3 scaled banisher with flamethrower turrets as a Zeus counterpart. not based on anything sensible, just want more boom and flam
obtuse crescent
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A T3 tank that just has a cerberus for a turret and some secondary sumo lasers would be pretty cool.

spice scarab
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Shiva and Kargs are already strong units. While kiting they beat Razorbacks and even Thors for cost (if no EMP). They just overlap rolls too much and don't add much that Cortex needs.

uncut forge
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they beat Thors if the armada player is a potato and never uses the free EMP missiles Thors have
what is even the point of this statement

brisk prism
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I feel like the best way to describe shivas+kargs is: they're better investments than t2 units, but the upgrade in quality per cost from t2 units to them is so small that it's really hard to justify building a gantry for them, meanwhile arm's gantry is a very large power spike as soon as you finish building it

uncut forge
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the worst part is shiva is legitimately not better a better investment than t2 units
they are a 1.5k wad of metal that friendly fires due to tick streams and is just ripe for sniper and starlight balls to obliterate them
I would rather have some grunts and a negotiator than a shiva

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they suffer the tzar problem where the later they come out the worse they are because they don't handle spam well and late t2 shits on them
except they require a 8k lab to be built to use them so uhhhh.... yeah

brisk prism
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It's a straight upgrade from tzar, like marauder is a straight upgrade from bull, but the degrees of upgrade aren't nearly comparable, particularly considering how abysmal tzar is in any situation other than tzar rush

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Also, when the enemy doesn't have dedicated anti-spam, grunts are still probably the best unit in the game, so there's that. Hard to compare anything to them, unless it's a comparison vs a grunt counter or amphibiousness-required situation

shrewd isle
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what is the typical counter to a tzar rush? I gather it's basically dgun or bust?

pale pine
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Usually dgun, sometimes it's another tzar

shrewd isle
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hmm. in which case the laser sponson version might not actually OP it in early/rush situations after all

pale pine
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It looks roughly like that

modest nova
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I have a really good idea for cortex buffs that imo should be relatively uncontroversial:

make mammoth, karganeth and shiva wrecks much lower to the ground so the alive units can shoot over them. the units are slow so they waste a ton of dps blowing up their own wrecks because they can't maneuver around them, so this would be quite a huge buff I think. this would require remodeling the wrecks tho

this is mostly just a problem with mammoths and karganeths, don't remember if it is for shivas too

shrewd isle
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also means less dead metal lost as a side effect
interesting thought

modest nova
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I use karganeths occasionally because on paper they have good stats for an assault unit and other benefits, but the reality is as soon as one in the front of a blob dies, the assault stops because the karganeths basically completely stop doing damage

mammoths are usually more spread out so it doesn't matter as much except for in like anti-t3 role where the mammoths are trying to stop units from rushing past

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I guess in terms of testing you could just adjust the z height of the wreck box in unitdefs before remodeling was necessary?

brisk prism
spice scarab
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Tzar rush also comes at great opportunity cost. Could get 5 Quakers out and start doing damage with them sooner. Or hella med tanks. Or a Banisher + w/e. Banisher will eventually kill Tzar.

shrewd isle
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that's very handy to know then

uncut forge
# modest nova I use karganeths occasionally because on paper they have good stats for an assau...

My most successful usage of kargs to date is using them as anti spam with a catapult push in early t3
You need to keep them close to the catapults, they literally are just there to stop spam from overwhelming them, which they are actually very very good at. Catapults can handle most anything else
When the first thor comes out, you have to try to get a karg surround while whittling it down with catapults, but it definitely throws the advantage back to the Armada, particularly considering 2 catapults cost the same roughly as 1 thor, so 3 catapults and 2 kargs and you will probably be about to fight 2 thors at least

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Note that of course there's always the wall crawler niche of getting a wall crawler into an eco cluster and detonating them... that's always an option for kargs, but certainly not one exclusive to them

tiny crown
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banisher dies easily to snipers and starlights... it could use some love like qol change to allow it kite and turn its missile rack 360 degrees

uncut forge
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that's not going to help it in that matchup, and honestly it's not even a big deal that they're weak to those
build negotiators, a couple of those guys can very easily vaporize sniper and starlight balls

fiery shoal
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And then you get catapults and all my starlights light up like a Christmas tree running off of an arc reactor

kind gate
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I think banishers should have a stockpile like the long range AA turret that lets them load up to 2 shots, so their first shot in combat would basically do double damage. The model has 2 missile tubes, they should be able to fire both. A damage buff to 1250 would also be nice, and both combined would let banishers finally be a good counter to marauders

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Keeping in mind that that double damage burst would be the same burst damage as a Sharpshooter, which is 320 metal cheaper, longer ranged, and can cloak.

Another possibility would be giving the banisher an alternate firing mode of ‘armor piercing’ missiles that don’t do splash damage but instead do increased single target damage, again to give cortex T2 an option against early T3 similar in strength to Armada’s options

shrewd isle
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stockpiling banishers not too bad an idea tbh

uncut forge
shrewd isle
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tbh though, you could literally double the banisher dps and still not make it comparatively overpowered (even without stockpiling)

spice scarab
slender reef
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ah banisher i think i haven't made this unit in a while
but that just come from what i play and that mean 90% i play bot
but t2 cortex vehicule i just spam tiger because the unit is realy good statwise they are tanky can take sharpshooter shot and can do lot of damage if you have a good enough ball of them.
keep in mind i mostly play ffa (im 50 os)

for other fact we can all agree that t3 cortex is lackluster the early unit can be skipped entirely to just go for catapult behemoth and juggernaut when you get your eco going.
if you want a better T3 you need to steal a armada commander and make gantry and you make razorback/vanguard from it.

knotty basin
tiny crown
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Make it even betterrer!! Still I like Megalith's idea a lot 🙂 and I know my suggested change does not help with t hat matchup, but it does help it rival just spamming quakers a bit which just cant kite at all.

kind gate
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Banisher doesn’t need to be better against starlights and snipers, it just needs to be better at doing the same job as starlights and snipers, killing early T3. It’s also pretty fast for a long-range burst damage unit, excellent for chasing down marauders if only it didn’t do so little damage per metal compared to snipers. Marauders at 4900 health for 970 metal are very hard to catch or kill before they reach vulnerable eco, and take 5000 metal worth of banishers to oneshot, or 1300 metal of snipers. Letting banishers have the same burst as snipers takes it down to 2000 metal of banishers, and stockpiling doesn’t actually increase their DPS over time, just lets you apply it better.

I’ve heard concerns about the banishers AoE damage being too much if it gets buffed and while I think the AoE is honestly too small to matter that much a weapon swap mode to give it more damage at the cost of its AoE would solve that problem

knotty basin
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banisher is built as a all rounder kiting unit with a bit of aoe. if it got more throughput it would be op
better to give cortex a dedicated unit in the role #1155024346381828176

shrewd isle
knotty basin
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thanks, love ya
cortex veh is kinda funny. everyone says its bad until that one or two situations where a tzar or tremor comes and destroys the game

shrewd isle
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when it sticks, it sticks hard, it's weird considering core ethos is meant to be disposable units, yet rely on some that cost 1 or 2 K, and feel more like hail marys than workhorses

obtuse crescent
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Cortex units being "expendable" is a good joke.

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You know what would actually make Cortex units expendable? If Armada couldn't resurrect.

knotty basin
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just self d or reclaim your own wrecks xD
the threat of leaving rezzable wrecks is terrifiying for any pusher tho

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maybe people have to practice self-d more

obtuse crescent
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It's not that, it's that if only the faction with tough units can rez, they can afford to slow push by continually bringing them back.

knotty basin
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ehh, rezzing is a completely busted mechanic to only have 1 race have it
with the current rez bp level anyway. (rez subs are a lot slower at it so it's markedly weaker)

obtuse crescent
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Nah, only Core had rezbots in NOTA. It worked as I describe and made the slow tanky units more fun to use because they'd always leave a wreck that gets rezzed by its owner.

knotty basin
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so other peple can reclaim but only the owner can rez? could encourage more aggro play. but its such a core mechanic i doubt bar devs will change it

obtuse crescent
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Not quite, Cortex could rez any unit, but Arm had a better reclaim bot.

obtuse crescent
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What it meant in practice was the slower faction was far more resistant to attrition. I think this is good design.

shrewd isle
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that actually makes a lot more sense. units are expendable if you can pop them back up again after a time, compared to opponent who can only salvage.

obtuse crescent
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Yep, and the resistance to overkill of Cortex's tougher units would be a greater asset because they leave rezzable wrecks more often.

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So what would be adequate compensation for armada rezbots no longer being rezbots? Removal of stealth from cortex rezbots?

spice scarab
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More expendable + more expensive = paradoxical

knotty basin
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rez bot stealth who cares about that
i could see that design working but it's a radical change that would greatly change 1v1 too

modest nova
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lmao rezbot stealth is so important

brisk prism
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Rezbot stealth drastically increases their odds of reclaiming things in range of enemy arty, among other things

obtuse crescent
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Yeah, it's really strong. I suggested it as a possiblity because obviously resurrection itself is extremely stong.

lavish sage
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I like rez bot as it is didn't think it need to change anything and I do like to see T2 version of them maybe give Cor heavy res bot that quite slow but have a lot of HP enough to tank plasma cannon... While Armada didn't have T2 version but they could get support from other unit like mobile shield reflector something like that.

brisk prism
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well, in release candidates modoption, cor has a very, very heavyweight t2 reclaimer

celest kettle
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Alot of shivas issues could be solved by giving it heat rays

uncut forge
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I honestly dig the aesthetic and vibe of the shiva
you send it into the fight and just see plasma and rocket explosions everywhere, it's great
but then you zoom a little closer and just see it blasting themselves and the units around it more often than the enemy and its kind of a feelsbadman moment
the first time you see a shiva blob marching, all fire rockets at the single tick running at them, then walk into the rockets and explode one of their own is the first time you question why you're building this unit

obtuse crescent
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Incidentally, I did just watch a game where shiva's starburst was actually required to break through. Dude was using shivas to attack into a triple-shield so the cannons weren't working. The missiles sure did though.

vague sparrow
uncut forge
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yeah
or I could build a catapult and do the same job better

obtuse crescent
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No you couldn't because this was an amphibious assault.

uncut forge
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bro don't give me that bullshit, if its an amphibious assault and my shiva are popping up in the middle of a base, guess what's getting EMP'd and tick streamed seconds later?
the rocket is literally useless in every scenario you can concoct except the utterly most asinine niche shit that literally never happens ("uhh you're against a noob who doesn't know what shuriken, stilettos, or ticks are, but also he was getting targeted by LRPCs so he build a shield, and uhhh there's a million ragnaroks gunning down any catapult who might try to siege his position but uhh there's some water nearby so-")

obtuse crescent
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Are you telling me that Trotsky andJazcash don’t know how to play? I’m talking about a real game.

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Are the shivas MVP of the game? No, that's Jazcash hanging on for dear life. But they did break through because of their rockets.

uncut forge
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Cool
Its still the shittiest part of the unit and needs a buff

kind gate
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It does seem like shields are supposed to counter amphibious units, other than the Shiva’s rocket they block everything from a Marauder raid and the new Demon also gets stopped by shields because fire is reskinned plasma

pale pine
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Wait, shields stop fire?

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SHIELDS STOP FIRE?

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HAHAHAHAH

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That's not a plasma deflector, that's an area where true sight was cast

kind gate
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Well, I haven’t personally tested it in game but fiends and demons apparently just have reskinned plasma cannons with some AoE. No promises on Legion napalm

obtuse crescent
tiny crown
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I wish there was something accurate like with heavy laser gun among tanks in Cortex. All of t2 cortex fac is countered by tick spam as nothing can kill it quickly and accurately before it comes close and then friendly fire becomes a big problem
arm has at least lightning tanks, starlights are very accurate and dont do friendly fire, bulls have fast and aoe projectiles (tigers can miss easily because of no aoe)... it's terrible overall

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what if Tigers had lasers instead of plasma?

kind gate
tiny crown
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I'm talking veh only for now
and I'm a bit sceptical of salamander as it has quite short range - I think that tzar will try to hit salamander trying to predict ticks movement before salamanders kills the tick

kind gate
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Salamander is literally this exact unit

tiny crown
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but I remember Goliaths being even more ridiculous in teamkilling in BA before

brisk prism
gray bolt
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For Shivas starburst cannon, why not just speed up the projectile significantly?

spice scarab
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at that point may as well be more plasma , idk. would make the missile a bit more effective at least

gray bolt
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It would essentially be plasma. But plasma that wouldn't be deflected by shields.

uncut forge
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I mean I dig it, but I maintain that giving it a nerfed banisher missile to give it just a dash of AA would be really nifty
I'll take whatever change results in Shivas not blowing themselves up against ticks though

spice scarab
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if the shiva missile was something like a cruise missile ship's cluster missiles, it would be strong against large structure but mediocre vs small units

knotty basin
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those rng missiles so annoying
don't know how much dmg they will do

shrewd isle
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also a great way to FF your entire base

spice scarab
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shiva plasma will do that already. could make the missile an active ability, like Thor

shrewd isle
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as a general rule active abilities are best avoided
especially on a more common unit like shivas. can't lock their dps behind a chore

knotty basin
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ambassador is basically an active ability emothinxD
seriously though yeah.

spice scarab
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Hmm. Give the missile like 960 range, enough to "siege" snipers/starlights. ?

uncut forge
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the aoe is insignificant and therefore would not do that job any better than Arbiters do (which is basically not well at all). but more importantly, I personally feel that having two "specialty" weapons (like rocket artillery and wide aoe plasma cannons) simply doesn't work with how BAR's current unit controls works, and therefore until you have a weapon that can be a little more "fire and forget" (such as a nerfed homing banisher rocket), plastering two weapons with two different roles on a singular unit just isn't going to work very well, especially one that is supposed to be relatively cheap and spammable

spice scarab
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Currently it doesn't do anything special. xD

uncut forge
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again, merely making the missile homing would be a huge step in the right direction
but I like the idea of a horde of shiva wading out of a river firing banisher missiles everywhere at the air wall and shooting plasma cannons, sending fighters sprawling out of the air and blasting chunks out of nearby structures, because it makes me feel good in my lizard brain

spice scarab
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I'd personally trade health for more dps somewhere, more glass cannon

uncut forge
# spice scarab Currently it doesn't do anything special. xD

😄
I get what you mean but its the archetypical design behind their respective weapons that I'm referring to
arbiters are a good unit when you need to deliver long ranged artillery somewhere, like blasting down t2 porc. the rocket weapon type does that job very well; it doesn't need to be homing, you just need to be aware of where the building is, and in range of it. IE, rocket artillery is what you want if you want to perform long ranged sieging. but the crucial element here is that it requires the range to operate, which Shiva's version doesn't have

tzars are a good unit when you need to blast apart large numbers of early t2 units. the huge aoe on its plasma cannon does great direct damage. it falls off when the tick swarm starts, but until then it doesn't have to be babysat much and it can get really good value. IE, aoe plasma cannons are what you want if you want to perform mid game frontal assault. but, again, the Shiva falls flat here because of the timing of when it comes out; by the time it has started to come out, so has the spam, and so this damage type ends up not being very valuable

we can jigger this unit into place, but having two wildly different weapon types built into it is not helping it

spice scarab
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Make it's cannon a wide-angle laser with double damage drop-off. Same aoe at max range. 500 damage per shot at max range, 2000 per shot at point blank

spice scarab
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Random idea: it shoots like a gravity or suction missile, knocking units towards the epicenter of the explosion.

Could be larger aoe but less damage, pulls a bunch of enemy units into a ball, then Shiva blasts them all with plasma cannons.

spice scarab
# kind gate I think banishers should have a stockpile like the long range AA turret that let...

This would probably get nerfed fast. 2 Banishers could 1-tap your commander. It would be nearly impossible to engage against them with tanks. Overall would increase dps substantially.

1st shot: 2000 dmg dealt vs 1000vanilla; 100% increase
2nd shot: 3k vs 2k; 50% increase
3rd shot: 4k vs 3k; 33% increase
4th shot: 5k vs 4k; 25% increase
. . .
Usually a single engagement won't last longer than that.

kind gate
pale pine
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Snipers have no AoE

kind gate
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Snipers are 300 metal cheaper, longer ranged, more damage, hitscan, and have 360 degree firing arcs and cloak

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How often do you hit 3+ targets with one banisher missile? That is what you have to do just to output the same damage as a starlight or sniper

modest nova
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literally all the time

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tbh tho snipers morties and banishers are all not that great in veh arti meta imo, and banishers are probably the best of the 3 in the veh arti meta because they're fastest and tankiest

fiery shoal
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Let Cortex die. F’em

spice scarab
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Look at the hostilities from the (filthy) armada. See how they expand and take our mexes. They should be banished, and their afus reclaimed.

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Banishers basically force (filthy) armada to make snipers/starlights, 'cause they ain't got anything else in t2 that can deal with them. (Mausers kinda, soft counter but they get 1-shotted.) There are plenty of counters for snipers/starlights, but not a lot of counters for banishers.

kind gate
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Bulls?

spice scarab
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If you let them get close, sure. But bulls have to chase pretty deep to catch kiting banishers. After 3+, they start 2-shooting your bulls. 5+ 1-shot. Pretty much impossible for bulls to chase after that.

kind gate
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5 banishers oneshot a Bull but 5000 metal worth of bulls will catch and kill the banishers before they kill all the bulls. Defenses like the Pulsar or T2 popup artillery work pretty well, and of course tickspam totally fucks banishers unless they are properly supported and well-microed

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The Jaguar actually isn’t terrible against banishers as well, it almost gets oneshot but barely survives, wasting another banisher shot, has the speed to chase them down, and costs 1/3 as much. You just have to commit and dive the banishers, can’t let them skirmish and get shots off for free

spice scarab
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"unless they are properly supported and well-microed".

Let this be a baseline assumption. Typically there are leftover t1 tanks and various escorts for Banishers. It's hard for Bulls and Jags to dive through a med-tank line to get to the Banishers. If med tanks are escorting the bulls, there will be heavy losses of attrition before a forced engagement. Chasing naturally balls up armies, so there will be a lot of aoe damage.

Whenever I lose my Banishers to bulls, I usually feel like I fked up rather than got outplayed.

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Compared to snipers and starlights, snipers need a lot less to be "properly supported". Their mobility makes them much less vulnerable to getting flanked or swarmed.