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Proposed Unit: Hound

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Terrible Concept Image

Proposal, an above average price but eminently clear raider for JJ factory. Puppy is removed from direct factory production. Hound maintains grey-goo effect, and produces puppies with it.

Proposed Stats:
90 Metal
400 Health
35x3 Rocket Burst at 210 range with 1s reload. Ideally I would like this to be angle locked so they fly in a straight line, but this is an aesthetic preference.
105 Speed, 1200 Turn rate to fit its 4-legged nature.
At 300-340 speed, this is within normal rocket speeds, but functions in raider v raider fights (although not fantastically, its not the strongest raider)

Goal is to make a slightly sub-standard but relatively normal raider. Stats are configured to find a sweet spot in current raider gaps so it feels distinct. Stat set allows it to marginally beat glaive when retreating, but generally lose per cost. By being able to devour wreckage in the field though, it can scorched-earth better than normal raiders, and use the produced puppies to win matchups better.

A lack of decent mobile DPS on JJ is a real problem for balance of the fac. In order to fight skirmisher they need to rely on firewalker to go super-extreme kiter wars. Pyro functions sufficiently as a riot, but as defenses stack is problematic. A raider that is not as ideal against other raiders seems like the natural fit then to maintain factory variety.

The unit can function at 350ish health, but the lower accuracy of the rockets mean it is still probably losing matchups even at 400 health in my initial tests.

In any event, I think its a good unit that will help round out the factory, but I curious about what others think.

Known Issues:
Rocket is known as a cqc weapon, might disrupt theming.
People might expect it to be fully viable as a raider, causing more matchup problems if they try to fight glaives with it.

If people like, I have a janky mod code to rework the duck into this statline, sadly the puppy does not naturally have a turret and therefore might behave oddly.
+7 / -0
oh look its fido from ta =)

or is that the unit from tiberium sun? mammoth?
+3 / -0
3 years ago
I think that not having puppy directly producible might cause some problems, for example against gunships. Toad is so expensive and you can make cost killing locust (and harpies I think) with puppies that it makes sense to build puppies early when getting a couple toads out on the map is prohibitively expensive. There are probably some other examples as well.
+2 / -0
I'd rather keep puppy around just because its a cool unit concept and gating it behind another unit would greatly limit its accessibility.

Gating units behind other units besides factories is a general bad practice anyways. Drones are tolerated because they're pretty much considered an extension of their parent unit.

Also, if the idea is to make jumpbots more playable in isolation, they currently need a lot of help with that so a new unit doesn't need to replace an old one.
+3 / -0


3 years ago
I like the puppy, I wouldn't want to lose it from the lineup.

I'd be more in favor of stripping riot characteristics out of pyro, and giving jump a proper riot option. As in other threads, riot/raider is a bit degenerate.
+0 / -0

3 years ago
USrankRyMarq
quote:
A lack of decent mobile DPS on JJ is a real problem for balance of the fac. In order to fight skirmisher they need to rely on firewalker to go super-extreme kiter wars.


Firepluk
quote:
Right now placeholder is an absolute nemesis of all commanders, no matter if someone poured 10k metal into it - it will be trapped for as long as a cheap commander, near enemy frontline you are as good as dead if this happens.


This problem is solved. I don't like the idea of not being able to make puppies with the factory and taking 50% penalty for it.
+0 / -0
The thing i find annoying with puppies is the exponential rate of their replication. You let one in, and suddenly all wreckage is gone, they can erase it in seconds while not risking constructors or spending any energy. Then you add cloak for unstoppable damage. Essentially this removes reclaim as a comeback mechanic if you're JJ and you're on the offensive - just puppify anything near the enemy and they have nothing to build off.

Gating it behind another unit makes the replication rate linear. You want to make puppies faster, you build more hounds. That sounds fair.

I also like the idea of giving JJ a proper dedicated raider that can pick off Fleas:
- This can allow the Constable's chip damage to be removed as a solution to puppies fleas, and perhaps its slow beam can be axed entirely. Why does it have two abilities, anyway?
- This can allow Pyro to be respecced further into a riot role rather than the current riotraider role, allowing to further solve many other issues with Jump.
+0 / -0
are jj bad? i hear it is the skillz factory

allot of the units do need micro the ai just cant cope with its complexities
+0 / -0

3 years ago
quote:
Then you add cloak for unstoppable damage


One snitch, limpet, imp can very fast stop this 'unstoppable damage'. Or even one dante/firewaler.

And i like this reclaim killing option. Its unique mechanic in game. JJ ability to deny reclaim is not bad. Its start bad when trolls deny it for own team. :D
+1 / -0


3 years ago
quote:
One snitch, limpet, imp can very fast stop this 'unstoppable damage'. Or even one dante/firewaler.

Not my experience with those units and tactics.
+1 / -0
i would build a stardust away from puppies then skirmish them but they can still be hard to deal with if cloaked =P

i also kinda like mass lotus creep vs puppies

unit wise i prefer skirmishers over riots vs puppies and i try draw them into lotus / stardust spam
+0 / -0
quote:
Not my experience with those units and tactics.



I had such expierence when some lubstars build ball with hundred puppy cloked and no cloaked. Doesnt matter cloked or no cloked if i have my own cloaker and snitches or just good snitch placemant. One snitch and big puppy ball is ded. Of course in 1 vs 1 where you have no snitch or such units it will become painfull problem. But there is many units with such problem.
Also fleas work very good. They trade very good for their price against puppy and you can mass them fast.
Also works nanoframe shits around to decloak them. At lewast worked.
+0 / -0


3 years ago
quote:
when some lubstars

Ah
+1 / -0

3 years ago
quote:
when some lubstars


In my eyes lubstars is every player who do such strategy in teams because it almost never pay off no matter about that player rank. Its only pay off when need deny enemy of reclaim. I have seen many times when yellow rank outperformed purple playing with puppy. This unit is anyway rarely used and i have seen puppy used in team games used to deny enemy reclaim only few times and most times i was that one who used that strategy. But in many games i have seen when player uses puppy ability to deny reclaim for his own. Yes this one is more common. So i don't see any problems with puppy in team games. Except that its nice unit only effective in same cases.
+0 / -0
If puppy is still buildable but hound makes them in large batches ?
[Spoiler]
+2 / -1

3 years ago
Alright, seems like people have the following responses:

Fear that GS will be too good vs JJ without puppies.
Desire to use this to rebalance Pyro as more of a raider. I agree here, some tweaks to this effect could stop the worst excesses of pyro. Maybe focusing its power level around having 10 more range and 3 less speed.


The greatest general concern seems to be liking puppies. Fortunately, the unit would produce puppies, the means of getting them would just be a bit odd. At the very least I think it might be interesting to try, and would help a lot of the long-standing wonkiness of JJ while preserving the flavor.
+0 / -0
3 years ago
quote:
Fortunately, the unit would produce puppies, the means of getting them would just be a bit odd
But this is the main problem.
+1 / -0

3 years ago
Tested cloked puppy ball in team game. I'm not much impressed for it as uber weapon. Its hard to keep large puppy ball in cloaker. Thay are very good for some moves but they are not univeral force and prone to many failures and detection. However its about teams.
+0 / -0
Just to put some meat on the bones, the final minutes of this is what i consider archetypal cloak puppy experience.

[Spoiler]

quote:
Fortunately, the unit would produce puppies, the means of getting them would just be a bit odd. At the very least I think it might be interesting to try, and would help a lot of the long-standing wonkiness of JJ while preserving the flavor.

Puppies could be factory-built, not replicate, and simply cost the same as converting them. After all, Plane factory can still make Sparrows even if most people get them from radar morph.
+0 / -0
As far as I am concerned the fact that Puppy is potentially capable of performing very well is a feature, not a bug. Many units in ZK have high potential upside by design. The problem would be if it were not reasonably counterable - and I would say that cloaked Puppy is likely to be considerably more counterable than other cloaked compositions at the moment, so if something needs to be nerfed to make cloaked Puppies more counterable I would say that Iris is the better candidate.

(The design argument to rework Puppy either in the way suggested by the OP or some other way is a different discussion which I do not have an opinion on at present.)
+1 / -0
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