Battle 401257 detail

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Flipstip 8 years ago dat sumo jump GG +0 / -0
ivand 8 years ago That game underlines how few options shields have in this matchup. +0 / -0
Flipstip 8 years ago [Spoiler] The option in this game would have been to expand and raid more. Racketeers helped doing attrition damage vs pyro's, but the accompanying bandits were not sent out to raid until the economical difference was quite big. dorsh did not try a small felonball vs pyro's, or thugs+outlaw, both of those could also be used to exert more pressure. (although racketeer+bandits can also put nice pressure no I think about it: disarm llts, kill expansion with zero losses. It is true, however, that even with economic parity it is hard to counter firewalker with shieldbots. I think positioning would play a big role in doing this: raiding with bandits where the firewalker is not, sneaking bandits or roaches in from flanks/behind. This should be possible when using the ridge just west of the center. Maybe shield walkers can help vs firewalker. The best option is to facswitch though, ravens and gunships both are great. Against sumo racketeer is the only option, or rogues when the sumo is not jumping... +0 / -0
ivand 8 years ago (edited 8 years ago) [Spoiler] It's always hard to raid with bandits vs defending pyro(s). Units have same speed, pyro's range is ~15% bigger. In addition pyro has jump. So pyro basically can kite bandits as long as they like. Also goddamn explosion of pyro, which tends to set your raider hordes on fire. Racketeer indeed works nice vs single or few pyros. I tend to employ them if I happen to have this match-up. Unfortunatelly the overkill prevention algorithm is not ideal and probability that a target will remain disarmed decrease as the number of targets and racketeers increase. Light felonball or thuglaw ball used to be a go-for solution, nowadays however it can be crippled by FW and then killed by jacks or smashed by sudden sumo. Not to mention that skuttle ninja can blow whole crowd. Regarding Rogues, I made an experiment once. Equal cost of rogues (micro managed or on fight) lose to sumo pretty decisively. Rogues might have its use against moderators and not much else from JJ fac, however moderator is a wrong unit to build vs any kind of shield units. So all in all, shields can only rely on roaches and more or less on heavy shieldball (felon + thug + outlaw + some shield walkers). Still one needs to be extremely careful and only attack in the radar enabled areas. +2 / -0
Shadowfury333 8 years ago (edited 8 years ago) Casted on YouTube Shield options come down to positioning, so don't write them off that quickly ivand. +0 / -0
SnuggleBass 8 years ago I agree that JJ has the advantage, though don't think this example the decisive factor. Dorsh is getting quite good, but Flipstick he ain't. He wasn't expected to win this, regardless of how many times he takes GoogleFrog and myself to town XD From second point of expansion, dorsh was at a disadvantage. His expansion route was far weaker, ultimately making it difficult for him to expand any further. From that point on he was against a superior player with a superior economy, it didn't matter what fac he had. This all said, many of the units from shield are obsolete after a particular point. The congested gamestate that shieldbot excels in is trumped by placeholder, and there isn't a single unit in the fac that can deal with sumo (never thought I'd say that!). On top of which, bandits do okay in the raider game at best, get trounced at worst, and don't have many realistic scenarios they can excel in, since they're too slow to catch out firewalkers, and moderators aren't really used much. Shield is a strong factory though, and I while it'd be nice for every matchup to be balanced, shield is well positioned in the meta-game already, having options against most other facs. +1 / -0
SnuggleBass 8 years ago @SF333 Rogues - JJ assaults don't care about rogues. There's no use case for them. They're just a liability since they can't deal with pyro, or puppy, and they're dead metal once a firewalker is on the field. Outlaws - Can help, but ultimately they don't. What I mean by this is that the top end of JJ obsoletes them, while they don't do anything decisive enough before that top end is reached, ultimately being a deadend. You can never attack with them due to placeholder, so again, dead metal. Felons - Sumo and firewalker make it useless. It does give solid local superiority for some time, but has difficulty with jacks too. Again, you can't push with felon, mostly due to the easy deflection options available to any fac, such as solars and stingers. I think the best bet with shield is to try and match expansion for long enough for economies to scale, play defensively, then retrump them with striders. A catapult with good babysitting should break the game back open pretty quickly. Although dante may be tempting because it'll smash sumos and iirc is resistant to firewalker, I think it might be a trap due to placeholder/skuttle. +0 / -0
Fealthas 8 years ago (edited 8 years ago) [Spoiler] I think jumpy has been the best factory for some time now. The unholy trifecta of jack/placeholder/firewalker means they beat everything. Throw sumos in for extra fun if you want, and skuttles for those pesky heavies that a jack swarm just won't deal with. Only downside is that pyros are mediocre - but good enough to get you to the midgame where the unholy trifecta can do its work. +0 / -0
Aquanim 8 years ago I'm not in touch with the 1v1 meta right now. That being said, I do have a few thoughts about the matchup. - Are people using Roaches enough in the matchup? Obviously they don't do well against Puppies but that never stopped Tick being good against JJ in my experience. Tick does have the advantage of cliff movement which is helpful against Pyros. - In the past I have dealt with Sumo by making Racketeer and spamming Lotus. Has anybody tried something along those lines? (Admittedly might not work well against Jack.) - Faraday seems moderately strong against Jumps in general - it stops Pyros retreating, though you might need multiple Faradays or some other distractions against Jack(s). I remember RyMarq used to play Jumps a lot and said that the matchup against Shield was very bad. That was before the Firewalker changes (as well as getting cheaper, the multiple-fireball thing was aimed squarely at making it better against shields in general). +0 / -0
SnuggleBass 8 years ago I agree that JJ is one of the if not the best fac. It takes a lot of skill though, which mitigates this strength in most games. Shield is also one of the more powerful facs, even if this matchup doesn't work out in its favour. Maybe it's time to have that discussion once more. @Aqua Roaches do okay for themselves, I personally have issues making them connect. I think it's mostly good against mismanagement though, since a good player will spread their units well as JJ. The payoff for landing a roach vs. pyro doesn't seem like enough, considering that you're taking the risk of it never meeting a pyro, or worse, getting killed without connecting. Racketeer+lotus will negate sumo, but won't actually deal with it. You're then sitting there getting firewalked all over. I think Rymarq's era of JJ was also pre mod buff. Now it's basically impossible to attack into JJ with a shieldball, even if you catch someone off-guard moderators can be built in response. This is in addition to problems with jacks/firewalkers/placeholders/sumos later on. I'm pretty sure it was the thuglaw ball he had issues with anyway. +0 / -0

Title:	1v1: All welcome!
Host:	Elerium
Game version:	Zero-K v1.4.2.12
Engine version:	100.0
Battle ID:	401257
Started:	8 years ago
Duration:	16 minutes
Players:	2
Bots:	False
Mission:	False
Rating:	Competitive