Snitch transporters need a nerf

quote: Shaman

quote: Unskilled

Fair, I agree.

Anytime I'm fighting somebody who I know uses snitch drops I build a Gremlin line and it shuts it down right quick.

quote: Can't say I have seen this. Can the snitch be hit while being transported? Can the snitch be targeted on air after being dropped?

Yes they can, and they're preferred over the charon in almost all cases.

I have thought, that if we ever look into making transports less gimmicky and more generally useful one of the most effective steps would be to remove drop (so that other areas may be buffed). The drop ability was added because it could be done, not because it should have been done.

Without drop there would be room to buff the transports' ability to swoop in and put units on the ground, without worrying that tossable units are even more powerful.

Why are you complaining about transported snitches and don't mention cloaked snitches? The same argument could be made about them.

I think snitch in general is powerful. Dropping snitches from transport is cool and should stay in my opinion.

quote: I fully understand you do not want your newest gimmick nerfed, but clicking D when the red circle is over an enemy army is not some peak skill you need to practice for months to grasp.

quote: normally unskilled players.

quote: not some peak skill you need to practice for months to grasp.

quote: The fact that you manage to lose despite this goes to show what a low bar to entry this tactic has.

This is just proof you're trying to nerf something for hurting your 'prestige'. Drop the air of superiority and condescending attitude, it does nothing to prove your point. In fact, if you rewatched that replay, you'd notice something strange about the LLTA complex one you're in reference to.

[Spoiler]

There is absolutely ZERO relationship to the outcome of a battle to barrier to entry for individual tactics. You are just using this point to try to flex on myself and terve to recover your ego. Very poor taste.

quote: There's practically no risk involved given how cheap the units are and how reliable and large the value killed is.

A lot of failures can be made up by one big success. This does not imply reliability. In fact, it shows how situational the tactic is. For the most part, roach drops are mainly anti-raiders/skirmishers because they're more likely to be clumped up in significant enough numbers to make cost while being low enough hp to only use one roach.

Fact is, two factories are 1.8k. The barrier to entry for this is made lower by the fact we commshare. Each drop is also 260m (-100m if charon escapes, however survival rates for charons are pretty low overall). Fact is the first bunch of drops did not make cost at all and were used mostly to suppress you and slow you down. Most of the value killed in that game came from microing other units.

quote: For perspective, a snitch only needs to kill 1.2 of a scorcher to make cost. That is a single scorcher and 30 metal.

You cannot kill 1.2 scorchers first off. Second off, you need to kill 2 scorchers to pay for the roach + charon itself. It's funny how you pick the easiest to kill raider with the highest metal value and not something like blitz (largely immune to roach drops) or bolas (again partially immune to roach drops). This seems like cherry picking.

quote: You cannot with a straight face claim that this is healthy for the game when such a low investment can so easily and with little counterplay destroy so much value.

Line move: exists.
Radar + AA: exists.
Not balling up expensive units: possible.
Instahit weapons: exist.
Newton: exists.
Cost of investment: 800m-1600m (to gain access to both snitch + charon) + 260m per drop (-100 if you save charon).

quote: Anyone at all can right now delete armies by throwing a snitch.

Why don't more people do it if like you said, there's such a low barrier to entry? You've seen maybe a total of 4 people do it: @_Shaman, terve886, Slaab, and maybe @Godde. You should watch Slaab's first try at it if you think it's so unbalanced. Bigger question is, why aren't you doing it if it's so unbalanced? Obviously with your 2.8k whr, you'd do better than us poor souls at 2.3k whr. Working theory is: you're just saying this to try to get something that hurt your fragile ego removed because you don't know how to counter it. Show me a game where red/bronze players make huge cost by dropping roaches if it's so easy.

quote: Calling the factories part of the cost is not a useful way to think about it. It's not like those factories are useless for any other purpose.

Point granted. Even without factoring in the cost for a facswitch, 260m is still a bit risky to use outside of LOS. Often mid-late game in clusters, charon survivor rates are quite low. They only really make cost against players who move their units in giant balls without any sort of instahit weapons in sight.

redback cant stop roach bomb its too fast + close given how short range the redbacks are.. newtons cant stop roach too.. because newtons rarely stop anything

well maybe both can.. but the chance of those units working is not very good

quote: I want to add, anti air is not the most effective, because when it hits the snitch it deals .1 times damage to it, allowing it to absorb over 1000 points of aa damage.

This is just plain wrong. Roaches have 60hp. This even isn't remotely related as AA will target the roach while outside of LOS only. Inside, it will always target the charon and thus kill the roach.

quote: redback cant stop roach bomb its too fast

Redback weapons are instahits. Only time roaches can attack it is if it is sitting still. If it is moving forward and facing the roach bomber, it will always hit.

Newtons also work but only if they're in front of the units they are trying to protect.

HLT is effectively the best counter to roach bombs outside of just line moving.