Why?
1. Because they have nothing (new or old) below tier 3. This is where they were hurting before. A weak early game.
2. Their cap ship buffs are less than what TEC recieved! And their cap ships were already generally weaker before. The single action protection of high sheilds is just not as good as the dual protection of hulls and armor.
Advent were so weak in 1.34 (Diplomacy) that nobody played them online anymore. Just ask any of the pros. Now they look even weaker IMO.
In general, what you have said is true....however, if corvettes significantly change the early game fleet composition, this actually may not be problematic...Advent really only had one problem early game, their LRF...remove that problem, and I really don't think Advent will be problematic...
Of course, that's putting a lot of faith into corvettes (which is likely misplaced faith)....
Still doesn't help so much in the late game against Vasari, but that's not quite as important as the early game...
Try not to forget that the Advent have no reliable ship that can heal their hull, which is another deficiency for them.
I am also miffed that the Advent's capital ships got nurffed. I have been wanting to say that for quite some time. Why do the filthy humans get all of the love?
@Sagewon
I played advent in diplomacy 1.34 and rolled people up all the time. But that is most likely because everyone was getting out of practice playing against the advent and were way into specializing techniques for the epic Vasari vs. TEC matchup. I sure had some fun with my long winning streak though .
General comments about the advent from 1 long singleplayer game:
-The Advent Fleet synergy is nice. I've been testing the strength of the new fleet, and I have to say I really like the feel of it. The discordia is a great addition to the fleet, FINALLY a way to reduce opposing armor to maintain frigate relevance in the midgame. This ship is also a great CORVETTE CRUNCHER (my term, you heard it here first). So in advent vs advent/close-quarters TEC fights the discordia could be the game changer.
-We will definately see more progen openers now, shield repair + advent corvettes is a nice early game combo good against anything early on. The advent have retained their overall feel, which is VERY nice to see(I give developers a big +100 HUG). I agree with yottsu, I was very surprised that all the advent loyalist goodies were so late in the tech trees...I feel like there needs to be something earlier (i have only played loyalist tonight...tomorrow i'll be on rebels...).
-Advent corvettes! what a nice ship design, what nice dps they have. I hope they are good enough to "HOLD THE LINE" long enough to give advent players the time to get access enough of their high tech goodies. Corvettes are starting to show their subtle uses and the different designs behind them... Now will the vasari have the strongest corvettes? I do think the loyalist corvette debuff is lame...that is unless our noble number cruncher testers can figure out if Hit% actually does anything in this new build.
-One thing to be tested is to see how fast the advent eco is compared to the TEC...It feels much slower right out of the gate, but the pressure the advent can put on the TEC early on will hopefully become a nice balance. As it is I really foresee some serious issues with advent facing a TEC Rebel Truce Among Rogues planet grab...I can't wait to test out what kind of crazy culture war will occur with that fight. Right now I see the advent having a little difficulty securing chokepoint planets (as usual). That shield repair platform is awesome...Advent capitals now have staying power against a decent sized LRM force...ZOMG!!! This increases advent fleet options and might allow for other strategies not centered around the progenitor mothership.
TEC mines vs advent capitals + titan, I lost half my cap fleet and 70% of my titans HP just stomping through these mines the AI set up. OMG, they are actually reasonably effective now! Time to use that take over mines ability that the drone hosts now have, what fun this will be against the vasari. I'm loving the new options and creative counters.
Also, the advent actually feel like they can get a strong bomber spam substantially faster then the TEC, which goes a long way towards giving the advent a clearer early air power advantage.
I am quite pleased that the advent fleet is encouraged to build many capitals for awesome synergy bonuses. These bonuses seem worth it...and also give a strong justification to tech to level 8 for mass trancendance. I might actually tech this ability in a multiplayer match...just awesome!
I didn't get to test if they fixed the fleet healing on the domina's yet. Crossing my fingers on this one.
Also guardians seem much more justified with titans, so the military usefulness of these overpriced buggers has now become worth it. Guardians + titan + progen. One sexy combo if you ask me.
Now i'll have to find the time to do timed tests on my tried and true sol vs. orion map to see how advent fleet capability has improved since diplomacy.
the only downside I see with the advent is: the voice acting of the new units...they seem screechy and annoying... I had to turn the volume down real low because they were annoying my girlfriend (she even asked, why don't you play the race with the nice voices? lol). I enjoyed the advent for the mellow soothing babe whispering in my ear.
Where did she go!!!!!
I hear her on old units... I don't want some fanatical coked up lady, gimmie mah sugar lipped sweety!
I enjoyed the advent for the mellow soothing babe whispering in my ear.
Agreed, the Discordia and, as others have commented, the loyalist corvette could do with toning down.
Advent become insanley powerfull early game. With new cap ship and progen synergy they will ripp everything.
I already see zounds of defence vesels and skirms suported by progen and new cap with reduce armor ability.
Or zounds of oped corvets supported by scirms to blow enymy flaks.
Also they can bring titans much earlier then tec , so i see short life for other races on the edge.
Thanks god titans r week and loyal tit has a firepower of kol
Also they will pawn late game with their max abilities. the only gap is middle game.
Since advent titans cant much tec one, they will spamm bombers to get air superiority so, l te loyalist already got buffed
For tec rebels against advent ,kol is must have, or even 2.
Whats concerns me most , i fear vasari wont have any answer for early advent fleet other then SB.
initial thoughts. DOmina sub heal is no longer channeling, a very nice buff. Titans seem kinda weak when compared to tec healthwise. Rebel advent titans looks to be insanely powerful if it ever gets to level 6 and you have a sacrifisable fleet.
i always found the Advent fleet needed to be balanced in order to be 100% effective, they were my fave team and i found that individually their ships are lacking (apart from the carrier in early game) but a well created fleet can boss most others.
I never played online that much but we used to have big 10 player lan games at my house (yes we are nerds ) . Only one other person played the advent with 5 TEC and 3 Vasari. The TEC were no problem but 2 of the Vasari players could be a real pain. Overall IMO the advent used to have a slight advantage against the TEC and a slight disadvantage vs the Vasari, ill see if this is still the case when steam updates
Seems IC are not dawdling as much as i feared they would. Lookin forward to playin the Advent
I think the Advent have been balanced out well.
People complain about LRF spams all the time, and how long it takes for Advent and so on, and so forth. The whole point of a 3-lab LRF is that it is so much better than TEC/Vas equivalents. Sure, the Phase missiles and Cluster pods are nice, but these are multiple target LRMS and gain a massive boost from supporting abilities from Caps. Not to mention the illusion ability which, in a spam, makes for minimal losses.
Don't forget, Advent are about abilties, and need to be micro-managed in order to work at their best. Set Vengeance on a force-attacked cap with Iconus as support... The enemy kill themselves. Don't expect the AI to use it properly or position your ships for you to get the best effect.
As Callum said, balanced fleets for Advent are best. Only problem I have is that for a carrier-orientated race, although you recieve the carrier from 2 labs, it is too expensive early-game but I understand the need for it to remain expensive enough for mid-game otherwise caps would fall too easily early on.
After playing my first round as Advent Loyalist I found that Advent are still a little weak earlygame, but pickup incredibly fast. Spamming my culture all over the galaxy took like seconds, and the boni recieved in my culture helped me a lot. Killed a TEC fleet consisting of 8 caps and a loyalist titan with a repair bay, a hangar bay, a few beam platforms, 1/1 upgraded starbase (that got mass disorientation halfway through for the lulz of watching the titan spin) and a colony capship with level 2 shield regen. Given that a human enemy would have acted smarter I still found it to be quite the impressive feat .
@Sagew Dont forget that shields also benefit from shield mitigation if the numbers on the sins wiki are accurate then a capital ship can have shield mitigation of 74.9% meaning the shields will only take 25.1% of the damage, in order to get this much reduction from armour you would need to have 30+ armour.
This is balanced out by the fact that mitigation requires being the ship being hit to increase. But a well timed shield boost from ships like the Progenitor Mothership can be a tough nut to crack.
But as others have said, balancing the Advent fleets is an important part of playing the Advent. A few Iconus Guardians can increase the survivability of a fleet by a large amount. While the Progenitor Mothership can use its shield boost to keep the Iconus Guardians shields up.
Careful of the Vasari cos of their missles bypassing sheilds.
The TEC have no custom techs sans corvettes below tier 3, at least the Advent a few if mostly useless ones. I do wish they'd make a few differences present without research but I guess its there decision to make it all research based.
Is anyone else concerned with how much of the Advent Rebel's technology is tied up in the Civilian tree?
Both Advent factions are mainly in the civic tree. Which probably isn't a bad thing IMO.
M'kay, wasn't sure about the Loyalists, haven't played them yet.
It was just a bit jarring to see the Rebel ship resurrection tech in the civilian tree.
Edit - Speaking of which, I don't know if I have bad luck or not, but I have yet to see either the own ship resurrection or the enemy ship resurrection abilities trigger yet.
I haven't either, though your own ships getting resurrected maybe hard to notice. I was also only fighting against militia and pirates so I was hoping it just didn't work on them, but I am a bit worried its bugged.
If ICO were working right now, I'd be up for hopping into a quick game just for testing those abilities, but alas it is not.
Advent seems actually a lot stronger than in Diplomacy.
They still feel weaker than the Tec
Just used an Advent Titan (loyalist) to smash through a series of capital ships just like I was able to with TEC Titans. They seem mean enough to do the job to me.
Sage-won your trolling--tier 2 is defense vessels -the discord is there plus a few other debuff abilities
I just lost a fleet, including level 4 Eradica titan (rebels) to fully upgraded TEC starbase. Either i'm doing it wrong, or they can't take one out without excessive strikecraft usage.
well?
Why didn't you have any Solanus?
I did, but their range is shorter than the starbase's missile's. And with fully upgraded health it has much more than enough time to kill the Adjudicators with missiles. Not to mention it had heavy strikecraft support.
Wait a second, heavy strikecraft support? From the starbase itself or from hangar bays? You know, if there are hangar and repair bays around they're actually your first targets to eleminate. My advent starbase and a few defense buildings tore through an enemy titan supported fleet as well, since even higher level titans have trouble dealing with them if they are supported by regular tactical structures.
(Also Adjudicators only work efficiently in large numbers, as they cannot focus their fire like Ogrovs can. If they only shoot at one target they can only unfold 1/5th of their firepower afterall)
Advent Rebel Corvettes work wonders on Starbases as well funnily enough.
Since almost all of the weapons on all 3 Starbases are energy weapons, their debuff drastically reduces incoming damage, combine it with Guardians and a Progenitor and survivability skyrockets.
(This works on Kols as well, their frontal beam is neutered against an AR Corvette swarm.)
Edit - Oh yes and with regards to Adjudicators, don't try and snipe with them, drive them into the middle of the enemy support fortifications (hangars, repair platforms, etc) so that all of their banks can fire at once.
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