Zero-K v1.5.3.4 - Cloaky Buffs

Quite the buffs. I look forward to playing a cloaky style that doesn't rely so heavily on warrior.

Rocko health buff applied:
Survives +1 hit vs.
+ rapier
+ puppy
+ scythe

Pretty much all other unit match-ups are either affected by this change linearly (in the case of high ROF weapons), or ignore this change due to shot 'rounding'.

Note that this is just within the rounding of a lot of units, even a slight hp increase would buff it vs. a bunch of other units (e.g. one more hit point would make it take another defender shot which is a 25% increase in efficiency vs. defender lines).

I think glaive speed bonus and cost reduction are more significant than might first be obvious. Glaives are melee units equivalent to zerglings in SC. Can you remember how important the speed upgrade/creep bonus was? This isn't the same magnitude, but it's very important. You're going to have slightly more glaives in the right places more often, and when they close they will get in damage quicker.

Raider match-ups that might be tipped in favour of cloaky by this change:
+ bandit
+ scorcher

Both these match-ups used to be a marginal loss for glaives (to the point where you could still outplay the disadvantage). These changes might put glaives on equal footing, or even grant raider superiority. Playing against GoogleFrog, I felt like my glaives were doing more against his bandits than normal. That might just be a feel though.

If cloaky does get raider superiority, that would put the affected match-ups on their heads.

All in all I think cloaky fac will be slung up into a first tier factory. It's received buffs to warrior, zeus, rocko, and glaive since its fall from grace, and I can't see a factory with this many strong options falling flat. I'm pretty excited to see glaive be relevant again.

quote: Nerf it already.

Starting commander health +800 -- done!

Warriors are nowhere close in their generalism to e.g. Scalpels, even if they regenerate. That said, regeneration does play against their designed weakness (vulnerability to being skirmished).

Riot units should mostly be used for territory control & defense. Mostly. Right?
Nowadays warriors are often used in place of glaives and zeuses, that I don't feel is right.

And then the warrior will regenerate to 100%, before it reaches the next LLT 5 meters away.

quote: quote: Warriors are still terrible assault units Well, what would you excpect from a low-healthed, slow unit??

well...I'd expect them to be terrible assault units....

quote: I do like these changes, especially to Rocko and Glaive

well...nothing else was changed...soooooo

I think that if these buffs stay, either warrior may need a nerf, or other riots might need a buff. I personally prefer a cloaky bot factory with strong mobile units over one that makes slow death pushes. That said, the quality of life improvement of warrior regen outweighs the balance issue for me... Warrior is now a cheap, reliable, regenerator with enormous dps, and it would be awkward to nerf these capacities. The regeneration could be reduced while still keeping the same feel. This would reduce the run-away tempo victories that warrior can get early in the game. Maybe HP? So long as it still takes four duck shots an HP reduction would keep it strong vs. all raiders while making it more susceptible to skirmishers etc.

I would personally prefer other riots be buffed to come into line with warrior. Most of them feel weak even if it is still a good idea to make them *grumbles at gf*. Leveler is very slow, but also unreliable vs. scorcher. Banisher is fine sort of because it's in HT and people love that stuff for no reason, but mace is so expensive I'd prefer to rely on constantly updating statics. Outlaw and scallop are well-balanced (though I still avoid making scallops for general use).

Warrior assault stuff:
Warriors die to overlapping defense ranges very quickly. Well before making cost. One of the main benefits of assault units is that they largely ignore defenders, but each defender chunks off almost 40% of a warrior health before it starts firing. While it can make great cost in lightly porced areas (so very powerful at beginning of game), it is not an assault and never will be, even if it can do the job just a little bit.

Maybe.. maybe its about time the scythe was nerfed back towards sanity.

Scythes don't even get used (effectively) that often.

resigned