Season 2 balance feedback

[grizzled atlas]

on straight we all thought it was op, wouldn't use it on an open map, especially when in tourney, the game moves too fast (e.g. lich, bull/jag)

don't have the time to poke for 3 min

phalanx the most op part about is 50 speed and it can kite com with ground fire (welder/sumo can't)

[toxic island]

i think when people start abusing ambassador tac nuke and emp launcher on strait there will be new pain meta

[grizzled atlas]

tac launcher is always good yeh

amba i feel like is pretty meh unless you forward lab. then it's op
unless doing it just before a push

[scarlet mirage]

few things bebefit more from micro than amba

[grizzled atlas]

amba is a lot of apm tax but i'd say shorter range units are harder micro
cause you have to control positioning

[crisp bison]

Positioning is what you have to adjust now and then tho - striking with Amba needs a continuous retargeting to breach the defensive line, otherwise the enemy will respond in time to rush them down. You cant place them somewhere Fire at Will, coz they just demolish your own defenses.

Seen a noob last week, who spammed Negotiators only to wreck the entire multi-layer front auto attacking the spam. Funny how people cant recognize a problem starting at it point-blank.

[agile topaz]

I didnt know that cortex amphi tanks were moved to t2

Interesting...

[crisp bison]

Garpikes are T1

[agile topaz]

Ah yeah

To be honest centurions should be in core arsenal,not arm.Just doesnt make any sense for it to be arm

[grizzled atlas]

@west birch
The proposed turret BP -10% is meant to make con expands easier to defend in early game.

Another player pointed out to me that this makes commander (+con) turret spam + repair stronger. LLT and turret spamming to hold space is pretty strong and this promotes this porcy defensive "denial" gameplay.

if the goal is to just buff vunerable con expands, maybe a further con hp increase would suffice
Losing the con is way worse (which is a source of volatility) than losing mexes

[grizzled atlas]

I didn't notice the triton, but even so I abandoned using legion t2 bots because I didn't think it realistic without practice

[hollow dawn]

I think what cons need is actually bp 🤔

LLT is very easy for commanders to build and repair (and con turrets) because they just have huge BP

[grizzled atlas]

t1 bot cons are actually close to effecient to nano turret if you factor in the energy gen (unless wind is high)

[hollow dawn]

yeah but it's about the opportunity cost

if you spend 30 seconds on an LLT you delay all the mexes the con builds by 30 seconds

[grizzled atlas]

llt gives you big safety, con hp gives you 2 more seconds until con dies before llt comes up
or your army gets there

[hollow dawn]

so 5 mexes x 2.0 income each = 10 x 30 = 300 metal in opportunity cost

[grizzled atlas]

yeah but that's how it is
bar is based on greed vs checking that greed

and opponents not reacting and running spam into llts for bonus value

[hollow dawn]

it's just a general feeling among high level 1v1 players

that LLT is too expensive for what it gives

[grizzled atlas]

yeah early on in the expansion chain llt is too expensive

but farther along the chain or blocking off path sit's OP

[hollow dawn]

we just nerf the hp next, easy fix

[grizzled atlas]

part of it is that pawn is really good at killing non-small targets, incisor and other higher hp units are too

stout seems op in larger maps, 1v1 small teams since it counters non hardcore porc and you can repair damage away

partially rocket bot/mace too slow to traverse map and knock down porc

at higher level porc meant to be used together with your units prolly

[grizzled atlas]

while we're on t2 balance

gunslinger has 11000e cost, 17000bp
quaker costs 4400e , 6500 bp

gunslinger costs significantly more than 2 quaker in bp

[grizzled atlas]

ftr i think quaker is the strongest unit in cor veh and one of the most op t2 units atm, at least in large teams. Due to reliable splash and low cost.

tho tzar and banisher* got nerfed a lot, and cor t2 veh has no utility. without quaker the lab is garbo

(reduce gunslinger bp cost)

[scarlet mirage]

when I mentioned that a few months ago ppl laughed at me 💀

1984 had a game couple days ago with several million % dmg efficiency from quaker

and he even lost some i dunno how it was possible

[dapper cape]

Quaker goated to be sure

[grizzled atlas]

i first discovered quakers on straits, after spider got nerfed and banisher buffed

because I was struggling to carry games banisher vs banisher -- unit ties up too much of your economy/potential

shit just annihilates, arguably even better at hitting coms than banisher/tzar

the only time where they are not good is against active blitz leaks or in 1v1 where everything is a pawn/medium tank

[odd swallow]

Do I gotta pull out the tremors again?

[crisp bison]

Certainly one of the most efficient. You can easily disregard Bani rush and just build Quakers the same way you'd do with Sheldons. Carry with sheer DPS/metal and delay the accuracy of Banishers for later when enemy T2ss become more prevalent.

Mausers aren't worse either. Pretty much the same tactically, slightly cheaper, not as splashy, but more accurate. In some cases can work even better since you also have access to Gremlins, which you can use to spot for accurate volleys.

[scarlet mirage]

yeah quakers do alot better at shooting radar dots than mauser

comes in really handy when shooting at cloaked commanders

[grizzled atlas]

gremlin more expensive, radar bot ftw. or rover while radar bot is not there yet

[tardy basin]

Why nothing in this month balance patch about spybots ?

[chilly heath]

We couldn't agree what to do with them yet. There will be some stuff on test later.

[agile topaz]

The banisher in question:

[fast obsidian]

why touch spybot, 0.1 sec on bull is peak game balancing

[grizzled atlas]

thought as much, fair enough

[lunar hollow]

increase emp damage a lot but lower AOE to the point where it only hits 1 or 2 units

[exotic sigil]

I am once again asking the balance team to look at fightwar's suggestion
#1353364944350871632 message

[grizzled atlas]

this seems very reasonable. up emp dmg but lower radius, give mobile anti nuke anti stealth detection so you can push / and gives you more reward for babysitting an expensive mobile AN

also 10-12 second stun seems very reasonable, not the brain dead 20 second stun

the shorter the stun the more the spybot may be telegraphed, as a commander / killing units has to be within 10 seconds to kill the tzar

[hexed anchor]

so, the proposed unit changes... for flag... who came up with this? Really? 'nerf'? It feels like a buff, not a nerf...

[grizzled atlas]

is the extra aoe that much?

[hexed anchor]

Chronopolize, yep... it's 'slower' lol, but kills everything in the area 🙂

[crisp bison]

So its like, "its not as good at wrecking shields, but if you have no shields, then you're boned' ?

[grizzled atlas]

after using whistler some

the unit is has weaknesses like lower speed, and weak vs early hyper aggression

but after that it counters rocket bot when microed well, beats most things in lane except arty

cor veh doesn't have a way to attack the commander so the lasher is good there

on maps like moonshine shurikens are such a threat so getting imunnity from them is so good you just auto go whistler

they are easier to micro than other t1 comps cause you dont' need a seperate unit for vision

While the unit has weaknesses it's not that great for a mostly mono unit comp to be the best in some cases while being easy and free full aa

Nerfing the whistler to not fire over each other seems okay. means the unit does something but it will never be a main army comp

[empty yew]

So that's what the nerf does?

[scarlet mirage]

I would suggest a nerf to whistler and lasher turn rates

for a unit that does so much they are a little too good at running away

a mistake in positioning them should be punished more harshly

[empty yew]

I would agree but if this nerf really causes them not to shoot over each other its worth testing more how much nerfed the unit is rn

[scarlet mirage]

it would be a very minor dps nerf that would only come into effect once there is a shitload of them

its kinnda easy to line micro them around

[grizzled atlas]

It seemed like a major nerf cause you often ball them to make them easier to defend

[grizzled atlas]

some 1v1 balance opinions by a very top rated 1v1 player

"very very good means if both player are same skill and highly skilled u can expect pawn to win like 90%
rn if grunt is afk 2 grunt lose to 1 pawn kek
and if pawn are split in 6 locations gl kiting everywhere"

[stray oasis]

the whole pawn being better AA than aa bot hurts my soul but its true

[grizzled atlas]

i am the guy in the middle, that's why i asked xfactor

pawn is super broken in lower os 1v1 too (sub 40)

because of their power to kill llts and bases

[stray oasis]

i feel like u cant use grunts and incisor even when u have low ping, its like nobody wants to admit it but u are literally at the mercy of following every single movement variation by the pawn player its so inconsistent to expect it to work

[grizzled atlas]

playing the defender in 1v1 is super brutal

yeah, even if you have units the right position you have to follow them perfectly to prevent a leak

[stray oasis]

yeah the amount of apm required to kite on kiting units is just wild and they can always just walk backwards and cancel the entire interaction

[grizzled atlas]

how do you even balance that? just make structures tankier and pawns less dps on stationary targets?

[stray oasis]

structures should be a bit tankier yeah but also bunched up units should do more aoe when they die to themselves imo

also pawns should not attack air thats insane btw

[grizzled atlas]

yeah or halve their aa modifier

when a unit is so good at it's ground mobile fighting role you should be skeptical of it having aa

unless it's a raider that gives up stats in exchange for mobility and anti shuriken

[stray oasis]

imo grunt should do a bit more damage or pawns do less damage atm

since they already decreased cost of llt

in the new balance modoption anyway

[grizzled atlas]

Pawns vs LLT
3 -- pawns win, lose 2 pawns, lose 1 pawn possible with a good concave (162/2700)
4 -- pawns win, lose 1 pawn
5 -- pawns win, lose 1 pawn
6 -- pawns win, lose 1 pawn
7 -- pawns win, lose 1 pawn

Grunt vs LLT
3 -- grunts lose. LLT has 30% hp left (129/2520)
4 -- grunt win, lose 3 (172/3360)

Incisors vs LLT
1 -- llt wins with 50% hp left
2 -- incisor win, lose 1, possible to lose 0 with good pull back micro (240/2080)
3 -- incisor win, 0 losses as long as you don't melee range the targeted incisor

[crisp bison]

Grunts need more damage to account for by-range damage penalty and reward short range engagement instead of demanding it. That's it.

[stray oasis]

yeah imo gator and grunt need damage increase if pawns dont get damage nerf

[eternal osprey]

I know the whole 50% laser falloff is pretty set in stone but is be curious what adjusting that to say 25-30% for light lasers would do rather than a simple damage buff.

[verbal yacht]

Probably just reduce pawn hp? Small units are balanced around them dying easily and groups losing dps as they die

[grizzled atlas]

then won't pawn get wrecked by grunt/incisor and people will cry again?

idea is to fix the unintentionally too good part of the unit

I actually like the pawn vs grunt micro, but think there's too much reward for just "random bullshit go send pawn tick everywhere"

[verbal yacht]

Just don’t reduce the hp too much then, slight change should be sufficient? Surely there is a middle ground between not good enough and too good

[agile topaz]

Tldr pawn still OP

[stray oasis]

hp reduction is good too yes

[crisp bison]

I mean, you'd need a brand new weapontype clone for that, and to modify it for every eligible unit. It would be weird to do it just for Grunts, and it may skew the entire balance unpredictably when applied to all light lasers. There's quite a lot of units equipped with them.

Buffing Grunt damage is the case for Grunt being weak, and nerfing Pawn HP is the case for Pawn being too strong. Both are viable options, but whichever is closer to the reality is something I leave to pros.
I personally have no clue.

[grizzled atlas]

grunt is not bad unit in general... other unit has some op traits. and lab lacks a scout -- scout lets you position your units and greed/attack effeciently.

[empty yew]

I can imagine pawn being a powerhouse (as it is now), but having reduced turn rate so you can game it by being annoyingly fast making circles around it.

[lunar hollow]

But Cortex has no fast bot

grunt is slower then pawn

[hollow dawn]

grunt would be better balanced if it were faster and shorter ranged than pawn

[grizzled atlas]

imagine blitzzes kiting grunt O.o

[scarlet mirage]

I think balancing grunt and pawn would be simpler if they were less similar

[empty yew]

pawn is now a deployable mine that uncloaks and runs toward enemy guns blazing

[scarlet mirage]

my vision is that grunts are bigger, slower and meaner

or in other words

cortex units

[crisp bison]

I mean if Pawns were the brittle and fast ones, and Grunts more expensive but sturdy, that would fit the faction's style more, but would flip the meta balance on its head.

Damn, didn't seen @scarlet mirage response, but still wrote effectively the same.

Wasn't the original Arm Peewee's more brittle?

[raw panther]

make the grunt the same as centurion but faster

[lunar hollow]

Hard to make grunt early then tho need a cheap unit that is spammable to cover ground

[agile topaz]

Transfer centurion to cortex t1 bot lab

Game becomes 2x more balanced👍 👍 👍

[humble lake]

transfer behmoth to arm t3 gantry 👍 👍 👍

[agile topaz]

Nooooooo

But seriously,i don't understand why Centurion is in the arm t1 lab.It's tanky,slow and hard hitting against spam

Something that fits cortex right?It's weird that cortex has only one unique unit in the t1 bot lab that is the Grunt

[silver gulch]

Put Centurion in cor, rename to Sarge, good times.

[agile topaz]

Also i don't know which unit the cent is supposed to be from TA,Warrior uses 2 dual plasma gatlings

[ancient lance]

i couldn't agree more with that

[silver gulch]

Oeh and have all friendly grunts in range of Sarge get +15 range.. (they remember how to shoot when Sarge is watching)

[serene creek]

Pawn is so good at ground, its AA should be disabled.

[grizzled atlas]

"Monospam derives a lot of its power from being easy to manage. The logistics are simple. Just set your factory to repeat-build Scorchers, spam Ctrl+Z to keep them all selected, then repeatedly hit your opponent with them. The Scorchers move at the same speed and want to fight the same types of battles. But mix in more unit types, and it becomes much more complicated. Even maintaining the right mix is a challenge, since different units often die at different rates, and reinforcements take time to reach the fight. A mixed army that loses most of one type has to wait for the build ratios to be adjusted, while monospam can rely on a constant stream of appropriate reinforcements. "

very applies to pawn spam. Way easier to control than cor t1 vehicles, which has potentially incisor, pounder, wolverine, and brute to all manage

Pawn
-is fast so it reinforces fast and threatens multiple areas. If an enemy unit/defence stops it from doing it's job, it can move to a more useful location quickly without wasting much time (remember, all units are investments, a unit stuck without purpose should have been economy instead)
-Is good into com/dgun, one of the best com killers for cost
-is a raider but unlike fiend/sprinter mass pawns beats most things unless you invest a significant amount into counter spam.
-has so much DPS it takes the main DPS role in stout/pawn and starlight/pawn, while not requiring support like most t2 dps units.

-is a low cost unit, enemy units tend to overkill it

Starlight push owes a lot of it's power to the pawn's op dps

[noble yarrow]

l still don't get why they increased pawn hp in the beginning of season 2

[subtle jasper]

I'm pretty sure the idea was to increase the Pawn's breakthrough value vs Grunt's range since this is viewed as the traditional (and bad imo, it shouldn't be because it's fundamentally too volatile of an interaction) Grunt v Pawn balance interaction difference. Grunt range nerf was good, in my opinion it should have been nerfed more and Grunt damage brought up.

[grizzled atlas]

buff pawn accuracy decrease dps

[crisp bison]

Overreaction. It really isnt bad that they buffed pawn HP. Its bad that they buffed and nerfed too much at the same time, so it turned the balance on its head. You should always avoid overstepping balance decisions, its more fragile than many believe.

[grizzled atlas]

make makes t2 arm bots suck compared to veh is the e cost

1:20 for hound and welder vs 1:10 for quaker

or you could say the quaker/mauser is too cheap

[hollow dawn]

looks to me like quaker/mauser are just too cheap in general

[grizzled atlas]

Yep

[empty yew]

Yeah, agree. t2 arty is so useful and fights amazing into so much t1, all it's porc, pushes the lane forward, for just measly 400m + 4400e (quaker, mauser is 320m!!)). a gunslinger costs 650m and 11000e for example but is less impactful and not very useful when massed up.

these units should be costlier and still be useful

btw gunslinger is very overpriced IMO

[grizzled atlas]

it's priced like a unit that will wrek every thing

at least in terms of bp

[empty yew]

upgraded gunslinger is a beast, fights hounds like cookie crumbs, BUT it's very hard to upgrade it now with the XP nerf on it, so it's a big investment for potential 1-shot by sniper

[grizzled atlas]

janus can snipe it, even stout can run it down

[empty yew]

yeah very true

[grizzled atlas]

nerf the self repair (so damaging it still buys you time) but buff max hp

and probably buff the speed or starting range slightly

[empty yew]

slinger is still cool to use, but honestly, for that price.. slinger requires almost all your APM, so it's even costlier if you think in terms of APM sink

[grizzled atlas]

risky option vs not so risky option

[west birch]

when i suggested nerfing quaker/mauser along w the other t2 veh nerfs, i got a good amount of pushback saying theyre only any good on atg/supreme

[hollow dawn]

time to start planning the next balance patch

[grizzled atlas]

saying something is only atg/supreme only issue is a HUGE red flag unless you can identify what map feature it is and why that doesn't apply to most other maps

I remember when they said starlight was bad and only good on straights

[hollow dawn]

to be honest using supreme as a basis for sea balance is kind of limiting

[grizzled atlas]

straights literally caused so much brainrot from people who dislike critical thinking

[hollow dawn]

because of how the mexes are laid out there

[grizzled atlas]

indeed, it has many land mexes, few contestable sea mexes

[hollow dawn]

that's like an extreme special case by any other metric, but any change to sea will be judged through this

[grizzled atlas]

however it's also true most other sea maps are rivers

[grizzled atlas]

they should resist balancing it just for straits, but open sea maps are sea maps too
so many people saying subs are shit when they are quite strong

hellas basin bot lane is a good example for open sea

[hollow dawn]

yeah i guess subs are bad when there is one single mex you can attack

[grizzled atlas]

they are good on straights too, except when fighting vs cove

they just control the sea and hit ships
when it's too early to have vunerable destroyers

[lunar hollow]

i think it should share XP between gunslingers that are nearby, and it should cost a little less

you cannot balance a unit that is intended to level up and become as strong as multiple units and fight on its own, so there needs to be a reason to make multiple of them, this is allso the only way to make sharpshooters less devastating without making them not counter gunslinger or reworking gunslingers entirely destroying their current identity.

[grizzled atlas]

sharpshooters going to t3 will give gunslingers plenty of time

[grizzled atlas]

shuirken abuse at it's max. Static defense is insanely weak to shurikens, considering shurikens can hit anywhere 4x more mobile than light infantry

like think how can you realistically defend shuirken + raid with similiar investment other than having figs

very broken, at least it takes some skill to do so its not common

[hollow dawn]

50% or more emp resist of towers would be more than fair

[humble lake]

is it planned to buff arm sea t1? sub and frigate difference is somewhat crazy, since they are the core units of a composition for a good navy

arm subs need insane level of micro, idk if its even possible, to win a 1v1 vs core sub. Too many times core sub survives with less than 10% hp

[grizzled atlas]

arm sea good on open sea

it's pretty good on strait especially on split spawns (geo sea shipyard on their beach), but high skill floor to play

[humble lake]

why is that? because of fast dolphines?

[grizzled atlas]

fast subs, skaters, dolphins yeah

Thoughts on termite post patch? IMO not impressive but useable at least
like 1.5 salamanders stapled together
termites now outspeed recluse 50-47, making them able to catch them if left afk

[empty yew]

Skater is S tier unit on open seas, radar invisible, wont let you have any map presence, and dolphin gang can hunt you down if not clumped

Cor scout ship is much worse for big seas

[humble lake]

frigate makes up for it big time

[agile topaz]

Hoo boy

Hopefully this patch will be good

Not sure why mexes and cons got a health buff though

[scarlet mirage]

I think cuz scout harass was absolutely brutal to deal with

[chilly heath]

It's to make 1v1 and small team games a bit less sweaty and more approachable to the larger audience.

[empty yew]

i would propose mex HP not be 41% more but around 35% so bombers can reliable 1-hit it. right now they can't even if aimed perfectly, modulo tested

1v1 air opening in shambles

[west birch]

how unreliable is it exactly? I can't reproduce a whiff at all when aiming at center

[empty yew]

i didnt test, modulo claimed its always kill with center aim, but later on he said it's not, its unreliable

if there's any tiny level difference in height, you can't kill it

bombs dropped closer would also fix it

[hollow dawn]

remember to test with cormex as well since it has more hp

[hollow dawn]

I'm getting results like this, there might be something wrong with the methodology? arm bomber on core mex

16x targeting ground with no vision, fairly central, no kills
16x targeting with vision, no kills

lol... i coulda sworn I was killing them before

got a couple kills after about 50 trials

i swear it was like 100% when i tested it before the patch

[exotic sigil]

Pretty inconsistent with my own testing. Even when the indicator snaps onto the center of the mex with full los they sometimes live at 2-4% hp

[tardy basin]

The edge case is with arm bomber on cor mex with hills near it (on ATG for example, some mex have big hill near them)

[hollow dawn]

can anyone reproduce this? 🤔

[exotic sigil]

Arm bomber on cor mex? Yes happens like 9/10 times. Cor bomber on arm mex kills most of the time but rarely leaves it at exactly 5hp

[barren prawn]

just arm bomber moment

[west birch]

it's a bit confusing what's causing it, sometimes they die consistently and other times they live consistently

when talking of just hits on flat ground with no other buildings etc

[empty yew]

i guess bombs closer together by 10% or so would break the least balance?

[west birch]

there's targeting the mex directly and the groudn below it, but its not clear cut in either way with that either

theres still the question of non-centered hits too, how reliable should those be

tbh I'd like to increase bomber LoS so that they could acquire / keep a lock on targets better by themselves

[crisp bison]

LoS of air units is one of the weirdest things in BAR. You'd expect them to have the best among all.

[hollow dawn]

it's a somewhat artificial way of forcing air scout use

same thing with los of certain ground units (eg light tanks before they were buffed)

[grizzled atlas]

given how op vision is in bar it's probably needed. imagine if every air unit read "give a buff to all long ranged units within 1000 units"

[hollow dawn]

an earlier suggestion I made was asymmetric los for bombers (eg cone or forward ellipse) so they could at least acquire targets on their own

[scarlet mirage]

is the mex hitbox square? maybe bombs splash it better on a diagonal pass

[hollow dawn]

it's a cylinder

[scarlet mirage]

I tried 🤷‍♂️

[hollow dawn]

it better not be something like the bombs still using map gravity

[west birch]

thats not the case. But map gravity has some effect on aircraft handling

so if the flight altitude is different enough it could change the bomb pattern ever so slightly

but iirc it wasnt a clearly map dependent when i tested it

its a combination of factors, can be changed by very small adjustment in any case

[hollow dawn]

maybe it's time to get rid of accuracy = 500 if it leads to such fuzzy edge cases as well

[tardy basin]

Bombers are used with manual "attack ground" always with pre wave of scouts, change LOS will change nothing (and it make non sense as it have same logic as low LOS arty on ground gaming). What is hard in revert the mex buff by 5% ? (+41% => +36%)

[ancient lance]

anyway bomber are usualy use to carpet bomb windmill not killing mex is not much of a surprise

as for the guys who say arm sea is weak
the t2 lightning boat is on crack what is this xD

but i agree the t1 fregate are weak

[empty yew]

In 1v1 killing mex with 1 flyby is relevant though

[west birch]

yeah that doesnt really serve a purpose

[tacit mural]

general thought, I think arm air needs something on t1 to compete with shurikens in 8v8s

shurikens are way too game dominating imo. having a 'real' (main/good) air player on your team can completely shut down early runbys without much investment

investing in any sort of early harass is completely throwing vs a good shuriken player, and early 1-2 unit leaks still ruin games when the air sucks or picks armada

it's such an insane drag/boost (depending on which side you are) to have your air actually just make 3 shuris early vs every single front needing multiple LLTs/units to prevent early harass

[stray oasis]

if feel like u havent been tech switched into banshee before, that shit can com snipe and win games

[tacit mural]

that shit could also just watch your frontline die to pawns in 3 minutes

it's not like the arm air is bad later in the game or anything, but the early presence of shurikens is COMPLETELY unmatched by anything else in the game

[hollow dawn]

hmm, there's a problem with making gunships too oppressive though... there's a reason why banshees have the stats that they do (and even wasps/roughnecks to a lesser extent)

[next hawk]

Conversely if the air player is forced to build too many shuris due to raids than they fall behind on figs and get bombed the fuck out.

Problem with that is that not many air players know how to punish.

[grizzled atlas]

Everything costs something, shuirkens just are extremely effecient

[crisp bison]

Like... figs? I don't see the point

[tacit mural]

in what way do fighters counter earlygame leaks?

[crisp bison]

They don't, they counter Shurikens, which is what you want when you want to compete.
If you mean Arm needs an analogue unit, then you have the Banshee. It's just should not be a pea-shooter, that is only marginally stronger than Whistlers. They can easily trade their durability to have enough DPS and accuracy to counter leaks. On the other hand, there's a factor of faction specialty. Shurikens are mainly defensive tool, while Banshee is an early raider. Arm aren't intended to be good at defense or raiding, so its not necessarily a good idea to tweak unit balance to accomodate that.

In similar fashion, you can have an Arma air immediately begin to Banshee-raid enemy mexes and eco, which Cor doesn't have a match to. Does that mean Cor needs a T1 gunship too?

[grizzled atlas]

who says you need gunship, bomber is faster than gunship, transport + shuriken can one tap abduct cons

[grizzled atlas]

The turret bp cost reduction makes you incentivized to just use turrets to defend weaknesses instead of units (in large teams)

which is pretty safe and boring

llts are very cheap, highish bp was their only limiting factor imo
Buffing the repair rate is questionable.

[grizzled atlas]

con turret price is probably too cheap. Con turret range lets you do economic scaling, also allows for op free ranged repairs

if you wanted to nerf economic scaling, out of afus / converters / con turret, I'd probably nerf the con turret price, and the t1 converter slightly

t2 converters very expensive and big targets.

[crisp bison]

What is the point of having turrets if you better off defending hot spots with units over them?
In fact, on turrets like HLTs, BP cost is so absurdly high, than most players disregard its existence altogether. LLTs are like 2 Grunts of fixed combat potential. They are even remotely viable because the Comm can spam them.

[hollow dawn]

hmm, I'd say it's bp that's too cheap (on commander and con turret)

the commander having 3.5x bot con bp means it's hard to find values that feel right for both

[crisp bison]

Making conturrets more expensive makes no sense to me. They're just better enough compared to mobile cons to compensate for their fragility and immobility. If the repairs are problem, its because its free, not because of conturrets.

You already have to forget about any statics and just stack conturrets on the front to achieve repair rates that are meaningful.

[grizzled atlas]

units are weaker but have the potential to move in different places, for example you can use them to defend somewhere, then quickly send them with an attack, leaving a calculated vunerability

[crisp bison]

You don't have to explain this to me. It doesn't answer the question though. My point is, what is wrong with an incentive to defend a specific place with turrets suited for that?

[grizzled atlas]

could be boring ig. also some 8v8 turn into porc fest in t1 stage because the porc is so useful and you can mitigate the hp by focus repairing it

I find microing units funner/more dynamic then playing the spam nano turret into llt into beamer into hlt into gauntlet

[crisp bison]

8v8 Turns into porcfest mainly because players are afraid to take unilateral fire even for a second. Units still superior in the ability to dictate the range of engagement.
I personally think that its not "boring", but moreso difficult to deal with if your unit stack is oriented toward skirmish. If you demote that, you're risking turning the game into an APM wrestling match, where older and less hardcore players would be excluded because they can't multitask well enough and rely on statics to make it manageable.

[grizzled atlas]

sure, static should always be an option

being able to trade speed for reliable defense

[crisp bison]

not speed, but mobility as such. Since you need to spend more to cover a line, over having units that can defend any point of that line, statics are already quite dubious. With cheaper labs, you're also incentivized to branch off to vehicles, that shred statics, or air, that can disregard it. Thus, I don't see a great concern about that. If I had to call something actually boring is rocketbot spam.

My main balance concern right now is with T2 Arm botlab, which seem lacking even from a position of a corveh main. A lot of work to be done there.

[grizzled atlas]

aye

arm t2 bot is a meme. Costs a lot more e than other labs, gunslinger costs too much bp. Sniper is balanced but can be hard countered if opponent uses t1 walls

[crisp bison]

Snipers are fine more-or-less for their cost, and they cause quite a lot of problems for the opponents facing them, but the issue is lack of meaningful support.
Hounds are extremely weak. They need higher projectile velocity. Other options are feasible if Gunslingers can cover uses that Hound intended not to.
Fatboys are bipolar tank/arty, and they need to decide what they wanna be and have buffs/adjustments accordingly.
Sprinters need DPS buff - the difference in cost compared to Fiends doesn't reflect the difference in stats.
Tumbleweeds need cost reduction with corresponding AoE cut to make them more usable on land.
Don't get me started on Gunslingers.

[grizzled atlas]

snipers very hard to make on lower e maps

banishers are also expensive but at least they don't need as heavy escort

[crisp bison]

They don't? Why is that? All things considered, Banishers are just as much glass-cannons as the Snipers are.

Snipers one-tap Banishers, and Banishers cannot one-tap the Snipers, despite the unit cost difference.

So its not as much the difference in unit cost, but in the energy upkeep for cloak and shooting.

[ancient lance]

Excuse me arm bot being bad

🤣 what are you saying

[grizzled atlas]

banishers have more hp than snipers per cost, against everything else they are more survivable. speed too

the mirror match up isn't everything

[ancient lance]

Combo wielder hound and some sniper as support

[grizzled atlas]

sniper don't one tap banisher if it gets xp without being dmged

[ancient lance]

Shred about everything

[grizzled atlas]

if you go welder sniper we just go starlight/ambssador

the mauser/quaker is way cheaper e than hound. sheldon beats hound if it has any static to fall back to

[crisp bison]

The only one I mentioned here is Hounds, which are irrelevant for the formation. You're better off making more Welders.

[ancient lance]

Spybot stun quaker

In any case make tick its dirt cheap

[crisp bison]

Are you 12yo or something?

[grizzled atlas]

I'll admit welders/sumos are pretty good in their niche. But they are not generalist units so they aren't the ones that dictate the lab's initial strength

[ancient lance]

Hound arent as bad as people think they have range they are use in combo with wielder for fire power and range

[grizzled atlas]

hound is not that bad but most of the dmg can be mitigated with t1 dodging

[ancient lance]

All you have to do is make a good ratio
For me its 2 wielder for 1 hound

[grizzled atlas]

and they don't get the sheldon's range in compensation

[crisp bison]

I barely see Hounds being used at all since the gauss removal

[grizzled atlas]

it's just a glaring weakness to a unit that was already e heavy

[crisp bison]

because they just can't hit anything reliably

[ancient lance]

They are realy good at commander sniping

[grizzled atlas]

you know what are good for com sniping? quakers

i think you can dodge a lot of the plasma at med-far range with com

hound is basically t2 rocket bot now imo

[scarlet mirage]

I always considered recluse as the t2 rocko xD

[grizzled atlas]

oh right true. recluse hit like trucks

[scarlet mirage]

but they do kinnda have similar roles with the hound

[crisp bison]

and they're better at that imo

[ancient lance]

Recluse have way too much damage xD

And aoe

[scarlet mirage]

since the nerfs recluse are not that opressive anymore

[crisp bison]

because they actually hit things, even if they not intended to because of their low trajectory

[ancient lance]

I think they should reduce the aoe or reduce the burst fire

[grizzled atlas]

if you nerf the t2 enough people just spam con turret and gauntlet or rattle lol

[ancient lance]

Like 3 to 2

[scarlet mirage]

one of the main things that made recluse really strong was walking them side to side at max range so their fire got fanned out

[crisp bison]

but most of the time I see people go straight into snipers, despite the costs, because everything cheaper just doesnt worth it.

[grizzled atlas]

after the lab cost reduction I find that remaking a front lab is very heavily desired

[crisp bison]

welders are excellent too as support and defensive cover

other than welders and snipers, other units need some adjustments to make them viable options.

[grizzled atlas]

maybe should make a list

[scarlet mirage]

I think sometime in the future welders will be considered op

if you somehow manage to get enough of them where you really want them nothing can really fight them

[grizzled atlas]

phalanx is basically the super meta version of welder/sumo role

[scarlet mirage]

welder stats for cost are just amazing

add splash that deals no friendly fire

in a highly evolved meta i think welder is op

[crisp bison]

If only Fatboys were like that

[scarlet mirage]

fatboy is also super underrated

great counter to quaker

[crisp bison]

If judging from observation, its just that Sharpies are overrated. I still think Hounds needs a buff, and Fatboy need some toss-around.

I certinaly dont see nearly as much Hound/Sheldon clashes as I used to see when I first started playing.

Sprinters? I can't remember the time they were a thing at all.

[scarlet mirage]

maybe if pawns become alot worse in the future sprinters can make sense

[empty yew]

Would making Sprinters stealthy make sense?

[grizzled atlas]

please buff slow units before buffing faster ones

fast units will usually always find a way to be useful

sprinter right now is not bad, just specific purpose and requires some micro to not lose it

[crisp bison]

Probably would make a difference on rotatos and in 1v1. On meta maps, there's no leeway to exploit it. Fiends are much better raiders because of their firepower, despite being significantly slower. Sprinters do not look very good when compared to Incisors/Blitz

[empty yew]

I'm in favor of buffing raiding units so its more important to cover the map. I'd actually just do it

[bright granite]

Please apply lab e cost change to hover lab

[agile topaz]

Thank you for providing that info,now i finally know how to counter snipers

[proper mesa]

Its energy cost basically prevents people considering it as a start usually.

[harsh egret]

When season 3 balance

[humble lake]

why after the update the mexes dont kill ticks/rovers after self destruction?

that was some kind of a skill expression now its just useless

[hollow dawn]

i don't think that was changed}
it was always distance based, you could avoid the damage by sitting at the edge of range (and giving up some of your own damage)

[bright granite]

Hounds fucking suck, please bring back the gauss cannon

[harsh egret]

#1390518390484893849 message

I actually have this in mind aswell idk how well it'd to but something to consider

[crisp bison]

Remember - Hounds do not "fucking suck", they "have niche utility".

[bright granite]

I wish true I need to see, they seem so d9gg6

[crisp bison]

No, I myself agree. They're not Hounds, they're Dogshits

[woeful fiber]

We are making platy's on ATG now for some kind of T2 unit with movement speed from the Arm T2 lab.....

Amphib unit is the unit of choice for general early ground combat over hound, fix it

Hound misses a medium tank driving in a straight line from anything past half range....

[bright granite]

Lmao cause platypussies slap

And platypussues got anti air

[bright granite]

Hound dog shit

[empty yew]

Platy was always a good support pushing unit bcz of AA and antispam. Hound is supposed to be a skirmisher that kills t1 porc and opens the way, but its bad because of the game tempo. On glitt you can just as fast rush a stronger unit that will do more than hound and there's no window for hounds

[bright granite]

Hound is shit bring back gauss cannon

[scarlet mirage]

they would still suck with gauss cannon, make them cheaper on energy

[harsh egret]

voncomet its really not about their cost its just that they're not good.

[scarlet mirage]

something being cheap makes it good

[harsh egret]

I mean the issue with them is that they miss target because of the projectile speed buffing that would make them viable otherwise right now in this current state I haven't made a single hound in months

[normal iron]

Hounds were a bad unit even before they removed gauss, probably D tier or so.

[grizzled atlas]

not useless but def worse than recluse or mauser

they need to nerf mauser/quaker e and slightly reduce hound e cost

[empty yew]

Hounds break the way through t1 porc as they outrange it. Thats the role IMO. But window is too low for them, better units exist that are more oppressive and only slightly costlier

[grizzled atlas]

Recluse way better at porc killing besides the reduced range

Hounds just have mobility but not so many maps where they can abuse that

And they still need some friendly support against pawn swarm

Hound webber is a nice combo tho

[wary herald]

As a Cortex enjoyer, a hound-webber sounds really powerful and tough to counter

[scarlet mirage]

an often overlooked hound strenght is that they rally to the front very fast so if you find the timing for them it can snowball to a win really fast

once you get more than 5 they wont have a problem hitting t1 units anymore to due to fire saturation

[bright granite]

They were utilized before gauss change, now they are not used by hound enjoyers. I agree a small buff on top of bring back gauss

[scarlet mirage]

archaic meta

[bright granite]

Ok fine let's create a new meta... let's perhaps have a mirrored along x axis cannon. We will call this the rocket strat. Perhaps red rocket and blue rocket for blue team. Whenever hound shoots, the red rocket blue rocket shoots too and propels the hound upwards, increasing its range slightly the longer it continues to shoot until it levels off via ceiling on 10th shit

[scarlet mirage]

i'm not sure I get u, you want hounds to take shits like real doggos?

[bright granite]

Or...

[flint ginkgo]

Imho they'd be more popular if they only had the gauss cannon. What they got now just makes them inferior to other options at pretty much any point of the game. With gauss they'be fast hitters, kinda pyroey

[woeful fiber]

The fact I don't disagree that the only thing hounds do well is kill LLTs shouldn't be the case.

the only time I make them is when I am full spamming and people start making beamers/LLts as they can remove those things for the pawns/tics.

[crisp bison]

Basically Mauser/Quaker, except Mauser actually hit what they fire at, while Quaker don't need to necessarily hit since their AoE is great. Drains Hound's kiting ability down the drain.

The core problem of the Arm T2 botlab - you're better off going Veh, coz u get all the same but better.

[woeful fiber]

My issue with the Arm bot lab is it's entirely immobile. The only units with any speed either can't hit a T1 unit in motion, or are an over priced often less effective tic, and an amphib unit. It just lacks any force projection that doesn't require a light transport.

Hound might be "fine" as it is by itself but with it being pretty ineffective in 8v8, you just don't really have the ability to flex lanes or raid and pressure. You essentially have pawns and tics for your pressure units....which ok I guess but having the only fast unit in a T2 lab relegated to a glorified LLT killer has just put me off the lab mostly.

[serene creek]

The creativity of this is gold toilet.

[ancient lance]

Bot tend to be bad in general in 8vs8 it seems
But the arm bot lab is still realy good
As for hound maybe a up in projectile speed?
Still arm bot lab is realy realy good compare to cor bot lab

[lunar hollow]

turns out rocket and plasma bots being "better" doesnt really matter

alltho its arguable that more movement speed makes arm rocket and plasma bot at least a worthy trade off

armada botlab was allways fine, even when grunt still had 230 range, it just required more planning

[crisp bison]

Debatable, especially given that almost everyone I see going Geo on Isthmus either go for corbot or corveh, even though it intuitively seem more feasible to gor armbot and abusing the excess of energy.

[grizzled atlas]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fy1ySmvSVA

real balance talk

note: listen to slick's comments not just the final placement

rover is S tier at high skill level, cent A tier just because it is durable against rocketbots/whistler meta

platypus solid A tier finesse/flex unit. With no water, low B tier

[normal iron]

LOL I dont know if this video should be taken too seriously, I am a big noob compared to the real knowledgeable players.
Some of them are in the chat throughout the video

[grizzled atlas]

na I agree with a lot of your comments

cent sucks if you try to use it like a stout/mace, but it has value at high skill level because it avoids most rocket bot shots

gremlin gamechanger, mines very strong and underused

[grizzled atlas]

the difference is you underestimate your game knowledge, and you know what you don't know, unlike some armchair generals

[exotic sigil]

Hound in Sprinter Tier XD

[forest girder]

You were objectivly correct about cents professor bar is wrong.
Feel free to challenge your self against the mentors.

[grizzled atlas]

i agree centurion feels like trash if you try and use it like a "warrior bruiser"

because rockets are so prevelant, having an llt that doesn't die to rockets is valuable. while it's not gonna beat mace/stout, it can also dodge 80% of their shots

[forest girder]

Cents can solo most t1 and some t2 units btw.

[grizzled atlas]

for example I think pawns op in 1v1. But incisor has timing attacks you can do because lower bp and e requirement. With good micro incisor can beat pawn

however pawn is much more versatile, better vs llt, much better vs commanders, better at raiding. pawn is just easier to use b/c you can low commitment attack with them everywhere without leaving major wreck.

Without really learning the micro and strategy I can't actually tell for sure if arm bots or cor veh is better

[strong vale]

Youtube tierlists are not what you base balance decisions on. They are mostly for new players to understand general power of unit but most units are usable in most situations.

Putting units in tiers is not precise enough.

[grizzled atlas]

it's a good visualization. the placement is not as important as hearing WHY

[strong vale]

Also negotiator gets huge value vs porc but it's not versitile. How do you rate that unit for example...

[grizzled atlas]

yes you have to decide how to rate niche units

i would rate negotiator A tier on porcy maps. actually a powerhouse

no one is going to read 20 pages of text explaining all the unit nuances, so a tier list is a good way to visualize a player's perception, and as a gateway to asking questions about why people rate this unit high or low

[strong vale]

Prof quickly changed his opinion after geting cent walked by slick few days ago xD

[forest girder]

Ha

[grizzled atlas]

8v8 tier list. Niche units (amphib, ambassador) go up 1 tier on their relevant maps

[normal iron]

sprinter same tier as bull :AHH:

[grizzled atlas]

I don't think bull is that good after 5 speed nerf

on more closed lanes it dies to jammer and banisher, on open lanes it loses map control to tigers

it also dies to pawns xD

it's still good if unanswered but it's not a powerhouse anymore

[strong vale]

Fighting any core veh with just bulls feels very bad (Tiger,Tzar,Banisher). Only when starlight number reaches 2+ arm gets upper hand in 8v8s at least.

[forest girder]

sprinter is at the edge of a lot of little things making it too good otherwise
its a raider with the dps and range of the blitz and better movement than a pawn

[grizzled atlas]

It can raid, dive, and dodge shots

[strong vale]

If sprinter was strong at that speed it would be most OP unit in the game. Like nobody catching that except shurikens. It's better to keep them niche use most of the time.

[harsh egret]

vanguard B tier who the hell put wistlers in B aswell that shit ass everything else sure I agree. hounds should be in its own category "stinky unit don't make"

[verbal yacht]

lmao you can always tell how tryhard the 8v8 lobby is by how many high os centurion get built, the unit is pretty objectively broken but it’s a lot of effort and decently ping reliant that people trying to chill/play casually won’t make it

and as long as there is mutual agreement to not abuse centurion then it’s fine

[lunar hollow]

why is rover below tick?

only thing that can stop it is shuri

[grizzled atlas]

harder to use to potential, more expensive, less dps / cost

ticks can be used as mobile dps later

rover is the king of the early game at high skill level

[empty yew]

Never heard of mutual centurion agreement ngl

[verbal yacht]

i just mean in terms as long as nobody uses it then the playing field is even

[grizzled atlas]

how many people in the game can actually abuse centurion properly? is it useable in 1v1 / small teams (non-coop) too?

[scarlet mirage]

yeah cents can get a bit annoying to fight early, I think some type of repair nerf will eventually have to be considered

not just for cents but repair overall

[grizzled atlas]

^ I think laning matchups in 8v8 are getting too absurd with nano turret spam and repair

other forms of micro are getting close to overshadowed by repair micro

Here's an example. I have 2 nanos making rocket bots, and 5 nanos repairing

Repairing is insane since it's the same as building units for free

[scarlet mirage]

really nice example

I dumped all of my resources into making nothing but rocketbots while you made nanos and outtraded me

[grizzled atlas]

A single laz repairs sentry at 52 and beamer at 60 hp/s, mace does 60 dps, shellshocker does 42 dps

Fighting with and against porc is a contest to see who can stack repair better

With 2-3 laz repairing while attacking you can face tank a beamer without any losses

[strong vale]

Units are mobile and you can move a lot more firepower if your enemy spams porc. But glitters is very specific encouraging porc gaming. I don't see repairing porc as a problem. Porc is very bad in 1v1 most of the time apart from few LTs, cause you can move whole army around. If your enemy porcs up too much just move your mobile army to other lane... Playing glitters and complaining about porc is funny.

Glitters is long and narrow, there is dedicated air player to stop leaks. This is mostly map problem. I don't see repair micro being a problem in any other map. Maybe you could argue same in supreme where 1 banisher covers whole lane and people would default to longer range porc...

[west birch]

Otoh, would nerfing repair (in whatever way) have clear negative effects on other maps even if it isn't a problem rn?

[strong vale]

Repair is mostly used when in range of your own bp or when resing. It would encourage more attacking for sure on all maps. Manually reparing units is big very rare and would only help mostly in FFA imo where you fight thug vs thug very early. It would disturb meta there a lot, people would need more energy if you make repair cost energy.

Pushing on glitters is diffrent. Usually you wait for t2 arty or heavy assault tonk tzar to break t1 porc.

When frontline gets established its harder to break it. My question is why did you let your enemy build bp for free in first place?

In 1v1 you can't out repair 20 medium tanks it's not realistic but in 8v8 there is A LOT more BP laying around the map, specially glitters. Also there are no other routes to go on attacking.

Attacking repair is different form defensive repair. Porc can't move and if you can't break it nobody is forcing you to push. But repairng while attacing is nice power boost to help break porc. YOu can force fight on to enemy. It's mostly influential in early game though. With t2 big hitters repair speed is too slow, only helps vs small amount of raiding units.

Like if you feed into porc it's mostly skill issue imo, we can debate about that.

If a player is using resbots to attack a beamer with repair i call that good counterplay. Beamer can't punish resbots while few raiding units or other mobile units can dive on them unless there is a big frontline shield covering them.

Sucks for you for building immobile unit expecting to hit something outside of your range, that's just my take.

Repair is never a problem in T2, actually there is lack of viable repair plays.

[hollow dawn]

imo if repair is nerfed you should nerf reclaim by the same amount for symmetry ⚖️

[ancient lance]

Repair doesn't feel unfair because it s balance around an investment rez bot / cons turret
I dont feel it need a nerf
However im still down for nerf of reclaim speed / rez speed( from rez bot )

[grizzled atlas]

1. Repair is too strong because it's like building a unit for free. Every game is Nano/Laz repair spam, since the most valuable unit to have on the front is repairing laz or nanos.
   1. Repair rate should be reduced to be 50% the build rate, to make up for the fact that it's completely free. You can buff the hp of weaker statics slightly to compensate
      Reclaim rate of wreck is too fast. I find reclaim battles for rocks is most interesting when reclaim rate is about 10-20m/s per laz, not 50m/s

[grizzled atlas]

repairing porc less big deal in 1v1 but on the other hand is the repair rate integral to 1v1?

[strong vale]

IN FFA it is, in 1v1 it's virtually useless

[grizzled atlas]

it is useful when you can 2 cons repairing an llt vs raiders

[verbal yacht]

I think repair is fine, it isn't a very big problem if someone who is balancing between frontline buildpower and units is able to leverage that balance to beat someone who is just all in on unit spam. If anything I think the former should win every time.

Strong repair lets:

• Players who are behind on army have an out to keep trading/participating on the front
• Applies time pressure for aggression to be constant instead of in bursts
• Allows players to prioritize veterancy over fresh units in the frontline
• Allows more units to exist over time, pushing the game state further rather than getting stuck in a cycle of making and losing the same lower tech units

[grizzled atlas]

when you have a tzar you also can use having many con turret/rez to fast repair it

[strong vale]

And just of for that it's not deserving of a nerf, i't nick picking at this point.

[grizzled atlas]

front laning just devolving into con turret spam at the front because it buffs your porc and units

[strong vale]

in glitters i assume that might happen, but at same time you have so much metal to afford that playstyle

[grizzled atlas]

repair also lets you stack repair on porc and when you are winning

when you have more money you have more ability to make more nanos/rez

It's like saying commie is a comeback mechanic when really the person ahead can use it more

[strong vale]

4 negotiators 1 shot all porc regardless of BP its hard counter

[verbal yacht]

Construction units/buildpower is typically worth exponentially more the further away from the base it is, because of how much more difficult it is to get it there. Someone who is winning is not going to find it easy to keep pumping buildpower to the new frontline. If someone who is ahead is putting investment in nano turrets + porc then they have stopped pushing which gives the behind player breathing room to come up with their new strategy.

in such a situation it is simply a mistake for the losing player to push into that porc

[grizzled atlas]

so you saying lets favour passiveness until teching up to t2 veh's specifically?

[strong vale]

If you don't want passive gameplay play open maps

[grizzled atlas]

that's so L take. I play 1v1 too mind you

[strong vale]

I am not convinced i need to watch glitters more, i never seen this as a big balance issue

Can you dm me some replays pls

[grizzled atlas]

repair is one reason why medium tank is really strong in 1v1

basically the only mobile fighting unit that can counter porc

[strong vale]

no, medium tank is strong cause you can ball it and stats are very good

You can centralise power, tanks can shoot over each other

Not cause of repair

[verbal yacht]

I think nearly all mobile units counter porc by design, medium tank is just fast

[grizzled atlas]

yes which lets it counter porc spam

light infantry and tanks don't counter porc

[verbal yacht]

I think grunt and smaller may struggle against dedicated porc, pawn and up all comfortably beat llts and such

[grizzled atlas]

pawn can deal with llt cause its overtuned af

[strong vale]

I think with critical mass of beamers you need t2, like 4-5 of them

[grizzled atlas]

mf when 3 pawns can beat 1 llt with potentially only 1 loss

[verbal yacht]

xD ya gg pawn meta

but the strength of mobile units will be that they can move, incisors and such will dominate llts with numbers, you can't have enough llts to stop 10 incisors everywhere on the map

[grizzled atlas]

yes I understand that

porc will take a back stage esp in the early game in 1v1

I predict that 8v8 will involve more nano spam and trans. and rez spam

because there is no unit more op than a nano repairing units. Not only is repair building for free, when you have won it lets you reclaim units, porc and make whatever new lab you need

[verbal yacht]

yeah, and I think that's a game design worth backing, it's much better than games where you set a 1 rocket bot infinite queue and don't stop until you win

[grizzled atlas]

It's an economic building, military power on the defensive, and a combat medic too

[verbal yacht]

once the game gets to a state that you are able to comfortably entrench the frontline with nano turrets, it is time to move to the next tech option

[grizzled atlas]

that's like saying starcraft which doesn't have combat micro is infinite queuing units

[verbal yacht]

at t1, that can mean vehicle, but air is an option too

[strong vale]

yeah that's also my point, how did opponent get into that position in first place?

[verbal yacht]

or you can keep going on rocket bots and try to burst stuff down, which they do alright

there's a few branches to go down based on what you actually see on the frontline

but people moving buildpower to the frontline is normal and expected imo

[grizzled atlas]

it's a lane matchup you can choose to make more winds/units or you can make nnaos
nanos are just a project just like units

what beats mauser? mauser + nanos
what beats tzar? tzar + nanos
what beats rocket bot? rocket bot + nanos

[strong vale]

2 mausers beat 1 mauser with nano

2 tzars beat 1 tzar with 8 nanos im am 100% sure

[grizzled atlas]

more like 2 nanos per mauser

ofc you won't replace the initial units with con turrets

[verbal yacht]

nanos are naturally strong against skirmish type stuff which tend to have less dps for cost

I think the tzar example is bad because you just walk up and splash/1shot nanos, and tzar has plenty of stats

[strong vale]

nanos help you hold labs against reclaim snowball

[grizzled atlas]

it's one reason why arbiter + shellshocker suck because everyone has rez bot or con turret lying around so you have to build so many artillery you have little real combat units

[strong vale]

remove resbot then and remove nano repair

or nerf it

[verbal yacht]

maybe in such a situation the correct response is to get more assault options rather than more skirmishers

[grizzled atlas]

assault units in a lane matchup where stuff is porced?

it's not always an option

[strong vale]

negotiator kills porc for free, i heard it was meta in glitters

[verbal yacht]

well if enemy has everything they have tzar + nanos + a bunch of porc then maybe find somewhere else to push

[grizzled atlas]

you don't start the game on t2

[strong vale]

If t2 didn't come that fast even wolverine spam might kill mas porc, but t2 comes too fast on glitters

[verbal yacht]

their nano + porc investment will rot away and only the tzar can move

[grizzled atlas]

and there's other labs besides veht2

[grizzled atlas]

it's not nano + porc it's nano + some porc + units
to break the enemy front

[verbal yacht]

when enemy invests in too much shit u can just make less and scale energy or something

[grizzled atlas]

i don't mean making nano's purely passively

[strong vale]

I will watch replay and see, no point arguing anymore

[grizzled atlas]

this is more for entrenched maps that fight over an important mid
not rolling frontlines

however even on those frontlines I expect to see more nano spam when people learn you can use light trans to move and save nanos

llt and turrets very cheap bp now

[verbal yacht]

one thing ill note is that old tacnuke basically had 1 job, to pressure buildpower off the frontline, but a while back it was changed to be much weaker at that, and tacnuke is rarely seen now, so if people feel that there are not enough options to deal with frontline bp then maybe we need unnerfed tac nuke back

[strong vale]

Tacnuke is underrated, can deal with sniper/starlight, specially on glitters, where it won't get overrun

[grizzled atlas]

this is more like t1 phase

[verbal yacht]

at t1 phase frontline nanos are a really big investment tbh

[grizzled atlas]

ofc when you can get to ambassador spam it's the best thing to be doing in the situation

[grizzled atlas]

it's just an ideal combo with rocket bots. since rocket bots don't especially benefit from more density and there's a ton of chip dmg to repair

also after you win having all that bp to quickly transition on the front is exactly what you want too

[verbal yacht]

in your screenshot above your nano investment is like the same as the enemy's whole army

[grizzled atlas]

im not saying repair inherently is bad mechanic it's just repair is free and the units it's coming from serve multiple purposes already

[strong vale]

I watched a replay and i don't understand where is the problem

none of you 2 even touched each others porc

with rocketbots

[grizzled atlas]

yes the problem is not repairing porc
it's repair on units and porc

[strong vale]

if you are repairing a unit

[grizzled atlas]

also it's funny when 7 rocket bots can be out repaired by 4 laz

[strong vale]

you are not building a unit

[grizzled atlas]

repairing is building unit for free

[strong vale]

Also half of your rocket bots miss and his as well, so they have around 20 dps.

ALSO you moved your units little back to repair them.

[grizzled atlas]

well we can let the meta cook a little longer

[strong vale]

I see no issues in that replay, it just glitters meta

in rotato you can't build 2 gauntlets and 2 hlts

without being called a troll

and your opponent just moves and kills other lanes

[grizzled atlas]

there are chokey rocket bot fest rotato maps too

[strong vale]

ignoring your op BP repair on units

i never seen anyone complain tbh, i don't buy it sorry

[grizzled atlas]

if they ignore your bp repair you just kill them and threaten to leak pawns in to their lane

you are attacking with rocket bots backed with repair to pin them there

[strong vale]

try to build 2 gauntlets on 15 metal in rotato

[grizzled atlas]

i said ignore the gauntlets

the gauntlets are a meme only for super porc maps

ofc you only build nano turrets if you have repair to do

which is mainly for rocket bot matchups, and to a lesser extent medium tank reuse

[strong vale]

Rocketbots miss, twinguard can't move, it takes full dps, Rocketbots also move, they don't take full damage, your rocketbots damage gets repaired. Solution get closer for more consistent damage. You can't why? Cause map is chokey. This just contributes into range being king in this situation.

[grizzled atlas]

get close with rocket bots?

[strong vale]

with other units but you cant cause map is chokey

[grizzled atlas]

i mean that just decribes half the rotato maps in 8v8. the half that is laney and chokey

[strong vale]

and you can't afford that much bp that fast cause its not metal rich as gltiters

I don't think i can add anything useful anymore, it's map issue mostly, lots of metal and very narrow.

even if none of you can repair your rocket bots

Then you lose them and can''t push porc. At least winner has healthy army to procede.

[grizzled atlas]

if repair is weaker the dodge micro matters more

and focus fire (for thugs)

[strong vale]

you repaired outside combat zone.

Dodge micro will always matter. But yeah it would matter more

[grizzled atlas]

if I had light trans I would move them closer and walk the units back less distance.
but still adjusting

[strong vale]

rocketbots are never good at pushing frontline fast

[grizzled atlas]

that's not the point, it's to win the front eventually

[strong vale]

They are mostly used to stall or slow push due to their low dps and inaccuracy

[grizzled atlas]

navy is also kind of a repair fest if it's a skirmish war

com repair / if you can protect nanos near the front they are the most op thing ever

[strong vale]

low effective dps, and very hard to fully commit. Navy fights last for 10 minutes sometimes.

Of course repair will matter, you could say it's too much, but i don't buy it. Repair slows down fights in sea otherwise it would snowball too fast.

I don't wanna see navy battles ending in 3-4 mins it already snowballs too fast

Navy is totally diffrent issue and i have little experience though

[scarlet mirage]

I mean

I think its fair to say that repair micro will decide most rocketbot fights

as well as plasma bot fights

(i'm talking about lanes)

should that really be the distinguishing skill...i dont know

[strong vale]

Its not a problem at all, play any other map where you can't build 4 con turrets before actual units interacting and see that it isn't a problem. Even in that replay i don't see any problem

[scarlet mirage]

you mostly just repair them with com

[grizzled atlas]

imo u just get a light trans nanos and transport the nanos around
rez are cheaper but they don't have repair range and easier to lose

[scarlet mirage]

yeah but the method of repairing matters less here

[grizzled atlas]

they both op if you want repairs. and don't build them stupidly

[scarlet mirage]

how u do it depends on situation/map whatever

but when 2 good players have a rocko fight repair is the most important thing

majority of micro will be spent on that

[grizzled atlas]

it's just a property of lanes dominated by rockets (and whistler/arty)

on map where thug/stout/pawn is king you won't see it so much

althought stout/thug repair still omega insane

[scarlet mirage]

i think repair will also decide a thug fight tho

stouts might manouver a bit too much

its not necessarily a bad thing its skill expression

[novel sluice]

Repair also has some counterplay in the form of burst DPS and focus-fire. Your enemy can't repair their units if they die immediately. Not very helpful in a rocket bot fight, but there are some units in T1 that are better at this.

[grizzled atlas]

rocket bot and arty are mostly non-burst

janus is not a porc counter. the heavy burst mostly comes from t2

[novel sluice]

The heaviest burst I can think of in T1 comes from the missile Hovers, oddly enough. Not great for hitting units though.

[strong vale]

Wolverine can 6-7 shot beamer.

vs infinite bp

[grizzled atlas]

yeah but you put the rocket bot in front of the porc, and move out of the way when you see the wolverine fire up

[chilly heath]

What Chrono is describing sounds like 100 % map issue. If you play a map where the entire frontline can be covered by like 5 nanos then yes nanos are strong. If you play any of the 200 other maps we have then you simply take your army to another lane and get a super easy 2v1 win while the enemy is stuck with their immobile nanos defending a whole bunch of nothing.

[grizzled atlas]

if they take your army to another lane then you kill their front porc and threaten to leak in while you have your own front lab

it's relevant for chokey 8v8 lane maps or 2v2 lanes, not open pawn maps like tartar/flats

such as bismuth top lane, you cannot simply ignore that lane

[chilly heath]

If enemy spent 1000 metal on nanos then you can surely defend that lane with like 5 mines and your commander since you're ahead by so much in army.

[grizzled atlas]

5 nanos is an extreme, you make the nanos after units, not replacing unit

[chilly heath]

In any case attacking even 3 nanos + porc is just a terrible move. You should go attack another lane or use that metal advantage you have from not building nanos to tech up.

[grizzled atlas]

again it's not purely using nano + porc

the nano is for sustain on skirmishers, as well as reclaim + forward lab later

specifically for skirmish vs skirmish where sustain is king

not only it provides sustain it also amplifies your porc and gives you fast transitions

[chilly heath]

Why would anyone engage in a skirmish vs skirmish battle that they are sure to lose? Just go 2v1 somewhere else or go t2 while enemy is spending all their metal on porc and nanos.

[grizzled atlas]

instead of using 5 towers you can use 3 towers + few nanos that also serve other purpose (with ability to throw down more turrets reactively)

i mean they probably can't see your nanos

[chilly heath]

Sounds like scouting issue if you have no idea what you are up against.

[grizzled atlas]

repair is busted in bar that much is unarguable

you don't build any more porc than normal when you add extra nanos

you don't have to, unless you expect a rush

[chilly heath]

Well the enemy can just build zero porc and zero nanos and use that 1000 metal they saved to get advantage in tech or another lane. The nanos and porc cannot attack, they'll just stand there with the 1000 metal smaller army that you and your allies are ready to easily crush if it tries to attack.

You lose some ground, maybe 1-2 mexes true, but you get advantages elsewhere.

[grizzled atlas]

you are combo'ing it with ROCKET BOTS

if the enemy doesn't contest rocket bots you don't add additional nanos, com is gonna get pushed back fast vs 10 rockos

im talking about the nano fest in skirmisher vs skirmisher, not blindly adding nanos and porc

bismuth valley top lane, salt reef, there are some others

[chilly heath]

Again, why would anyone play skimisher vs skirmisher against someone who porced and built 3 nanos? Losing a little bit of ground is usually nothing if you can go 2v1 another lane.

[grizzled atlas]

???

1. You guys open rocket bot cause it's a rocket bot + com map
2. You add 2 additional nanos, now the enemy will lose the sustain war. NOW they have the chance to start changing their plan, but they already invested in 10 rockets

[chilly heath]

Rocket bots can move to other lane, nanos can't. Now other lane has 10 more rockets than enemy -> lane is won.

[grizzled atlas]

how are you defending against 10+ rocket bots + com ?

if rocket bots were so ignorable people would 2v1 every lane against rockos

[chilly heath]

You can delay 10 rocket bots with even just your own commander for quite a while. Just dodge shots and you can buy like 3 minutes easily. And you can build like 10 pawns to dance with those enemy rocket bots, much cheaper and the rockets can't really advance too far from their porc protecting them.

[grizzled atlas]

that's what the com and 1 cent is for honestly, if you see pawns

if i see you with that I poke your com to get to your llts

even just llt creep works too since llts are so cheap

1 llt costs about 1.5 pawns

I dunno, we can just see meta develop. Obviously as a static value generator nano repair is more relevant on choked front on a lane that is hard to ignore

it's not an every map strategy

[chilly heath]

Alright let's agree on that so we can close discussion on a friendly note 🙂.

[hollow dawn]

I think a lot of BAR players are just used to repair speed being what it is, but it's not like a fundamental law of nature says it has to be this way

design-wise there's nothing saying that converting metal/e to unit value should happen at the same rate as getting it for "free"

[scarlet mirage]

I just dont think its super fun having to fight immortal centurions for anyone

[silver gulch]

Repair can totally be a problem in T2, it's just easier to circumvent repair by alpha striking as the game goes on.

Repair spam on anything is just insanely strong because you can stop it unless you ignore the porc or unit and go behind it to hit the repairer.

Things that are actively being damaged should not be able to be repaired, at least for like a period of .1 second, so if you focus fire you can't just out heal the damage so easily.

[scarlet mirage]

he only uses tzar in t2 which kills all the stuff around what its shooting anyway so he doesent know xD

I think 2 mass repaired rattles shooting eachother is absolutely cursed gameplay

like ofc there are ways to counter the immortal unit situations and they may not really be a balance concern, like synced amba shots on rattle or countering cents with your own repair on plasma bots etc. I just dont think its great gameplay

[silver gulch]

Just build 1 tick and sheldons Vs meow, ez wins

[scarlet mirage]

currently on glitter there is a very noticeable trend of repair spam on t1 units to win early fights which manifests in diffirent strategies

depending on lane and player style like: immortal thug pushes, immortal cent pushes and tanking with immortal pounder to safely use wolverines

more often than not there is no way to reliably kill the unit being repaired and the only option is to try and kill or push back whatever is repairing it

[harsh egret]

<@&1282300807433293894> I think it's time to balance the game season 3 what yall think?

[harsh egret]

Time for new balance

1. Hounds (projectile speed is to slow) some people would argue that the hounds are designed to take out porc however for their price being 300 the obvious choice would be to go another unit that deals with porc and units better aka the mausers/quackers.
2. Spy bots: The current spy bots are not that bad however I for one would like to see the emp duration to be higher and stronger than it already is
3. Grunts: they need slightly more range or dmg to be able to keep up with the pawns. Suggested: Nerf pawn HP slightly
4. Termites: Overall this unit is just not that great compared to recluse. Maybe if the ray did more damage it would catch up to being a good unit but currently this unit is something I for one tend to skip and would rather ask for recluses.
5. t2 factories ( I would aruge that vehicle labs should cost more than t2 bot labs) considering the fact that they're just more superior than bots 2900 --> 3400 or making the bot labs cheaper either would work and to make up for the prices you buff the bp of them. I for one loved the t1 factory reworks it's only right if we do something about t2 aswell

Now this is my own personal opinion on units I don't tend to use much alongside some of the units I think should be buffed. If you guys have any other suggestions you can bring it up and what you think of these changes

(Other suggestions) from other people
#1353364944350871632 message
#1353364944350871632 message

• Repairing cost: energy/metal?
• t2 unit energy costs get rebalanced a bit to favor t2 cons

Hound bug
https://discord.com/channels/549281623154229250/1367578532326146138

(wasn't allowed to make a suggestion so Ill send it here)

[tardy basin]

#1353364944350871632 message

#1353364944350871632 message

👆 2 Suggestions to improve spybots balance state

[normal iron]

grunts dont need a buff for sure, in the current state of Grunt vs Pawn I would say its 55% towards grunts with proper micro

[tardy basin]

For hounds, there is always this bug : #1367578532326146138 message

For grunts/pawns, i think nerf a little pawns HP should be good, but need 1v1 specialist to have their opinions on this (@hollow dawn ?)

[harsh egret]

^^ would like to get an answer to this and kinda sounds good

[flint ginkgo]

Hounds obviously need a rework of their rework

[strong vale]

Give hounds gauss as default and reduce dps somewhat. Sheldons have more range and actually hit more often which is funny

[flint ginkgo]

Yeh imho that's the solution

[strong vale]

I would rather build stout at 300 metal than pay for a hound.

[lunar hollow]

Stout has way better hp for metal but both hound and Stout most likely need to tank damage to close the gap

[hollow dawn]

90->85 or 80 dps could be good as well, but grunt needs some sort of adjustment to be less good vs pawns but better vs everything else

[bright granite]

Free repair doesn't make sense

[harsh egret]

should it require metal to repair? sounds painfull

[bright granite]

Metal or e, something.. free repair doesn't make sense. It's a good thing to look into for changing meta...

[hollow dawn]

half rate repair sounds fair to me

[harsh egret]

I mean it makes sense that you get something you pay for it for a cost

[hollow dawn]

and imo nanos shouldn't be transportable (or maybe not by light transport), you nullify their one weakness that way

[strong vale]

Half rate repair will result in snowball and even faster games. Just saying.

Meta will be virtually the same but you punish defending and losing lanes more.

[west birch]

Just nerfing nano and rezzers makes sense to me. It has other effects (nerf assist compared to factories, nerf reclaim eco, rezzing,) but those are net positive too I'd say

[hollow dawn]

hmm, imo that's an issue with how porc works

[strong vale]

also its a buff to spam

[hollow dawn]

static defenses are mostly lasers, doesn't scale that good because no aoe

[west birch]

Commander repair is strong but doesn't scale, and using basic cons to repair is hardly strong

[hollow dawn]

rezbot getting similar (or less) bp/cost to nano would be fair since they're mobile, stealthy and have rez option

[strong vale]

Don't you realise that when you win battle you need to heal your units to continue? Either complete stomps or both armies bleed units with weak reapir. At least with decent reapir winner can continue pushing.

[hollow dawn]

but you were just saying weaker repair would increase snowball? now it's helping winner continue pushing

[strong vale]

Repair makes snowball happen later but its stronger. WIth sea it's diffrent

With weak repair similar sized armies just lose units. Even winner has less army to push further with when repair is weak.

Yes snowball will be sooner but overall weaker. With decent repair winner wins more but it occurs later but it's harder to stop when repair is not a factor anymore.

I mean this is simple thing to test.

[hollow dawn]

hmm, as I see it it shortens the "static" phase where commander/miscellaneous repair is comparable to dps

but it's not clear to me if this is good or bad

[strong vale]

I think repair helps attacker win more than defender to defend.

[hollow dawn]

i think it helps the winner generally because the winner is more likely to have a damage unit left over

[strong vale]

You don't have to int units into over porced area. But you have no choice but to fight enemy units head on. Units can choose engagements static D dosen't It has to be stronger for that case and usually static D is around frontlab creating "safe" areas. They aren't invincible

Winners utilise repairs more than losers, losers repair inside nano range to defend their last anchor and they need that help otherwise front is open.

IN the replay there was almost 0 front reapirs, only time repair had a factor was when chrono retreated his units into 5 nanos which were damaged. I see it primaerly as map problem.

[short crown]

On the flip side, you could argue that a weaker repair significantly increases the reinforcement time advantage enemies gain when you try push them

[strong vale]

I think he would win even without repair. Show me more replays to convice me that repair is broken or bad, i don't buy it.

[hollow dawn]

I don't think it's broken or bad, but it is a design choice

[short crown]

I'm not entirely sure why we're trying to nerf repair anyways. Keeping it strong rewards micro. Which is a good thing no?

[hollow dawn]

you'd still do it at (say) half rate

[short crown]

If repairing took twice as long I'm far more inclined to just reclaim shit and rebuild the unit.

[strong vale]

Some people called it broken

[hollow dawn]

because you get 300 "free" bp with your commander, and very efficient nanos and rezbots

[short crown]

Like why would I even repair. Id just reclaim my own units.

[strong vale]

For me broken thing is t2 trans, it's completely different level.

[strong vale]

I do that already unless i am forced to defend my lab as last resort near nanos.

[hollow dawn]

the "problem" with repair is more like... you use the same bp to convert metal into units
but converting nothing into unit hp is a way better deal but you get to do it at the same rate per bp... so the bp that's balanced for unit production becomes even stronger

[lunar hollow]

repair micro is a bit tedious tbh, you drag a circle onto a unit and hope there's no llts or friendly units in it

[strong vale]

im gonna watch that replay to refresh my memory again

[short crown]

Sure but given how reclaiming currently works. A nerf to repair would probably mean that you just reclaim low HP stuff and rebuild it

Which to me makes less sense from a gameplay perspective than incentivisi g repairing

If anything maybe you could tap down in combat repairing specifically

[hollow dawn]

I don't think so... you'd have to pay full e cost again

[short crown]

If a unit has done or taken damage recently give it a repair penalty

[short crown]

You also have to factor that BP is generally very fragile. Both res bots and nanos. So there's more inherent risk of losing BP at the front than BP at your lab.

So sure it takes the same BP to repair stuff, but it also has a risk associated with moving BP up to be able to repair

There's a cost associated with losing your res bots because a Mauser shot them or smth

[strong vale]

Okay both players met at 5 mins and there are already 3 con turrets and both players have 25+ metal

[hollow dawn]

it's partially compensated by the fact that repairing at the front gets you value immediately I think 🤔

[strong vale]

We are arguing all hypotheticals cause of that single glitters replay. 25 metal and 3 con turrets before actually interacting with significant army numbers. NO WONDERS it feels slow to conclude...

[short crown]

As someone else mentioned prior on the nanos infinitely healing procs, tactical missiles could be used as a balancing lever against that

You'd probably just need to first reduce their absurd BP cost

They should NOT have double the BP cost of a rattle/persecutor and almost the same BP cost as a fucking fusion

When they're designed to be built quite far up, where moving BP there is risky

[strong vale]

Also 1 side had ticks later in the fight, other didn't even less actual effective DPS. Without getting into actual details each discussion can end up into yaping fest respectively.

[short crown]

I wish tactical missiles were more usable

[harsh egret]

tac nukes are kinda op ngl they have their use every time

[bright granite]

please apply energy buff to labs to hoverlab as well please

[harsh egret]

like cheaper labs in terms of energy? or just the hover lab

[bright granite]

hoverlab is like what 500k energy, bot lab is like what 1000e? vehicle lab is like what 1500 e?

hoverlab is like 3k e, it wasnt changed in the rebalance thing, why?
hoverlabs matter, pls nerf e cost

[harsh egret]

I mean we've asked for that alot yet nothing was changed in months it's just something people dont care much abt because hovers are kinda ass

[bright granite]

sigh must i make another unit tweak

[west birch]

It was changed, by same amount as other affected factories

[bright granite]

holy shit its still so high, almost as if no change, perhaps the 20%/14% reduction in bot/vehicle should be similarly amount reduction for hoverlab as opposeed to current 8%

[lunar hollow]

I think con turrets are generally just a bit OP, not repairing

[strong vale]

Why do you think that

Nah i give up, nvm, no point

[lunar hollow]

OK Ignore me saying repair itself isn't OP, it's hard to judge with nanos being in the game, I just think nanos are pretty redicolous for t1

[bright granite]

this discord should show large team, small team, and duel os

[normal iron]

Nanos are so much less efficient for repair than Lazarus, idk how they can be considered op for t1

[grizzled atlas]

range makes them less in danger to die, better uptime, less micro

and you are comparing to laz, that's the problem

[lunar hollow]

yeah the range is what im talking about, but allso, you can place them on cliffs or behind mountains and repair through walls

[grizzled atlas]

they are not BETTER than laz but they have benefits and sometimes you are vehicles

[lunar hollow]

but allso getting nano up a few seconds earlier can often decide a win on front, im just saying that the game revolves heavily around nanos no matter where you are really

its not necessarily something that needs to be fixed its just something the game doesnt really communicate to the player how important it really is

[grizzled atlas]

yeah it's not a high priority thing just is a little bit of questionable balance choice imo

you can out micro them by 30% but much more impact is in who gets rez bot to reclaim/rez/repair

[normal iron]

nanos 100% should be transportable by light transport, transporting BP around is a huge source of skill expression and unlocks so much better macro than just having a T2 con followed around by engineers

[hollow dawn]

that kind of stuff is just tedious micro to me

[strong vale]

Just make BAR auto battler already, no need to optimise builds

[hollow dawn]

to me having to manually pick up and deposit static bp because it's more efficient than mobile bp is absolutely just a meaningless apm tax

[strong vale]

It only matters if you are afk ecoing and can't get any other value anywhere on map

[hollow dawn]

hmm, people just have different expectations of what is "good" micro, like the suggestion to give aa dummy weapons so they don't fight command into enemy ground forces... but some want to have to micro them back constantly 🤔

[scarlet mirage]

this is a really fascinating topic with such a rich history lol, I remember when sc2 first came out and everyone was saying how much skill expression is getting lost because you can rally workers to mineral patches and they will automine as soon as they are built xD

2025 in bar...still same story xD

at least we got past auto group and repeat quene lol

also, if constructor ai logic was more similar to how conturrets work they would probably see more use

they are also worth transporting but nobody likes to do it because it takes way more clicks, and attention

[strong vale]

In sc2 you start every game with SCVs and if you don't literally click on mineral patch you lose. Removing some mindless apm for no reason is good. Here if you have some t1 cons laying around you might just use them to boost T2 con.

if you don't have airlab its just better to go cons it's not black and white

[scarlet mirage]

yes and in sc1 you had to click each worker and send it to mine something because you could not set rally on the minerals

and it was and still is a major incidcator of player skill

[scarlet mirage]

why dont t2 unit energy costs get rebalanced a bit to favor t2 cons as first units out of lab more?

so many units take less energy infrasturcure than con that it makes cons bad on alot of maps

[harsh egret]

that would be a nice change I add this to the suggestion above

[fast obsidian]

Coz they went the other way and buffed banisher and tzar to the point that they are unstoppable killing machine after they removed all the counter plays people could make.
It's fine tho, it's clearly not making the game much worse

Feels good to have op balance team improving the gameplay so much

[scarlet mirage]

i dunno it seems so simple to me, if t2 units cost more e they are pushed later into the game and less annoying

there are probably 5+ broken t2 units that you can build with less wind than whistler

it makes no sense to me

[grizzled atlas]

banisher not op imo at 23k energy and high bp cost

quaker is busted

just make gauntlet or hlt with 4-5 rez bot and you can stall a banisher for a while

[fast obsidian]

On glitters you go banisher coz you can roam around the whole front super fast and win each one.
On strait you only have 1 front so banisher isn't using all his potential so quaker are okay, but anyone that knows how to micro banisher will rekt all the quakers on glitters without ever losing the banisher during the early t2 stage so around 7 mins to like 13 mins.

You must be joking about gauntlet countering banisher i guess lol

[grizzled atlas]

even on say koom valley my counter part made banisher i made quakers i deleted my side way faster

400/4400/6500 vs 1000/23000/23000 and moves slower, can't be light transed

[fast obsidian]

i mean you can win against someone that micro banisher badly for sure, which is probably almost all you will find still playing the game anyways

[grizzled atlas]

your goal with quaker vs banisher is just trans them to the front and slaughter the t1 with your faster timing
when the banisher comes, if you don't think you can focus the banisher down you can just keep poking the t1 and pull back the quakers to repair, or just send the quakers elsewhere and trade.

Honestly rez can go a long away to stalling banisher, it takes until you have 2 full banisher before it becomes threatening

[scarlet mirage]

in a high skill game you would imagine that the techers will fight eachother and not push diffirent lanes

[grizzled atlas]

what rule says you have to fight each other xD. it's all about who can make the most impact

If the enemy makes sniper that counters your spiders ofc you want to trans the spiders to different lane, because 2.5 spider have more impact than sniper as longas they aren't in same lane as enemy sniper

[scarlet mirage]

well xD

it just seems like a more reliable strategy than hoping your guys will roach better

[grizzled atlas]

3 quakers do WAY more damage to t1 then 1 banisher, as well as reaching the front 40 seconds faster

[fast obsidian]

i never lost against any amount of quaker with only 1 banisher, just not possible with the rework and how plasma works against track missile

[scarlet mirage]

yeah there is some play in this example, its in the interest of the banisher guy to fight the quakers and in the interest of quaker guy to avoid fighting the banisher

[grizzled atlas]

also 1 banisher's impact can be minimized. they shoot your thug / stout / twin guard you pull back and repair it

well controlled banisher is hard to kill and has superiority over other t2 yes but it's slow and expensive as fuck with pretty ass dps

[fast obsidian]

i mean if you only have 1 or 2 banisher and they aren't on hold fire you are losing most the dps, just like with snipers.
It's the best first unit to make in competition with tzar depending, on almost all the maps.

[grizzled atlas]

yeah I'm assuming reasonable amounts of hold fire micro

[scarlet mirage]

the worst thing about banisher is how absolutely ass it is at shooting radar dots

[fast obsidian]

radar dot best counter to banisher confirm

[scarlet mirage]

need op attack ground micro vs radar or its narnia bombardment

[grizzled atlas]

Fun new tactics with cor veh

1. Although corveh has a tough time fighting starlight, t2 wall comes in clutch. Banishers, tzars, quakers, and negotiators all can fire over t2 walls to varying degrees. t2 walls provide artificial cover vs starlights
   There's also the well known t1 wall spam which can protect static artillery and some units vs starlights

2. tiger drop is a powerful tactic with the notable property of being able to crush t1 walls, which t1/t2 amphib units cannot

this gives cor veh a unique vector of attack which helps make up for it's lack of a stealthy scout, mobile engineer, and sea fighting unit.

[tardy basin]

Congratz, you discover t1 & t2 walls counter Starlights, now time to play on a "no tuto map with meme winds"

[grizzled atlas]

I play more different maps than you xD

and I'm higher os than you on rotato and glitters.

I started playing BAR on glitters so to me you are the one playing on the tutorial map 🤣

sometimes I wonder whether you have nothing going on between your ears, why you always say the exact same words

[tardy basin]

I fact checked this by curiosity, i took all other maps (outside our main ATG/supreme respectively) played since 3 months >2 occurrences => Chrono <=> 233; fightwar <=> 148

👌 You are right

[grizzled atlas]

Yes, many different maps, like all that simmers and all that smolders

[tardy basin]

It is just funny you discover basic knowledge of the game about walls, i hope this knowledge will benefits to all !

[grizzled atlas]

I'm glad you found it useful.

maybe next time you won't die to starlight push

[tardy basin]

To go further, t1 & t2 walls work depends of hitbox of units near it and balistic of attacker units

[grizzled atlas]

like I said, I've seen t1 wall spam extensively, and some t2 walls with porc
But almost never t2 walls in combination with active units

[tardy basin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XZOpD9XNBY&t=946s

IWC made a good vid about it

[grizzled atlas]

yep saw that

t1 wall counters everything, in one way or another

[tardy basin]

False, i have higher peak OS than you. But not very relevant with how OS is calculated

There is a thread about the august balance patch ? So maybe we can fix obvious mistakes before the modoption or force merge, because this year each month & season balance patch are not "famous"..

[grizzled atlas]

I just mentioned it here because it is relevant to the balance discussion between nerfed arm t2 veh and cor veh

post whatever change you think shrug

[tardy basin]

#1353364944350871632 message
#1353364944350871632 message
#1390518390484893849 message
👆

[dapper cape]

Always a good read when OS measurement contests start.

[grizzled atlas]

I dunno this guy has just been stalking me just cause I was experimenting with snipers for 5 games on ATG 2 months ago

wut a nutcase

[scarlet mirage]

fightwar is open source bar intelligence service

[tardy basin]

🌶️ I am always very surprised of the level & take of supreme main gamers when they come in competitive lobby
(🤣 your take that snipers counters tzar timing rushed was so hilarious)

[grizzled atlas]

they can, it's just the energy cost that holds back it. and difficulty of execution

yeah 8 rez bot repairing tzar is OP but rez is op repairing anything

you can have some nano and 8 rez bot repair and HLT + mobile jammer and com to stall tzar

[grizzled atlas]

I invite you to try playing air in op supreme lobby

[tardy basin]

Man, i hosted glitato soo much before, but lot of gamers just dodge when it is smolder & simmers, so sad, it brought diversity

[strong vale]

i did this 4 months ago and they laughed at me, i called it meowpolis

It was mostly tzars though

[scarlet mirage]

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

[normal iron]

u cant be fr bro

[strong vale]

I didn't win, they just went to diffrent lane, sucks that there is literally 1 lane on supreme 💀

Better nerf walls, supreme unplayable

[grizzled atlas]

I don't know how else to say this, but water exists

[normal iron]

you think meow doesnt use tzars to fight ships also?

[next hawk]

It's criminal that cortex doesn't have a combat engineer on the T2 vehicle lab

[strong vale]

Tzars would be immortal, its actually good trust

[strong vale]

Imagine 1000 bp on tzar repairng 30% more hp cause of exp

[grizzled atlas]

true. no matter how much they nerf tzar if you level it it's still a beast

[lunar hollow]

I just want cortex to have a combat engineer for buildoptions in core lab, like being able to build fiends or maybe t1 subs would be cool

[harsh egret]

has there ever been issues with paratrooper being to op in the past?

[agile topaz]

Yeah,they also don't have an unique unit in the t1 bot lab

[grizzled atlas]

duck has too crippling e cost. 1:28.8. More e cost than a torp bomber

I'd reduce it 330m9500e ->330m8000e

Meanwhile armada amph/hover plat is 260m2700e

[harsh egret]

I agree but I dont think ducks need their price reduced its more like the way they work in sea more dps/range something like that

[grizzled atlas]

just the e cost. you can e-stall on ducks with an ageo, they are practically unbuildable on lower e maps

[grizzled atlas]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlyb6YQWRhs

abductor is so dumb. why make a gunship when you can have a cheaper, faster, stealthy, transport that can one tap t2 units

not only that it's a potential capture or 800+ metal reclaim

[strong vale]

Why build abductor when 10 shuris does the job

[grizzled atlas]

abductor is faster
you may say make aa, but why do you need a 470 metal t2 dedicated aa unit to deal with a 330 metal unit

[strong vale]

Also tzar was in enemy territory with no AA

[grizzled atlas]

2 abductor can also just stun a flak truck and pick it up

basically you can make abductor and threaten multiple places on the map, even if the enemy know it's coming they spend more in aa then you did in abductor

[strong vale]

You can't threaten anything, it's not offensive unit unless you drop units yourself or dorp a commander. It's just very efficient defensive unit but has counters.

[strong vale]

Flak will deal with much more than just 1 abductor

Maybe emp burst should be toned down idk, im just yaping

Having to go T2 lab to deal with tzar is big investment

[grizzled atlas]

yes but the attacker decides how many abductor they make or if they even make air lab at all

you don't have to go t2 air lab to deal with tzar

[strong vale]

I know, but T2 air lab needs proper eco before setting up.

If you just go T2 air and have efficient way of dealing with tzar you self griefed yourself in eco scaling

[grizzled atlas]

abductor is not heavy e, only 320/6600
if they use a stilleto I understand

[strong vale]

T2 lab could be 700 more energy

[grizzled atlas]

it's not the t2 lab that's the problem. it's the unit balance

[strong vale]

Maybe 2 shots to emp a tzar is more fair

but reduce reload speed a bit then

Abductor is specialized while flak truck can defend bombings, gunships etc...

What's baffeling is actual energy cost mostly 6600 energy might be too cheap.

[grizzled atlas]

abductor? is a stealthy transport that can carry all t2 units at a fast speed. While also being a super shuriken / "1-tap gunship"
flak truck literally provides no value except for countering air, and has ground unit speed

[strong vale]

To use abductors in any other offensive sense you need to mass them AND have air superiority.

And more value would just be gained by having bombers if you already have air superiority

Flak trucks scale better than abductors, maybe in super early game abductor has an edge.

[fast obsidian]

imagine having a tzar without AA

[strong vale]

Also liche just takes abductors role as anti unit when you have higher eco

[fast obsidian]

you could abuse a lonely tzar 10 different ways lol

[strong vale]

Tzar needs lots of setup and micro to maximise it's potential

[grizzled atlas]

tzar has lots of counterplay

[fast obsidian]

especially if it's alone, like 10 os gameplay
A tzar with the things it needs around it is completely different story

most the high OS counter plays got removed

[strong vale]

countering tzar with T1 is kinda asking for too much imo. Tzar is countered by many T2 units.

Tzar out of position dies in open, but if pushed methodically it's virtually impossible to deal with it with t1

Biggest problem is that cooped tzar has no counters unless you also coop, you can blame the unit, but coop is the issue

[grizzled atlas]

you can counter attack vs solo tzar, but coop comes with many more t2 units because its coop

generally the trade off is solo tzar wrecks the techer's economy, and any backliners who are wanting to upgrade fast

[bright granite]

Why u talk shit to fightwar 1v1 me

[bright granite]

Can we keep this pg 13 please...

Platypussy anti air needs a bit better. I.build 5 cnat even kill t1 bomber..

Tzar and fatcock are too strong t1.5 need nerf

[strong vale]

Tzar isn't strong, it's afk techer which can't be harassed. You can abuse T2 tzar rush in lane maps. It's map issue. You would die to any T2 honestly. I think quakers push faster with enough frontline units. Tzar is hard to commit with also without much support

[ancient lance]

tzar become quite effective in map like supreme where it's 1 lane
it become less effective when it's just a multiple lane gaming map

[grizzled atlas]

tzar gains from a choke map but it also loses the ability to run to a different lane vs jammer + porc or sniper/banisher

tzar wants a smaller map with important targets nearby, rather than being bad on multi-lane map, it's bad on larger maps

[strong vale]

tzar wants to smash

[bright granite]

remove hounds from the game they are really bad

[agile topaz]

Razorback massive AA nerf,why?

[fast obsidian]

Be happy it can still shot air

[raw panther]

op time to do some hound plays

[empty yew]

Op patch, anyone any feedback on hound?

[fast obsidian]

what was the gauss projectile speed?

[exotic sigil]

why no spybot change

r u guys reworking it

[sullen mesa]

We acctually need gauss back

[nocturne quail]

Can we have people who actually understand sea in any way, shape, or form help balance the sea units??? I doubt you even understand what you just broke.

[normal iron]

What is the reason for air's increased LoS, especially bombers?

[normal iron]

Thank you

[west birch]

I wanna try reworking it to have more of a use vs big single targets, rather than the current aoe vs low hp stuff

But its not number 1 priority, maybe number 2

[harsh egret]

Honestly balance team need to add new ones

[grizzled atlas]

bomber/fig los is probably to make scouting/target aquisition more forgiving with air units

it will make shooting landed aircraft easier with figs

razor aa dmg was the only strange change. But since there are functional t2 aa bot options now it's alright

100% aa damage btw

[strong vale]

decurion better AA than lance

[grizzled atlas]

before t2 aa bot buff hoplite was better aa (from a practical point of view) than the t2 aa bot

[strong vale]

AFUS was better aa than T2 aa bot

[grizzled atlas]

oh the patch is merged but not live yet

[bright granite]

decands: hounds should be produced in groups of 3
decands: because they are a wolf pack awoo

i think this is agreat idea tbh. i think if hounds gave each other a buff basedo n how many you have close to each other

then it would possible be enough to buff hounds cause they're bad

[dapper cape]

doggy death ball

[summer kiln]

Such "special ability" is a touchy subject and doesnt really align with game design goal. So unlikely to happen

[bright granite]

Ok what about a howl or is that also a special ability?

Perhaps a mount and unmount. That exists in the game already. So I could put a thug on my hound via mount and it would make hounds have thugs on their back riding them and shooting them. We can call it dawg bys (like drive bys)

[empty yew]

Ability wise, leap would be bomb. To fire a barrage and leap away. But no abilities gonna go through

[swift tusk]

can anyone explain why you would buff the grunt? as I currently see it the grunt feels stronger than the pawn with proper micro. In 1v1 I make centurions to stop grunt pushes as pawns aren't strong enough to stop it but I'm only 30 os in 1v1. I would like to understand the reasoning.

Also I would like to suggest having a look at the gunslinger balance discussion. Maybe interesting to include a change to the gunslinger in the new balance patch.

[subtle jasper]

Oh goodness I was afraid of Grunt better again. What little I caught of the 1v1 tourney yesterday was CORE v CORE (one match sample size LET'S GOOO). Just before the previous buff, didn't the meta finally compensate for Pawn OP and even out the faction pick rate at high level? That was the vague impression that I got but can't confirm.

No wait I did watch a second match and it was ARM v CORE (two match sample size LET'S GOOO)

[agile topaz]

Well,are Grunts and pawns on more equal grounds now?

[meager blade]

Ticks push thors = very good
Hound still no gauss = very bad
Hound velocity buff = meh

[tardy basin]

Can someone explain the difference on Manticore between 1300 range but just 1200 airLos ?

[icy stirrup]

Hounds still feel underwhelming. Either the weapon is still not good enough (Even higher velocity? "give it the gauss back" TM ?) or the E cost is too high (hard to make them as early T2, and just useless after)

[grizzled atlas]

Reduce aoe by 33%, increase weapon velocity by 75, reduce e cost by 10% and it's good

[flint ginkgo]

Agreed it doesnt seem to be enough of a buff

Unlikely to upset meta or at least become a decent alternative

[harsh egret]

I think I have a perfect solution with the addition of the 2x bp to nerf or "fix" coop you just dont touch hound BT

[meager blade]

Honestly just give back gauss take away plasma and call it good

[tacit mural]

janus are hilariously overpowered and im tired of people pretending they're not

[pliant vale]

janus are op when you dont have hands to micro your units vs them - otherwise they aren't used all that often

[tacit mural]

im pretty sure anybody who thinks like you do just sucks, because janus are probably the unit with the biggest difference in effectiveness based on how good the user is

aka bad janus users make them look bad, when micro'd properly they're completely broken

they aren't used that often because if you're armada, why wouldn't you go bots / open bots? (the best faction/factory combo in the game hands down)

[summer kiln]

Janus is op, but centurion more op

[icy stirrup]

Whan an answer! That guy is like 20 OS higher than you and explaining exactly why janus aren't OP. If you don't get it, it's probably you the one who "just sucks" 😉
Janus require a lot of micro to be effective. And countering requires APM as well. At the same skill level, Janus is effectively countered

[tacit mural]

ok i looked it up and hes 46.6, im 38.6. higher but hardly 20...

the rockets have insane tracking and good splash radius, it's not possible to micro your way out of losses with them, only reduce. can't think of any t1 unit that gets such guaranteed value vs anything other than a turret.

[summer kiln]

Centurion

[icy stirrup]

He's above 50 but that's a detail.
Rockos is a way to counter. Once you mass enough, it's impossible to move in with janus. Requires care at the bveginning and to kite back

[strong vale]

https://tenor.com/view/sit-yo-ass-down-man-sit-yo-ass-down-sit-your-ass-down-runliftandlive-john-mills-gif-24556299

[grizzled atlas]

a lot of 40 os mess up rocket bot vs janus micro. Bar gamers too chill to practice micro

It can be hard if you don't keep vision to see the janus moving forward just from radar dots

[tardy basin]

Or play other map that is not a "tuto map"

[grizzled atlas]

sure man whenever you want to 1v1, any map

Wierd why you hate on people playing 1 map when 95% of your games are on glitter maps

[tardy basin]

Flagship + one choke + winds crazy + mass boost from pond + cpu killed endgame

[summer kiln]

Just play great divide 1v1. Perfect canyon laning sim

[pliant vale]

Fightwar be a Frenchman, excuse his baguette manners

[pliant vale]

The most danger to Janus is early - when Janus heavily outweighs 1 rocket bot up front (or like 2 Janus vs 2-3 thugs etc)

The counter is to build a bit of early raiding pressure to waste Janus shots, and porc enough to buy time. Fall back if you have to. Janus effectiveness drastically decreases as early game progresses.

Janus is also most op when the skill diff is high enough to kill comm fast and just run over a lane, happens with cents and thugs as well.

[pliant vale]

I think supreme harder than glitters overall, more dynamic map lol

[bright granite]

i want to play straits so bad. i saw some crazy shit yewsterday

[viral valley]

join the dark side

[bright granite]

Im coming

[pliant vale]

https://tenor.com/view/patrick-star-gif-12043163322492584841

[harsh egret]

https://tenor.com/view/the-simpsons-homer-simpson-marge-simpson-can-i-come-to-no-gif-5323637

[bright granite]

lets all come on the supremee straits lobbyy tomorrow i am unban! i wanna learn! lets all come together!!!!!!!! >:]

[gentle wasp]

Someone walk me through the logic behind the veh arty still having less range than sheldons
and not being able to shoot 360

[grizzled atlas]

more burst and aoe

[chilly heath]

Veh arty used to have more range but they were too strong so their range was nerfed. Veh arty still counter sheldons though. Even with a bit less range you only need to land a couple of good shots to kill a ton of sheldon with the aoe.

[gentle wasp]

I don't see most players under 25 OS "countering" sheldon balls with veh arty. I ususally see sheldons getting much more value than veh arty these days

Range and LOS ends up being a lot more powerful than people realize as a stat these days.

Like sumos SHOULD counter sheldons but in reality die before they will ever get close because of their speed and lack of range.