Novax needs to be nerfed, here's why.

@freedom_ said in Novax needs to be nerfed, here's why.:

Ideally, it needs a complete rework, where it cannot stray further than roughly 256 range from the control centre but has better weaponry to compensate

That will literally do the opposite of what you want. It'll be similar as old scathis. Target in range = OP. Tqrget not in range = useless

Also not getting the point of that design when the bigger role of novax is filling the air t4 hole for UEF not being another variant of t3 arty.

Whats wrong with just decreasing its damage and allowing it to take advantage of ajacency for firerate increase.

Make the unit so that once surrounded by 4 t3 pgens it is as powerfull as it is now, but without them it is much weaker. This increases cost by 10K mass, time to build and makes it harder to defend the control center.

@nooby said in Novax needs to be nerfed, here's why.:

Make the unit so that once surrounded by 4 t3 pgens it is as powerfull as it is now, but without them it is much weaker. This increases cost by 10K mass, time to build and makes it harder to defend the control center.

It seems like good change, but not enough. Players need t3 power for other things also, so building it in specific location is not really added cost for Novax. If Novax would consume 10k power, then it would be added cost, but if adjacency would bring it totally down, then it would add almost nothing to the price as well. Having pgens aroud Novax would make it harder to protect in late (t4) artywar, but it is overpovered already much earlier. And all this would add to complexity. Just rising mass cost in important amount, might be better maybe.

I'd posit that the novax isn't actually op, it's just really annoying to play against. Kinda like harms.

One thing that makes novax as annoying as they are is that they only cost 36k, making it pretty easy to just squeeze one in if you have the eco and like a minute of breathing time.

So how about we double the cost and dps of the novax? This would still be a nerf of course, but it would make a novax an investment on the same scale as a t3 arty, all of which cost around 70k as well. This would make it much harder to sneak one in, and as a result hopefully much less annoying.

The novax building is a pretty large footprint so requireing t3 power around it does not make it fit into your air grid niceley. I also like the idea of it needing power to fire. Any thoughts on drawing so much power (~ 20K?) for its short beam duration it needs E storage to fire like the eye?.

On it being annoying a large problem is the APM required to use vs APM required to counter - building shields, reclaiming pgens, protecting engineers.

On large maps like sentons it would still be built over t3 arty at higher cost, its just too usefull, but it would give more time to prepare and scout. I agree that part of the problem is the cost and how easy it is to build one pretty fast.

If it is not OP why are they built so often in higher level 1200+ rating ~ 1700 avg rating sentons games? There is almost always one or more built. There is never t3 arty built. It is also common to see two or three from one team.

It's obvious it's meant to fill the T4 air role for UEF but no other T4 air unit can hover indefinitely over your base. Add a method(s) to destroy it, e.g., SMD, nuke, another Novax, and balance it from there.

@thewheelie said in Novax needs to be nerfed, here's why.:

@freedom_ said in Novax needs to be nerfed, here's why.:

Ideally, it needs a complete rework, where it cannot stray further than roughly 256 range from the control centre but has better weaponry to compensate

That will literally do the opposite of what you want. It'll be similar as old scathis. Target in range = OP. Tqrget not in range = useless

What I want is the novax just deleted from the game.

@nooby said in Novax needs to be nerfed, here's why.:

If it is not OP why are they built so often in higher level 1200+ rating ~ 1700 avg rating sentons games? There is almost always one or more built. There is never t3 arty built. It is also common to see two or three from one team.

It's not op because you can shield every mex and your air grid on setons for the same cost it takes to build a novax, but you can do so multiple minutes later, making it effectively much cheaper.
Or phrased differently: When a team is playing well against a novax, it has basically no impact for a long time, maybe ever.

The problem is the "playing well" part, and the apm it requires, because if even one teammate doesn't shield their mexes/power in time, the novax will have lots of targets.

But still, if you let your opponent spent 36k on a building that really doesn't do much for minutes after it is finished, and you don't win the game with your ~4 Battleship / 100 ASF advantage, that's kinda on you.

Making a novax is like spamming subs or harms: It gets worse as a strategy the better your opponent is, but that doesn't make it fun gameplay.

just remove it or make something that can shot them down and you have to rebuild them. Easy.

Novax is literally useless on half or more of the maps in the game if anything smd related can shoot it down, please stop suggesting LOUD 80x80 map gameplay solutions to FAF

At that point remove novax and give UEF a flying atlantis for their air t4 substitute

Atlantis with some tiny wings superglued to it would be fire though

@nooby said in Novax needs to be nerfed, here's why.:

Whats wrong with just decreasing its damage and allowing it to take advantage of ajacency for firerate increase.

Make the unit so that once surrounded by 4 t3 pgens it is as powerfull as it is now, but without them it is much weaker. This increases cost by 10K mass, time to build and makes it harder to defend the control center.

Whats wrong with it is that it'll nerf a unit that doesn't needs nerfing

@cheeseberry said in Novax needs to be nerfed, here's why.:

It's not op because you can shield every mex and your air grid on setons for the same cost it takes to build a novax, but you can do so multiple minutes later, making it effectively much cheaper.

On Setons, Novax takes to move from air spot to first mid mex about 1 minutes 15 secundes. And air spot to air spot 2min 15sec.

t2 UEF engie, without move time, needs about 1 min 40 sec to build shield.

Novax gets through t2 UEF shield in 45-60 sec, depending if it was "loaded".

To protect all mexes on (half) of Setons, with two shields, you need about 77 t2 UEF shields. With more than six t3 power generators to power those. Let's say seven pgens.

77 shields at 46200 mass, pluss 7 pgens 22680 mass makes a total of 68880 of mass. Notice that we need to add shields for protecting power and the price of engineers all over the map. And 77 is kind of perfect putting in place. With other buildings, we probably need more.

We need about two times more mass to counter Novax passively, and we need it very fast. Depending on how much mass we waste on engis, we need to start building shields before novax is ready.

And as already expained earlier, Novax would still find some units to target and would still be able to scout.

@nooby said in Novax needs to be nerfed, here's why.:

If it is not OP why are they built so often in higher level 1200+ rating ~ 1700 avg rating sentons games? There is almost always one or more built. There is never t3 arty built. It is also common to see two or three from one team.

T3 arty isn’t built on sentons cuz game enders get built in air base and you can’t reach air base without putting T3 arty in range of battleships. Otherwise what do you shoot at? SMDs? Better off winning pond and killing that while also killing 2 bases. 72k mass better spent in navy.

I haven’t seen a novax built in any yudi sentons I watched in probably a whole year. I’d say novax punches above its weight in sentons because of the fact it can always gain utility by assisting in navy, the time it takes for a novax to pay back for itself by killing shielded mexes is probably close to 10 minutes once all factors come together and that’s not deciding games. You also do not deny or win reclaim so the pay off isn’t as good as you might think.

The logic is fairly similar to navy. 36k mass in battleships are gonna turn a tide and pay off while expressing more map control and doing more long term damage than a novax. The major usage case is what you said, using them to help snipe shields once a mavor is up. That’s not a case that justifies a big nerf. I don’t really care if it gets something that requires pgen adjacency or energy to fire but the unit is gonna be totally garbage with a mass cost increase unless it gets some sort of stat boost alongside it.

@wikingest said in Novax needs to be nerfed, here's why.:

@cheeseberry said in Novax needs to be nerfed, here's why.:

It's not op because you can shield every mex and your air grid on setons for the same cost it takes to build a novax, but you can do so multiple minutes later, making it effectively much cheaper.

On Setons, Novax takes to move from air spot to first mid mex about 1 minutes 15 secundes. And air spot to air spot 2min 15sec.

t2 UEF engie, without move time, needs about 1 min 40 sec to build shield.

Novax gets through t2 UEF shield in 45-60 sec, depending if it was "loaded".

To protect all mexes on (half) of Setons, with two shields, you need about 77 t2 UEF shields. With more than six t3 power generators to power those. Let's say seven pgens.

You don’t need 2 t2 shields to deny a novax. It’s wasting its time if it’s killing a t2 shielded mex. You can rebuild the mex it kills in like 20 seconds while it goes to waste time at a new mex. You have 36k extra mass (or I guess 30k if you account for the shields to shield mexes)

This just sounds like you over-respond and the enemy tricks you into making a novax efficient. I’d go so far as to say making a 2nd novax if this is how u responded is actually a mistake from the enemy and only closes an advantage they got you to gift them.

You also don’t need t2 shields protecting power or any concentration of infrastructure, a t3 shield or two and you’re basically totally safe (unless ur air but then you hardly need more than 5).

It has been explained plenty of time, that the one with Novax is behind on mass.