Overhaul the Chrono Dampener

[Flamingo]

I had to deal with this upgrade not too long ago, and I've been thinking about it: it's really poorly balanced. Not in the sense that you can't beat it, but in the sense that it mucks up opponent strategy and disproportionately affects some factions more than others.

Currently, it does the most damage to units with a high rate of fire - or pretty much the entire Cybran land force. As I understand, it stuns once every five seconds and the stun lasts for two seconds. Assuming it takes a second for turrets to train on the target again, that will reduce the DPS of the mantis, brick, and rhino by 60%. Percies, on the other hand, fire once every four seconds and the EMP stun doesn't delay reload time; that means Percies can have their DPS reduced if they're caught during an odd interval, but it's also possible for their DPS to remain normal while beneath the Chrono Dampener.

Reducing an entire enemy's attack power by 60% while fundamentally removing their ability to micro is pretty ridiculous, and the "balance" is that Chrono Dampener doesn't provide a health bonus, so the Aeon ACU is susceptible to snipes if you assume it's going to be on the front line. Of course, what really happens is that both players are forced by this upgrade to play turret creep. The Aeon needs shields and defenses to make up for not having the health boost, and the enemy has to use turrets because they aren't zonked out by the EMP.

Currently, it's just kind of a broken upgrade. Overpowered in certain ways, but less versatile than personal shields, so it does nasty things to gameplay and they aren't fun things. It also works differently depending on what faction your opponent is playing, as units that are slow and have a high alpha but low RoF perform much better against this thing, or a faction capable of making combat ACUs will be able to push back against this better.

Could I propose overhauling this upgrade by increasing its effectiveness, but then moving it to the T4 stage similar to the maser and cloak upgrades? What I think might balance it out is if you make it so the stun kicks in every two seconds and lasts for two seconds. Have it impact all land units excluding sACUs, ACUs, and experimentals. Remove its ability to affect air units, since stunning air appears to be a bizarre side-effect of the ability and not a thing it passively does without exploiting its mechanics - the damn thing just needs to be more uniform in action, basically. Don't allow it to stun buildings, since that would let it disable turrets and factories by standing around them, which would just be nuts. After you do all that, increase the cost of the thing to be consistent with other T4 upgrades.

This would give the upgrade very broad defensive capabilities that apply evenly across all factions and all units, effectively nullifying the bulk of ground attacks against any position where the Aeon ACU is present. However, since it's a T4 upgrade, the other players should have access to every possible option they'd need to deal with that. At the very least, the threat of an air strike will prevent the ACU from pushing forward unless he feels he has total air control, making it a powerful defensive tool but a high risk, high reward offensive tool.

I tried reading a few threads discussing why this upgrade was buffed to this point. The core argument seemed to be "Well it's gotta affect Percies", which explains the range of 35. It's not really good practice to balance an ability by only considering a single unit, though. You've got to think of some kind of role you want this thing to play, and even with the 35 range the Percy is still the unit that fears this ability the least.

[Flamingo]

Sorry to bump my own thread, but nobody has any thoughts on this thing?

Currently it's like a troll upgrade. It's really not that good, but it can troll people into having to change their strategy. A T2 Cybran land army with absurdly reduced DPS and no micro capabilities is a damned dead army.

Is everybody okay with that? Was my post too long and I buried my own suggestion? I mean you can counter the Chrono Dampener by virtue of its limits, but it's obviously broken, regardless. There's no way you can have an EMP nuke with a 35 meter radius be balanced at T2. I think it really should be buffed to be a full, consistent EMP field and bumped up to T4. A T4 upgrade should theoretically defeat everything T3 and lower. T2 upgrades shouldn't be reaching up to gimp Bricks and Wailers while having a dynamically reduced impact on Obsidians, Zooeys, and Percivals - come on.

[yeager]

I get where your comin from, but 1 word dude: corsairs

[Reaper Zwei]

Maybe everybody's just stunned that someone thinks chrono is OP?

In all seriousness though I get what your saying, that the other factions can go up against this upgrade head on but cybran really can't. I however don't really see this as a problem. For one lets say that he has an army with his com, unless hes remembering to keep his com in the center of his army even your not so long range units should be able to pick away at his army(even if his com is in the center of his army your lower range units can probably still pick off the outliers). You also have the faster army so you don't need to attack head on if you don't need too.

[Flamingo]

I'm not really saying it's OP. Not in a grand sense since the com is really vulnerable to an air snipe without any health upgrades.

What I'm getting at is more that the upgrade is just currently unbalanced. It's really wonky, and it comes into play more during FFA games like Murder Party or whatever, where you'll be dealing with more than one person at a time and then suddenly one guy shows up and just neutralizes your ground army with a walking EMP bomb. Clearly you can't balance for FFA games, but when else would you use the chrono dampener?

It's just such a messed up power. It severely hampers Bricks, causing them to be drastically less effective and even slower than usual, and it does that as a T2 upgrade. That's just OP. But on the other hand, it does basically nothing to Percies, who will still kill the Aeon com on the alpha strike, and that's just UP. See, it's not really affecting units based on their tech tier, their health, or their DPS potential - it affects them based on their rate of fire, which is widely variable across all tech tiers and factions. Plus it stuns air units, but only if the com is firing its weapon, which is just plain quirky.

I'm not asking for a nerf, but a total overhaul to make the upgrade more broadly consistent, predictable, and reliable. That way it's something people choose as a tactical decision and not as a trolling tool.

I understand why people think I'm saying the thing is OP when I complain about it being unbalanced. But in this case I'm not saying it's OP, I'm saying it's unbalanced. As in: it's a topsy-turvy upgrade that makes no sense, has no tactical direction, and affects enemies according to luck or faction. Unbalanced in the most direct and literal fashion. When a T2 upgrade has a major impact on T3 Bricks but limited impact on T1 Zooeys, that upgrade lacks balance.

[speed2]

[KD7BCH]

I use the Chrono Dampener with the high rate of fire upgrade and teleport to get inside an enemy base before the TELEMAZOR attack can occur. In fact I did that last nite and she screamed when I killed her.

BOOOOOOOM

[Wakke]

I'd like it more if it was an activated ability, costing massive energy (more than OC) and having bigger effect. Then micro/skill/timing comes in to play more! Triggered abilities also create hype while casting replays.

[Flamingo]

So what, are you insisting that it's a balanced upgrade? Then why doesn't it get any use?

Because it's like I tell you: the personal shield is more dependable and the chrono dampener affects units that rely on a high RoF, where RoF has no relation at all to the tier of the unit.

I understand if you don't think it's a powerful upgrade, but you can't be dismissive of how poorly implemented and how completely imbalanced it is. Instead of mocking me with an image macro, use your words, man. Explain how Chrono Dampener is a totally awesome upgrade that doesn't need a complete and total overhaul from where it's at. Don't be a clown when you probably know exactly why the upgrade is imbalanced.

And try to think of something with more depth than "build bombers, lol". Explain the balance to me. Why is it balanced to have a T2 upgrade that sucks against Zooeys, Obsidians, and Percies, but that happens to be great against Ilshavohs, Pillars, and Bricks. Why does the EMP work on gunships and inties, but only if the ACU weapon is firing? There's no rhyme or reason for it.

I'd like it more if it was an activated ability, costing massive energy (more than OC) and having bigger effect. Then micro/skill/timing comes in to play more! Triggered abilities also create hype while casting replays.

Yeah, this could work too. If it's like an EMP TML that you can fire and reload. Just so long as it has a uniform impact on the types of units it's going to be used on.

[Tremarl]

Personally I don't think you see it much (usually shield or ras/aras is preferred)
nb: really the point where a shield becomes ineffective is when u hit t3 stage which Imo Chrono won't save you from. You reduce 60% of DPS from t3.. but you still at max vet have what? A 18k Hp com? Pretty poor if you ask me


The E cost is certainly the thing which balances it out (that and the fragility of the Aeon ACU, especially since to maximize efficiency the ACU has to get both arms on a gunupgrade or simply get outranged by most t2 t3 units).


So I personally believe its balanced as is.



If it was to have a rework to make it more usable that'd be great. I really like the idea mentioned earlier about the Triggered ability. So long as that is balanced so that the dampner isn't any weaker than it already is.


Maybe have a 3 second stun 120 second cooldown, to cast costs 30K E (So you'd need at least 6 storage to run it) To upgrade into it, it costs 1000 M 50,000 E (or maybe similar cost to shield)
And make it able to stun every unit in radius (even enemy coms) , but T4 and Enemy coms are only stunned for 1 second. [feel free to edit numbers as appropriate] [also a triggered ability would either become to spammy or probably act as a nerf vs the every few second stun]


I like it as it is at the moment.