Vasari are king. there is no disputing this, it didnt always used to be this way, and it didnt take much to reach this point, but here we are, and here is why. 1. scramble bombers. 2. phase missles. everyone knows scramble bombers needs to be nerfed... but phase missles? well, we need to be carefull, but lets do some quick calculations first.
A max upgraded phase missle does 1.74x the damage (on average) than an unupgraded phase missle to a frig at max mitigation. That same phase missle does 2.04x the damage when thrown against a lv 5 cap ship at max mitigation (60%, 70%)... for advent, it gets horrible... a lv 10 advent cap ship with max mitigation research (no pacts), in its own culture gets hammered for 3.24x the damage of an unupgraded phase missle. (throw in the phase 15% extra phase missle bypass from a missle pact, and things get rediculous)
basicly, if something has shields, phase missles do a really really good job at popping them. vasari fighters at max upgrades are better at popping cap ships than enforcers... i kid you not. (enforcers do 1.91666 damage per fleet supply... *.75 for thier modifier vs capital armor, gives 1.4375 dps/supply fighters, do 1.464 per fleet supply... and they get a 50% modifier, but they also get a 204% buff due to phase missle upgrades....(vs a lv 5 cap ship) and so they do 1.492 dps/supply.
basicly, why would you buy enforcers, which might die, when you could use... fighters? (wtf?) (and they respawn for free if your carefull with your carriers)... if fighters are better than enforcers... could you imagine how much more effective bombers are? well, lets do the math, ehh? 2.44 dps/fleetsupply *.75*2.04 = 3.735145 dps/supply. Max upgraded bombers are exactly twice as good at killing that lv 5 cap ship as max upgraded enforcers are, to within the margin of error on the spreadsheet i am getting my numbers from.
lets do lrms for funz? (and maybe flack too if i get bored) Assailant: 13dps/6*.75*2.04 = 3.315dps/supply vs that poor lv 5 cap ship. Flacks... 16.333/5/2(assumping 2 weapon banks are firing at the cap ship)*.5*2.04... bullshit... 1.666dps/supply ... thats higher than the enforcer!!! (not a max upgraded one mind you... but why the hell would anyone want wave cannon upgrades when they could get phase missles?) oh, and these ships get charged missles for extra fun. (and flack got 2 extra banks for firing at other things)
so... what about the lonely skrimisher? .857dps/supply unupgraded, or 1.03dps/supply upgraded. wow, that is so low. you know... i wonder.... 12/7*1.5...=2.5714dps/supply for antiheavy duties... bombers? 17.088/7*.5*1.74 2,124 dps/supply vs all frigs except heavies.
Is it any wonder phase missles are so loved? well, i dont really want to get rid of phase missles, they are what make vasari vasari, but what does need to be changed is so that things like flack and fighters are more effective than killing capitlships than enforcers. dont buff the enforcers, they already were buffed, no, instead, lets decrease the multiplier of phase missles vs capital ships. Let us reduce the modifier for phase missles on fighters/flack against capital ships from .5 to .4, and the modifier from lrm/bombers from .75 to .6 aka, a pathetic 20% nerf on phase missles vs capital ships. (and only capital ships).
please, reduce scramble bombers to 1.8 levels, and decrease phasemissles vs capitalships by 20% this is only phase missles vs capitalships mind you! everything else would be unchanged! its a very small nerf, but one that will help you keep your capital ships alive a little bit longer, and would open up the vasari to the possibility of using its other ship types.
(mind you, after my proposed nerf, phase missles will cream that lv 5 cap ship much faster than the same ship types of the other races upgraded to the same degree,... the modifier now effectively being 1.632 for maxed phase missles vs capships, vs 1.3 for say, tec maxed missle research, but the situation is significantly improved to the point where you should be building enforcers instead of flack and fighters to kill capital ships.)
one more thing: i know that flack "counter" assailants... however... 45 flack will not kill 65 assailants.... even if everything is unupgraded. I know, cause i tested equal fleet supply of flack and lrms, and the flack barely barely won.... now... 65 unupgraded flack, will kill 45 unupgraded assailants... but not the other way around.
Thank you for correcting me. (The numbers did seem kinda high, but then again it seemed to make sense so...) Yeah, you can get theoretically more and more rediculous by stacking things, but what you did works for all intents and purposes. Instagib counts are a pretty good basis to go on as well. After all, if you can instagib a capital every 6 seconds (and all the ships around it thanks to Charged Missiles) with a mere fourth of your fleet supply, then you might have some problems... There is no question that at that point, the very concept of capitals goes out the window. Honestly, if you spent another quarter of your FC on carriers/Skirantras and the rest balancing it out a bit, your fleet would be indestructible...
This is going to be my last post in this thread because everyone is entitled to their own opinions and preferences.
But I have to laugh
LOL
Now u are talking about 100 assailants hitting a cap and that its going to die.
Now here is scenario Cap is bombing a planet and on the same side of planet you jump in with 30 LRMs or Assailants (it doesn't really matter, Think same goes for ilums.) cap runs out of the gravity well on shortest route and (not sure if you just attack- since lrms when they come in range stop) if you move them along the path that cap is taking that cap will die before it jumps out of gravity well. No upgrades no nothing.
All skilled players know that late game (which 100 assailants definitely is) your caps if you want them to survive need to be taken care of. They tend to pop out very quickly no mather what race....
And one last time
If it was so OP that it needed to be nerfed all players that play vasari would be spamming assailants or carrier cruisers nothing else.
Its about harmony of the race. But we all know no mather what race you are playing if you get 20 or more cariers you got force that its hard to stop
All races have their own advantage. However the effectiveness of phase missiles might have been why Scramble Bombers was kept reasonable. The last buff made it at least twice as good as the L6 power Anima Tempest, and that's just in terms of strikecraft- an Anima had already been buffed the patch before to continue to keep it in line. Its just silly, as if balance had been abandoned.
Also, it may be that scouts weren't intended to counter LRF though it seemed a good mechanic that just needed tweaking. The scout nerf may have good just slightly too far. However, vastly more significant to balance is that flak and fighters shouldn't counter capitals. That's why players complain. Flak and fighters should not have phase missiles.
Illuminators used to be anti-capital, that added variety. They still wouldn't be as effective as assailants anyway, but lets have that back. Its not as if Skirmishers are an issue!
greg, you do play multiplayer right? people (or, at least most skilled players) dont build skrims or enforcers.... and they do just spam assailants and carrier cruisers.... occasionally a few flack thrown in the mix (also with phase missles, mind you), and then add in the support cruisers (cause, when you got the most powerfull support cruisers in the game... you kinda want to use them, no?)
its not that 100 asailants hitting a cap and killing it is a bad thing... its preety fking obvious that that is going to happen if your not carefull... but 100 assailants 1hkoing a capital ship...
basicly... if your capital ship isnt BOTH on the edge of the gravity well, AND facing in the general jumping direction... its dead.
20 or more tec carriers dont scare me... 13.333 advent carriers dont scare me... 20 vasari carriers filled with max phase missled bombers...
(going back to my 2.04 effective multiplier vs lv5 capital ships)... is 1370 DPS...
Each phase missle does (dont ask me why) 76.900002 damage.... on the first pass... that is 9228 damage. that is BEFORE SHIELD BYPASS OR NME.
now... tec carriers filled with bombers... 44.400002 damage per missle... on the first pass, they deal 8880 damage.
this is, once again, before damage upgrades.
now. lets throw in shield mitigation... 70%, for a lv5 cap ship. and throw in damage modifiers.
down to 2076 for vasari.
1998 for tec.
now, we throw in weapons upgrades.
2597.4 for tec.
4235.7 for vasari.
take your capital ship... subtract those numbers. thats how much hp it has left... after the first pass.
the vasari bombers are 63% more effective than the tec bombers.
Now... if i am tec, and i see my capital ship take 2600 damage... i am like shit... but i know i have time to gtfo. I see my capital ship take the hitpoints of a lv1 kol... I know it is dead before it can do a 180.
100 lrms... 71.5*100*.75*.3 1608.75 damage every 6.5 seconds. Now, that is tankable. with repair bays, and hoshikos, and some other tricks, I can tank that. I have tanked that. 100 asailants... 78*100*.75*.3*2.04... thats 3580 damage every 6 seconds. thats not tankable. (well... maybe a vasari with 20 overseers and rediculous micro might be able to tank that. for... 30 seconds.)
POINT IS: 100 asailants... its going to die. 100 LRMS... it might actually not die. got it?
How about a reactionary phase for the game?
Revert the Scramble Bombers change, revert the scout nerf and alter Illuminators back to the original anti-capital damage concept, with the same firepower as currently.
That would leave Advent nervous about LF, but it would bring LF into the game more- as Pbhead pointed out no-one uses Skirmishers. Also the Seekers would return to being an excellent counter to LRF so Advent could counter LF with their own LF. Plus Advent has Repulse, which gets more sensible if they have no direct counter to LF- as in the original concept of the ability.
Of course there are many aspects of the game that need fixes- pirates, mines, culture, relationship points, most of the capitals and some civil and military techs- but the scout era was more involved than the present Vasari spam era, and without anti-LF Illuminators you might get the same gameplay subtleties once more.
At a certain point, LRF are just going to annihilate capital ships, phase missiles or not. If you want to address that problem, I think you're going to need to do something like nerf LRF move speed (so a capital ship could kite away from them without getting shot at). In that sense, I agree with Greg.
However, I have to disagree on the other end. People do only make LRF, flak, and carriers as Vasari. You occasionally will see skirmishers, and in a few uncommon situations marauders are quite good, but for general purpose fleets it's all phase missile units without exception.
As well, Vasari bombers are completely out of line once fully upgraded. Unless you have a Kortul or Halcyon combo that can perpetually keep them out of attack range, you've got a dead capital ship on your hands.
well, at a certain point anything will annihilate capital ships...
a giant army of enough scouts will be able to kill a capital ship, if you have enough of em.
The issue isnt really x units to vaporize a cap ship... the issue is, how many units it takes to effectively kill a capital ship in relation to other units. In other words... so, great, x assailants kill a capital ship... that means nothing untill you take a look at how many lrms, heavys, or skrimishers it takes, and compare the fleet supply.
Now, greg, ill give you one thing, the 1hko isnt really fair because the weapon cooldown for everything is very different, and it messes up the numbers a bit (although, in the LRMS favor, no the assailants favor)... so instead of 1hko...
lets see how many ships it takes to eat though 5000 capital ship hp at 70% shield mitigation in 15 seconds, assuming your ships were not firing vollies, but instead firing steadily). this wont take into account armor, or shields left when capital ship is dead. Alot of capital ships will die here, but if you double the time to 30 seconds, the only ship i could see surviving would be a rediculously high lv kol with its shield activated.
SO: 5000 damage at 70% mitigation... or 16666... (rounding up cause i am lazy) 17000 effective HP.
884.6 TEC scouts.
933.3 Advent scouts
612.6 VAS scouts
503.7 overseers or subverters
566.66 hoshikos or ceilos or dominas or guardians.
277.55 vasari flack. (for flack, i am assuming, microed to allow 2 banks to fire) 1387.75 supply
251.85 advent flack 1007 supply
295.65 TEC flack 1103 supply
188.9 VAS Light 1322.3 supply
266.7 Advent Light 1067 supply
238.6 TEC light 1193 supply
65.7 VAS heavy 788 supply
79.5 Advent heavy 795 supply
84 TEC heavy 840 supply
116.24 VAS LRM 697 supply
122.4 Advent LRM (front + 1 side beam... front firing only, 183.6 ) 734 supply (1101.6 supply)
137.4 TEC LRM 550 supply
These are all unupgraded. it is intresting to note that flack in general do better than lights at killing capital ships... and that advent heavys do almost as much damage as illums, so destra rushing might not be a bad call... not to mention destras have better armor, thier upgrades start at a lower tier and top off at 149.5% base damage (at tier 7)... second only to phase missles.
huh. intresting. (to factor in phase missles, divide vasari LRM/flack by 2, to get a god aproximaton (multiplier is 2.04)... everything else, 1.2 or 1.3 depending.)
Pbhead
As promised I post my reply. Sorry it took so long that u had to nudge me.
I wonder why but here is a game in which ships on vas side other than assailants played much bigger role.
Teams were stacked but for a period we had no attack agreement.
True i was building counters to grehs' fleet but why did purple decided to go 4 heavies.....
PS I got another one in which heavies at least for me were much better option and yes I did have phase missiles fully researched.
If that marza finished missile barrage my heavies would survive anyway shut down regenerate themselves and they would be like new and all stars assailants would die.
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