Static T3 arty stats need some tweaking

I've made a comment on this on someone else's post, but it barely received any traction. This is a pressing enough issue in my opinion that I'm posting it again hoping something will be done. Skip to bold text if you don't want to read all the stats

The stats for each faction's static T3 arty are completely unfair:
Cybran T3 arty: 480 dps 69600 mass
Seraphim T3 arty: 500 dps 70800 mass
UEF T3 arty: 550 dps 72000 mass
Aeon T3 arty: 600 dps 73200 mass

Comparing these values using Cybran T3 arty as the base gives:
Cybran T3 arty: 1.0x dps, 1.0x mass
Seraphim T3 arty: 1.042x dps, 1.017x mass
UEF T3 arty: 1.146x dps, 1.035x mass
Aeon T3 arty: 1.25x dps, 1.052x mass

This means, compared to cybran T3 arty:
Seraphim T3 arty is 2.46% more effective for its cost
UEF T3 arty is 10.7% more effective for its cost
Aeon T3 arty is 18,82% more effective for its cost, and this is ignoring Aeon's doubled alpha damage which is preferable for breaking through shielding.

Considering T3 arty is built in the later stages of the game in teamgames, the only thing factional diversity in these matters can result in is making tech sharing a must. It's completely unnecessary, annoying, and unfair.

I propose making each T3 artillery similar. Mass/damage values may differ, but they should scale proportionally.

I’ve been thinking about making a similar post but have been too lazy to do it. It’s annoying how much better the Aeon arty is than the other factions for no reason. Cybran is just screwed in t3 arty fights by having the worst shields plus the worst arty.

Where is damage radius? And stop trying making everything equal. Do it in politics, not in my game. Your Cybran's entire T3 and T4 air has stealth, go bomb.

Despite commenting on the unit accuracy you neglected to note the aoe. Presumably because it undermines your argument. Cybran T3 arti have 125% of the area damage of the UEF t3 arti, for only a 10% reduction in DPS.

Mobile arti needs a buff more generally, it's just not a Cybran specific issue. Aeon mobile arti can at least fire while moving so although it has poor aoe it has some use. The others have such a long setup time that they're weak against mobile units, and are also weak against firebases.

Tbh, I think T3 arty needs a nerf in general. It's basically become the meta if mid-game stalls too much to just go into arty spam instead. Making for incredibly boring games.

Mobile arty is fine against firebases, two factions just have their own hard counter to any firebase that isn’t 10 t2 arty that is also the best direct fire unit so why would they make the arty.

Insanely easy to make t3 arty oppressive by messing with the setup time, during the early days of the t3 rebalance it was meta to spam mobile arty because they wipe t2 or worse armies instantly. They got nerfed precisely for that.

@Melanol You're right, I initially thought AoE didn't matter because Aeon was near 100% accurate on large buildings anyway (tested it; it does miss). High accuracy is better than high AoE versus shields, but that's barely significant. I've removed mentioning accuracy from my original post. However, I did not suggest to make things equal, but to make things fair.

Banking on an all-or-nothing strat snipe only works against a team that is backed into a corner, and is otherwise easily turned into a mass donation. T3 arty values varying this greatly is plain unfair. It's hard to take you seriously honestly

This post is about static t3 artillery though, @maudlin27

@snaggs said in Static T3 arty stats need some tweaking:

Tbh, I think T3 arty needs a nerf in general. It's basically become the meta if mid-game stalls too much to just go into arty spam instead. Making for incredibly boring games.

Mid-game? T3 arty is viable if 4 gcs aren’t causing a snowball or 40 t3 gunships won’t crush the game. You need a t3 arty and a half in both land and air defense, whether units or structures, for t3 arty to be worth considering. This is full t3 eco combined with mass fab scaling, not mid-game.

It isn’t fun gameplay for sure, but neither are nukes and those are made 6-8 minutes before t3 arty.

@waffelznoob said in Static T3 arty stats need some tweaking:

I actually intentionally left out AoE because I thought people could figure this out on their own.

The accuracy is entirely relational to aoe and that was intentional. Rank the arty by accuracy and it’s also the reverse rank by aoe.

Can say it’s irrelevant but that was the intention behind the last t3 arty normalization several years ago.

@ftxcommando You're right, I was wrong. I thought Aeon T3 arty was so accurate that it would never miss buildings as large as T3 pgens, while Cybran T3 arty does miss, and by extension lose potential DPS, while Aeon does its full damage consistently.

I've removed mentioning accuracy from my original post because with equalised dps (and assuming not 100% accurate), it is just as important as aoe.

@waffelznoob My bad, skim reading while queuing for a game, completely missed that!

In that case I agree, I've long thought Aeon T3 arti is far better than the others (even if my point about aoe is still relevant).
The main reason I think T3 Aeon fixed arti is too powerful is that two of them firing in sequence can overwhelm even a relatively heavily assisted shield, making them very good at breaking heavily defended locations (in contrast you need a lot more Cybran T3 arti to have the same effect, even if the Cybran arti is better at attacking more spread out and less shielded bases)

@maudlin27 said in Static T3 arty stats need some tweaking:

(even if my point about aoe is still relevant).

yeah it is, that was a mistake on my part. i've removed mentioning accuracy from the main post, because acc&aoe roughly even out

and yes, i mentioned its doubled alpha plays a significant role in it being better at breaking shields, but that's ok, factional differences i guess. The other artilleries flat out being worse is just inexcusable though

Since hitting more than 1 shield bubble at the same time is often the way that shield bases go down, I'd argue that AOE is incredibly important when lobbing artillery.
Any hit on 2 shields will do full damage to BOTH of them, and this can only be done reliably with AOE. The more AOE, the easier it is.

I've noticed that intentionally 'target ground'-ing in an attempt to hit more than 1 shield seems much more effective than just targetting a single shield in an attempt to overwhelm.

(Somewhat related: Although the micro is borderline impractical in all but the most stagnant games; you can use as few as 2 mobile missile launchers to destroy 2 shields with some clever target-ground micro, as long as you ensure that you hit both bubbles at the same time, to ensure they all go down together. This is easier done by targeting the edge of the shield bubbles, at a point where they intersect. It's even possible against 3 shields, but a player would have to be SO much better than me (I'm rubbish) to do that in a real game, since hitting all 3 requires more than just ground-targetting the intersecting edge (you have to fire into the very centre of the 3 where they intersect). 2 shields, though, is relatively straightforward if you have the time to micro.)

Yeah high AoE is strictly better than low AoE, but not if it's counteracted by low accuracy. Players hard assist one or two shields protecting the most vital parts of the base anyway, the other shields don't matter much. Cybran artillery will hit shields you aren't trying to bring down, and give more time to repair the shields that do matter.
There has never once in history been a game where T2 mml assisted a static T3 arty in breaking down a fully developed t3 base

@waffelznoob said in Static T3 arty stats need some tweaking:

Players hard assist one or two shields protecting the most vital parts of the base anyway

When they do that, I think it might be good just to take the win - assisting shields like that tends to cost a player all of their income, from what I've seen.

There has never once in history been a game where T2 mml assisted a static T3 arty in breaking down a fully developed t3 base

Oh, I totally agree! That was why that sidepoint about MMLs was bracketed as an interesting little factoid! Still, it might be useful to break a forward firebase that's trying to establish artillery, way before the T3 artillery stage of the game.
And the interesting part, I thought, was how even a tiny AOE can take down shields effectively (in this case alongside great accuracy).

Assisting a shield is the same cost as rebuilding the shield. It's just worse because half the benefit of having a bunch of shields is them turning on and off against across several intervals which is HP you don't pay for. That's why shield micro also exists during arty wars.

@ftxcommando Well, that, plus real-estate problems, and (importantly) you getting the mass cost 'for free' if your mass is already zero while assisting shields. From what I understand that's about the jist of it.

MY takeaway was just that assisting shields to keep an area alive is super-expensive, compared to the cost of artillery shelling.

Bully is correct I have spoken.

I read the original post and skimmed through the rest, apologies if someone already mentioned this but...

Firerate, AoE, and accuracy are a factor, too.
Less damage, but more consistent damage output is arguably stronger than alpha damage.

The Cybran arty fires faster than all other factions.
This means shields will have less time to regenerate.

~ Stryker