Novax needs to be nerfed, here's why.

If you can't defend the entire map with novax, is uef even the defence faction anymore?

@CheeseBerry So correct me if I am wrong, it is little hard to understand.
You have totally changed your mind, and you no longer want to protect all mexes with shields?

You want to use only 6k of mass for protection, lets suppose one t3 pgen and 4 t2 shields? Not even enough to protect airgrid, or maybe only a small one. So you could have a 30k mass advantage in the beginning?

In this case Novax can attack unprotected t3 mexes, and kill the mex and reclaim in about 1min 20sec. Reclaim needs to be targeted. This gives value "earned" 4.6k. Let's add to this 1.5k proposed by Ftx, corresponding to time when mex is not producing. Total of 6.1k. Divided by 80 secunds, means 76 mass "earned" by sec. 30k mass advantage divided by 76 means 395sec= little more than 6 and half minutes. For first time, we can add 1-1.5 min travel time, maybe 2 minutes of build time... it can be built faster if all players participate. (Note that it takes much less build power to build Novax than to build same mass in shields and power)

So you will have advantage in first 10 min from 30k to 0. Un average of 15k. during 10min or 30k during 5min. Lets say 30k, 3 battleships during 5 min? And if in those first 5 min you dont win the game, then Novax team will get the same advantage, 30k, added every following 7 minutes. If nothing changes, until the end of the game. Is my calculations correct? Is this the way to counter Novax?

1. I kind of agree, that nuke is op. But this is not reason for something else to be op.

2. Actually t2 mass fabricators around mexes are even more productive, but many players still dont build those, as they are so explosive and hard to protect.

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

@CheeseBerry So correct me if I am wrong, it is little hard to understand.
You have totally changed your mind, and you no longer want to protect all mexes with shields?

No, I'm saying that the opportunity cost to make a novax is quite high, usually too high to justify making one, even on setons.

Lets get at this from a different angle.

What does it mean for something to be OP?
You could define it in quite a few ways, but for our purposes here, I'd define it as:
"Something is OP if it is the obviously best option (in the sense of increasing your chance to win the game) in a large percentage of gamestates and among a variety of alternatives".

This definition doesn't capture some important nuances, like inter-faction balance, but it's good enough to evaluate sats.

According to the above, sniper bots for example are slightly op right now, because there are lots of possible ways to play aeon/sera t3 land, but sniper bots are often just straight up the best one.

Similarly we can ask the question: "If I have ~35k mass available, a safe position to build something and a couple minutes of breathing time, what should I do with that?"

If the answer to that would always be "make a novax" then the novax would be op.

Mine, and FTX's, argument is that you should almost always spend that 35k mass on something else, because while having a novax is obviously good and strong, there are better ways (in the sense of trying to win the game) to spend it.

If we use your example of your opponents making literally no shields around their t3 mexes, and you killing all the reclaim manually, it takes 395 sec = 6:35 min for the novax to pay for itself.

Even my, admittedly suboptimal, mass fab example from above takes 34k / 96 = 355 sec = 5:55 min to pay for itself.

So yeah, the novax is not op. It's just really annoying.

Sad to see so many antiVaxers, people believe anything they see on social media nowadays

how fast is a group of asylums compared to a novax, I bet 10 asylums per slot on sentons beats novax with proper juggling

I've never had a Novax center be the turning point of a game. Usually a Novax center causes immediate retaliation that most aren't exactly ready for. I think it's fine as is.

@CheeseBerry Thank you for your answer. Even more because it is not just pointless spamming of toxity. After reflexion, I respectfully disagree. I aknowledge of course that I might be wrong.

If you say that nuke is op, than Novax is by far more effective in "earning" mass.

Massfarms are very explosive and hard to protect. And this is not the case of Novax. Even the more effective t2 fabs around mexes are often not built. And one cant always cover the map in massfarms. So the comparaison is not perfect.

Would i build Novax rather than something else? If I am winning navy, of course not. If game is open, with lots of mouvement, and opportunitys, no. If the situation is quite blocked, I think usually (1) Novax would be better than nuke, beginning of t3 or t4 arty, some more ras boys etc. Scouting is so important, mass and apm "earned" very good, price cheap, easy to defend, etc. I think in specific situations and maps like that it is by far better than alternatives. So, yes, i think it is op.

From what I have seen, opinions like mine is quite common, at least at my level. 1 or 2 Novax are built quite often on Setons. Most discussions about Novax ingame turn around how op it is. And players even excuse for useing Novax.

We have talked about numbers, and now we have talked about opinions, not much more to add. Cheers

@wikingest Your focus just seems to be on how good it is on a single map, Setons - there are other maps played and it’s performance is significantly worse on maps that aren’t large with spread out mexes.

Even if it was considered very powerful on one map (I dont think that has been established yet in this thread), I dont think balance should be based on a single map anyway. For example the alternative extreme would be if I said how novax needs a big buff because it’s near-useless on Astro Craters.

@maudlin27 Unit that is not an obligation to build, should be balanced on its best map. If it is too weak in other conditions, than it does not matter, people do not need to build it. But if it is op in one map, then the game is "broken".

For example. Lets say that Mavor is useless in one-v-one game on open 5 by 5 km map. Lets make it ten times cheaper, so it would become useful. Now imagine what would happen on game in general, on other maps, when players notice that mavor is ten times cheaper and all other prices (also gameenders) are the same. What would happen to FAF.

Sentons is fine for novax because the the only thing sentons brings that is “unique” for novax to take into account is the utility helping with late game navy fights. Basically any decent big teamgame map is going to have mexes similar to sentons or even more spread out. Novax just isn’t anything more than a nuisance in these games when properly handled.

I feel giving the smd a toggle to shoot down a novax is reasonable. The missiles only cost like 3.6k vs the satellites 10k to replace. If its something you can turn on then you can't use them to overwhelm the smd either and since its not economic to build smds all over the map for most of the game it protects the core base and still lets the extent mass be threatened. The sat can do its job to harass outer mexes, defend against pushes and even be an early scout.

Addendum: If needed you could even buff the sat to compensate, drop its reload from 20 secs to 16 to make it more useful as a defensive unit or to kill far units and buildings. this would raise its dps to ~300ish.

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

Sad to see so many antiVaxers, people believe anything they see on social media nowadays

That goes both ways buddy

The real question though: Is "nerfing the No-Vax" a pro or anti vax stance? xd

@cheeseberry

AntiVax=anti Novax= pro nerf