Shields vs Jumps

ok, i guess no one will take this serious again, but the matchup between jumpers and shields is very much in favour of jumpers.
the following games were played with me shields and Zenfur jumps:
http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/568143
http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/568147
http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/568154
http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/568159
http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/568162
http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/568165
http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/568167
http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/568173

usually, if the pyro comes through my first defenses, it can do enough damage to my eco to put me behind so critically, that it´s impossible to recover. So you build either outlaw or felon. both take really long and have problems to catch the pyro before it does enough damage. even if not, 1 jack is enough to tear down riots and porc.
After this, we switched factories:
http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/568180

ofc i didn´t win this either because of the skill-difference, but this game automatically laster 10 minutes in contrast to all the games before, wich maybe took 1-2 minutes. I wasn´t even as succesfull with my raids, but Zenfur struggled hard in comparison. Also take into account that i messed up my eco and was exessing. If that would not have had happened, i might even have won? Pyro -> Jack seems to be a detrimental combo against shields.

and yes, IF you can get to the point where the shield-player can spam racketeers, it´s fine. the problem is more to get to this point.

being forced into a defensive behaviour in the first 2 minutes of the game it auto-loose.

Part of the problem is very unhealthy mechanic of burn - damage over time on pyro. Every raider or mex or windmill it touches just dies.

I suggested long time ago to rework all fire to make area damage over time instead a unit status - more kodachi style. This way only sluggish units or statics would suffer from fire.

I think that mostly Pyro is the problem, not only for shields. It's a riot raider and its main problem are static defenses. I think that it could be more reliant on its jump ability and less generalist with changes:
5% speed reduction and 5-10% hp increase for compensation. HP increase is optional, as combined with jump ability it would make it better against statics. Yes I'm aware that speed reduction is non-linear, while hp above certain treshold is more linear.

Factories tools to "counter" Pyros:

Cloakies: Tick(?), Zeus, Scythe - zeus super slow
Shields: Felon, shielded Outlaw + Bandit (?) - super slow
Spiders: Venom, Redback, sufficient amount of Fleas - redback very slow
Hover: Mace, Scalpel, maaybe enough of daggers
Jumpers: Puppy (?), Moderator, Jack
Rovers: Slow dart + Scorcher, enough of Fencers, Leveler
Tanks: Panther, Banisher, Welder (?) - prenerf version for sure
Gunships: Harpy
Planes: Raven

In this picture, Shields look the worst as they are the slowest and most expensive counters. Your economy most likely will get raided.

Commander with lightning gun also helps a lot.

@edit:
Speaking of racketeer, I think in comparison to its previous state it's more healthy to the game and less reliable for the user. Maybe decreasing its cost by 5% could be discussed?

@zenfur Doesn't Snitch also counter Pyro?

Racketeer IMO is at it´s best iteration since i bagan to play.

How are Shieldbots against everything else currently.

quote: I guess Snitch is a good answer, but not necessarily early game? I dunno, didn't test it. I think properly microed Pyro can kill Snitch for free - ignite and jump away. Also it's hard to use them to defend your base as it would explode in your base killing economy with it

I've thought about snitches for anti-pyro/koda. They cost 160 metal, which is equal to the koda and less than the pyro. Like most bombs, they'd be very situational though- pyro could fry it on one mistaken move so you'd need to put it somewhere the pyro is likely to go (e.g. foot of the cliffs to the starting points in Ravaged).

Alternatively, 4-5 bandits with a simple move command can sometimes run down a pyro if you time it right, but even if you do, you'll lose about three of them- and how often does one have 5 bandits to spare in the first couple of minutes?

Perhaps there might be an argument for swapping imp and snitch factories though. An imp can be safely used inside a base and although most early game cloak dies horribly to pyro, there is always the possibility of rushing a scythe (which seemed fairly successful in at least one of katastrophe's games) if you see one coming (and Knight maintains a disable option for cloak). Of course that means shield gets two completely different ways to disable attackers, bomb and Racketeer which, while it would make me very happy, might not be much fun for everyone else. I suppose Racketeer could be swapped to cloak in exchange for Sling though. In a way they might fit the facs respective philosophies better. Racketeer disabling might fit better into the whole "sneakiness" theme of cloaks while massed Slings could particularly benefit from shield cover being squishy and individually weak. Shield strikes me more as a brute force factory where individually not especially tough units gain strength from huddling together. Weakness to early pyro/koda aside though, I mostly like shield as they are.

You don't need factory for cloaker, just build eraser with constructor and morph it.

It'd be cool to have a game mode where there's an omni factory which allows all units. Probably get some good data from it too, about which units are the most imba overall.