Finally had a marza missle barrage me. Strangely enough, in a couple hundred games played (online), I've never had it happen. And since I don't play TEC, I've never used it before.
I was advent, playing against a TEC. He attacked me at one of my planets (all lrm, basically). I had a larger number of illums than he had lrm, and pushed him back - he took pretty big losses from my recollection. I then pressed ahead and attacked him. In waltzes his marza with some lrm. I still outnumbered him (with superior ships, no less) but all of a sudden my entire fleet went "poof" (30-something ships, from recollection).
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the ability to press a single button on a capship with one finger, while picking your nose with the other, and be able to evaporate a superior fleet... should be considered just a *LITTLE* bit OP. Just a little. Someone will say "but you can disable it or avoid it!" Boy, what a false choice! So all he has to do is pick his nose while pressing a button, and all the burden to either "disable" or "avoid" is on me? Now how is that anything close to "balanced?"
Boy, is that shit ever broken. They ought to nerf the hell out of that crap, and nerf it good. In fact it should have been nerfed ages ago. A superweapon, which takes a ridiculous amount of credits to build, all said and done, won't even do that to a fleet.
If Mazra ever gets nerfed I will stop updating my version of Sins.
Not that I use Mazra much but I'd rather see other caps get stronger than yet another unit nerf. Especially a cap. Caps are too secondary in Sins now for my tastes.
you complain alot dont you? its been there for ages, why has no one but you complained?
dont know if you know, but TEC lrf has a cluster warheads ability to give it AoE effect, so that, plus Marza missile barrage (which, btw, is a lvl 6 ability, meaning is is supposed to be 'the shit') would absolutely kick most ass. i dont know what else was in the system, but other ships could have made a difference as well.
but seriously... alot of your posts tell stories of you getting you ass handed to you... maybe you need to stop whining and change your tactics? i mean, seriously, you were complaining before about a illum 'spam' kicking your ass when you just spammed assailants. now, you swap to illums, and get your ass handed to you by lrf and a lvl 6 Marza...
The advent has a lvl 6 ability... i think its called cleansing brilliance... isnt that like a lvl 6 marza missile barrage? maybe not as AoE, but definitly as damaging.
i mean, in a normal varied fleet, you would have ships with heavier armor at the front to take the brunt of the missile barrage, and your much lighter armored long range frigates (from any race) would be out back, out of range, and still able to fight. thing is, you had lightly armored, long range ships acting as frontline troops... see where your mistake is?
lastly, you said a superweapon does not do that much damage... A) its not supposed to, and the TEC Starbase Safety Protocol Override (the big red button) could easily take out your 30 ships... (though why you have a fleet of only 30 ships while hes had the chance to lvl 6 a Marza....)
seriously dude, stop whining, stop saying everything is wrong, and screwed up, and unbalanced, except you. 'building series or runs' of only one kind of ship obviously does not work for you, so try something else, but stop thinking its everyone elses fault but your own
Definitely agree with TheRezonator. If you must spam something to help you win against the "dreaded" MB try bombers. I perfer what mbaron888 talks about with getting the other caps better stuff. Some of them are plain useless.
Belittling the OP does not make a point, Rezonator.
Missile Barrage is indeed beyond ridiculous. I would like some arguments why it is not, there is a whole thread about it.
There is no other level 6 cap ship ability that can compare to a fleet destroying ability. If you cannot interrupt it, everything in a huge radius gets blasted. It is very easy to apply. Not so easy to have an interrupt ready all the time to stop such a barrage.
Is it really so much fun to watch out for missiles sprouting from a Marza, and always having a ship in place that can interrupt the Marza in Multiplayer? If I see a level 10 Kol and a level 6 Marza, you know what I will be watching... hint: For sure not the Kol!
It butchers the AI, it destroys a whole fleet in seconds. In multiplayer, your whole fleet depends on one thing: If you cannot stop the Missile Barrage, your fleet is no more. If you stop it, well, the Marza is still a formidable cap ship and you just stopped it from butchering you, but nothing more.
The extreme effort for the opponent is to bring the Marza in position and press the button for Missile Barrage. Then it totally depends on you. If you do not react immediately, you are in trouble.
A Marza also does not have to explode itself like a much more expensive Argonev to wipe out a fleet.
Someone who thinks Missile Barrage is "balanced" should better stop talking about balance. If there was ever the need to balance something, it is Missile Barrage.
The Marza can dish out the more damage the more targets are in range. I am tempted to create an excel spreadsheet to find out how many frigates and cruisers are needed to focus fire and destroy a single level 6 Marza before it can wipe out the whole bunch with one Missile Barrage.
The funny thing is, Cleansing Brilliance and Malice required two capitals and did not even come close to the damage of Missile Barrage, and were nerfed somewhat. The oh so dangerous 150 damage on death and 30% extra damage of Volatile Nanites of Devastators combined with Phase Missiles of a Desolator funnily do less damage to a target than a Marza to every target in range in one channeled second of Missile Barrage.
One wonders why much weaker level 6 abilities have a target cap, but MB not.
Don't complain about something you can't change... for one.
Two, every race has its own OP item, you Advent fans have your Carriers, Vasari have Extrememly hardened hulls, and phase missles, and TEC has superior firepower, most notable in the Marza. In one instance, I was attacking a TEC planet, playing as TEC and he was a total Carrier spammer. Unfortunatly for him, I had a lvl. 10 and a lvl. 8 Marza, both of which used missle barrage at once, and he lost something on the order of 100-150 ships, most of them LF's, Hoshikos or LRM's, but he lost 40 of his 70 Percherons, so Marza's are essential for TEC players, just as Aeria's are for Advent, and LRF's for Vasari.
Koda0
To me something is unbalanced when it can win the game all by itself without any help and there is no way to defend against it.
The MB does not fit the bill
Does a Marza need support?Yes
Can a Marza by itself win?No
Are there ways to defend against it?Yes there are many.
I am not just talking about interuppt either, have you tried guardians with the mothership, How about Vasari HC and their intergration abilities. I am sure there are others I have not figured out that others may have. The point of the matter is are you truely trying to think of ways of defeating something that intitally seems ultra-powerful or are you running screaming and crying to the forums calling for a nerf. That says more about the person making the complaint then anything else.
Hahaha! Nice joke.
Cleansing Brilliance does not kill entire fleets.
Every faction has its OP Cap. I think for Vasari/Advent it is even worse because you are kind of penalized if you do not pick the Mothership/Egg as first cap.
Ryat, a Marza does not need support to destroy a whole fleet.
It is the only capital ship that is able of single-handedly destroying a whole fleet all alone.
* Cleansing Brilliance does less damage, 2000 over 8 seconds to all targets that are in direct line of the beam.
* Missile Barrage does 150 damage for 20 seconds to all targets, that's 3000 damage to everyone in a huge radius, not just one target.
This is why it is "balanced".
BTW, "playing dumb" for the sake of keeping an imbalanced ability? OR just not knowing it better? Then better STFU.
I disagree too. DON'T NERF THE MARZA!
Before 1.1 fixed Missile Barrage, nobody played TEC in multiplayer! Now they do, and its fun.
Yes, you can run away from a MB attack with modest damage. The AI does an excellent job of running away, or interupting it. Better than 90% of human players, including the OP, who wasn't paying attention.
Even the game manual alludes to the strength of the Marza Dreadnaught. It is the way it was meant to be. (If anything, give us some more ships/abilities like that).
Then most things that have been changed in the game already would not be OP or imbalanced by your definition. For instance, the super siege frigs. You could defend against them by simply doing to your opponent what he was doing to you. You could defend against them in other ways too. It was still a ridiculous balance. There are many other examples too, whether you want to talk about lrm or carriers before their nerfs - whatever.
MB is actually worse from a pure balance perspective than all the examples I just listed, because with everything else (lrm, carriers, siege frigs, etc) you could at least just ape your opponent - build tons of lrm, carriers, or siege frigs yourself. In that respect, it was "balanced" because everyone could do the same thing to each other, it was simply a strange balance. But you CAN'T simply ape your opponent and blow his fleet away with your own level 6 marza UNLESS you happen to choose TEC/marza.
If MB does not meet the definition of something that is OP, I would actually like to know what does.
So, SageWon, TEC will not be played anymore if the Marza gets nerfed? Is this not a good argument to boost TEC and nerf the Missile Barrage, you cannot seriously be arguing that a broken ability shall compensate for shortcomings?
You also make false claims, the AI does not dodge Missile Barrages on either difficulty at all. FACT!
You also do not explain why people should lose their fleet like the OP because they did not immediately run away or did not have the means to interrupt someone pushing ONE button should be "balanced". It is dumb.
You think because the manual "alludes to the strength of the Marza", that this is a justification for being just outstanding?
The unspoken thing is, you want to wipe out a whole fleet with one button. You know that people facing the possibility of a Missile Barrage are always at the receiving end. You do not want balance, you want to abuse this ability to the max.
Reality check, please?
It can be interrupted, with all races having such an ability that is much easier to get (read: level 1 cap can do it) than Missile Barrage.
It's ridiculous against the AI because the AI doesn't know how to interrupt it, but any player that gets caught unprepared (meaning, if you see an opponent with Marza as his main cap, chances are that's what he's going for no?) deserves it.
All this "it can be interrupted" (or countered) BS really cracks me up! My buddy just sent me a recording of a game from a few nights ago with PROS, and I just watched it. Guess what? Two of the pros in this game couldn't interrupt the 3rd pro's missle barrage correctly! And they sat there and complained about it! One guy screaming that he interrupted, the other guy saying that he didn't interrupt at the correct time, the third guy saying it was interrupted but still got off enough of a barrage to kill the dude's fleet, yadda yadda. This happened twice in this game. Now, if PROS have trouble successfully pulling off an interrupt, how much trouble is an average player gonna have?
Most of the time you will not ligitimately (THROUGH NO FAULT OF YOUR OWN) have the proper counters for interrupting this thing regardless! Try as you might, in a very sharp fight against a human opponent where he rushes you within the first few minutes of the game, you push him back, and you continue to clash furiously while pumping ships from multiple frig factories at the same time, no cash or resources ever floating at all, you simply aren't going to be able to have a second capship just laying around to even ATTEMPT to interrupt MB! And then some dude talks about having some mass of HC laying around - what a joke! This game I described, it was all I could do to tech up to and start pumping flaks to counter this guy's threat of carriers, and these people think I'm gonna have HC?
You know what it is? None of these people play competitive games against human opponents online. Period.
Longasc, I HAVE run away from a ongoing MB, and I have seen the AI do the same. FACT!
Yes, that single ability helps balance the races. Don't forget, you can't get it until level 6, which take a long time, and plenty of effort.
Something needs to be outstanding. Why not that. Several techs, weapons & abilities are outstanding (Pervasive Economy, RA, Kostura, CB, Nano-bomb, Colonize+, etc, etc)
Because I'd rather someone beat my fleet because they actually BEAT MY FLEET, that's why. In this game, I beat this guy's fleet twice. Then up comes the marza, he presses a button, my fleet evaporates, and he laughs. Didn't outskill me. Didn't outstrat me. Didn't out-tactical me. Just pushed a button.
Why anyone would want to "win" like that, or argue for the ability of someone to "win" like that, is beyond me.
I think a lot of capital ships need reworking. As it is, Vasari and Advent are hopelessly dependent on their overpowered colony caps, and the Marza has a special ability to which there simply is no comparison. No matter how much you say that it's beatable or that TEC need it to be viable, the fact remains that it is overpowered and overshadows other far more interesting abilities. It's the very definition of imbalanced when one choice is the best choice 90% of the time.
I don't think you can defend the current state of the Marza without also favouring significant buffs to the vast majority of the game's less used capital ships. Either bring Marza in line with its alternatives (including other factions) or bring the alternatives in line with the Marza.
Another issue I have with the Marza is that there is actually no way to tell it is barraging unless you're zoomed in on it watching for the little missiles coming out. This is a significant lack of visual clarity that is unacceptable from such an influential ability. There should be some very obvious visual indication that this ability is being used (aside from your fleet suddenly taking copious amounts of damage, by which time it's likely too late to stop it).
Anyways, here's my opinion on what should be done to the Marza's missile barrage:
salvos: reduce to 8 from 20 (1200 from 3000 damage)
cooldown time: 90 seconds from 240
Much less powerful, but can be used much less often. This makes it harder to counter because it could recharge before the battle is done, but at the same time less dangerous if you cannot counter it. Keeps it powerful and fully scaling, but won't kill a fleet on its own.
LOL AT YOU SERIOUSLY. Here are 4 easy ways as advent that you could have used to avoid this pitiful senario.
1) build a Radiance or Revelation and get the ability Detonate Anti-matter or Reverie. Both fo those would ahve interrumpted the barage and svae yoru ships if your paying attention to it.
2) Simply run your fleet away the instant you see the marza use barage. You can actuly run most if not all frigates int eh game outside of the Marza's range before they blow up. They'll be damaged but alive just retreat repair and go back at it.
3) With a Progenitor, Gardians and sheild upgrades you could have tanked the barage. Illums have sufficient sheidl points to be bale to live thought that if approriately supported.
4) Grow some tactics, since he was spaming LRMs like a noob you shouldn't have followed him but instead start investign in drone host. You would have mop the floor with his fleet even faster and his missile barage would have only been a nuisance to your drone host.
Basicaly sorry for being rude, but you got what was comming at you.
I for one can still count on 1 hand all the times i have been success fully been missile baraged by a person since the first entrenchment Beta. And that is once. Only 1 dude has ever baraged me because I wasn'T paying attention to battle sicne I had destroyed his ally's Marza and his wasn't at the battle when i last checked before going to dos oem eco stuff. I lost all of my LFs and LRMs but my cruisers survived and I Baraged back. Tactics is what you were lacking and need to face a Marza or to use it properly againts a skilled opponent.
Obviously, they wouldn't be pros.
Human error != imbalance.
I strongly agree with the OP. One reason i don't play multiplayer, it is because i like to make my strategy depending of the situation. And going online is just about one question : how do i counter the egg and the marza (edit : well, it's a bit exagerated but still...). And i am not going to take an Akkan just for ion bolt and not a radiance just for detonate antimatter.
Winning a battle shouldn't be just about using one cap's ability but about using you caps ability combined with the power of a well mixed and micromanaged fleet. If you win because you use hoshiko and lrf supporting a kol who uses flak power, that's fair : it is a strategy, it is not just going marza because that's the multiplayer law.
I play only almost advent and i can tell you that cleaning brillance is a joke compared to missile barrage and advent caps are not especially weak. The kol is an exemple of what is a powerful battleship but not too much. The marza, on the contrary, is a monster.
I've hit the AI with MB hundreds of times. It's not smart enough to counter it. If you have the Marza available, any number of Pirates are a one ship snack.
I don't like how you have to specifically prepare to counter one single unit, or you will lose a fleet.
Nah no way. The only thing that needs to be done is inhance the visuals of the skills so you can spot a marza using missile barage for miles. The main reason people get killed by it so easyly is because you can barely tell the player has activated it. If it was visualy significant people would be able to react in time.
The story agent of Karma talk s about 2 suposedly pros not properly stoping the barage is related to that. They didn't notice the barage until their ships had taken heavy damage. At that point it was to late even if they interupted sinc eit fires missiles and missile onyl deal their damage once they hit their target not when their fired. So what happen is thta they noticed the damage and reacted when the 5 wave of missiles hitted them. But at that point in time atleast 3 other waves of missiles have already been fired from the Marza. So 450 more dmg was heading for his ships even if he stoped it and that damage was enought to do them in.
The way to spot it if you don't have a graphic mod like Bailknight is to watch that Marza very close and look for the tell tale sing of missile barage. The missiles will fire forward travel in a strait line for 1 ship lenght and then they will fan out. As soon a syou see missiles fanning out counter it immediately by running or interupting.
Get bailknight enhanced effects : you must be blind to miss the missile barrage of a marza once it is activated !
A. If the game was completely balanced, then every side would be pretty much the same, with very little variation, and whoever spammed faster would win.
B. If you can't meet him toe to toe withyour current ship mix, try adding different ships, and I don't know, not just spamming dozens of LRFs. Try building support cruisers, CAs, or Carriers.
C. Most people who complain about the game needing to be balanced lose often. Otherwise they wouldn't complain.
i have seen 2 huge fleets (not at the same time, but in the same match) be almost utterly annihillated in a very short timespan against inferior forces thanks to a careful cleansing brilliance lineup + malice. i dont think that would work though except if, as in the case of that match the opponent was fighting on 2 fronts and had to go back and forth microing
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