balance rant, cybran OPness etc

[Myxir]

unfortunally i couldn't get stats to back some things up, but i guess most people realise that it's true when i'm talking about cybran dominated ladder. while this thread is mostly an explaination why i think that cybran is currently (possibly for years) OP, i also want to mention some other faction specific balance ideas and some general ones at the end of this post.

about cybran
first off, why am i ranting about them? the reason is simple, i'm sick of seeing like (careful, made up number) 70% cybran on ladder, and quite a lot custom 1v1s. why is this? certainly not because they are the coolest faction, even though that seems to appeal to a number of people.
here a number of reasons which i think are responsible for that:


unit imbalances
here a list of things that i think are wrong with certain cybran units:

jester
- can (does) deny fast ghetto strats completely, because the jester can shoot down a transport. can we please remove this ability? it's cheaper than a full ghetto, easier to set up, does not require a landfac and does not stall unit production from said land fac, while beeing able to dominate the ghetto and (if labs are dropped off) finish those aswell, having the jester remaining.

beetle
we had a whole thread about this, currently i think it would be fine if they took at least two transport hooks like any other t2 unit, would not explode in air (ctrl+k/killed transports) edit: actually fixed in the current patch, and wouldn't have this teleport-ish movement out of the transports towards their target when beeing dropped

tml
while i agree that splitting tmls are a faction diversity feature, i don't see why the split missiles each have about 600-700 damage. that allows them to almost oneshot even a t2 pgn protected by a single (non aeon) tmd. can we please lower that to maybe 300 damage per split missile?

mml
ok whoever designed mmls was like "f*** other factions, cybran takes it all". comparing those (http://spooky.github.io/unitdb/#/URL011 ... 11,XSL0111) raises a question: why has cybran mml a 3/4 times higher fire rate than aeon/sera, and has splitting missiles? i know that cybran focuses on attack rather than defense (i'll come to that later), but isn't that super extreme? 3 times more missiles than aeon mml, each of them split into 3 after beeing hit, that's potentially 12 times more missiles to defend than aeon. on a single mml. i'd like at least a change of the firecycle to 5 (from 3.3) seconds (and buff other mmls in a way, more about that later)

loyalist
the currently favourite unit. while not beeing a problem for aeon (harbs can at least stop them efficiently), they are a huge problem to sera and uef. how to stop them? with percies? half as fast, can't catch them, ever. with othuums? still way too slow. titans or snipers? nice try. ok, now that we can't catch them, maybe we can drop untis onto them? that might work, but in low numbers, they are able to beat other t3 units mass efficiently.
while beeing able to run past defending units, raid mexies, they are even able to kill dropped units (while not too many) mass efficiently. nice.
not to forget: they stun even ACUs and t4. have fun with a GC that even sucks them in.
oh right, they also deflect missiles, even billy. it's getting better, right?
while any kind of speed nerf would destroy raiding capabilities, and removal of stun/deflect remove faction diversity, the remaining choices are to nerf emp death radius and/or hp of the unit.

frigate
ok, they have the cheapest frigate, that's also has the by far strongest AA, and direct fire is pretty good? i know they were buffed due to cybran navy beeing weak against AA (nice removal of a weakness) and the need to defend against hover (which is now nerfed, frigate was not). this results in... something too strong imo. while the t1 navy balance is strange as a whole (later more), this one in particular is too strong, at least its AA capabilities. can we at least nerf the muzzle velocity so that it can miss more, like uef?

wagner
ok hover was nerfed (speed on water), this one not. why not? sure it can't kill a frigate or engies on water, but it's way way more annoying than hover units. current t1 naval balance leads to build tons of frigates, which annihilate hover, but can't kill wagner. also it's pretty much impossible to kill wagners in ponds, without torp bombers. take the map loki, and try to get rid of wagners in the ponds top left and bottom right, next to the expansions. or even behind the base, next to the other two mexies there. they can come out, kill stuff, and hide again, and repeat this for about all eternity. hover could have been killed by t1 bombers (even land units with range) at least.
while i don't know how to fix this hiding problem, i'd like them to have at least a massive speed nerf while beeing submerged. if you come up with a better idea, feel free to share it.

mobile stealth
ok, a comparison to mobile shields: no overspill nerf (well, hard to do, right?), the unit is cheaper, and costs less energy to maintain. and works in transports.
the only problem i have with this, is that they cost so little energy to maintain. it's about a fifth of what uef shields costs. can we increase the costs from 25 to 50 or even higher please? "just getting vision" on stealthed units isn't free either, a single t1 scout (will probably get shot down immediately) costs 40 mass and won't have vision for 10 sec. to keep vision, i have to pay more than 4 mass/s? that's more than the 25e/s that the field costs, plus the attention i have to spend...

torp def
not a specific unit, i know. but it's clearly WAY better than aeon/sera torp def, allowing their stealthed barracudas to even kill sera destroyers mass efficiently.


weaknesses not beeing so weak
ok some common beliefs/arguments why cybran is apparently weak:

worst t2 pd, worst shield
yes i can't argue with raw stats here. though, the t2 pd is also faster to clean up t1 units than others, and the shields can be built very quickly. they can also upgrade to instantly get back to full health, which is nice while beeing under constant fire (like mml/arty war). and upgrading shields multiple times is annoying? that got removed by the new FAF patch (a good thing though), now it's possible to instantly order all upgrades to ED5. it's still beeing weaker than t3 shields, that is true, but i think that in a "normal" game (not thermo) they are sufficient or even better than other factions shields.
ok, so let's assume they are still weaker in defending. isn't their faction based on stealth and attacking? their stealth field is larger, also mobile stealth, and they have stronger ways of attacking (tml/mml beeing way stronger than other factions).

weak acu
this one is only partially true aswell. sure, they are at a disadvantage against a rambo t2+gun sera/uef acu, but let's also check other things: they can upgrade stealth+gun for cheaper than t2+gun (energy costs though). this is still weaker in a direct fight, but hey, at least something (aeon does not even have that, only slightly more range).
their lower health comes with a higher regen (6 or 7 more per second than others!), which allows them to actually benefit from drawn out fights.
i know when the game progresses to shield/chrono upgrade, they are at an absolute disadvantage. but... what do other factions do against their torp upgrade? tele+lazer? certainly not engage then with their acu. depending on the games that are played, rambo may be the most common problem for them, but they are also the only faction that can use the acu in such other ways. it is weaker, because it has other purposes aswell, not just rambo.

t1 bomber sucks
ok i can't argue with that. it sucks, i agree. but hey, try a jester. poor uef on the other hand...

first bomber sucks
realted to the previous point, hm? but also because of airfac rolloff time, i know. you also have the option for first jester though, and the ladder challenges proved that this actually works.

t3 strat does not onehit t2 mexies
yes, that is actually a pretty big weakness in many teamgames. but imo they make up for it with their massive splash, that allows them to annihilate huge amounts of engies around factories, or hit ACUs without them beeing able to dodge (possible but super hard and unreliable).


units for almost any possible way to play the game
the units alone might not be enough to make cybran OP. sure they are advantageous, but imo the true strength of cybran lies in their options.
there are a few rather common ways how to play this game. t1 spam, rush t2 land/air, rush t3 land and so on. some are not possible with certain factions (why rush t3 land with sera?), but cybran has ways that are not even possible with a single other faction. for example, spam only t1 air. it does actually work, tons of jesters are sure to annihilate everything until there's flak (which has to be present at each spot on the map) and even flak can be killed by jesters.
or take snipes. sure aeon can mercy snipe (does someone still fall for that?), but beetle snipe seems to be way stronger (and "upgradeable" with t2 transport, mobile stealth) and harder to prevent. or good luck trying to stop a bunch of cosairs that are pretty much undodgable. or stop a nice salvo of tmls that can go through pretty much any defense and snipe important structures like a nuke.
ok, so they have special ways how they can play/win the game. but... are they actually weak when approaching any "normal" way to play it? i don't think so. they don't have real weaknesses in t1/t2/t3 land, naval or air. and also not t4, unless it's an arty turtle fest without scathis beeing in range (if it is, they pretty much insta win).

t4 units
i don't know why, but i see people complaining about cybran t4 units quite often. but... why? imo they have the strongest set of experiementals. ML is the easiest to rush, and not trivial to stop once it's close (thanks to its stealth). mega is the strongest land t4 unit (except maybe for fatty), it can kill stuff and even reclaim them after that. or walk backwards while shooting. build flak when engaged by air (and that while shooting, since the new FAF patch).
SR might not be strong in games with dedicated air players, or much air in general, but it's absolutely devastating in 1v1. "just have air supremacy" is a typical argument against this, well, why not "just win" instead? equally helpful.
and i see many rages about scathis, because it's apparently too weak. well, those people only playing huge maps and complain about not having a mavor-clone. in a closer setup, scathis is way more powerful, because it's equally strong but costs less than half. on maps like twin rivers, isis and so on, it's the strongest late game unit.


finishing note about cybran
yes i know that are still not best at everything in the game. they are not best in lategame t3 static arty war, and don't have a para. but... why should they have everything?
if you think that these weaknesses must be removed from them, i fear that i think you're blind to balance problems that come from such approaches. if no weakness is left, why even play another faction? in a common 1v1, we already are at this point.
if they should be balanced, then it's not possible to let them be equal in terms of firepower/health etc, while letting them keep all those tiny features they have (destroyer walks on land, cruiser can direct fire, mantis can finish a factory, loya emp death, ...). it just does not work for a balanced game.


general stuff
here some more general stuff, not only cybran related

mmls
ok the gap between the usefulness of mmls is so huge (sera takes 13 sec to reload, cybran 3.3, same dps: wtf?), that there should be something to balance this. an idea (by ZLO?) was to improve the damage of the long reloading mmls. this would make cybran stronger to break defenses, and others stronger to destroy things in a broken defense.

t1 naval
ok t1 naval balance is off. frigates can run from subs, or even ignore it while killing the naval factory which the sub just left. and heh, it's also cheaper. frigate is actually so good, that it's spammed even in t3 naval fights. can we please have a slight speed nerf (subs can catch them) and an hp nerf to make the stupid meatshield role in t3 less apparent?


tl:dr
i'm a cybran hater, please massacre me

[Blackheart]

yes

[Ithilis_Quo]

Good threat, and lot of good points, but i must to say, that salvation is close! : ) ehm ehm your subscribe...
but you also come with another stuff that i should consider: tml split missile damage, frigate AA nerf, jester not be able fire on air

And about T2 pd weakness, It have lowest damage, but also one very big advantage, dont damage reclaim, where UEF and mainly aeon, destroy 2/3 of reclaim by big alfa damge and splash

[biass]

For one cybran Strat bomber, you get 5 or so corsairs, which do 600 dps total, compared to the strats 550, this stacks up

But the corsairs have less hp right? five corsairs have 5500 hp, compared to the strat bombers 3700

i know there are such thing as notha or janus but corsairs are currently best for vs moving targets

#balanced or?

[Tokyto]

That's a lot of hate towards Cybrans, my eyes bled while i red this

On topic tough.. nerfing everything they are good at would basically bury them. They dont outstand on T2 land, they dont outstand on T3 land either. Bricks lose horribly to Percivals, Aeons have OP harbs and nobody plays Sera so who cares about those. Also loyalist overrated imo, they aren't that good.

MMl might be a bit annoying, but you can just rush T3 land and T3 mobile arti to kill them easily...

Frigate OP? Well their destroyers are only good for land bombardment, they will lose to all other destros with proper micro.

Jester is really really expensive, i dont really use them becouse of it, so i dont think its a problem at all.

Split missile on TML... if you want to make it deal 300 damage per shot you might want to remove it completely as well, unless you mean it to snipe t1 engies

(LEAVE MY CYBRANS ALONE!) (also, beetles needs a buff, hard to kill GCs with them)

[nine2]

remove beetles and mercies from game.

remove tml split.

everything else can stay the same

[keyser]

i'm gonna do a full response later
just fast :
about beetles
"would not explode in air (ctrl+k/killed transports)" have been patch, they don't explose on death anymore.

[Tokyto]

remove beetles and mercies from game.

You fakin' what mate!

[speed2]

[Myxir]

On topic tough.. nerfing everything they are good at would basically bury them. They dont outstand on T2 land, they dont outstand on T3 land either.

to clarify, i don't want to overnerf them, but the current balance situation (at least in 1v1/2v2/3v3) is ridiculous. i'd like their outstanding features to either normalized a bit, so that other factions can compete, or keep some of them while removing others (to introduce weaknesses that other factions are able to exploit)