Patch 3704 Release Thread

[Thomy100]

t2 Seraphim navy is really strong if you micro your destroyers

Aeon Destroyers are at least as strong, UEF has the better t2 Navy mix with shield ships, Cybran has these radar distrupting ships and the Salem is an amazingly useful (walking on land) and strong destroyer. Dont see any adventage for Sera here. The Destroyers can submerege, yes great, but they lose half their damage output then.

Seraphim has also the best rambo acu

Never saw someome seriously using them but to troll

their t2 gunship is extremly strong.

You sure about that? As fas as I know Sera t2 gunships are the worst in the game.

They have t3 shields and best sniper bots.

Yes, this is nice to have but hardly game changing. My point was, in high level games and late game Sera lacks in naval power due to the ridiculous nerf of the t3 subs and having no "very" late game options. Yolona is double the price of Marvor, t4 bomber is plain shit, T3 arty costs almost as much as a game ender. Right now what I end up doing is massing nukes and hope that the airplayer takes out an smd so I can actually have an impact on lategame. I really feel like Sera deserves more love when it comes to balancing.

[biass]

bruh...

[FtXCommando]

What is with all the people saying UEF has a great t2 navy stage lately? Shidboat even got a nerf last patch.

[Tagada]

IF you micro your seraphim destroyers you can avoid over half the dps of the enemy t2 ships while your beam weapons hit like 90% of the time. Shield boat after it's nerf is not really viable at the t2 stage vs destroyer + frigate spam, it's useful as a protection for your cruisers vs torpedo bombers

[UnorthodoxBox]

Aeon Destroyers are at least as strong

As soon as you start dodging, they only hit 1/3rd-1/4th of their shots. The Seraphim destroyer CANNOT be dodged.

UEF has the better t2 Navy mix with shield ships

UEF T2 navy is WIDELY regarded by 2k+ players to be unexceptional at best, and just bad at worst.

The Destroyers can submerege, yes great, but they lose half their damage output then.

Submerging allows them to fight frigates and other ships with low-dps torpedo weapons without taking very much damage at all. It is actually incredibly powerful against a uef player who has T2 navy, or even battle cruisers, but no torpedo boats.

Never saw someome seriously using them but to troll

Sera commander with T2+First Nano+Gun is a one of the best mid-game land units

You sure about that? As fas as I know Sera t2 gunships are the worst in the game.

Spoiler: show

Stinger (UEF) -------- HP: 880 ----- DPS: 60 ---- HP | DPS per mass cost: 3.66|0.250
Renegade (Cybran) - HP: 832 ----- DPS: 60 ---- HP | DPS per mass cost: 3.08|0.222
Spectre (Aeon) ------ HP: 848 ----- DPS: 65 ---- HP | DPS per mass cost: 3.53|0.271
Vulthoo (Seraphim) - HP:1080 ---- DPS: 80 ---- HP | DPS per mass cost: 3.60|0.266 --- (Bigger numbers are better)

As you can see from the statistics of the four t2 gunships, the Vulthoo is FAR from being considered "the worst in the game," and without taking into account mass cost, they are actually the BEST T2 gunship in the game

Sera lacks in naval power due to the ridiculous nerf of the t3 subs

No other nation has a T3 sub hunter, and aeon and cybran only get battleships as anti-naval units at T3, and the UEF T3 battlecruiser is not very good at fighting battleships, so it will not be counted here. Lets look at battleship statistics (I will only use faction to label because names are kinda long)

Spoiler: show

UEF ------- HP: 51,000 ------ TOTAL DPS: 450 ---- HP | DPS per mass cost: 5.10|0.0450
Cybran --- HP: 44,500 ------ TOTAL DPS: 450 ---- HP | DPS per mass cost: 5.56|0.0563
Aeon ------ HP: 48,000 ------ TOTAL DPS: 510 ---- HP | DPS per mass cost: 5.33|0.0567
Seraphim - HP: 49,000 ------ TOTAL DPS: 450 ---- HP | DPS per mass cost: 5.44|0.0500 --- (Bigger numbers are better)

Something else to be considered is range, and they are (in the order listed above) 150|128|110|128
As you can see, the seraphim battlship is EASILY competitive with the other faction's battleships. In typical late-game navy fights, you want to have multiple battleships backed by a large amount of frigates, with some destroyers to give your frigates some extra versatility. The only reason to make T3 sub hunters is to counter the aeon and cybran T2 submarines, and to pick off vulnerable targets like battleships on the edge without torpedo support. They should not comprise your main fighting force.
Another thing to consider, is seraphim gets T3 hover shields that can be used with their navy, which have more health than even the UEF T2 shield boat. They also have access to floating AA flak which negates the need for cruisers, since the flak costs 10x less than the cruisers and around 2-3 flak have the same effective dps of a cruiser.

Yolona is double the price of Marvor

Mavor: 224.8k mass
Yolona: 187.7k mass
Yes, the Yolona costs 60% more power, but power rarely ever is the restricting resource in building a game ender.

t4 bomber is plain shit

Just... no

T3 arty costs almost as much as a game ender

Spoiler: show

UEF: -------- 72,000 mass
Cybran: ---- 69,060 mass
Aeon: ------ 73,200 mass
Seraphim: - 70,800 mass
(all power costs increase linearly in the same manner, as in cybran has the lowest power cost, aeon has highest)

Looking here, the Seraphim T3 arty is even the second cheapest artillery to build.

[Thomy100]

First of all thanks for your well researched reply. Seems like some of my assumptions were wrong. but I dont agree with some of your points or think you are exaggerating the effects.

The destroyer:

As soon as you start dodging, they only hit 1/3rd-1/4th of their shots. The Seraphim destroyer CANNOT be dodged.

I never managed to dodge 66% or 75% of shots of the aeon (or any other projectile shooting) destroyer. it's 50% at the very best. The Aeon Destroyer makes more than up for it with the higher Damage (Aeon 212 DPS, Sera 138). Also the Aeon Destroyer has waaaay stronger Torpedos. It shoots 2 of 75 damage at once. So in a head to head comparison the Aeon Destroyer wins big time.

Well, I am not a 2000 plus player but the navy mix at t2 of UEF seems stronger to me than Sera T2. Sera is the only faction that doesnt have a T2 Torpedo sub. And as we just discovered, the T2 Destroyer isn't as hot anymore as well. No idea how many nerfs it took to make the Destroyer this bad. it's really a shame, back when I played this game years ago Sera's strenght used to be Navy, now it can barely keep up with the other factions.

I kind of agree that the T3 sub should not be a "main" navy force. But because it's so much more expensive than the t2 subs of the other factions (Vesper, 8'800 Mass, build time 4'400 / Sera Sub Hunter 24'000 Mass, 14'400 build time) They can mass easier and just overwhelm or mix in Torb bombers or other naval units. So the t3 Sub Hunter of Sera is waaay too expensive for what it can do right now. 170% more mass, 220% higher build time. Micro alone doesn't cut it at such extreme differences anymore. This is just ridiculous, why was it nerfed this hard? Furthermore it used to be a counter to Harms in numbers. Since it's so dammn expensive and hard to mass now, Harms creep cannot be prevented by T3 subhunters.

Sera commander with T2+First Nano+Gun is a one of the best mid-game land units

You are talking about the ACU right? Yes, that's strong, but I didn't dispute that. Tagada talked about the SACU, rambo mode. I never ever saw that in an actual game as a valid strategy. You usually get the sacu's to build stuff, not to go fight.

About the T2 Gunships of Sera: Thanks for the good comparison but what you didn't add is the cost of the Sera T2 gunship. it's significantly more expensive. It beats by your comparison Cybran and Aeon but loses to UEF. So it's not the strongest T2 gunship and considering the price I would argue it's the 3rd best only really superior to Cybran (which has an awesome T2 Bomber).

So now about the Game Enders:
Yes, the Yolona cost's less mass but these 60% more Energy it cost's than a Marvor is fuckin insane. It makes powerbuilding this much more expensive and you need many more t3 Powerplants. If you compare it to the Scathis it's even more extreme. It needs whopping 150% more Energy!! This is crazy and shows why Scathis gotton so popular lately. It has more hp than the Marvor and needs less time, energy and mass to build. It can be build under sea and it does comparable devastating damage as a Marvor. THIS is why Scathis is way OP now and needs to be nerfed!!

It seems to me as if there is a big bias towards favouring Cybran and a lot of hate vs Sera in the balancing committee.

[TheKoopa]

Nah, there's just a lot of hate towards strategies that aren't ecowhoring

[keyser]

I never managed to dodge 66% or 75% of shots of the aeon (or any other projectile shooting) destroyer. it's 50% at the very best. The Aeon Destroyer makes more than up for it with the higher Damage (Aeon 212 DPS, Sera 138). Also the Aeon Destroyer has waaaay stronger Torpedos. It shoots 2 of 75 damage at once. So in a head to head comparison the Aeon Destroyer wins big time.

at low number of destro (up to 6) sera is the best, then aeon/cyb start to get advantages by being harder to dodge and thanks to their range. My personal ranking for destro is uef<cybran<aeon<sera. The UEF shieldboat and cybran stealth making up for their weakness to reduce the gap.

No idea how many nerfs it took to make the Destroyer this bad. it's really a shame, back when I played this game years ago Sera's strenght used to be Navy, now it can barely keep up with the other factions.

Afaik we didn't touch the T2 navy since a very long time. On 10x10 naval map (1v1 or teamgame) sera is one of the favourite faction. Overall the navy balance is one of the best balance.

Vesper, 8'800 Mass, build time 4'400 / Sera Sub Hunter 24'000 Mass, 14'400 build time

this is not the mass cost, but the e cost.

Tagada talked about the SACU, rambo mode. I never ever saw that in an actual game as a valid strategy. You usually get the sacu's to build stuff, not to go fight.

there will be a rework of scu next patch, they used to be used for fight, nowadays they are less used. Nonetheless sera OC scu is still a viable strategy, and it is under-exploited. It is just hard to pull off (same for other scu rambo spam) because of BT and e cost; as I said we are going to change that.

About the T2 Gunships of Sera: Thanks for the good comparison but what you didn't add is the cost of the Sera T2 gunship. it's significantly more expensive. It beats by your comparison Cybran and Aeon but loses to UEF. So it's not the strongest T2 gunship and considering the price I would argue it's the 3rd best only really superior to Cybran (which has an awesome T2 Bomber).

personal ranking of T2 gunship : uef/aeon<sera<cybran. I've added a price nerf to cybran gunship last patch, in counter part to micro ability. It still stays the best from far, the aoe ruining army in no time. The sera gunship is clearly in 2nd spot, its ability to pack more dps and hp is a direct resistance to flak (which is natural counter of gunship). if you stack more than 20 gunship you are doing something wrong. Increasing the number of gunship won't do anything against flak. Having fewer but stronger gunship is definitely an asset for sera.

the Yolona cost's less mass but these 60% more Energy it cost's than a Marvor is fuckin insane.

I'm not an expert in late game requiring game ender. But i can tell you that e cost isn't that important. At this point in the game you have set up power grid to handle the asf spam (no need to build pgen to build your game ender), and as said before you will be most likely stalling on mass rather than energy.

[Tagada]

As I have clearly wrote I meant rambo ACU which means an ACU with offensive upgrades, either t2 + gun or gun+ t2 + nano

[Little Miss Murder]

This talk of boat X vs boat Y is pointless. Most people don't understand how to harness naval power (and it is easy to find academic material since, somewhat perversely, the in-game navy mechanics tactically mirrors the WW1-era direct fire focus.

Things like crossing the T, staggered advance and simple things like treating your ships like cavalry (in the technical sense) makes all the difference. If you are going to treat your navy as a slugfest then you are bound to be disillusioned.

It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.