Vulthoo slight buff

[Evan_]

I feel Seraphim is kinda weak when it comes to mid game air, and also nothing special in the late game as well. in the t2 stage they have a good t2 transport, but the Notha and Vulthoo are nothing special. I'd like to talk more about them, but to be honest it's hard to remember when I last saw them, so I don't think I can comment further. Edit: Well I saw them yesterday, in a high rank ladder match from a player who had full air control. And that player lost!

In the t3 air stage, they get a Strat bomber, ASF, and Scout that are all pretty much the same as other factions - except that their bomber has high damage low aoe (and no aa but that doesn't really matter). What they don't have is t3 gunships. Broadswords, Wailers, and Restorers are strong and versatile. you can basically use them as many times as you want because they survive a long time and heal for virtually no cost.

Lack of a t3 gunship isn't fatal, but I think we should buff the Vulthoo to make up for it. Once again I'm not sure about what exact values, but I think making them more of a concentrated gunship (higher power, higher price) would make Seraphim Air pose more of a threat.

[Plasma_Wolf]

The replay of that game please. There's no telling if the player having air control lost because the T2 gunship wasn't stronger or because he didn't have a T3 gunship.

Did he use his air control? Or did he have so many fighters that he didn't have enough resources to counter land units? Was it a map with navy? If so did the eventual winner spam cruisers? Was he sniped?

[FtXCommando]

I think there were talks of making the gunship a sort of t2.5 gunship. The problem is that it's really hard to make something you can potentially get as early as like 5 min into the game not powerful enough to oppress gameplay while also being powerful enough to stay relevant to around the early t3 stage.

[biass]

I wouldn't mind a minor shot speed increase so it's more effective against moving targets so you know

it can hit them

[Exotic_Retard]

I wouldn't mind a minor shot speed increase so it's more effective against moving targets because you know

it can hit them

actually i dont read the balance forums too much but i do appreciate these sorts of posts

as it turns out this was unknowingly fixed in eq (that shit fixes itself by this point xD)
but i spotted some slight discrepancy there and fixed it even better

you can enjoy the fixed version today, and the fixed^2 version next patch.

[Yakmann]

Exotic, would you mind posting details here? Or explaining exactly what you changed?

[keyser]

exotic didn't fix anythin, he just told you EQ is fixing itself. Freaking AI, invading the world.

[Evan_]

replay uploaded. you can also watch it here although it may be tougher to analyse: [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoPhrmczwSU
[/url]
FTX raises a good point. we already have problems with t3 air rush, quickly getting up t2.5 could be very polarizing as well. I think I should edit what I said because I don't really want a T2.5 gunship, more of a "T2.25". Kinda like how the Ilshovah isn't expected to compete with Loyalists, just give an advantage in that tech level.

After some sandbox testing I found that buffing health up to 1100 (from 864) and rate of fire on both it's guns to 1.75 (from 1.25) let's 2 of them kill a mobile flak and just barely keep both alive, something mirrored by 3 gunships for other factions.

That's a 21.5% increase in health and 28.4 increase in dps (if daring to average it out isn't too sacrilegious you actually get about a 25% increase in overall power). Once again I don't have an idea for cost but I feel it's a nice benchmark to start at.