@deletethis said in Seraphim Navy vs Cybran stealth sub:

"Before we go any further, I'd like to remind you that cybrans have mermaids, which will effectively make your subs useless unless you have other ships that can deal with them."
This is true! I was trying to avoid a entire naval discussion, but I guess there's really no point haha.

"In any realistic situation, there would be a mix of units."
True! I guess my point is that a mix of units does not really solve the issue for sera in this case. Sera destroyers can only fight cybran ones by starting submerged and then coming up when they are in ranged and microing, but with the stealth advantage as well as the mermaid, it pushes the t2 naval combat quite strongly in the cybrans favor. When their t1 is already the best, its peculiar that the Seraphim pay off for surviving till t3 is a sub that is not mass efficient vs that faction.

"If you are in a situation where you have t3 hq and the enemy is spamming t2 subs, you could just make battleships instead, groundfire them, and then proceed to bombard his base."
This is kinda true, but it requires micro on one side with no micro on the other, as well as dodges the point a bit. sera and cybran battleships are pretty close all things considered, but across the entire rest of the navy the only unit v unit sera win (controlling for mass) is with very small numbers of destroyers when the cybran player does not build a mermaid. which is silly if the sera have to wait an entire tier to get a unit just to find its not mass efficient.
I am not even sure of the point you are trying to make here.

" Sera t3 subs are pretty strong as support units from the back of your navy, they shouldn't be your main force. "

This is also a really good point, comparisons in a vacuum are meaningless, and the t3 is fundamentally a strong unit. However this does not really excuse the fact that the cybran navy at t2 is sufficient to beat the sera navy at t3.
"I'm also not sure why you are saying that they are very strong against UEF? Are you forgetting about their bulwarks and that the coopers are pretty efficient at their job?"
Nope! but sera destroyers can micro in to kill coopers and then dive back under water, and sera t3 subs still do their intended job against uef navies, because jamming on surface boats is much easier to beat than stealth on underwater units.

"I'm not even getting here into other options, such as air (torps, all faction) or harms (which costs the same as your subs, outranges it, and also has stealth-but it doesn't move)."
Harms are stationary, which allows cruisers, bs, or other units to ground fire it. barracudas can keep moving (at a very fast 6.5). This means to even have a chance of ground firing them you need constant vision, which I think I have shown the Sera dont have access to. Harms only need to be spotted once.
t2 torps are really really cost effective vs subs. but against a full navy, as well as the enemy airforce, they are not nearly as viable, especially after asfs role out. If the cybran players spams inties and subs, the sera plays has to spam subs or destroyers to keep in the naval game, enough inties to take the cybran ones down with losing naval control (cruisers will have to move up into sub range to protect torpedo bombers from inties), and then have the eco for torp bombers.

This kinda makes me re-assured in my point: the sera navy isn't overly bad, nor the cybran navy overly good, but the seraphim lack a cost efficient solution to a realistic cyrban navy push at any stage of the game, due to their reliance on range play and lack of a viable vision tool.

Ythotha loses in every one on one, unlike monkey and gc, it does not have lazers, meaning only a few clicks can allow you to dodge 2 of its 3 weapons. just bait the eye canon with clicks and then enjoy the easy win.

@lord_asmodeus

Based

I know this has come up in the past. While I love the micro and creativity element of ground firing submerged units, it fundamentally breaks the game when battleships just groundfire subs to delete them (looking at you aeon t4).

Then nerf barracuda and call it a day.

I think the tension is due to factional differences in use of sacu. uef wants to be a super engineer, cybran wants to be a sneaky boi, seraphim wants to be an experimental (or exp killer) and aeon... not sure what aeon is gunning for tbh.

They should be balanced accordingly. UEF for example might be good as late game shield for percies, (with aoe shield upgrade) but fundamentally the uef does not need more frontline pressure. Percy does that fine and with fatboy their late game land is rounded out extremely well. (not to say its strong or weak, but that it has bombardment and front line abilities and no glaring weaknesses) Therefore, ras and build power makes sense as the primary design, even if other options are available in a pinch
cybran similarly do not need more late game combat pressure, between monkey and brick and crab. BUT they could use more utility. stealth and cloak plus engineering allows them to grab hard to get mass, set up hidden tml bases, etc. underwater utility would also make sense so they can be used with t3 torp defense.
Sera late game land does have some issues, specifically the chicken cannot be spammed because if they die next to eachother they start killing each other (they also have extremely dodgable damage). Sera sacu should be a spammable combat unit that they can switch to AFTER the first few chickens have come and gone. they should have high build time so it takes time to mass them, but they should be able to go head to head against experimentals. (the cost efficiency of this depends on if they can reclaim or are producing resources themselves. if they are then they should need to do some of that to be cost worth it)
Aeon dont need more direct combat at late game, and are probably most appropriate as ras bois to help aeon get and defend salvation, paragon, and experimental spams that they love so much.

I think the worry for me is that reworked sacus might crowd out their t3 land counterparts or fight them for use, or do things that are factionally apropriate, but dont make sense in totality. for example i remember sera sacu might get aoe regen field. This is awesome and would encourage more unit diversity for the faction, which is awesome, but sera t3 doesnt actually need more utility, thats the point of the t3 mobile shield, they need a solution to their poor t4 phase.

Not sure why nerf sera sacu. No ras upgrade and OC is dog crap now (not cost effective at all, only good as a combat engineer) and telesnipes are pretty rare except for a few maps.
Aeon change is fine

@exselsior I think you are hitting on a good point, which is that t1 subs are generally minimally viable across the board in most cases. but regardless, I still hold that the sera t1 change would be beneficial for both faction diversity and balance.

@deribus seraphim leverage has it as a mode, its actually not bad. only time it sucks is maps that have water but no means to have navy. basically 5 sniper bots under a t3 shield with a flack are comparable to a destroyer or 2

When you thought your post was not controversial but you come back to this comment section lol.

Also, back to main point, sera needs a torp relevant buff at at least one tech. I actually think its ok if sera destro sucks in mass if the t1 or t3 sub is actually good enough to compensate (which it currently is not).

@melanol
put 10 sera subs against 10 of any other faction. they lose, largely because they waste torp defense on the same torpedo. 1 on 1 its even, as number increase sera lose markedly. can confirm for cybran and uef, never tested aeon ill be honest

Seraphim t1 sub is generally considered the worst of the bunch, and with the recent destroyer changes, the sera destro is also struggling to keep up past the micro stage of t2 navy. Finally, the t3 sub hunter still loses mass for mass against t2 cybran sub hunters ( actually, every single unit in the sera navy loses mass to mass vs the cybran t2 sub).
my solution is simple: either increase sera t1 sub's anti torp fire rate, or make it a torpedo flair instead.
By doing this, seraphim will use their sub like a cooper or mermaid later in the game, due to it being the cheapest access to anti torps in the game. This will create a unique playstyle, offer good sera players a slightly better game under the water, and causing them to have a more engaging playstyle.