Cybran strat OP

Back before building HP nerfs Cybran strat was arguably the least powerful one, since it couldn't oneshot T2 mexes (2750 damage, 3k mex HP). This was somewhat countered by its huge AoE making it undodgeable and able to kill huge fields of engies, as well as stealth.

After the nerf, the strat feels a bit too OP in my opinion. It's now by far the best strat for killing infrastructure, often able to groundfire 2 mexes at once. Other than some niche situations like killing structures with exactly 6k or 9k HP, the main disadvantage of Cybran strats is gone.

I'm not providing any rationale for the above since I think it's not really necessary, I think everyone is familiar with strats and groundfiring. I suppose a counterargument could be made that the UEF bomber has just one less AoE, I am not entirely sure how much of a difference that makes.

As a nerf, I'd suggest splitting Cybran bomber's AoE into an inner an outer ring, like nukes are. Details could be figured out I'd throw out two examples:

• 2750 dmg/5 AoE, 1500 dmg/7 AoE,
• 2750 dmg/6 AoE, 1000 dmg/7 AoE.

I'm not joining in on the discussion on whether the strat is too strong. But I feel that your proposed solution is not compatible with what players expect from the game. Almost any explosion / AOE is either a full hit or no hit. Making an additional exception for bombers is not desirable in my opinion.

An alternative could be that the strat doesn't drop one, but four or more bombs. Similar to the T2 Cybran fighter / bomber - but with more AOE and damage. That way the target in the center will (typically) receive full damage, where as targets on the outer edges will receive less damage. And it will all match with the expectations of the player.

I like the idea of several radius, i'll forward it to the balance team

edit : Although I understand jip worries

If its considered op due to its aoe why not increase the damage ‘value’ of aoe slightly instead; i.e. atm from memory its 250 (apart from a quirk with aeon), so make it 300 with uef getting -25, sera +25, cybran -75 and aeon +125 (correcting the quirk). That’d involve a far less fundamental change and keep the units functioning as they currently do. I wouldnt favour a multi aoe type effect like a nuke

Also worth noting that uef and cybran strats are the only ones that can reliably snipe a commander due to their aoe

Also keep in mind that overkill on t2 mexes matters. But yeah the stealth is very strong.

Don't forget to give +50 damage to Aeon strat to add some revelancy to their "superior" damage.

+1 to Jip comment, splitting the damage into inner/outer ring is quite annoying, unless the radius indicator shows clearly the rings (when you groundifre).
I don't know about cybran strat needing a nerf, it's a clear strenght of this faction and i think it's good like that. The stealth is clearly the best part of this strat tbh, idk about nerfing damage ...

Cybran is by far the worst faction in high level 1v1 right now, and giving them a nerf on top of that doesn't make any sense. I think any balance proposal or consideration must consider the faction in the context of overall balance, and this suggestion runs counter to that.

I am also against the idea of adding additional complexity to the game—which increases the already massive entry barrier this game already has. Generally, I think the best approach is to find the simplest approach that solves the problem. If the damage is OP, nerf it. If the AOE is op, nerf it. Don't just go introducing new mechanics to units, especially when solutions that don't require new mechanics work just as well, if not better.

I don't think the idea of having multiple damage rings serves any balance purpose or is intuitive at all, especially if the information is not clearly communicated to the player. I very recently (the past year) learned that nukes have 2 damage radii, that the targeting indicator actually shows that, and the outer radius does only 500 damage. I played Supcom when it came out in 2007 on and off until now, and I never noticed that in all my years of playing.

@archsimkat said in Cybran strat OP:

I don't think the idea of having multiple damage rings serves any balance purpose or is intuitive at all, especially if the information is not clearly communicated to the player. I very recently (the past year) learned that nukes have 2 damage radii, that the targeting indicator actually shows that, and the outer radius does only 500 damage. I played Supcom when it came out in 2007 on and off until now, and I never noticed that in all my years of playing.

You can actually see multiple damage rings when you hold shift to order a bomb drop.

I had a newish player just today who thought that bombers have multiple damage rings like nukes do because of this preview. This doesn't necessarily refute your main points, but is just something worth considering.

In my opinion either all splash should have graduated damage or not should. Imagine only cybran strats do, while other strats don't, or the seraphim t3 bomber does but the t1 bomber does not, or bombers do while t3 arty does not. Having edge cases is not at all intuitive.

Cybran T3 air is by far the superior T3 air. The main advantage is all their T3 planes have cheap or free stealth with no significant disadvantage. I agree with the OP that the cybran strat bomber should be nerfed. I would prefer a small nerf to damage to remove its ability to OHKO T2 mex. Also, the cost of the bomber's stealth should be increased to perhaps 300 or 500 per aircraft. It's kind of stupid that you can cheaply stealth a game-ending swarm of 30 or 50 strat bombers for the cost of one or two pgens.

If you nerf cyb strat to not be able to 1 shot a t2 mex then it immediately becomes below F tier as a strat bomber, absolutely not a reasonable suggestion. Like, to the point that anyone that needs to make air and spawns as Cybran will ask for an engineer to make another faction's air. Much more justifiable to either touch the HP or the e expenditure of stealthing it.

Cybran T2 mexes have 1800 HP, so we'd have to nerf strat damage by a massive 40%.

@ftxcommando The way I see it, the most important duties of T3 strat bombers are 1) Killing ACUs and 2) killing T2 Mex. The Cybran Strat bomber is actually much better at both of these than any other strategy bomber. It's best against ACUs because of stealth AND undodgeable drops. It's best against T2 mex because high splash allows many opportunities to kill 2, 3, or even 4 mex in a single pass. All I'm suggesting is that the Cybran strat bomber not be the best at EVERYTHING. (It's even the best at the less important tasks of killing land units or minor structures.) Also, an HP nerf would do hardly anything. ASFs have such incredible DPS output that there is little difference between a strat bomber with 500 hp versus a strat bomber with 5000 hp.

Any significant nerf will go after either the stealth, the AoE, or the damage. I like faction diversity, so I would prefer to keep the Cybran strat bomber's biggest strength untouched, meaning the AoE. I would also like to keep the second strength, the stealth, just with a modest nerf. The damage nerf is necessary to balance the extreme OP strength of the AoE. I don't recommend -40%, that's a bit much. Just enough that UEF's T2 mex survive one pass.

Hp does matter for 1st strat, and for bombing units with maa

I'd be ok with a small health drop (e.g. 100 or 200) or stealth energy cost increase (e.g. -150 instead of -60), or a very small damage nerf (so it stays above 2.5k). However nerfing the damage so that it can't take out a UEF T2 mex would be too much.

Either way IMO Aeon is more deserving of a change (small boost) than cybran a nerf.

@maudlin27 I've said before that the Aeon strat bomb should track targets because it's so bad and is trivially easy to dodge.

@deribus these are precision hit circles. now any projectile with 100% hits the bull's-eye, before it was not so, up to a certain point

make it more expensive in energy and that's it. Like 180k E

real problem is reloading takes only 2 sec for the t3 bomber. so people drop a bomb, stop bomber in air for 2 sec and drop another one. its like double shot above the target.

Maybe make cybran bomber less precise ? Like t2 arty which misses it shots a lot ?