I played a game with AI today 3v3 and the enemy vasari AI spammed a number of Jarrasul Evacuator capital ships with a ship ability called Gravity Warhead which is way way too STRONG. It's way too strong.
-72% max speed debuff and 48 seconds of phase jumping disable for not just one ship, but my ENTIRE FLEET in the gravity well.
My entire fleet couldn't jump out because of this single lone vasari capital ship disabling phase jump. That's way too strong!
I could use Advent Unity Recall but the problem is, my home planet is in another star system, so by the time I get back to the same gravity well, my two non-Advent AI team fleets were destroyed because they couldn't phase jump out of the gravity well.
And with their fleets destroyed, my single fleet vs 3 AI fleets, we basically lost the game....because of that vasari capital ship ability Gravity Warhead.
And here's the clincher, you could chain multiple Jarrasul Evacuators Gravity Well ability one after another, so it's an never ending phase jump disable.
Never mind that a single capitol ship has an ability that only a phase inhibitor planet structure or originally a Advent Starbase ability "Mass Disorientation" which could disrupt phase jump could do. Now you have a capitol ship doing what only an Advent Starbase in Rebellion could do. That changes the balance way too much. It is way too strong.
This ability needs a drastic change. Some suggestions to balance it out here can be:
Given how strong this ability is, and the fact I experienced having my entire fleet phase jump disabled for 47 seconds in a gravity well, the Antimatter cost of Gravity Warhead being 60 Antimatter is way too low. That's so broken.
Anyway, that's my feedback on my recent game. I hope you all had a great holiday and thank you for providing continuous updates on this gem of a game. I appreciate your time and effort making this game great.
Speaking as a Vasari v AI player, Gravity Warhead only affects a small area, does no direct damage - though does double Subspace Rupture damage, has limited range, and only fires directly ahead. In specific contexts, yes maybe it can be strong, but it's very niche. Frankly I mostly use it for the damage boost, and even then it's tricky to use - Subspace Rupture can be targeted wherever you want to maximise the effects, and can fire at an angle, Gravity Warhead has to target a specific ship directly ahead then does an effect radius. I don't believe I've seen the AI use it, let alone as lethally as you suggest.
Advent Wraith by contrast can drop a -60% Max Speed, -30% Max Turn Speed for enemy ships, and -120% Max Speed, -60% Max Turn Speed for missiles, on entire gravity wells for 1 whole minute, not the mere 48 seconds of the Tier 3 Gravity Warhead ability. True it can't be spammed - there's a 120 second cooldown on the ability, but you'd need a fleet of Jarrasul Evacuators to spam Gravity Warhead - there is, or was, a 72 second cooldown on the ability. To be fair I'm not sure I've seen the AI use this either, but perhaps I've only fought overly easy AI? (I'm working my way up, mostly with co-op friends)
Do remember that where the Akkan's Armistice will impose peace\invulnerability on a large area around it - not sure if it's the entire gravity well or not, and the Progenitor can, with enough time, resurrect its entire fleet back to life sans capitals and titan, an Evacuator can only do a bit more damage to a planet and receive a small amount of metal and crystal. It's not really a battle changing ability.
And where the Akkan can reduce friendly weapon reloads within an 8000 radius by 30%, or the Progenitor increase Shield Regeneration of friendly ships within a 5000 radius by 50 + the psi bonus per second, the Evacuator is limited to reducing the speed of ships directly in front of it with Gravity Warhead, or AoE damage with Subspace Rupture. One can easily argue the Evacuator needs buffing! 😁
If I'm interpreting your screenshot correctly you seem to have had a rather queer match - I'm assuming you were the dark blue Advent with 3 Progenitors, 6 Halcyon Carriers, and Eradica Titan being attacked by the selected green Vasari with 3 evacuators, 87 Kanrak Assailants, and various other bits and pieces. That's way more colony capital ships than usual.
Bearing in mind I make zero claims about competency as a player, and I'm relatively new to SoaSE2, how did you get caught between two fires? The screenshot makes it look like you're attacking a light blue Advent fleet which is only slightly weaker in capital ship numbers - though 4 Progenitors in a single fleet is bizarre, with masses of light frigates and carriers to make up the difference.
Bearing in mind I can't see the edges of the gravity well in the screen shot, why not individually retreat ships to the edge then jump them out when you can? While Vasari Evacuators can be very fast with all possible upgrades and buffs, even three would not be able to target or chase everything if you split the damaged ships out and ran them. I play at a lower speed when solo and Ctrl R (retreat) individual ships - including frigates in the early game, when the armour goes low.
As regards your 3 suggestions, they seem entirely unreasonable.
1. Gravity Warhead is already a single target rather than AoE fire ability - it affects a radius around the target making it AoE, but you can't fire it at an area. Removing its capacity to effect titans also makes the Evacuator less relevant late game when titans come into play. Remember the Akkan can disable all titan weapons and buff friendly titan reload speed while the Progenitor can buff friendly titan shield regeneration. Gravity Warhead is the Evacuator's only buff\debuff ability and you're suggesting disabling that option.
2. If Gravity Warhead's 48 second debuff is 'excessive' then surely Chastise with its 60 second debuff is even worse. And if a small AoE is unreasonable, then an entire gravity well being affected is broken. If Gravity Warhead is a guarantee kill, then isn't the Advent's ability to lock down an entire gravity well a guaranteed fleet kill?
3. Why should the Evacuator be unable to chain disable phase drive and reduce speed?
An Advent's Revelation battlecruiser can completely lock down any enemy ship - titan excepted, for 45 seconds + 1 second per 10 psi power. That's not only no phase drive, it's no movement at all, no weapons fire, and no abilities. Trust me it's a really annoying ability to be victim to!!! Against Reverie there is no defence until the battlecruiser runs out of antimatter. Reverie has a 10 second cooldown, and even at Level 1 the battlecruiser could use its Tier 3 ability 4x in a row before running out of antimatter i.e. 188 seconds (4x (45+2)) of being a sitting duck! Yes obviously a Level 1 battlecruiser can't use the Tier 3 version of Reverie, but I don't have the figures for a Level 6 battlecruiser to give a direct comparison to your Evacuators. Plus, given increased levels, antimatter research, and potential ship items, that 188 seconds of being a sitting duck could easily double. Yes it's 'only' 1 capital ship, and not a titan, but the Evacuator can only affect vessels for 48 seconds and cannot chain like the battlecruiser can - Reverie has a 10 second cooldown!
Alternatively consider the Dunov Battlecruiser's Magnetic Singularity which can hit a 3000 radius with -225% speed for 30 seconds (using Overcharge) or -75% without, plus inflict 600 shield damage and remove 120 antimatter via EMP Charge with Overcharge. That's the same size area as Gravity Warhead, but a greater speed reduction even without Overcharge, and almost 3x the effect with Overcharge! If Gravity Warhead is excessive, then isn't Magnetic Singularity worse?
It's frustrating when a match does not go according to plan, but in light of the above facts and suggestions, would you agree the situation with Gravity Warhead isn't quite so simple as 'needs a nerf' after all?
3000 range is not a small area, it's enough to cover an entire fleet of ships that is in tight formation. It doesn't matter what ship Gravity warhead targets specifically, it affects the entire fleet in range once activated. A 2000 fleet strength size is going to be in that 3000 range radius with a tight formation.
As for other faction ship abilities, those abilities can be countered. Progenitor's resurrect ability is very niche and not really useful. Both the Akkan and Progenitor are defensive ships in nature which is reflected by their abilities.
The Jarrasul Evacuator is a colony ship like the Akkan and Progennitor, which should by nature be defensive, but to disable phase jump for 48 seconds can be considered an offensive ability if strategically used by either AI or players. You could disable a Titan's ability to phase jump for 48 seconds, which is enough time to destroy it by a fleet of missile ships and hanger craft spam inside of 15 seconds. And could also wipe out another 5 capital ships before the 48 seconds expire. Completely ignoring the insanity that a lone capital ship can disable a Titan, most faction ships including other capital ships debuff abilities don't affect Titans because they are immune from these debuffs and yet Gravity Warhead by a supposedly defensive colony capital ship can debuff a Titan with a disable.
I was actually fighting two fleets, an AI Advent and AI Vasari fleet that were in a pincer position either side of me, but I wasn't too concerned because I calculated that I could snipe one or two capital ship kills guerilla style before phase jumping out, because I strategically placed my fleet at the edge of the gravity well. But to my surprise, I couldn't jump when my ships were starting to take a beating. And with that many Jarrasul Evacuators, I was never going to jump out of there at all and my fleet would have been destroyed if I hadn't used Recall. Keep in mind this was an AI I was dealing with. If it was vasari human players, they would absolutely spam missile ships or hanger craft bomber spam and kill half my capital ships and Titan before Recall would activate (which is a delayed activation).
With regard to my 3 suggestions:
1. Gravity Warhead is an AoE (area of affect) ability, so no it isn't a single target if it can disable an entire fleet's ability to phase jump. A support colony ship like the Evacuator shouldn't even be able to debuff a Titan. I play Advent consistently and about 80% of all advent ships with debuffing abilities don't affect Titans because they are immune from these debuffs. Why should Gravity Warhead affect Titans? You can't easily rebuild a Titan after it's been sniped, so in essence you've already lost the game at that point which was decided by a support colony ship lol. You can counter the Akkan and Progenitor several ways but for those who don't use the Advent faction and don't have access to Recall to GTFO out of dodge, their fleets can be destroyed before 48 seconds, assuming that there isn't more than one Evacuator. It's ridiculous that the only counter is an Advent Unity ability.
2. Chastise is a unity ability, which is situational. But I do agree that considering how powerful disabling fleet movements are, the focus point costs is way too low. A 60 second debuff like that, should cost a lot more focus to use with a longer cooldown.
3. Aside from the obvious potential abuse of this Gravity Warhead ability? Chaining it will prevent a fleet from ever warping out, costing the game if the fleet is destroyed. It takes too long to rebuild a fleet (assuming you have the resources) by the time the enemy gets to your homeworld and bombards it. It's ridiculous that a colony capital ship can have this much power to change the outcome of battles. I managed to get out with Recall and all my capital ships survived but it didn't matter because my two non-advent allied AI fleet's in the same gravity well couldn't phase jump out and got destroyed. Ten minutes later, my single lone fleet was fighting 3 combined fleets because my allies had no allied ships to help me and I lost the game. So why should the Evacuator be unable to disable phase drive let alone chain it?
Your point about the Revelation ability with Titans being an exception proves my own point, that a lot of capital ship abilities don't work on Titans because they are immune. So why should the Evacuator be an exception? There's counters to the Revelation, you can drain the ship of antimatter, snipe it with hanger pet spam or focus fire on it with the fleet. Also the Revelation is a squishy glass cannon ship, which can easily be destroyed. Reverie only works on one target. The difference is night and day.
Dunov Battleships can also be countered. Hanger pet spam snipe, draining antimatter until empty etc. And Magnetic Singularity has a high cooldown, short duration and doesn't prevent ships from phase jumping.
I get that when someone asks for a nerf to your favorite faction, it might seem agnostic, and in all fairness if someone were asking for a nerf to the Advent faction which I play a lot, I'd be ready to defend and make counter arguments. I get it.
But the truth is, Gravity Warhead that can affect an entire fleet by a support/defensive colony ship of all things should not be a thing. It's too strong. And that's coming from a advent player that has access to 'Recall' unity power.
*On a side note, yeah I was the dark blue player. I find that 4 progenitors is the sweet spot for a fleet composition. Enough to keep a fleet alive with shield regen, and support. And about 30 Halcyon Carriers with 2,000 bombers and 1 Titan
Obviously we'll have to disagree - a 3000 radius for Gravity Warhead is exactly the same as the Dunov's Magnetic Singularity, and about half the usual ability radius. Remember the Progenitor Mothership's Shield Regeneration has a 5,000 radius, the Akkan's Inspiring Broadcast an 8,000 radius while 6,000 seems to be a common figure for both capital ship weapon ranges and radius for buff abilities.
Yes a tight formation might be covered by that 3,000 radius, but is that a fault with Gravity Warhead\Magnetic Singularity, or a formation issue? If you have Aeria Drone Host carriers at the edge of the gravity well, Exoria Illuminator ranged combatants at 8,000 range (to target), and Destra Crusaders or Radiance Battleships at sub-5,000 range, then a single Gravity Warhead would be unable to target your 3 fleet sections, or 3 separate fleets if you've built them that way.
Frankly a Mothership + Carrier v Evacuator + Kanrak Assailant matchup is probably just terrible pairing, at least given the positioning in your screenshot - I imagine it'd be different if you were strikefighter swarming them. Radiance Battleships with Detonate Antimatter would have basically destroyed the Evacuator's ability to use antimatter - 10 antimatter lost per second for 15 seconds while Animosity would have reduced the Assailant damage if you could close the range - at 11,000 their range is only comparable with the TEC Javelin Cruiser while the TEC Marza Dreadnought can absolutely shred them and outrange them with Missile Barrage. Alternatively the Domina Subjugator can remove 50 antimatter every 15 seconds via Nullify. That's roughly 1 Gravity Warhead lost every 15 seconds per Domina Subjugator.
I get a 1 Titan, 4 Progenitor, 30 Halcyon Carrier might be your preferred playstyle, and frankly I prefer a capital ship\RPG type fleet myself (default Evacuator + 1-3 Vulkoras Desolator's (~missile dreadnought) + 4+ Skirantra Carriers + 4+ Kortual Devastators (battleships) + 1 Antorak Marauder (fleet speed buff) with long range support) but some matchups won't work so well.
Every faction's abilities can be countered to some degree. For Vasari, and TEC come to think of it, losing antimatter - something the Advent specialise in, can be crippling, but you're an Advent player that isn't denying antimatter. Yes Progenitor's Resurrect ability is niche in some ways, but the Reborn faction are all about losing units, and resurrecting them - hence why I prefer Wrath as does the Advent player I know. The Reborn Eradica Titan's Strength of the Fallen buff is also based on losses while Purification allows you to sacrifice units to gain shields, hull, and antimatter. Sacrifice, or die, and then resurrect is I think how the Reborn are supposed to be played, but I don't like losing ships so ...
Actually the Jarrasul Evacuator is not simply a colony ship. It's the ship Vasari players use to invade the world that is to become their home planet. Hate that aspect of SoaSE2 all you like, but nerfing the Evacuator risks nerfing the entire Vasari faction - they have to wipe out the defending militia whereas TEC and Advent both start with home worlds so can immediately start building planetary and orbital infrastructure, and building more ships.
Is the Rapture Battlecruiser's Vertigo unable to affect Titans? There's nothing in the text saying that, only that it doesn't affect fighters, bombers, or starbases, which suggests titans are affected. By contrast the Revelation Battlecruiser's Reverie explicitly excludes titans as well - it does affect capital ships. I strongly suspect the Dunov's Magnetic Singularity also affects titans. I'd need to test to confirm, but if true that means TEC and Advent both have debuffs that affect titans, so why shouldn't Vasari, especially if the Dunov ability is generally a superior version of the Vasari ability? And remember Advent Wrath have Chastise - speed and turn debuff for ships and missiles. Sadly Reborn are stuck with Cleanse (sacrifice to heal), Resurrection, Recall and well basically nothing comparably useful.
Perhaps I phrased it unclearly. Gravity Warhead is a targeted ability. You have to select a single ship to fire the ability at. When it hits the AoE affect is applied in a radius around that ship. Subspace Rupture can be fired anywhere you place the mouse i.e. midway between two ships thus affecting both - if they're with the radius. By contrast Gravity Warhead is regularly incapable of hitting more than a few ships because they attack in a wave, not as a cluster, and it can't hit the backline unless the Evacuator advances to point blank range against the front line i.e. heavy cruisers and whatever capital ships you prefer.
And yet the AI regularly rebuilds their titans. Late game resources should be plentiful assuming you have more than a handful of planets, and no game aberrations e.g. no market on the map - yes I've experience this oddity before, which may have absolutely nerfed the AI.
Rebuilding your fleet should be relatively easy assuming you have defences (starbases!!!) and more than a planet or two between the enemy and your homeworld. I'm, also assuming homeworld victory is turned off - I played a co-op match where one ally's homeworld was next to a dead asteroid or somesuch and on a direct path from enemy space. Offence was the only real defence to a potential homeworld loss defeat for him.
I suspect you mean why shouldn't the Evacuator be unable to disable phase drives rather than why should it be unable to, let alone chain it. The Dunov's Magnetic Singularity has a range of 15,000 versus Gravity Warhead's mere 9,000. They have the same radius, and almost the same speed debuff, plus the Dunov's Overcharge means a triple strength debuff. I'm also not sure if the Dunov's Magnetic Singularity has as narrow a cone of fire either! With all that, how's Gravity Warhead overpowered? Without the phase jump disable it simply becomes a vastly shorter ranged imitation of the TEC ability, and the TEC can triple the effect via Overcharge. The reality is you wouldn't even be able to reach the edge of the gravity well in timely fashion if trying to flee an enemy fleet with chain firing Dunovs.
Some abilities don't work on titans, but which ones are those? Some abilities don't even work on capital ships e.g. the Radiance Battleship's Animosity ability. You point out counters to the Revelation but your argument presupposes those are available. In my case it was basically capital ship on capital ship while my main fleet was elsewhere, and it was a pain in the backside 'fight'. I think I had a battleship but it couldn't do anything for ages as it kept getting disabled. Counters to Evacuators also exist though. As noted above Advent have antimatter draining options, or as you say, snipe them, spam bombers, or close the range with heavies, but do you use your mothership-carrier fleet for direct fire, or mostly rely on the strikefighters which I'm guessing were north in the shot attacking light blue.
Okay I'll grant the Revelation is slightly squishier than a Progenitor, but all Advent ships are kind of squishy. Assuming the source is accurate, most Advent capital ships are 3000+ to 5000+ for shields - Level 1-10, while armour never exceeds 1,000. HP basically copies shields. A level 10 Kortul Devastator (battleship) maxes out at 3,170 shields (so roughly the same as a Level 1 Advent capital ship) while the Evacuator is only 2,375 - almost tied with the Skirantra Carrier for worst shields, and thus worse than a Level 1 Advent capital ship. The Vulkoras Desolator maxes out at 2,010 armour, while the Evacuator has a mere 1,500. The Evacuator does however have the highest HP of 7,685 - outside a titan, which I guess makes sense in that it's the ship that an entire race is supposed to be living on. It is also the slowest ship in the game barring the Vorastra Titan and Ankylon Titan - even the Coronata Titan is faster than the Evacuator, at least until Vasari perks come into play and it can get something like a 50% speed boost.
I don't think I'd use the term agnostic (which means to not know or not have knowledge). Perhaps heretical or grossly unbalanced might be more what you intend. To be clear the Gravity Warhead ability is one I basically don't use in SoaSE2 for the slow or phase jump disable function, but for the damage boost Subspace Rupture receives. That being said it is an ability which is inherited from SoaSE1. The big difference is the time involved - SoaSE has it as a high cost but chainable ability with a 25 second cooldown and an 18 second duration - this is the Tier 3 version mind you. SoaSE2's version reduces the base cost and cooldown per tier whilst increasing the effect. At 72 seconds for the cooldown and 42 seconds for the duration, it's actually nerfed from the SoaSE1 version - a direct tripling of the SoaSE1 version would be a 75 second cooldown and a 54 second duration debuff, but having the shorter version meant you could wait several seconds for the phase charge to build (I forget how many seconds it took), and then disable them again to keep. I actually used the SoaSE1 version a fair bit. Now that did allow for fleet killing!
Hey, thanks for sharing all the feedback. We are constantly working on improving the game, as can be seen by the frequency of our patches, which include various balance changes.
When it comes to gravity warhead, it's one of the more skill based abilities. As pointed out above, it can only be casted in a limited frontal cone, which makes casting harder. It's also one of the more unique Vasari features, and it can sure have a significant impact on the battlefield, but there are abilities even with bigger impact. E.g. Jarrasul's ultimate is just nice, but when compared to a Marza's ultimate, the latter overshadows both the ultimate and gravity warhead.
Sins is all about learning various counters, and assessing what poses greatest danger to your fleet. Should you see a Jarrasul, while trying to retreat, you can always try to snipe it, or deplete it's antimatter reserves. And since the area is limited, you can also split your forces
I actually ran into Marauder spam in my last AI match. Now that was really annoying!!!
Unlike some 'attacks' which are pretty obvious, Phase Out Hull simply freezes its target for 3/6/9 seconds and there's no obvious sign, other than your unit just not moving. When you're retreating from a superior force it can be really frustrating - run you stupid suicidal moron run!!!
POH is nowhere near as powerful as the Advent Revelation Battlecruiser's Reverie - 15/30/45 seconds of 'stunlock' which also has a lower antimatter cost at Tier 1 and 2, but perhaps POH can affect titans?
I think POH can also affect allies so perhaps it can be used defensively to survive an insta-kill attack e.g. Vasari Desolator Disintegration Beam, Advent Coronata Titan's Unity Mass death beam, or TEC Ragnarov Titan's Piercing Shot versus a crippled hull?
Hmm something to test with friends next time I play? Your capital ships are suddenly stopping? Gosh no I've got absolutely no idea why they might be ignoring your orders and stopping! I absolutely didn't POH your Akkan to steal a planet!!!😜
its a pity to see that non Vasari players often complain about some unique Vasari features asking for a nerf directly just because.
My personal opinion is the following:
almost every non directly damaging ability is a niche thing, which can be very powerful if used in that right moment.
So here I would classify the abilities as weak, regular and OP. Also we would need to consider the total power of abilities for a ship
For example the resurrect ability of Progenitor Is straight OP to me. You can take and resurrect a huge portion of your fleet, in the middle of the battle that's a huge boost. Also Instead of rebuilding and bringing lost ships from 10 planets away - you just resurrect them, really a few abilities can be even compared.
Shield restore to an entire fleet around it? - kinda OP as well
Akkan increased radius is very good too still regular level I think, Armstice - is situational but can save your fleet from obliteration, so kinda OP
The singularity of Jarrasul yes It can be powerful, its specific goal IS to trap the fleet so that is the main purpose of existence of that ability. But it's not OP rather regular if not weak IMO because:
1) it's short radius needs you to come really close and you need to make it in time before the other player seeing Jarassul approaching and a strong fleet after it realises its time to escape.
2) outside of above situation this ability almost unusable, and Jarassul from mid to late game will not usually engage in frontline unless someone wants to risk their only colonizing ship.
The AOE damaging ability is not strong either, the only ability of Jarassul that is close to be OP is Planet Damage + plundering (sorry don't remember it's name) still it's been nerfed since SOSE1. So 1 OP ability for this ship, what else would be want to nerf?
Vasari may be the faction you apparently don't enjoy but you can prevent this situation from happening by destroying Jarassul, or running before it enters the ability radius.
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