Ythotha should get a switch for Othuy

If we were going to allow the othuy to be disabled, it shouldn't be something that players can flick on and off instantly. It should be something like: you start an upgrade, when the upgrade finishes the ythotha dies and there's no othuy. If you cancel the upgrade, it goes back to normal. While the upgrade is going, the ythotha can't move. (Even better if it can't move or shoot during the upgrade.) That way, a player can't just cancel the storm during the middle of a battle because they don't like where it's standing. Maybe add an "are you sure" dialog just because accidentally clicking that key would be really sad.

If we do this, the othuy should be able to kill reclaim. That would make the ythotha more interesting. Right now, since the othuy can't kill reclaim, there can be a lot left over to scoop for the defending player. Which doesn't really fit with the Seraphim mindset of "kill kill kill destroy everything." And it would be much more devastating if you snipe an ythotha while it is next to allied units/buildings.

I think I'd prefer it to be a toggleable ability with an extremely long chargeup time and cooldown, say 1 minute each. That way you have to plan ahead whether you want the storm or not. It should also start with the storm enabled as it currently is. I don't see a reason it should be forced to stand still and upgrade.

More importantly it needs to be visible on the model whether storm is enabled or not, so you can't completely blindside an opponent whether it'll spawn or not. Some kind of electrical aura would be cool, although not sure how much it'll stand out.

@techmind_

When am I ever going to be in a game where you have spent 300k mass on GC?

I think at that point you could have just built a Yolona then 1 shot them all.

Anyway, you bring up several points in your post that are some what disjointed.

As to ahwassa:

Ahwassa is also a very good counter. If enemy is building 10 GC then you would outrageously win air. You could get by on 2 Ahwassa. Although for killing single targets its more efficient just to use normal bombers.

As to the TLDR

Now you've changed from 10GC to 3 GC and 12k in ASF. if that was the case then you could coutner 3 GC with 15k ASF and the other 56k in bombers. For reference you get 250 dmg a pass on t1 bomber which is roughly 2.7 dmg per mass. So for 56K mass you get about 150k frontload damage. Meaning you would kill 1.5GC per pass. So you can kill 3 GC in 2 passes, this would be 620 or so t1 bombers. Or you could use 100 Notha which is roughly 40k mass. Or 30 Sintha which is about 60k mass.

I mean at this point you could also just kill the GC with a t3 mix of sniper bots and shield bots. Or you could use OC Sacu. There's lots of choices for Seraphim.

Spamming all mass on only GC is very dumb, and you won't ever see that in a game, you will see mixed armies, such as GC with mobile shields, flacks, and some sniper bots, or Harbs.

As it currently stands a Yotha can already kill 2 GC with some support of T3 mobile shields. And Yotha is much better than a GC at killing t3 clumps. So this may inadvertantly cause Yotha based t3 armies to dominate at the earl T4 stage.

@Psions well currently building more than 1 ythota is kinda risky cause they will damage each other if focused. Obviously countering gc with air is better, because they cant shot back at it. But countering 1-2 exps and land with 1-2 ythotas is kinda bad cause they damage each other if focused down. So basically you always send single ytotha + maybe some shields to fight and not in "groups".

I liked the solution proposed by icedreamer a million years ago where the lightning storm continues to move forward along the path of the ythotha so that it mostly move away from your units and into the enemy units.

Adds more micro potential to the game and doesn't add any stupid toggle abilities.

@techmind_ If its 2gC v 2 Yotha, the yotha walk into the gc and damage the GC more than the ally Yotha. Its not rocket science.

@ThomasHiatt that would make Yotha overpowered. You can imagine you barely reach enemy base and it blows up, now irrelevant of that fact their whole base explodes because the death effect is now a shield avoiding nuke.

It would be a significant balance change if anything was done here. If your losing a lot of ground units to the e field then your either not planning well or getting caught of guard by some surprise element that wasn't scouted.

Seraphim may lose heads up to aeon, but for late game seraphim t3 shield size and strength gives them a big advantage for arty wars, and seraphim cant ras, so they will have engineer coms to brace with which are way more potent than the aeon's ras ball. Also the size and strength of t3 shield land units gives you options if you cycle them through right.

So bottom line is that hitting a terrorist timing to get some damage done early on when 1-2 experimentals are possible is the seraphim prime time, after that your parrying their offense behind t2 turtle and managing experimental count and defense and t3 to hold the line and get the reclaim.

As long as your hitting a good t3 arty timing and keeping them from being able to work on a paragon effectively (eg forcing them to focus shields) you'll win here. 8v8 experimentals is just dumb for seraphim to even take
just use 5 experimentals and ridiculous t2 creep and defend vs his 8 and laugh at him crying about the mass donation afterwards.

I love terrorist timings

@Spy_Emanciator said in Ythotha should get a switch for Othuy:

If your losing a lot of ground units to the e field then your either not planning well or getting caught of guard by some surprise element that wasn't scouted.

The whole point of the discussion here is that it's difficult to use Ythothas supported by other units or in groups. Yes you might not get hit by the lightning often, but that's because you need to retreat with your entire army if the Ythotha goes down.

@Deribus Usually when using Yotha in a land fight rather than as a suicide unit, I would either have it at the very front and supported by sniper bots or, at the back heavily shielded.

When Yotha is going to die you should push it to front as much as possible as close to enemy units as possible, and then in the space it creates you can fire with your sniper bots without enemy being able to come into range.

Sera have the strongest mobile shields by a mile, so absolutely dominate the range t3 game, so Yotha is a good space maker for sera range units like sniper bots or mobile artillery.

Seraphim have the strongest land units in the game, and the only faction that comes close is cybran because of megalith spam, but the critical mass of megalith required is unrealistic in a normal game.

This is all kind of irrelevant though, since you will never see huge t3 armies in a normal game, because its so much easier to defend than it is to attack, and game enders are so cheap, that the viability of large land armies quickly diminishes.

@Deribus Right well with most factions you put the experimental up front to bludgeon through and make room for your army and get stealth attack.

With seraphim you really want it going in last and using every hp from other units to give you travel time inwards further than you would have gotten so the storm hits something juicier.

@FunkOff That was me. Code still exists, and it was put forward as a balance patch, but was rejected by whoever was BC at the time. Which sucked, because it made so much sense for the unit and made it much more fun to use.