Sera/Aeon late game

[codepants]

So, I've kind of accepted that the strengths and weaknesses of some factions include their timing in the game. Cybran, in particular, is better early game, whereas UEF is better late game. Sera and Aeon, however, seem to be the "wishy washy" factions, having units that are kind of special but also have very poignant weaknesses throughout all tech levels. For instance, the aurora has more range than any other t1 tank, but significantly less health, and at the t2 level they are quickly outclassed. Of course, if you play right (by kiting), you can use this to your advantage.

At the t3 level, it seems like there is no way to "play right" such that you can overcome the weaknesses of your units. Seige tanks and Harbingers are no compare to percies or bricks -- at least in my experience. You cannot "play right" with them, since percies outrange and outdamage them and have more health. Maybe (hopefully!) I'm doing something wrong, but as a Sera or Aeon player, if a 1v1 game gets to t3, I've pretty much lost. Even spamming sniper bots can be difficult to do effectively, since they are so easily killed by t3 arty, since it does take a few shots to kill any t3 unit, and since they are basically useless on hilly maps (also, they have the same range as Ravagers, so you have to make t3 arty, which are not as effective against mobile units). I would gladly trade the reclaim ability of Harbies for an extra 3k health or more alpha damage, and the same for the amphibiousness of siege tanks.

Is the only solution, as with Cybran, just to not let the game go late? How do you play sera/aeon late game, especially against UEF or Cybran?

[NewForumAccount]

For Aeon you can try to end the game quickly by rushing T3 and using the speed and high dps of the Harbingers to kill his eco.
The sniperbots/rangecom are mostly a stalling strategy to get up a GC, which is the only massefficient counter to Percivals. It can also tank a lot of damage while the Harbingers deal the damage.

With Seraphim lategame is more complicated and you usually need to have an advantage from your strong T2 phase. With Othuums you always need to take the terrain into consideration.
In the late-lategame you have to take advantage of the splash from your T3 bombers and the Ythotas ionstorm. If you face UEF and they start spamming Rambo-SCUs, the only counter is getting overcharge-SCUs. While they are very strong against other SCUs and Experimentals, they require a lot of micro.

Both factions can supplement their sniperbots/artillery with strong mobile shields.

[keyser]

You shouldn't go aeon sACU. They are really weak.
If you see uef go rambo sACu, get some shield disruptor and GC. GC doesn't target well sACU atm, but hopefully it will be fix. Maybe get sniper bot against sACU too. I'm not sure if it will work.
You can still do run-by with your harbi.
Spam resto can be way to go, but if your opponent get enough flak/asf it won't defend you for a long time.

[codepants]

...so those are good suggestions but they are more along the lines of "here is something useful that faction has that doesn't really make a difference unless your opponent does everything wrong."

T3 bomber splash? That's how to play sera late game?

I'm not berating you, I'm just frustrated nobody seems to have a real answer to this question... because it seems like there isn't one.

[D4E_Omit]

You probably keep losing at T3 because aeon and sera don't have any T3.5 units, which make the transition between experimentals and T3 smoother. Also I might be wrong but I think harbingers beat percies and bricks mass for mass, it's probably better to try win air and harrass untill you break through or manage to get a GC/Ythotha up.. Haven't played in ages though so don't know all the changes that happened to t3 and t4, but as aeon I when the enemy got to T3 I just took it easy and went for exp and annoy them with air. Most average players go nuts when they get annoyed by gunships/bombers that keep killing their remote mexes, and then when they are totally out of focus and wasting way too much time on countering your air for a few annoyances you'd be rolling in with a GC

[codepants]

You probably keep losing at T3 because aeon and sera don't have any T3.5 units, which make the transition between experimentals and T3 smoother. Also I might be wrong but I think harbingers beat percies and bricks mass for mass, it's probably better to try win air and harrass untill you break through or manage to get a GC/Ythotha up.. Haven't played in ages though so don't know all the changes that happened to t3 and t4, but as aeon I when the enemy got to T3 I just took it easy and went for exp and annoy them with air. Most average players go nuts when they get annoyed by gunships/bombers that keep killing their remote mexes, and then when they are totally out of focus and wasting way too much time on countering your air for a few annoyances you'd be rolling in with a GC

Partly in response to this but also in response to NewForumAccount I wanted to add some stats:
Mass cost of a chicken: 20,000
Mass cost of a GC: 22,500
Mass cost of a percy: 1,280
=
Number of percies your opponent builds while you make a chicken: 15.6
Number of percies your opponent builds while you make a GC: 17.5

Anybody else think this seems rediculous? Percies win hands down. The Alpha for all those percies against a chicken is 24,000 damage and 27,200 against a GC. That means it takes only a few firing cycles to down either of them, even with one or two percies dropping to the chicken/GC.

- - -

Harbies lose to percies/bricks because of range and because they sacrafice some stats for the ability to reclaim, which I would gladly give up.

I will keep in mind the air annoyance thing. I usually play on smaller maps where it is harder to dominate with air; for instance, on Theta your opponent just have to place 3 SAMs really well and you can't get anything across without losing it. Not sure if a capped t2 mex (900 + 4*120 = 1380 mass) is worth losing a strat (2000 mass) over. Especially on small maps where you can get engies to them quickly and rebuild them, and especially since rebuilding over wrecks only costs half as much (so you've only cost them 690 mass -- so if they rebuild it in (2000-690)/9 mass/sec = 145 seconds, or just over two minutes, you have tied for mass lost, assuming the reclaim from the strat pays for the SAM.

[NewForumAccount]

You forget about the tractor claws and the veterancy advantage. You can improve survival chances of your GC by vetting on weaker units or softening up the percies so the GC kills them faster.
Usually a GC can instakill 2 units with the tractor claws and it only needs to kill 6 percivals to get to vet1.

GC vs 18 Percies:
http://content.faforever.com/faf/vault/ ... id=3145318

The Ythotha is much weaker against Percivals. While the deathweapon can take out 5 percies or damage a base, the slow-firing ball has the most potential to be good but sadly only does 8000 damage to the percies 9300 hp.
The bomber/arty harassment means a lot more than just adding dps if you can enable your Chicken to instakill 4-5 percies to get a quick veterancy.
However this is much more luck-based than the GC tractor claws which in a recent (or upcoming?) patch got a bugfix that improves their performance. An indirect buff by making the Ythothas secondary weapon 10000dmg every 6 seconds would be a possible balance suggestion.

Seraphim have by far the weakest T3 and strongest T2 land (T2 rush on Loki is very OP). The matchup with UEF will always be onesided, since UEF has weakest early and strongest lategame. Factional diversity works with all other matchups, but since these two factions can exploit each others weaknesses perfectly, many maps play very onesided with them.
The only reason there aren't more complaints about the UEF-Seraphim matchup is that you can select the maps you play on ladder and get help from your allies in teamgames.

[Ceneraii]

Quick note about above; someone mentioned shield disruptors against rambo SACU's; this doesn't work. They don't affect personal shields.

As for dealing with uef/cyb at t3 stage; sniper bots (with shields) are definitely the way to go. You'll also need some othuums/harbs (again with shield) to stop a push every now and then combined with splash and optimally, SACU's (even the bad aeon ones). It's really intensive counter but clever unit composition is key, you're basically setting up a layered defence strategy while buying time to get an experimental up. The main problem is that it takes time to get an effective composition up, but once it's there you can outplay pure percies/bricks/SACU's that way, although you do need space to pull it off. In some situations you are effectively fucked. With Seraphim you can take advantage of a very strong t2 stage. With aeon you can abuse a strong t1 stage and an invincible t2 air stage to set yourself up for a good t3 timing with a strong eco advantage.

Oh, and don't forget to make walls ;D

[Apofenas]

You can't counter UEF t3 land without big micro investments and SCU abuse. Percivals are stronger than harbs, though they get beaten by othuums sometimes, but that's where range and better mobile shields come it. I think you need to abuse SCUs, but in some cases it's not rambos - seraphim advanced combat preset and aeon nano combatant preset. For aeon it's harder, but possible with microing, regening, shooting percivals from bigger range for a long time. It's hard to hit SCUs atm, so shouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure about absolver, but i would definetly have it in mix - at least to take out titans, that do better against SCUs than percivals.

Also if you dislike aeon snipers nob being able to take out t3 pds, you can abuse ground fire and increace the sniper range.

[codepants]

You forget about the tractor claws and the veterancy advantage. You can improve survival chances of your GC by vetting on weaker units or softening up the percies so the GC kills them faster.
Usually a GC can instakill 2 units with the tractor claws and it only needs to kill 6 percivals to get to vet1.

GC vs 18 Percies:

Noted, thanks for the reminder.

Seraphim have by far the weakest T3 and strongest T2 land (T2 rush on Loki is very OP). The matchup with UEF will always be onesided, since UEF has weakest early and strongest lategame. Factional diversity works with all other matchups, but since these two factions can exploit each others weaknesses perfectly, many maps play very onesided with them.
The only reason there aren't more complaints about the UEF-Seraphim matchup is that you can select the maps you play on ladder and get help from your allies in teamgames.

You don't really get to pick... there's less than a 1/3 chance one of your maps will get picked (depending on what your opponent has chosen and what the most popular maps are (or whatever the third pool is). But I would agree the map decides a lot of the game. Best to keep it at the t1 level then I suppose...

Apofenas and Ceneraii, I'm pondering your responses. Thanks.