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Stiletto (again)

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It is still no fun after the patch.

It's AoE is waaay (as in WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY) too big.

Not saying it is Over Powered (tm). You play with the knowledge it is there, so you don't attack. It is the type of game play it results in that really bothers me. The presence of Stiletto's just stops you from attacking and make you sit still. This is a bad thing imo. ZK is at it's best when armies are moving!

So, i'd strongly suggest to cut it's AoE in half. This might sound extreme, but even wit half the bombarding time (or whatever you call it) it will still stop most armies in place and perform it's role. I hope such change would leave an attacking army with some un-paralyzed units to retreat or continue the fight in smaller numbers.

Trust me, when people get better at this game and bombing in particular, this unit will only become a bigger problem.

ps
I know there is another discussion thread on the stiletto somewhere, but can't be bothered to look it up now. Let's use this thread for the discussion as of ZK version 1.1.6.8
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10 years ago
there was talk in the past of spliting the stileto into 2 units:

1. a high alpha precision bomber (and emp version of the shadow with ~10k damage)

2. a low alpha carpet bomber (same as curent stileto, but much more hp, and much less damage(500-700 would be good)
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10 years ago
^I like the sound of that.

Maybe if we get the EMP mine bomber back? =P
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Note that the patch left the damage mostly unchanged. It merely nerfed it vs shields (By half, which still drains the shit out of them), since shieldballs are weaker now, I wanted to lessen the hardcounter mechanics (and we'll probably further nerf gauss and flamer and nerf actual shieldgens themselves, but we'll have to see).

I like stiletto, it takes coordination between a land and air players to use right, affords a lot of control and really fills that planes-as-support function. However I am instinctively repulsed by the idea that it should be one of the best AoE anti-swarms and one of the best anti-heavies.

The problem with this proposal is that you're basically duplicating the Pheonix and Shadow but with EMP versions. We don't want EMP versions of every unit.

There are a lot of other things to consider though. We're currently looking at both Shadow and Pheonix bombers, Google has been proposing changes to them.

We're also looking at Gnat, having it be the anti-heavy option here sounds good but I can't see it really working the same way at it's role and weight class.

And we're still thinking about fighter diversity and how boring the plane vs plane matchup is. One proposal has been a fighter-bomber that you can field early in air vs air but also has some land harass power. I think a single target EMP bomb would be great, you could stun AA before sending in your bombers, you could do early harass by briefly turning off key structures. But it would need to be weak enough that you can't just permastun someones factory, and obviously something would need to be done about it being even worse a comsniper than the shadow, the gnat problem all over. I also don't know how I feel about your late-game anti-heavy force also having AA, but just having two kinds of conventional bombers and two kinds of emp bombers split along the same lines leaves a lot of problems unsolved in air factory.

Finally, I hatehatehatehatehatehate that all the anti-heavy units are EMP.
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10 years ago
quote:
I like stiletto, it takes coordination between a land and air players to use right


it takes fuck all coordination. A nab can use it. you just keep it behind your lines and emp any attempt to penetrate your lines. result: stalemate.

easily my 2nd most hated unit after old dirtbag.
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10 years ago
Firstly what do you mean by AoE? There is a well defined technical definition but I don't think that is what you mean.

I've managed to spread enough such that there are enough unstunned units to defend the stunned ones. But only on defense.

I mostly feel what you feel for Stiletto but more so about Phoenix. Offensive armies of low health units die to Phoenixes. Because of this I don't think we can just split Stiletto into a low damage carpet bomber because units with 1k HP or more would dominate even more.

I don't think there is a problem specifically with Stiletto, all the bombers have a bit of this problem. Their success is too all-or-nothing, they are too fast for more varied AA interaction, mobile AA has trouble stopping them.
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Stiletto takes good coordination between land and air players to use right when used offensively. It's offensive use is about where I want it. When used defensively it is fairly trivial to use and shuts down penetration.
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10 years ago
That last post is exactly my point Google. Sucha powerfull super mobile defender makes attacking so hard. Which is what i don't like about the current mechanic.

Offensively it all workst out better because of the static AA and defending fighters.

I agree that it is somewhat a problem with the bomber Phenix. But you can actually dodge a portion of its fire, it is less an all-or-nothing run. So i am not too worried about that.
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Neonstorming:
Make the anti-heavy bomber a terraform bomber.

It drops a bomb that deals medium damage and drops a hole in the ground (say, 30 elmos with square edges) under it. Big bad heavy unit drops down hole and is disabled.

Doesn't work on scorpion for obvious reasons.


The Stilletto goes back to the old EMP mines way. =O
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10 years ago
I agree with floris. It definitly makes you dont wanna raid/assault, because you know that your army simply will get stunned. And generally even tons of AA wont protect your army, only statics do.
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10 years ago
^ yup

can we make addressing this unit a priority, as with the dirtbag fixed this is now my primary source of tears
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10 years ago
If it dropped a single precision bomb that did ~10k damage to the unit it hit and much less to the rest (something like 4-500 at the very edge) it would still be good at stunning swarms and heavies but less good at stunning swarms OF heavies
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10 years ago
quote:
can we make addressing this unit a priority, as with the dirtbag fixed this is now my primary source of tears
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These ideas don't hit at what I think the core issues are. Somehow mobile AA has to be better otherwise bombers will always be able to pick apart penetrating attacks. But planes should not be useless. So the effects of bombers have to be milder, I think the bomber game should be less dramatic.

My point is that if you nerf bombers to be balanced against penetrating attacks they will be awful at everything else.
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10 years ago
Turn vamp into a high altitude gunship (ie. let it hover), keep its speed. Re-role rapier.

Then a line of vamps will be able to severely punish bombers attacking a penetrative attack while being immune to stiletto. Currently, vamp escort is hard because they wander into AA too much.

If you have to sacrifice equal cost in bombers to kill a penetrating attack, that's mostly balanced.
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10 years ago
There could also be EMP that only disable the movement of units but not their weapons. That way the EMP bomber could be used to slow down attacks but does not completly disable them.
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10 years ago
Disabling weapons instead of movement would be more useful if it is to be used offensively. Turrets can't move and units which are defending with turrets don't really need to move either.
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10 years ago
However, such a disable is a new mechanic not used anywhere else.

Maybe slowbombs? Make it something of a flying outlaw.
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10 years ago
Make bombs drop really slowly. Mobile units could evade them. Stun would still be porc/shield effective.
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10 years ago
to be honest, the unit is nice as it is - but it needs to cost a helluva lot more. 1000m would be reasonable, since it can easily emp an attack costing many times that.
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