To anyone who still hasn't realized the meta, please watch.

started with a lobster rush, Dein?

The sad part is that sometimes the defensive offender doesn't even protect you because the targeting ai was focusing on something else.

I have been thinking about various 1v1 cheeses and how they can impact the game, and classifying them on the terms of how all-in they are, how much destruction can you expect, and how scoutable and counterable they are. I'll write up some of that here.

Historical BD rush
Now would be called a Revenant rush, but now it doesn't exist. It required more starting metal and is not practical atm. But back then...

Scoutable: Medium. Both the commander and the factory were doing nothing but the BD for a while, but they could be hidden away in a non-expected zone, and the gunship could take a sneaky path to avoid detection. But then no factory present in expected place usually meant "spam AA just in case".

Impactful: Very. A good unscouted BD rush would kill a commander and maybe even a factory while keeping the attacker unit for repairs.

All-In: Very. You could afford maybe one mex besides the BD while rushing the BD.

Overall, if scouted, you would lose. Even token AA would destroy your ability to inflict meaningful long-term damage. You could roll with the hits, using the BD to contain enemy expansion and pick stragglers, but this wouldn't make up for lost opportunity cost of actually having your own eco.

Historical Gnat Rush
You make five gnats and run into the enemy base. You stun commander, factory, turrets, and everything. Then you send more gnats on a repeat-build fight-order. This took 40 seconds.

Scoutable
Not really. This usually hit the time the first scouts make it. Unless you're gunships or planes.

Impactful
Instant victory on success. Total destruction of the enemy rather than crippling.

All-in
Medium. Little eco needed to be sacrificed - 5 gnats costed way less than a Black Dawn. But if you lost, you did no damage because gnats don't kill things.

Needless to say, this is historical for a reason.

Fencer Rush
You make 1 mex at most and pipe your everything into 4 fencers, then hit the enemy base. Typically you also include a rocket commander to take out enemy assaults, and especially guaranteed assault unit which is their commander. This strategy hasn't changed since Slasher became Fencer.

Scoutable
Very. If commander is used, it takes a direct path because it's slow. Fencer paths take predictable shapes too. Your first scout is likely to hit on it in time.

Impactful
Full immediate defeat of enemy on success.

All-in
100% of your resources are in the attack. Your factory is likely killed by a stray glaive. Your commander is an assault unit. If you fail to bring the enemy on your level and keep them there, you lose.

Reaver Rush
You take a recon commander and start as close to enemy as possible. You jump, and walk for a while, plopping the factory as close to the enemy as possible without overflowing your innate income. You pump out two Reavers and resume your jump-assisted walk while morphing an HMG and maybe an Ablative. Then you kill things while pumping glaives on repeat against the inevitable - but wrong - attempts by the enemy to counter Reavers with skirmishers.

Scoutable
Quite. Again, you take the predictable shortest path with slow units. Once spotted, the typical way the enemy loses is by making skirmishers instead of porc. Surely, skirms counter Reaver - but they need time to do it, and they need space to kite. The tempo here affords neither.

Impactful
You win in two minutes on success.

All-in
You don't even have time for that one mex that you could make in the fencer rush. 100% resources are in the rush.

Blastwing Opening
You send 4-5 Blastwing to cripple the enemy initial build-up, then expand rabidly while harrasing them.

Scoutable
Same as Gnat Rush. Only way to scout that is by mind reading.

Impactful
You cripple the enemy economy but otherwise they're alive.
Historical version with high-explosive blastwings could outright destroy them, though.

All-in
You spend less on those blastwings than cloakies usually spend on glaives.

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One of those is not like the others. Or, rather one of the non-historical things here is a lot like one of the historical things. That is, bluntly, Blastwings are low risk, high reward, and unscoutable. So one of these aspects should change, IMO.

From my previous post: https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/483932

By building a defender you're making yourself vulnerable to more strategies. Let's go through the different possibilities:

• Assume you only build a defender and then scout: You lose to enemy who builds mexes because you have no mexes.
• Assume you build a defender and mexes: You lose to classic rushes because you can't build hlt anymore.
• Assume you build a defender and raiders/blastwings: You lose to com drop because your raiders are now useless.
• Assume you build mexes first and then a defender: You lose to blastwings because they kill your mexes before you're done.

But the game isn't that simple!
Indeed, just show me how you found a way to blastwing proof your base without handicapping yourself against most other strategies.


This is meant to support your point:

quote: One of those is not like the others. Or, rather one of the non-historical things here is a lot like one of the historical things. That is, bluntly, Blastwings are low risk, high reward, and unscoutable. So one of these aspects should change, IMO.

Make a single thread. Link replays in the thread with useful descriptions.