Well it's called the 'Overpowered Missile Update' for a reason. I think Google saw this coming.

I'm totally not a fan of a factory with such an awesome raider-riot (Archer) not actually needing it in raider wars though. :/

Well no, the next game on Iced Coffee shows that when Googlefrog plays after midnight he sometimes runs his com into defences and scythes alone and gets it killed. I would not draw any conclusions about amph vs. cloaky balance from that.

Duck were not given overkill prevention in the Overpowered Missile Update... perhaps they were given it later, I haven't gone back to read all the patch notes.

There's basically no way to take a winning fight with glaive vs. duck; at absolute best, if you have overwhelming odds, you trade 1:1 (which is admittedly slightly better for you), but in most engagements with similar numbers of both units you will get completely destroyed.

(Yes, maybe you can do it with ticks - but a strategy which absolutely requires you to get good tick blasts is unreliable at best, generally. Cloaky vs. Jump, take note, though to be fair it's possible to win with glaive vs pyro if you completely outmanouver them.)

Rocko is a much better answer to Duck even after the Rocko nerf, though you might get outmanouvered. It is unintuitive from other matchups that you build a skirmisher as your only counter to a raider, but go figure.

tl;dr: nerf #duckduckduck. Who knows, maybe ship vs. amph would become playable too.

EDIT: I'm not sure whether Amph vs. Cloaky is imbalanced at the moment - if nothing else it depends a great deal on the map. However, I don't feel it's in a healthy place. If the Cloaky player knows to build Rocko (and later Sharpshooter to onehit Buoy/Scallop), the map is suitable for those units, and they can get there without dying to Duck spam, they're in a very good position until the Amph player facswitches. If those conditions do not hold the Cloaky player generally straight-up dies.

My problem, quite apart from balance, is that it's a matchup I loathe playing as Cloaky and moderately loathe playing as Amph, too. With regard to its land matchups I don't think Amph can necessarily afford to have Duck nerfed with no other changes; I'd like to see adjustments to the factory as a whole (making Archer more practical, perhaps an entirely new unit) which would allow for a Duck nerf without breaking the fac.

how would amph do anything in water if ducks would get nerfed

quote: how would amph do anything in water if ducks would get nerfed

I dunno. Maybe amph would start (gasp) losing games to ship? That would be dreadful...

Serious answer: Scallop-Buoy would still be really good. Hell, if Ducks went from 230 to 190 damage they would still probably be good in water. Maybe they'd start actually losing to Hunter. Adding a new unit would probably make that matchup healthier, too.

Neonstorm follows: an amph unit which is only mobile on the surface (i.e. it can swim on the surface but only descends to heal). Yes, it's unlike the rest of the factory. So what?

Hell, it might be interesting to see what Buoy does with that mechanic.

quote: That's more balanced than giving the entire matchup to cloaks.

If I never have to play the current cloaky vs. amph matchup again (because amph is unplayable) it will be too soon.

I'm not sure you can nerf Duck without giving Amph something in exchange but I do think the nerf to Duck should happen, one way or another.

quote: If ducks 2hit glaives, cloaky will shred amph like there's no tomorrow. At this moment in time they give away the raider game but take the rest, as Aqua said.

Amphib could still stay competitive in the raider game. Like I said, Archers exist and they are super strong against Glaives. They have almost the same speed as Ducks anyway. The main downside is that they don't really raid well. Currently you have the luxury of not needing them vs cloaky due to how ridiculous Ducks are.

Concerning mid-lategame, Amphibs have a powerful trump card called the Grizzly, so I wouldn't be worried about that stage of the game.

You know, Ducks already do need two hits to kill a Glaive. Remember they fire two missiles at once! :O

That said, maybe give the second missile a very small delay similar to Defenders to give Glaives just slightly more time to live?

quote: Concerning mid-lategame, Amphibs have a powerful trump card called the Grizzly, so I wouldn't be worried about that stage of the game.

Grizzly is hardly so good against Sharpshooter that I would be unconcerned about Amph mid-to-lategame. That being said, at the point where you're building Grizzly(s) you can be facswitching anyway.

I'm interested in seeing what reaper mode salvo would look like on ducks.

Um. Was wrong? I meant wasnt wrong. Or was right. :D Thus the '..but it's too strong'.

If there is a way to make them good when shooting at the same targets as Archers but generally not very good vs other raiders on their own I can't think of it, other than increasing their cost again and making them overkill things with a long reload time.