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Buff emissary

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It just feels a bit mediocre. Fragile, low DPS. It seems like it usually does not make cost or achieve as much as other artillery does. Maybe make it tougher, like 2000 HP instead of 840. It is a tank.
+1 / -3


3 years ago
DPS wise it is already better than Impaler even when the AoE is not taken into account.
+1 / -0


3 years ago
Eh, it has felt slightly statistically lackluster since it's massive tone down, especially now that a lot of other units have had love and a chance to catch up. In 1v1 emissary often just gets run over by mass raiders before it has a chance to tactically retreat, and for it's cost, it's always heartbreaking to see that inevitably happen.

Meanwhile, a lot of the other arty is mindblowingly cheaper, with relatively few drawbacks comparatively. For example, badgers and slings - Pretty sure if you spent the same amount on those as you did an emissary, you'd get similar or more DPS, more raw HP and more maneuverability/utility. Those units don't need to be stationary. Hell, Impaler is practically S tier for long range, safe porc busting by comparison. Emissary is just too much of a cost to risk investment for what it currently is, especially for a tank unit. The bang for buck isn't there anymore.

I vote yes.
+0 / -0
Please don't make the killager kill harder.

Alternatively, if all you really want is more dps against static targets, then first ax its ability to hilariosly roflpwn mobiles.

quote:
Hell, Impaler is practically S tier for long range, safe porc busting by comparison

Except Impaler has a much narrower niche. It's like saying Flea is a better raider than Glaive because it's cheaper and has more DPS/cost. Sure enough, it's better at shooting unarmed mexes. But Glaive can shoot things that fight back.

A better comparison for Emissary is Lance.
+1 / -0


3 years ago
I get your point EErankAdminAnarchid but put it this way: Tank factory has enough options that deal with units in Kodachi, Ogre, Blitz. Is Emissary intended to be anti-unit, anti-static or a flexible mix of both? Because in the raider-heavy world of 1v1 at least, I'm rarely seeing convoys of skirmishers/riots in an attractive enough presentation to warrant using the extremely expensive emissary as my go-to choice. Firewalker has absolutely firmly positioned itself in that role and for good reason. Emissary on the other hand... It did use to be good for a variation of that, but now because of the time it spends being static, it really is geared more for anti-porc or extremely protected attempts at attrition.
+1 / -0
Impaler + widow is great against buildings, comms, heavies, and engineers alike. The main thing that makes it work is the Impaler range which lets you hit the enemy from safety even when your target is significantly behind their front line. Emissary doesn't have that kind of range and is also less able to retreat than Impaler since Emissary must stop and deploy each time it shoots, and takes time to undeploy too. Also Impaler has more HP despite costing the same and Emissary being a tank. Bottom line, Emissary is a lot easier than Impaler for the enemy to pick off.

I'd also much rather have Lances than Emissaries. Much higher damage, fantastic burst damage, hits instantly, higher HP, even more maneuverable despite its lower nominal speed because it doesn't have to deploy/undeploy. Also it goes on water. Lance does cost more but not that much more.
+0 / -0

3 years ago
I still switch to tanks for emissary from time to time. If you want to buff tanks, buff one of the interesting units. Give us the EErankAdminAnarchid Cyclops that can actually catch up with stuff.

Even minotaur balls are much more interesting than emissaries sitting behind stingers shooting at enemy singers.
+0 / -0
Maybe tanks don't need emissary at all, and it should be removed instead of buffed.
+0 / -1
quote:
Impaler + widow is great against buildings, comms, heavies, and engineers alike

Until the opponent realizes they can just nudge your target away by pushing it with other units. Now you're down a Widow and you've done zero damage.

quote:
Is Emissary intended to be anti-unit, anti-static or a flexible mix of both?

My read is that it's supposed to be both. Its job description is "general purpose artillery". Point towards enemy, watch them die. Poor man's Merlin.

quote:
Maybe tanks don't need emissary at all, and it should be removed instead of buffed.

I was going to say that they need Emissary to stop Dominatrix, but actually Blitz seems sufficient in practice. In fact even Ripper spam barely stops Blitz.

quote:
Lances ... higher HP

Emissary has 840 hp for 700 metal, while Lance has 1000 hp for 1000 metal. So i'm not sure if it's really tankier even if it's nominally tougher.

That said, yeah, Lance is insane.
+0 / -0

3 years ago
Tank absolutely needs emissary as their skirmisher. Otherwise how are they going to fight off racketeer, dominatrix, moderator, placeholder, lance, ...
+0 / -0


3 years ago
I am not concerned about Emissary being underpowered. They are strategically fast and are good at attrition. Everything that outranges Emissary has some flaw, such as being expensive, static, unable to hit mobiles or confined to the sea.
+2 / -0

3 years ago
Making Emissary tougher seems reasonable. I mean it's utility really is as artillery and not in its HP. Making it 1000hp would give it a tiny bit better chance to retreat (and live) before its swarmed by glaives. Messing with its actual projectile would be more problematic. It's already pretty good.
+0 / -0

3 years ago
I don't think Emissary needs a buff. Artillery is already quite obnoxious to deal with, killing your turrets from the safety of their own turrets, and if the artillery player does make the mistake of allowing me to get on top of the artillery with raiders they should be punished as such. If Emissary is weak compared to other arty, I say nerf the other arties. The game has been moving away from raider to porc/arty meta recently and changes like that suggested will just push it further in that direction.

Reference game of recent high level 2v2 with mass Emissary https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/960352
+7 / -0

3 years ago
Independent of the specific state of Emissary, I'm not sure there is a clear case for buffing Tankfac at the moment. Besides a heinous matchup against Jumpbots it seems to be doing okay in terms of 1v1 winrate, and the scuttlebutt that I am aware of indicates Rover is more in need of help.
+1 / -0


3 years ago
quote:
Making Emissary tougher seems reasonable. I mean it's utility really is as artillery and not in its HP

This is anti-quant. You are trying to buff a weakness.
+2 / -0

3 years ago
Resilience is a designated strength of tanks, though. Which is not to say that I necessarily think it should be done.
+0 / -0

3 years ago
Emissary doesn't need a buff. It does its job and does it well. Buff something that almost never works like Skuttle.
+0 / -0
+5% AoE radius

If a Artillery needs hp, something already went wrong in the first place....
+4 / -0

3 years ago
Agree with the "buff rovers" suggestion.

I remember the days when a bunch of scorchers spelled doom, fear and destruction. Nowadays I look at a group of enemy scorchers and start calculating their metal reclaim cost.
+2 / -0


3 years ago
Recent experience has shown that scorcher is coming back into favourable position. I've watched 2 + darts wreck a comm just nicely recently. The only complaint I have with rovers is Ravager. It's just not on par with other factories assaults in terms of attribute distribution (see: Halberd is superior in almost every attribute as an example).

AUrankAdminAquanim rightly points out that resilience is one of tanks features. Yet Ogre and Emissary lack in that department. They don't take the factories strength into consideration to any noticeable length. Yes, you want Emissary to die to 2 well placed Raven bombs, but I think it's weakness where small raiders are considered is a little over the top.

Ogre compared to Ripper. If Rover's strength is mobility and tanks is resilience, why is it that Ogre's health:cost ratio is roughly the same as Rippers? Feels like Ogre needs more HP, slightly, especially to help vs Dominatrix.

Don't get me started on comparisons between Blitz and Knight.
+0 / -0
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