MMLs are terrible - Lack of competent T2 siege option contributes to turtling
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Don't tell them
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This is the mml vs firebase discussion i am commenting on.
Tmls are my babes and i will not talk of them.
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If MMLs are any good, we can probably see a good few used to good effect in the LOTS tournament. Same for T1 subs. If we see few or none, that's important, too.
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I have seen so many faces wrecked by MML spam in midrank team games it is not even funny. One of the guys in our normal crew has actually integrated "the mml phase" into his general strategy it is so successful.
If you have ~10 mml (which is not that expensive) you cannot reasonably build enough TMD to defend against it in a firebase. If you do manage, you are so far behind on eco, you've pretty much thrown. Yes, I know, not every game has firebases, but I think it should logically follow that not every game needs MML to be built either.
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@FunkOff said in MMLs are terrible - Lack of competent T2 siege option contributes to turtling:
@Biass I do not build MMLs because they are underpowered and are not effective at the basic task for which they are intended.
Are you going to tell me you just woke up one day and decided this was the case? I don't think it's unreasonable to believe an event happened that caused you to come to this conclusion. Post the damn replay or don't post at all mate
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Not sure if previously stated, I just think the problem is this:
A standard t1 army comp almost always has a few t1 arty in it. This is because t1 arty is good at both PD killing and as a combat unit. This means you almost always have t1 mobile arty available to kill PD that spring up. Its cheap and it works, and it helps to kill army units as well.
A standard t2 army comp usually does NOT include MML, as they are terrible combat units outside if niche situations. 99/100 times, you would rather have a few more t2 tanks to bolster up your forces. This means that once you see a firebase, you need to pause land facility, build 2-5 MML's, haul their ass too the front line, kill the PD, and then advance. By then, whatever reason the enemy built those T2 PD for already fulfilled their task (cover for an upgrade, secure reclaim field, buy time for t3 land). Now you are left with a dead firebase that already fulfilled its purpose, while you have a few MML's that will now do fuck all for your army.
I to fix your problem, I see two solutions: Make MML more of a combat unit (splash increase?) to have it be a standard part of a t2 army. This way you can counter t2 PD quicker/more effectively. Problem is this would wreck havoc with the meta and cause a few problems. Not sure if we want the game to go this way.
Make the missile damage significantly higher. This will mean you could kill t1/t2 PD much faster, with less units. Having a single MML in your army might be useful as a utility piece. Or rushing a pair of MML's out in a transport could actually break a firebase fairly quickly. Also this way, its interaction with TMD will remain unchanged.
Food for thought.
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A standard early game army comp usually does not include t1 arties as they are terrible combat units vs small armies. Just check Nexus' last desert arena game vs blodir. min 8:30 Blodir has 45 tanks 2 arties and nexus has 36 tanks and 2 arties. Once armies grow big enough arties start to become really good since even if they miss their shot they will likely hit another unit as well, but before that happens they are only really build to counter t1 pd's.
If you check the masscost difference between t1 tank/arty and t2 tank/mml:
Sera: t1 tank is worth 1 arty, t2 bot is worth 2 mml's
Aeon: t1 tank is worth 1.5 arty, t2 tank is worth 2 mml's
Cybran: t1 bot is worth 1.5 arty, t2 tank is worth 1.5 mml
Uef: t1 tank is worth 1.5 arty, t2 tank is worth 1 mmlSo in general mixing in a few mml's with your t2 army to counter t2 pd's is cheaper than mixing in a few arties with your t1 army to counter t1 pd's. (ofc there are other things to consider like Also like i said before mml's get the same bonus that arties get when armies become big enough. Ofcourse this bonus isn't anywhere as big as the bonus t1 arties gain, but it's good enough to get some value out of mml's.
Also the main reason why people don't build anywhere near as much mml's as arties to counter pd's is simply because t1 pd's are infinitely more efficient vs t1 tanks than t2 pd's are vs t2 tanks
In short: If you have trouble facing t2 pd's just stop being lazy and mix in the random mml in your army mix just like everybody does with t1 arties to counter t1 pd's
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TBH I never use MML's too much but it doesn't mean they are useless, they just have a very niche role which often isn't necessary in 1vs1. Most of the time when I build a t2 pd and my enemy shows up with MML's I just ctrk the pd, reclaim it and by that time I don't need it since I used the mass to get more units thus the pd is no longer necessary (compared to my enemy that invested into mml's) but the mml's fulfilled their role, got rid of the t2 pd efficiently.
Coming back to the MML's compared to t1 arties, they definitely can do pretty well but you rarely see big enough t2 armies for them to really make sense because of other reasons. -
spam shields in front of their firebase and make them waste a bunch of mass on t2 arty so they can feel safe in their immobile impenetrable fortress
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@Tex You have t1 arty in t3 comps still. T1 arty is the strongest land unit in the game, its the equivalent of Frigates for land. So I don't think its useful comparing mml to arty imo.
Personally I think MML are underused, because people rush into the t3 stage. Why pro-long a t2 stage against a firebase, when you can just rush to t3 and dump on it hard with mobile arty or shield disruptors. Protacting t2 stage just leads to a huge mass investment on units that have no scalability against T3. Its the same reason T3 Mobile MML don't get used. T3 mobile arty are simply better and more viable as they can also kill units.
If you want to make MML more viable, then they need to scale better into the T3 stage. In this sense, they could certainly have a master missile speed for better accuracy.
MML should kill shields faster than arty, but arty should have better AOE so more all round is the way I see it. Currently, in almost all situations its more efficient to rush t3 and get Mobile artillery.
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