My thoughts about balance

I agree with @gabitii that the t1 sub change (along with torp def change) often leads to very turtely navy gameplay. Yes, rushing a frig to kill bp is still good. Yes, having some frigs to go raiding and for radar is still good. But on smaller maps without a lot of frig raidable mexes, spamming subs is now the way to go. In many of my recent games the player that build more subs at the cost of less frigates than their opponent won early navy control.

I also agree that the aeon destroyer is no longer good. People who think its a good unit haven't played in 2 patches. Especially in destro vs destro battles sera and cybran are for sure better.

funny discussion. trust in the balanceteam. they know what they doing. cough cough

If it's a small map without frig raidable mexes, why are you making navy in the first place?

@xayo said in My thoughts about balance:

I agree with @gabitii that the t1 sub change (along with torp def change) often leads to very turtely navy gameplay. Yes, rushing a frig to kill bp is still good. Yes, having some frigs to go raiding and for radar is still good. But on smaller maps without a lot of frig raidable mexes, spamming subs is now the way to go. In many of my recent games the player that build more subs at the cost of less frigates than their opponent won early navy control.

I also agree that the aeon destroyer is no longer good. People who think its a good unit haven't played in 2 patches. Especially in destro vs destro battles sera and cybran are for sure better.

Spikey tested Aeon destro vs Cybran desto and Aeon won every time I believe.

@tryth said in My thoughts about balance:

@xayo said in My thoughts about balance:

I agree with @gabitii that the t1 sub change (along with torp def change) often leads to very turtely navy gameplay. Yes, rushing a frig to kill bp is still good. Yes, having some frigs to go raiding and for radar is still good. But on smaller maps without a lot of frig raidable mexes, spamming subs is now the way to go. In many of my recent games the player that build more subs at the cost of less frigates than their opponent won early navy control.

I also agree that the aeon destroyer is no longer good. People who think its a good unit haven't played in 2 patches. Especially in destro vs destro battles sera and cybran are for sure better.

Spikey tested Aeon destro vs Cybran desto and Aeon won every time I believe.

dont believe, just look replays

@tomma Regarding Aurora : I need to better understand what aeon is supposed to do against a pushy commander!

I love the fact that their T1 tank works differently than other factions.
I felt that the buff to vision range was an indirect nerf to aurora (since aeon just ALWAYS have scouts no matter what), but I've so-far been ok containing raids and the like; meaning while I can't quite experience what gabitii is saying, I at least have some head-scratching moments about aurora use:

Where I struggle is when I have to challenge an enemy commander (for instance, when they're on my side of the map, stealing my reclaim). In this situation, the intended use of the aurora (kiting the enemy, restricting their damage) just doesn't seem to work - all that damage just goes to my commander instead. It feels as though it just forces aeon to give up important ground.
I've been working around it with an extremely early gun upgrade (fire-rate increase), but it doesn't work when the enemy just does a gun upgrade of their own, and tends to lose important ground before I get the chance to upgrade.
I'm interested to hear the ideal ways around an enemy commander push when I'm using aeon.

Slightly tangentially - I'd personally like to see something of a little buff to LABs, perhaps making the flare tougher and the hunter do more damage, but it's only a passing thought that I'd like to flesh out with experienced players sometime in the future. (LABs feel a little weak to me ATM; except the mechmarine, which has a lovely combination of speed, DPS, and cheap cost going for it - it hard to justify building a hunter, and the flare just seems to have too few hitpoints for its cost, damage, and speed).

Regarding the other things being mentioned - the idea that the aeon cruiser is the worst in naval combat feels SO strange to me. I always felt that the UEF and sera cruisers were anti-air with an added anti-building attack, while cybran and aeon were anti-air with an added naval attack. Am I missing something? Likewise the ideas of UEF being helpless against seraphim destroyers.

Regarding T2 air - I find renegades super-awesome for their AOE, and would love to know how you're supposed to avoid AOE air attacks, particularly from Janus! (The answer is 'shoot it down', right? )

@ftxcommando said: "If it's a small map without frig raidable mexes, why are you making navy in the first place?"
Does this line of thinking apply to 'eye of the storm'?
Most of the frigate-raidable mexes there tend to be blocked by terrain, and I've been struggling with land-units on those maps while I build navy!

Anyway, thanks for the posts everyone, I love learning from discussions like this!

@sylph_

Your ACU is supposed to soak damage for your tanks to at least some degree. Go for range before speed if you can only get one and then kite away. If your opp has gun though you should be able to get both not too long after they get their gun if things are fairly equal.

Flares definitely don't need a buff, they're already the strongest labs for the reason stated somewhere in this thread iirc, basically they are to try to augment the auroras weaknesses a bit at the aeon t1 stage.

EotS is neither a navy nor a land map, it's primarily an air control map. Land and navy are both secondary. Get air control, bomb early expanding engineers, and then with air control drop the corners and go t2 air. Then press the advantage with gunship raiding and or t2 bombers, but gunships are more typical.

@exselsior said in My thoughts about balance:

Your ACU is supposed to soak damage for your tanks to at least some degree. Go for range before speed if you can only get one and then kite away. If your opp has gun though you should be able to get both not too long after they get their gun if things are fairly equal.

Thanks for the feedback!
When playing aeon, my problem is that the enemy ACU just takes important locations. Trying to contest them makes for dead units, as is always the case vs early game ACUs; unless I involve my aeon ACU.
IF I involve my ACU, then the whole kiting with auroras thing just falls apart - auroras are supposed to make up for their lack of HP by moving back and using range, but when an ACU is involved the idea just falls apart: the enemy strikers/thaams/mantis just hit my ACU and win unless I retreat!

I can't see how getting range before speed would help this. When I've tried it, it seemed to make the problem worse - my problem isn't the ACU's range, it's the fact that my ACU can't kite like my aurora can, due to slow movespeed. So trying to kite with aurora is ineffective, and the enemy army + acu just destroys my ACU. Longer range doesn't help my ACU retreat more quickly.
More damage/second does help me, in that my ACU can withstand the enemy tanks - but only until the enemy ACU upgrades their gun, and even that little window is usually far too late for me to have a chance of scooping up those critical map locations!

(I'd question the notion that flares are the "strongest" LABs, definition of 'strongest' being important, of course. As raiding units, LABs want damage, speed, and cheap cost, right? Mechmarines have all of these things. Aurora might well have the most hitpoints and mass/combat effectiveness, but who on earth is building LABs to tank damage in a fight?
(And if the answer is 'aeon', then I'm not sure said aeon has a hope in hell of beating anyone if they're trying to tank with LABs while the enemy uses strikers/mantis/thaams!) )

Auroras have more range and speed than a default ACU.

I will only speak on Navy balance since I am only a UEF only setoner.
TLDR: buff anti hover units or just nerf hover.

1. The number one issue with navy balance is that hover spam is a bit overtuned. My main issue with hover spam is that it is a braindead strategy. You simply click drag a line of t2 factories and set the rally point into the enemy navy. There is no skill and no micro. Additionally, the hover units have small hitboxes which makes it difficult for boats to connect salvos. The vision buff to hover tanks was definitely not needed. Anecdotally, I see a lot more setoners spamming hover rather than using torp bombers after the torp nerf.

If you are playing setons then you are guaranteed to see hover spam in almost every game. It is inevitable. The meta feels like it is moving towards where the mid player just makes hover in both ponds instead of making naval units which takes an IQ higher than 50.

2. Aeon navy is not overpowered. Aeon navy is very bad against hover units. The Aeon navy has high alpha damage and overkills a lot of hover units. Meanwhile the valiant invests almost all of its DPS into rapid fire surface guns and ignores torp damage so it is a good unit to deal with hover. The Galaxy has a similar high fire rate with low alpha damage and the Seraphim destroyer and battlecruiser have beam weapons that evicerate hover units. Aeon is balanced. No further nerfs are required.

3. UEF navy is also balanced correctly. I got to 1900 by only playing UEF on Setons. There is no need to buff UEF. You just need to learn to scout your enemy properly and make the correct counter units. Don't underbuild or over build coopers, valiants, cruisers, frigates, battlecruisers, or battleships. In fact with proper scouting you should always have exactly as many of each as you need. You need to STOP making the same que of 3 valiant, 1 bulwark, 1 cruiser, 1 cooper I see in every low rated game. You need to use your brain and change your unit composition based on what your opponent does.

4. T3 Seraphim navy and all of Cybran navy probably need a buff but idk. The Salem is still the worst destroyer.

5. Regarding the weird interaction between UEF and Serphim T2 navy. I believe the problem would be solved if the Valiant could ground fire the Seraphim destroyers.

EDIT: I can provide replays where I crush navy with hover spam from mid if the audience so requires.

Could you write the replay ID, please - I would be curious. And what is the counter for hover spam on gap? T1 Bombers? More Destros? I haven't played that map in ages and have no idea about the changed meta with the last patch.

@sylph_ Related to what FTX said, sounds like you're just not handling the micro correctly then. Your ACU should probably be mirroring theirs, and if it is and you have range and they don't then they should never be in range of either your acu or your auroras with their acu. Their tanks can get in range of your acu but who cares, if it's somewhat even then your auroras and your acu have been hitting their tanks the whole time they were trying to get in range and they can't do much.

If they have gun then basically you can trade HP with your acu (if you've got range + speed) vs their acu and not much else changes. Your aurora generally shouldn't be in range of their tanks unless they're fully committing.

Aeon T1 is much less forgiving than the other factions, you have to be on top of unit and acu positioning at all times or you'll get punished for it.

As for flares, they win vs all the other labs and are a bit better/stronger at raiding in general to offset the slow aurora. You don't keep making them later in the game or use them in place of tanks, but they're more flexible than other labs.

@ftxcommando said in My thoughts about balance:

Your aurora suggestion is to buff speed and remove hover, that's literally making them move to every other type of tank.

Yes, corsairs on mexes. 1250 damage a corsair on 2k hp max for a mex. If you get real bad RNG you might need 3. Reminds me that another thing corsair and notha are great for are sniping tmds, janus sucks at that.

That's a bit of wishful thinking. Corsairs deal 1200 damage, six rockets 200 damage each. Even when attacking T2 pgens which are bigger targets only 5 of these rockets hit on average, so you need 3 corsairs to kill T2 pgens reliably. For mexes it's worse, 2 corsairs are not going to kill a T2 mex most of the time, no matter the faction.

And regarding hover, are T1 sub and torp changes an indirect nerf to Wagner? Now T1 navy stage will have more subs so Wagners will be easier to counter, plus Cybran is the only faction that can't substitute nerfed torp bombers with T2 hover when pushed out of the water.

@mazornoob said in My thoughts about balance:

For mexes it's worse, 2 corsairs are not going to kill a T2 mex most of the time, no matter the faction.

just tried it out. when just rightclicking the mex they overshoot a lot and a UEF mex only dies like ~25% of the time (probably depending on hilly terrain on such stuff).
If you just ground fire right in front of the mex tho, 2 corsairs kill the mex every single time, so they just aim a bit too high by default.

In my testing if left alone corsairs will not kill mex like half times, i think that happens because they shoot like while at the end of the aceleration phase after the turn, if you attack from far away so that they move in straight line with constant speed, they hit reliably.

@sylph_ you know your aurora shoot tanks too, right? You trade acu hp for units and eventually its acu + 20 aurora vs acu + 10 tanks.
You're describing situations aurora are best in

@accidental_aeon said in My thoughts about balance:

I will only speak on Navy balance since I am only a UEF only setoner.
TLDR: buff anti hover units or just nerf hover.

3. UEF navy is also balanced correctly. I got to 1900 by only playing UEF on Setons. There is no need to buff UEF. You just need to learn to scout your enemy properly and make the correct counter units. Don't underbuild or over build coopers, valiants, cruisers, frigates, battlecruisers, or battleships. In fact with proper scouting you should always have exactly as many of each as you need. You need to STOP making the same que of 3 valiant, 1 bulwark, 1 cruiser, 1 cooper I see in every low rated game. You need to use your brain and change your unit composition based on what your opponent does.

How am I supposed to know if 5 or 8 barracudas exist as UEF navy? How am I supposed to know where they are on a map like Maridia or Metir?

Got any replays of you holding a t2 sera all in by a competent player as UEF t2 navy?

Much of the real problems of UEF navy aren't actually showcased on sentons because the meta favors UEF gliding over their problems via a BC rush or decent torp/mid support in an actual t2 all in situation. This isn't possible on plenty of other navy maps which are more centered on t2 gameplay supplemented by BS later.

@ftxcommando said in My thoughts about balance:

@accidental_aeon said in My thoughts about balance:

I will only speak on Navy balance since I am only a UEF only setoner.
TLDR: buff anti hover units or just nerf hover.

3. UEF navy is also balanced correctly. I got to 1900 by only playing UEF on Setons. There is no need to buff UEF. You just need to learn to scout your enemy properly and make the correct counter units. Don't underbuild or over build coopers, valiants, cruisers, frigates, battlecruisers, or battleships. In fact with proper scouting you should always have exactly as many of each as you need. You need to STOP making the same que of 3 valiant, 1 bulwark, 1 cruiser, 1 cooper I see in every low rated game. You need to use your brain and change your unit composition based on what your opponent does.

How am I supposed to know if 5 or 8 barracudas exist as UEF navy? How am I supposed to know where they are on a map like Maridia or Metir?

Got any replays of you holding a t2 sera all in by a competent player as UEF t2 navy?

Much of the real problems of UEF navy aren't actually showcased on sentons because the meta favors UEF gliding over their problems via a BC rush or decent torp/mid support in an actual t2 all in situation. This isn't possible on plenty of other navy maps which are more centered on t2 gameplay supplemented by BS later.

Yeah, I totally agree with you on that, at least we have same opinion in one of my points:)

@exselsior I should probably make a different topic at some point, but for now I've deleted the wall of text I wrote and condensed it to:

Is what you're suggesting that I attack their ACU using my aurora, but have my ACU nearby to protect my aurora if their strikers/mantis/thaams make a push?

Or are you suggesting that aeon should push an enemy ACU off the map without even needing their own aeon ACU to help?

(Because when I try the latter, their units push back at my aurora, I micro my aurora etc... While their ACU scoops up the important map location. )

(My playing random might be going against me here, since habits with other races are probably trickling in to my aeon play)

@waffelzNoob I just saw your reply. I'll make a separate topic to talk about this sometime in the next week. It's somewhat hard to describe what it is I'm after help with, and I'm obviously not doing a good enough job of it here... The problem is essentially related to how the 'retreat speed' needed for kiting goes from 0.5 (speed:3 aurora vs speed ~3.5 thaam/striker/mantis), to 1.8 (speed 1.7 commander vs ~speed 3.5 thaam/striker/mantis). Essentially, it results in a situation where IF I tried to involve my ACU in a firefight with the enemy ACU, my ACU is in critical danger, since the enemy tanks are twice as tough as mine, and all the units involved are getting to attack (due to slow ACU retreat/kite speed)... And it feels trickier since the vision change.