Talking about the Fatty

@sladow-noob said in Talking about the Fatty:

@ftxcommando said in Talking about the Fatty:

Frankly the upcoming nerfs to air t4s are a big help for both fatties and percies so I’d rather see how that impacts viability of the units for UEF than adjust anything atm.

I didn't even have T4 air exps in mind during the discussion since they're pretty expensive anyway. Lower tech air will still be the most effective counter, especially T2 if we talk about Cybran/Sera or otherwise just T3.

T2 does nothing to stop a percy push and a fatty is just there to make a percy push more likely to succeed. T3 air isn't really that great against percies either.

@jip said in Talking about the Fatty:

I'm strongly against removing the bubble shield. And as others have noted - it doesn't solve the problem of the unit being too big.

That's not true since the bubble shield results in overspill and makes parashields kinda pointless for a fatty.

I think the unit named Fatboy should remain fat, keeping its large size and bubble shield. And I think the Fatboy is already a pretty good unit as it is.

While the fatboy might be a bit underwhelming due to easily being countable, I don't think UEF struggle in the late-game stage. The land experimental category might be just about the only category where the uef isn't near-best or outright best. And they have much to compensate this weakness (great t3 land, t3 gunships, great turtle options).

If the consensus is that UEF falls too far behind in this gamestage, I would rather look at the GCs and Ythothas ability to slaughter T3 land, than change the fatty much.

UEF isn't outright best in any t3 category lol, well early t3 land stage they are the best.

The biggest strength of the fatty is that it is one of the only hard counters in the game and that 1 existing essentially turns all snipers irrelevant. No other t4 does an equivalent impact on the long term game state even if fatty can't just be right clicked into enemy base while you go to the bathroom to win the game.

I don't have much to add to this post, aside from saying that if a unit is pointless in anything but meme scenarios, it's a waste.

Fatty's wreck has 23k mass and <12k HP, and I once made a Fatty and its wreck disappear with 8 tacticals. So, -11k mass per tactical to the wreck. Give it tacdef, and flak if possible.

I think fatboy may need to get an abikity of unload. So it will make shield stronger and makes shells fly faster and maybe a 10% rate of fire buff while in that state. Copy rights reserved from SC2 =).

I have no idea how I missed Yudi's post but he basically pointed out the exact thing I kinda tried to say.

As Banani said actually increasing the dps + speed of the shells might be the way instead of buffing the shield hp / general hp. The Fatty would be able to stop incoming T4s faster / is a higher threat and therefore can defend structures better, which are relevant in the lategame such as t3 arties.

All we need is to wait for turins sacu rebalance to make bubble boy spam viable for fatty support :psycho:

Love how I didn't follow turin's post and now I'm like.... "Either he's serious or I'll get clowned on" 4head

For those of you saying "just bring along shields" (either t2 or shield boys), having them assist the fatty rarely seems to position them in a way that protects it. Am I missing something or is it really that micro intensive to have mobile shields actually shield the thing?

I mean if you have like 20 Parashields a support-order should be enough. If the fatboy is pushing, there is a chance that they'll fall behind, so yes. If it moves, you might have to micro slightly, but since it's not moving that often, it doesn't rlly need a lot of micro.

Sure, if you have TWENTY parashields, ten of them will be in front of it, and ten behind. So you're getting some efficacy, but only half.

And what if you have 5? Or 2? Shouldn't they at least make some difference, or are you really saying you need at least x amount before it matters at all?

Well, if we compare the costs of parashields, the time a Fatty enters the shield and all the other circumstances, then having <10 parashields with a fatty is a big mistake in the gameplay. That's a must-have and since you could afford a fatty, they shouldn't make any difference referring to the economy

Vanilla fatty was a monster. It packed those big boy summit cannons. Shell damage and speed was massive. Dps was way higher even with like, 1/4th the ROF. I miss vanilla fatty. It would still suffer from the same problems but it was way cooler.

@sladow-noob said in Talking about the Fatty:

Well, if we compare the costs of parashields, the time a Fatty enters the shield and all the other circumstances, then having <10 parashields with a fatty is a big mistake in the gameplay. That's a must-have and since you could afford a fatty, they shouldn't make any difference referring to the economy

My point here is not "making parashields is hard" but "should you really have to have additional units to make a fatboy even viable?"

All the other factions have an exp that can operate just fine on its own. Sure if you're losing air you need AA, etc. etc., but an early monkey by itself can clean house and a fatboy by itself can... be sort of annoying I guess? Your main counterargument is really "well it's fine if you just build these other units to go with it?"

You also did not answer my question regarding if there is a way that is not micro-intensive to have a majority of mobile shields (whether t2 or boy) actually cover a fatboy.

That's what you mean. Misunderstood the first part then.

Also I wouldn't call "move shields every now and then, otherwise support the fatty" micro-intense, so I adressed that. It does take micro, yes, but only a couple of clicks every now and then, so basically... nothing compared to other units

Lol a exp without support is typically a dead exp

@Pearl12 Comparing it to the monkeylord is a bit unfair since that's the ultimate rush experimental and it only manages those memorable base wipes when it's brought to bear early enough to encounter little resistance. But the balance team was afforded a luxury when making it so: cybran have 2 land experimentals so they could specialize one of them for early-late-game. Fatties, on the other hand, we should instead compare to chickens, GCs and megaliths.

All that being said, you are still right, I think. The fatty is more dependent on supporting units than all of those, since it can't tank and its damage is so low. This, I think, was also a deliberate design choice by the balance team, justified at the time by the fact that UEF had what was perceived to be a stronger-than-average t3 land unit mix, some even said the strongest, before snipers became so popular.

I think that by trying to make it's extreme range the defining characteristic though, the balance team sort of painted themselves into a corner. With this constraint, they had to reduce its speed, damage and health compared to other experimentals, otherwise it could just kite them too effectively. This, in turn, made it disproportionately vulnerable to air snipes and t2 artillery, as people have mentioned. To be clear, I don't think it's a bad design direction to explore, but maybe toning down it's range, projectile speed or shot spread a bit might allow some buffs to it's weaknesses, health and damage. As long as other experimentals, while dodging, can still take it down 1v1, that might be ok.