Balanced Annihilation V5.8

DemO · Post by **DemO** » 18 Oct 2007, 03:45

Learn to type first then maybe people will actually read/consider your posts.

Saktoth · Post by **Saktoth** » 18 Oct 2007, 10:23

Pillager isnt a frontline assault unit, its got half the HP of a stumpy- it doesnt last long unless backed up.

Panther has good DPS, but you get the same DPS from two stumpies, and two stumpies have 3060 hp between them compared to the panthers 950. Its a good choice when the enemy has gunships or fighters (i did forget about fighters with their de-nerfed ground damage) so ill give it that. Its not as useless as some other units are.

Otherside · Post by **Otherside** » 18 Oct 2007, 10:58

imo the geothermal battery needs a nerf its like a mini vulcan :S and it gives energy and its cheap so wat if its situational ti gives core a huge advantage over arms not like it dusnt already have one past tier 1

clumsy_culhane · Post by **clumsy_culhane** » 18 Oct 2007, 12:42

Otherside wrote:imo the geothermal battery needs a nerf its like a mini vulcan :S and it gives energy and its cheap so wat if its situational ti gives core a huge advantage over arms not like it dusnt already have one past tier 1

the behemoth is very expensive.. and it doest do pretty bad at a rush with quick units .. or from air.. by the time people are making behemoths u should have t2 air well underway, in which case just make some bombers and do a bombing run on it (it shouldbe be hard to know where it is

[Krogoth86] · Post by **[Krogoth86]** » 18 Oct 2007, 13:05

MR.D wrote:Zipper, Pelican, ok explain how these units are as good, or even equal to Core T2 kbots.

They are as good as Commando, Gimp and Skuttle what means shitty...

I find it interesting that you see Core's KBots as better than Arm's. To my mind this is valid for only one reason and that's the Sumo. He is clearly overpowered when you look at the Fatboy counterpart. But for the rest I think Arm is better. The Maverick is the perfect Anti-T1-KBot (though I'd like him to have more HP to be stronger against T2), the Sniper is just awesome, Zeus is good for getting enemy fire on them while Fidos do a long range support in the back. All in all Arm is great due to the unit combinations you can do here...

For Core it looks like this: The Pyro is cool because of his speed but he's only good at raiding lightly defended spots as he has little health and he just sucks against moving targets. The Can is just bad - you may use him as defense but you're better of with Vipers here. Healthwise they don't offer much more than Pyros would give you for the m while being also slow like hell and having an even inferior range. Morties are good though they are inferior compared to Fidos: more costs, less hp, less dps, no secondary weapon. There now also is the Dominator which also is good though he is inferior to the sniper especially against non static targets. He might only have an advantage when attacking higher ground...

So the only thing that really sticks out is the Sumo which is OP imo though he really gives Core the K-Bot advantage...

REVENGE · Post by **REVENGE** » 18 Oct 2007, 13:09

[Krogoth86] wrote:
MR.D wrote:Zipper, Pelican, ok explain how these units are as good, or even equal to Core T2 kbots.
They are as good as Commando, Gimp and Skuttle what means shitty...

I find it interesting that you see Core's KBots as better than Arm's. To my mind this is valid for only one reason and that's the Sumo. He is clearly overpowered when you look at the Fatboy counterpart. But for the rest I think Arm is better. The Maverick is the perfect Anti-T1-KBot (though I'd like him to have more HP to be stronger against T2), the Sniper is just awesome, Zeus is good for getting enemy fire on them while Fidos do a long range support in the back. All in all Arm is great due to the unit combinations you can do here...

For Core it looks like this: The Pyro is cool because of his speed but he's only good at raiding lightly defended spots as he has little health and he just sucks against moving targets. The Can is just bad - you may use him as defense but you're better of with Vipers here. Healthwise they don't offer much more Pyros would give you for the m while being also slow like hell and having an even inferior range. Morties are good though they are inferior compared to Fidos: more costs, less hp, less dps, no secondary weapon. There now also is the Dominator which also is good though he is inferior to the sniper especially against non static targets. He might only have an advantage when attacking higher ground...

So the only thing that really sticks out is the Sumo which is OP imo though he really gives Core the K-Bot advantage...

I've not seen a game where Zippers or Pelicans have been used since AA 1.2 days. Back then, Zippers were fucking disgusting, it was like Wezel rush. Then came the nerfs, and overnerfs, and now it's useless.

[Krogoth86] · Post by **[Krogoth86]** » 18 Oct 2007, 13:13

REVENGE wrote:I've not seen a game where Zippers or Pelicans have been used since AA 1.2 days. Back then, Zippers were fucking disgusting, it was like Wezel rush. Then came the nerfs, and overnerfs, and now it's useless.

Yeah of course they are bad and I don't know how long Saktoth has now been asking for a Zipper upgrade but the point I wanted to make is that Arm isn't the only one with shitty K-Bots. When thinking about Zippers or Pelicans when do you have seen a Commando for the last time. I think he still doesn't shoot on his own. The same goes for the Gimp (though I have to admit that he's better than the Pelican though still bad) and the Skuttle costs a lot and probably won't make it to the enemy. Mixing him up with your normal attack force also is a bad idea because you also could blow them up by yourself in the first place then. Sending them in alone with no danger of teamkilling does make even less sense so the Skuttle is useless in the end...

Hellspawn · Post by **Hellspawn** » 18 Oct 2007, 13:57

Lvl 2 bots will probably get changed in near future (like lvl 2 vehicle did).

Mr.Frumious · Post by **Mr.Frumious** » 18 Oct 2007, 14:59

[Krogoth86] wrote:Skuttle

You know it can cloak, right? You don't send a squad. You send a skuttle and a jammer, and pray that the pair of them get into your enemy's jammer range before the jammer gets shot.

Hell, you could use a jammer alone as a test-run (skuttles are expensive) but that would be a waste of a jammer.

Second - you have to make sure it detonates itself. The skuttle isn't a crawling bomb - the crawling-bomb's non-self-D death is close enough to its normal death to do some decent damage, so it's not big deal if it's shot instead of detonating as long as it's close to some enemies. Not so with the skuttle - the skuttle's self-D is a nuke. The skuttle's normal death is a crawling bomb.

I haven't tried it myself in a long time, but that's mostly because I haven't even seen an L2 kbot in about 3 versions (except on SpeedMetal).

And don't discount the dominator. The main thing that makes sharpshooters a huge problem is that traditionally a sharpshooter is paired with jammers and mavs to make a little artillery-party (repeated nerfage has made this less popular), combined with a spy for spotting (the Spy was the important part, the reason you couldn't do this with vehicles). The cloak is just gravy.

You can still do the same thing with the Core kbots, ever since the Spectre (jammer) was added. Spy for spotting, spectre to prevent artillery from returning fire, cans to defend the party, and Dominators for artillery, which do a similar job. On the plus side, they can shoot over things and have blast radius, on the minus side they can't shoot mobile units. Otherwise, the damage-per-cost is comparable (the Sharpshooters have better DPS-per-cost, but the Dominators don't overkill as much and can divide their fire better).

The real question-mark is what to do with Morties. I mean, they're cool, but I just don't know how to use them. Personally, my random stupid suggestion that I expect Sleska will flame for would be to nerf the Dominator's speed and give them more firepower in exchange. This would make Morties more distinct from them, and make them more useful as artillery instead of being at the same DPS-level as Sharpshooters. No sense having the Dominators being faster than the Cans that will be used to defend them.

ick: just remembered other big thing about Dominators - they can shoot at radar-only targets reasonably well. That's a big plus.

Saktoth · Post by **Saktoth** » 18 Oct 2007, 16:12

Commando is a great unit, dont understimate it. It just takes a lot of micro. It can single-handedly stop a massive enemy force, and then turn them against eachother to add insult to injury. Id often surprise people with this little gem, back when i actually played t2 bots.

The fido is mostly better (but be aware that the fido's DPS isnt correctly reported in Modit) than the morty but the morty has much better range. The morty can take out HLT's at range, something the fido certainly cant do.

The Pyro is a great little package of a good HP, and mad (220) DPS all for less cost than a stumpy. As a raider bot it does its job- get it inside and rip up his base. Much better than the zipper in that regard. It also has a self-d explosion that does 1000 damage, so its like a crawling bomb as well (Who knew about this? not me).

As to the pyro having similiar HP-for-cost to the can- nope. 2800 to 3850 for cost. Combine this with 343 DPS (3.4 flash, more than a bulldog) and you have a pretty good unit, though it is slow and doesnt have the best range. Thats mostly what limits it.

Despite what people have been saying the skuttle doesnt have a nuke blast- the AoE is only 480, an arm nukes AoE is 1250. Even so it does 7500 damage which is enough to kill prettymuch anything. However, it just takes too much micro for most people to bother using.

Mr.Frumious · Post by **Mr.Frumious** » 18 Oct 2007, 17:01

Actually, now I want to try teaming up pyros with morties, similar to how I described teaming up cans with dominators. Pyros and morties have similar speed, so it could be fun to have a little mixed squad of them for an assault-force. Spies for recon, morties to take on heavier defenses and pyros to handle damage, with the whole team fast enough to be able to retreat away from any enemies that are too hard to crack (except for the mandatory jammer, obviously).

edit: looked over the stats. One catch: morties don't quite outrange pitbulls/vipers the way dominators do, so it'd be trickier than using Dominators.

edit2: looking more over the stats, particularly of the Voyeur, as a way to overcome the dismal sight-range of Morties. They've got long sight-range, so they'd be good in that team... but they're slow like a Can. Also, an odd note: why is the movementclass of the Voyeur "Tank2"?

The problem I'm trying to figure out is how to make microing Morties easier. Morties are fast and have good firing range, but it's hard to capitalize on that without a spotter because of their short sightedness. What do other people use? Or do they simply not get used.

[Krogoth86] · Post by **[Krogoth86]** » 18 Oct 2007, 17:51

Mr.Frumious wrote:and pray that the pair of them get into your enemy's jammer range before the jammer gets shot.

This is the big problem - only one unit or a camera ruin this and as the Skuttle moves even slower than a can reaching the enemy gets even more difficult.

Mr.Frumious wrote:And don't discount the dominator. The main thing that makes sharpshooters a huge problem is that traditionally a sharpshooter is paired with jammers and mavs to make a little artillery-party

I don't discount the Dominator as I said it's one of the good K-Bots but compared to the Sharpshooter he is way inferior. The Sharpshooter has about twice the dps and can also hit moving targets, has cloaking ability and also extra damage on Mechs and Krogoths. You also won't immerdiately see where the shot came from if you're not zoomed in. The only advantage the Dominator has is the ability to attack higher grounds too and they cost a bit less.

Saktoth wrote:Commando is a great unit, dont understimate it. It just takes a lot of micro. It can single-handedly stop a massive enemy force, and then turn them against eachother to add insult to injury. Id often surprise people with this little gem, back when i actually played t2 bots.

I think I didn't use him since he lost his cloaking ability. His range is pretty limited and you have to assign the targets manually. So far so good but he also takes ages to shoot as he keeps doing the moonwalk to get his gun in position. I'd like him to have cloak back and lose stealth...

Saktoth wrote:As to the pyro having similiar HP-for-cost to the can- nope. 2800 to 3850 for cost. Combine this with 343 DPS (3.4 flash, more than a bulldog) and you have a pretty good unit, though it is slow and doesnt have the best range. Thats mostly what limits it.

That's why I said "not much more" healthwise because I don't think that +1000 is very much in comparison to its reduced agility. The Pyro's high dps is cool but just micro one Flash, Panther or another fast unit around them and they'll keep firing into nowhere. So as I said he's just cool for raiding lightly protected bases but sucks at unit to unit combat...

Mr.Frumious wrote:What do other people use? Or do they simply not get used.

As you already said by yourself they are good as supporters of your first assault line. If you have no units or spies around they also are good at shooting radar signatures and due to their speed you can also go ahead and make the enemy chase you while you run away and keep firing. As they are built pretty fast you might also consider to use a group of only Morties on locations with little (T1) defense as they raid pretty much as good as Pyros...

Saktoth · Post by **Saktoth** » 18 Oct 2007, 18:22

Yeah Frumious, they just outrange hlt's (about as good as t1 arty does) not pit/vipers. So a pyro/morty combo would be strictly vs a t1 defense. To spot, you usually have scouts around (say a few ak's) that you can throw into his line to spot his HLT's for you. If properly micro'ed, the fast, long range morty can take out slower, shorter ranged stuff pretty well- cans zeus, warrior and mav esp, perhaps even bulldogs. This tends to be limited to when you are on the defensive though, and have LoS.

So as I said pyro is just cool for raiding lightly protected bases but sucks at unit to unit combat...

They can hit larger, heavy units, and they're ok at rushing in to take out enemy arty. They are mostly raiders though yeah.

Still, where core really excells is sumos and cans. If you are gonna tech bots you might as well use them. Its good to know you have other options- dominators if he has pitbulls/vipers, pyros for fast raiding, morties for fast skirmishing and backup etc- but sumos and cans are the mid-to-late t2 core kbot mainstays.

Spiking · Post by **Spiking** » 18 Oct 2007, 19:14

Really core kbot balance would be a lot better if the sumo buildtime was just doubled, or more. Even a single freaker gaurding a fac can pump out a sumo in a very reasonable time if you have the metal and E for it. Then core players might use the can a little more which suddenly makes using fidos/mavs a lot more attractive.

edit: because right now the sumo is pretty much a T3 unit requiring a dgun or HEAVY force to stop but without needing a gantry or all that pesky buildtime

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 18 Oct 2007, 19:41

The issue is that certain other Kbots are not worth their cost for their ostensible role, not that the Sumo and the Sharpshooter are overpowered. There is no effective Arm Direct Fire/Front Line Kbot for cost, and all three units who might fit that role are ineffective in most roles for cost and theoretically designed for different things.

Mr.Frumious · Post by **Mr.Frumious** » 18 Oct 2007, 19:57

neddiedrow wrote:The issue is that certain other Kbots are not worth their cost for their ostensible role, not that the Sumo and the Sharpshooter are overpowered. There is no effective Arm Direct Fire/Front Line Kbot for cost, and all three units who might fit that role are ineffective in most roles for cost and theoretically designed for different things.

Well, the question is whether they're underpowered compared to Core, or just underpowered compared to vehicles. There's precious few games that ever include L2 kbots, considering that most people play vehicle-maps, or small, tight kbot maps like Mars that rarely get to L2.

One thing I notice: should one ever use the gauss-fire mode on the Fido? The Fido's secondary gun seems to have the same DPS but with added blast-radius, so I doubt that the slower projectile or ROF is a huge hindrance given how dense enemies are usually packed.

I would argue that Core has no more front-line units than Arm does, just that theirs are slightly more cost-effective. I mean, the Sumo is barely-mobile, and the Can is almost exactly mirrored in the Zeus (Zeus armor/dps stats are nearly exactly half a can, but it has higher speed, which explains their price being about 2/3 of a Can). The Fido mirrors the Morty nicely in it's weird high-mobility mid-long range combat unit. That only leaves the Mav, which has always been in limbo but has never been a front-line warrior against anything but L1 units. That problem hasn't changed since OTA - Arm has _never_ had a front-line spammable tank-like kbot. Neither has core. L2 kbots is a freak-show. The fact that Sumos are assault units now is just wierd balancing.

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 18 Oct 2007, 19:58

I consider the Sumo OP, so it will probaly get nerfed next vsn.

Otherside · Post by **Otherside** » 18 Oct 2007, 20:42

geothermal battery killed 3 anihs 7-8 flak cannons and some other stuff fairly spread out in like 6-7 secodns... hows that balanced thats b4 i had an air force ready to bomb it

Satirik · Post by **Satirik** » 18 Oct 2007, 20:56

in \gamedata\resources.tdf add gfxtexture=nano.tga; in [resources][graphics][projectiletextures] and add http://0.t.free.fr/nano.tga to your bitmap dir

flop · Post by **flop** » 18 Oct 2007, 22:44

Otherside wrote:geothermal battery killed 3 anihs 7-8 flak cannons and some other stuff fairly spread out in like 6-7 secodns... hows that balanced thats b4 i had an air force ready to bomb it

geothermal batterys are balanced because you can only build them on geovents, not the specific location you want it at.

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Balanced Annihilation V5.8