eadtaes,

would you kindly re-read some of the posts you are trying to criticize, and think about what has been said for a little while longer. 

also, beginning a sentence with LOL does not do much to make your argument more convincing. in fact, it has rather the opposite effect.

i don't understand why any of that is relevant. all damage is subject to mitigation. once again, it bears repeating, just because you can with substantial effort manage to survive a Missile Barrage has nothing to do with whether or not the power level of the ability is in line with everything else in the game. 

i feel sometimes like the defenders of Missile Barrage are stuck in knee jerk reaction mode and aren't reading or thinking about the arguments made by the other side. i've yet to see a defense of Missile Barrage that explains in any comprehensible fashion why Missile Barrage is at a power level that is in line with the rest of the game. I think its obvious that its out of line, even to its proponents.

so ask yourselves this: if it is obviously out of line, why am I defending it? 

thats not a rhetorical question. i want someone to answer it. why is it ok, in your opinion, for one particular ability to be way out of line? that is the opinion the proponents have after all and every defense related to "you can counter it" or "you can survive it" has as its premise that it is acceptable for an out-of-line ability to exist in the game. why is this?

Actually, it should be "no effective limitation that successfully keeps it in check".  It has one but it doesn't limit nearly as much as any ability that remotely matches it's potential.  But thanks

It would be easily brought into some sort of semblance of balance by either outright limiting it's targets or changing the area of effect in a way that makes it much harder to slam the entire (or majority) of the enemy fleet with it.

Personally, I would probably change it to a column area of effect but give it a much wider radius than Cleansing Brilliance, like say 3000m or 4000m radius and probably have a relatively high target cap on it as well such as 32 or 48 max targets.  That would make it so that you have to maneuvre the Marza for optimal firing or at least have face the right direction and still leave it capable of wiping out or severely battering a sizeable portion of the enemy fleet.

-dolynick

Wait you had a lot of illuminators, but you failed to kill marza? I see no problem here.

an easy way to make MB more resonable -

half/quarter the number of waves (more like quarter) and half/quarter the cooldown and AM usage.  exact same DPS, but it is more easily countered.

as for balance among the other caps: I really think that the rest of the caps should be buffed.  they're way too much like popcorn right now.

(for those who don't get it, they pop a lot)

thats the most ridiculous intellectually dishonest argument against a target cap i've ever seen. you basically said "they can't change it because...someone will cheat the changed system". give me a break. if you're gonna assume that those sorts of cheats and exploits exist than you can't argue for or against anything. thats total sophistry and you know it. 

Dolynick has actually presented a very good "decreasing range" type of suggestion. rather than decreasing total distance he suggested changing the AoE from a circle to a column. that would effectively mitigate the "kill whole fleet in one shot" problem without making the ability too difficult to use. 

and with regards to the "buff everything" suggestion that keeps propping up, you've all got the same ridiculous idea in your head that symmetry is balance. this is untrue. balance ought to be measure objectively. "buff everything" is the same as "unbalance everything". the game would be unfun to the extreme if every ship was an overpowered one shot fleet killer. 

Seriously i am glad that the devs don't read every single things that people post and take it to heart because if they did we would have a worthless game here. Leaving certain things and abilities powerful give each race its drawbacks and advantages. If everything was equal and nothing was powerful we would have three fledgling races that just looked different, now is that what you really want. Obviously, you have been bashed by a bunch of the Sins community and i hope you read every single post to realize just how bad your post actually is and the idea it contains. Nothing needs changed except your playing style.

Well, I think the point of the argument for those who do not want to nerf the Marza is that it's ability is exactly how a lvl 6 ability should be. Despite being very powerful, it is still quite interruptable and dodgeable. It is one of the few really good capital ship abilities and I would like to see it stay that way. Yes, in a sense, it unbalances things. On the other hand, the Vasari and Advent have their advantages as well. For example, the Vasari have a moving Starbase. It just so happens that the TEC have something powerful in the form of one capital ship. But, hey, at least it is easier to stop a Marza than it is to stop the Advent Battleball.

Having it a little more obvious that the Marza is firing, I guess, would be fair. Though imo, it isn't too hard to notice that your entire fleet in the empire tree is flashing red.

I can't believe people are trying to compare cleansing brilliance to MB, with a straight face no less.  Do these people actually believe what they say, or are they saying it just to imagine the look on your face?  I won't state why the comparison is ridiculous - it's absurd on the face of it.

Now, back to the matter at hand.  Just how is MB OP?  Let me count the ways:

1) The range on that shit is HUGE, I mean freaking HUGE.

2) People say you can run away from it after it fires up, but you can't.  I have more replays now, of people trying to do just that.  Entire fleets lost the second that crap fires up, even though the fleet was trying to run like hell.

3) It's omni-directional.  I have a replay of a LONE marza bombing some dude's planet.  The dude comes in with a large mass of assailants, stays at the maximum range of the assailants, and focus fires the BACK of the marza as it is bombing the planet.  The marza never bothers turning around, it simply fires off MB while it continues to bomb the planet.  The MB CURLS AROUND the front of the marza and fires BACKWARDS towards the assailants, killing every one of them at their maximum range.

The range on that crap needs a substantial nerf, the omnidirectional bullshit needs to be nerfed down to a cone (come on, shouldn't the damn thing at least have to turn around to fire that shit off?), the number of targets needs to be substantially reduced, etc.  It's like Bobucles said - "you could nerf the everloving bejesus out of MB, and it would STILL be a good ability."

And who's that saying that marzas "aren't all that special" until they get missle barrage, and are one of the "inferior" capships?  If I am not mistaken, marza has the highest dps of any capship in the game.  And ALL of its abilities are good.  Radiation bomb is good, incendiary shells is good, and raze planet is great.  So with the ridiculously OP MB, it actually has FOUR damn good abilities.

That's right Astax.  I sent the illums to focus fire and kill the marza.  Guess what happened?  They all died.  Now watch the bait and switch everybody, as I will now be attacked for the "stupidity" of trying to kill it instead of running away.  Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Interestingly, Astax, I think YOU are one of the "pros" in one of my replays who failed to interrupt MB correctly, and ate it in the face afterwards.  You seemed to be pretty pissed at this in-game.

It was my mistake.  Of course I'll get angry at myself. I don't see why a game should be changed because I made a mistake.  I deserved what I got.

AMEN some people do see the light.

Now to make my last and final case to show you MB isn't OPed I'll tell you why the DEVS have since it came to be a few months ago have not said a word on it and why they wont modify it by comparign it to the only combo that resembled MB.

That combo is CB + Malice before it got nerfed. And as soon as the problem showed up DEVS were quick to reply that they were commign with a fix for this. Since thsi fix people have stoped using the combo even thou it'S still extremly potent and powerfull. Not to mention is much mroe spamable then MB is. Now the reason they moved quickly to nerf it was becaus eit was a game breaking combo. Why? Because their was absolutely no counter possible that could be used to survive or defeat it. When you got hit you were dead everythign was dead. Absolutely no chance. That'S why they nerfed it.

Now MB is very powerfull and has the power to wipe out fleets. But that is incorect, it has the power to wipe out frigate spam fleets. If you tech up and vary your fleet MB become a nuisance and not a HOLYSHIT I'm dead. Plus they are many ways to counter it and avoid it. I named 4 counters on how to survive it and you chose to ignore me and reject them. Well i got news for you those are the exact same counters that I PERSONALY use on a reguler basis to stop MB of prevent it from even beign fired at me. Interupting is the best and most efficient way of countering it. Runnign away is the 2nd best option. I've ran away from so many MBs I've lost count. Now why can't you do it? I dunno I can do it why can't? Not payign sufficent attention tot he battle perhaps? Even if their is a marze present you should always pay very close attention to your battles because they can turn quickly. As for Tanking it, that'S somethign the Advent can do best. The Vasary can also do it but it's a bit more tricky (requires soem abilities that most people comsider useless and never research, honestly i wonder how people win soemtimes.) But doable, needs mroe micro. TEC cannot tank it very efficently, I've managed it once or twice but it's extremly hard and you need to ahve the right ammount fo ships AM to spare and alot fo luck. I still toke horrible damage and lsot alot of ships but was able to save half of my frigates. And finaly if you upgrade yoru fleet and vary you ships instead of just spaming LRFs even if you take MB in the face for it'S full force you'll just brush it off as a bad case of flees. Sure you'll lose your friagtes if you not ready to tank it or run. But if frigates is not all you have your not screwed.

And that is why the DEVS havent mention any "FIXS" for it and why they won't. Because you can do something about it. You have 4 basic methods to defeat MB take your pick. And whne you master these 4 basic methods you'll figure out they are other more complex ways to do it. One of these way was used by Reborn in a recent game we had. IT was simply not to rush in and take loses while my Marza was present. He defended his planet with a considerable force I didn't want to fight under his repair bay feild since he coudl ahve focused my Marza and kill it before it got to lvl 6. But he also wouldn't fight me at my own planet were my own repair feild would have prevented him from killing it and fleet would ahve torn his appart giving me my lvl 6 that would have sealed his fate.. So he stalemated, and we coldwarded at a standoff eye balling each other. Waiting for our allies to make some headway on their side. Who won in the end doesn't matter. What matters is he defeated my Marza by not fighting it.

So instead of complaning that's OP witch falls and death ear were I stand and from what I can see is also the same for the DEVS learn to live with it and to counter it properly. Learn to pay attention and get gracphic mods. Their's no reason no more not to get Bailknight and not use it to not get MB.

And with that I rest my case and have only this to add. Should you keep chosing not to listen how to counter it then EAT IT. BECAUSE I'LL JUST KEEP SERVING IT UNTIL YOU LEARN. Weather you learn it contructively or kicking and screaming the whole way makes ZERO difference to me.

AMEN and GOOD RIDENCE.