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How to deal with skirmishers as spiders?

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4 years ago
I play spiders quite a bit. I love being able to ignore terrain and attack from unexpected angles. However, in a direct confrontation, particularly when my opponent has invested heavily in skirmishers/artillery (ronins, slings, firewalkers, emissaries, tremors, etc.), my spiders just can't keep up. It's a combination of how much more expensive spider units are coupled with their slow movement rates.

Sometimes I use flea swarms to take out artillery, but even one lotus turret beats that. Doesn't work against good players.

Recluses are devastating against defense turrets (spread doesn't matter so much there), but against skirmishers, only 1/3 of the rockets hit, so they get wiped out pretty easily unless I can position them behind a hill.

So now my question is: How does a spider player counter skirmisher swarm? Fac-switch? Delay building other units and build a crab? I'm at a bit of a loss, but I think this is an important step in learning how to play this game better.


+0 / -0
recluse are one of the best skirmishers in the whole game..

help them by:

mixing in a raised crab to punish those who focus on the recluse
morph a cloaker to follow them and or keeping a venom or two in the cloak to hunt targets for recluse
using hills or terraform
sending in fleas to distract fire
porc crawling defender turrets with op spider cons
spiders need to sometimes fall back to terra castles while they wait for crabs

my main advice is get a crab when you can.. a raised crab is godly vs most targets
+0 / -0
4 years ago
quote:
my main advice is get a crab when you can.. a raised crab is godly vs most targets

Send troll com or shot by 4 lances at same time or 5 lichos fire at same time to finish it or call a tremor.
+2 / -4
you can kill a crab its true.. but lance/tremmor/trollcom are not skirmishers so are static or close combat.. troll coms cant d-gun high crabs too and even if they can they get widdow. if they have trem/litcho/lance units and you cannot reach them with flea/widdow/hermit ball push then i advise you facswitch or merlin

nukebombers call for spider mobile aa above static aa.. but 5 litcho needs Artemis

but idk lots of things can work
btw hermits more often then not fail to achieve anything.. and tbh even if they are good value for unit health they just too shit at aiming and speed to kill most things. huge balls of hermits are just free metal as soon as raiders turn up and that doesnt take long. despite the health hermit still needs some form of a slight buff tbh imho
+0 / -0

4 years ago
quote:
...4 lances at same time or 5 lichos..


Kelaze,

When people want counters they want it for cost or under, your suggestion is 5 times the cost of a crab, if all your counters are this expensive you will always lose.
+2 / -0
4 years ago
most likley true. even if hard counters can force the player to facswitch and if they loose the reclaim from crab and a set of forward mex + porc and they made a second crab but cant field it now.. it can make cost only barley.. but still 5 lance leaves you open for your own hard counters at a much better cost ratio.
+0 / -0
Why have to blame me for 5 cloaked lance? Why have to blame me for 5 lichos? Questions, Do your team has these units? If so, crab alone go away.

There has Artemis? Why my team didn't slio it? There has chainsaw? Why we don't have slio?

Oh well, 4hundred, how about a sumo to help finish crabs? if you dont like, call some bertha firing or take away by using transporter.

Why god I don't know the Artemis so I send 5 lichos to bomb crab? Come on, could we get realiable practice stuff? or you do really think to send expensive units to exchange a crab.

Why my enemy so much prepared as you come you died?

Tremor could be most real solution for raised crab, if raised crab no AA around, just call transporter take him out.

Oh I see you were playing 4v4 or below or you are say there is early solutions right? Then why troll com doesnt work, why tremor doesnt work? why you cant transport him?

So, what are we talking about? Its logic was working on there? or just flamewar.
+0 / -0

4 years ago
What makes you think the question was about team games?

Sometimes people just want to know, in a specific circumstance, is it possible to beat X?

That's what the question is.

If you try to answer the question with send 4x as much metal at the problem, then yes you can beat anything assuming you have that much more eco than your oppoenent. Or if your answer is "rely on your ally to deal with it for you" then you're not teaching anyone how to be that ally that is going to have an effective counter at similar cost.

The question really is both players have, say, 2k or 3k metal in units. One player is spiders, the opponent is another factory with a mix heavy on skirmishers or artillery. How does the spider player spend the metal to win?
+0 / -0

4 years ago
English is your second language, i hope?, I have tried to decipher your comment and concluded: don't do anything against crab, just get team mates to deal with it?

Anyhow, Ive got into using skuttles recently against crabs, although its not great, 2 skuttles against a dugg in crab doesnt even kill it, It needs tiny additional damage, is that how it should be?... or u need to catch it walking.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
quote:
The question really is both players have, say, 2k or 3k metal in units. One player is spiders, the opponent is another factory with a mix heavy on skirmishers or artillery. How does the spider player spend the metal to win?

Morph a aegis to aspis for army will help a lots on this army size.

quote:
Anyhow, Ive got into using skuttles recently against crabs, although its not great, 2 skuttles against a dugg in crab doesnt even kill it, It needs tiny additional damage, is that how it should be?... or u need to catch it walking.

It wasnt efficient.

quote:
English is your second language, i hope?

Sure.

quote:
don't do anything against crab, just get team mates to deal with it?

Your teammate as a part of your game environment, whatever Your teammate cooperate or not, you could use your teammate's porc building to cover your cloaked lancer then...
Hmm, sure, your teammate is your last resort If you didn't do anythings to against crab. as I do a singu rush too.
But well, I like 5 licho or 3 cloaked lance idea for efficiency, because ammo is metal/energy free.

or if you like, to get a bunch of impalers.

quote:
I have tried to decipher your comment and concluded:

Sorry for my english, this is how do we communication and that is why we talking on here.
+0 / -0
5 Lance is 5k, so just get Bertha instead.
5 Likho is 10k; get a nuke or a Paladin.

You only need 1 Likho though to throw a crab off spire and force it to uncurl. If timed with a ground sortie, the combined damage of explosion, drop, and efforts of the ground forces usually do the trick. Or just get a Tremor.

quote:
The question really is both players have, say, 2k or 3k metal in units. One player is spiders, the opponent is another factory with a mix heavy on skirmishers or artillery. How does the spider player spend the metal to win?

Since your opponent is arty and skirms, you are in the artyporc phase of ZK.

The real answer here is of course Merlin, almost within our budget. But if you're stuck with spiders, the Crab Spire is one of the nastiest artyporcs around, and one that can is immune to raiders without having to spend on riot escorts. There are tons of small tricks to use with it that negate naive counters, such as abusing armor and weaver buildpower to withstand shelling; using a cloaker to deny enemy targetting; moving behind the spire's shadow to hide from enemy shots while ambushing anything that approaches closer; having a few Venoms as point defense against Ravens and possibly even Likho.

Now, if the enemy is not yet artyskirms but mere normal skirms in the ronin-rogue-scalpel-moderator range class, you can just spam recluse. The only one rocket hitting is misguiding: as densities increase, the stray missiles will hit other targets; and also you're still outranging them.
+4 / -0
quote:
5 Lance is 5k, so just get Bertha instead.

Then which one Strategic would earns more kill ratio? Sure, possibly are Bertha. However when you want kill comm or something high metal units or like crabe porcs on tactic, your best friend was cloaking lance squad.

quote:
5 ,Likho is 10k; get a nuke or a Paladin.

However, when you are Air support, you already has some Likhos, why not one more Likho for crabes?
Let's say you are building Paladin, If you were Air support then how many units killed by your Likhos, will your Paladin kills more than Likho squad?
Or, Paladin are more useful on pushing and Likho are more using on defend?

Well, I am going to stop to talk this topic, I am sick on this topic.

EDIT:
quote:
You only need 1 Likho though to throw a crab off spire and force it to uncurl.

Crabe are going move back, as orginal state after well. Then how many times will resolve the crabe? If there none ground units to supporting your Likho to kill Crabe?
+0 / -0
if i see a lance or a Likho i will produce a trap to kill them / counter them

and if you keep them secret for a long time i should have gained enough ground and reclaim to make a large rolling army

lance is good.. just 1 will do and ill shadow the crab on back of spire with lots of heals and cloaks wile im getting a reserve force for a factory switch / merlin .. vs lance i like raider spam

maybe mass ducks + a few limpets cloaked vs hovers.. the limpets can reverse counter the mace with ducks and the cloak stops scalpels getting time to turn
+0 / -0
Need context.

Emissaries and tremors are unlikely to show up as a first factory on a hilly terrain. Spiders are usually picked to overcome such terrain.

For jump bot, the fire walker sure is annoying but it ain't cheap to build either. If they spend time on fire walker, you could have time to harass and push them back while you build your crab.

For cloakbot, flea spam would kill the ronins and slinger. Of course he can build counters. Again, if you are on hilly terrain, the cloakbot movement would be limited.

Remember that spider has higher terrain mobility for hilly areas therefore you it is part of the advantage.
+0 / -0

4 years ago
Recluse kills all skirmishers...fleas kill all skirmishers
+1 / -0
4 years ago
recluse do have some trouble vs wolverine
+0 / -0

4 years ago
but wolverine/badger is not a skirm.
+1 / -0
oops =) i get confused because its the most skirmish-like unit that factory has.. it can fight so well while retreating
+0 / -0

4 years ago
well, the general thing seems to be:
more range beats less range
+2 / -0