Hi, Hate to be that guy but despite people complaining about it every other game, no one has actually made a dedicated post about it. Here we go then, I'm that guy. Dear     GoogleFrog, Archer is too strong (especially in the water) and Guardian commander's drones causing overkill bugged misfiring is ruining games. You're probably aware of this stuff.
+10 / -0
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recluse and swift nerf too pls, preferably remove swift aoe maybe give raptor some aoe missiles
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Keeping this thread to stuff pretty much most people are saying all the time please mate. It's not a laundry list, it's a "I'm only posting this because I'm tired of hearing people say it and not posting themselves" post, about those two issues specifically.
+2 / -0
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Already mentioned about archer in the balance release thread...and this the reply quote:
Scallop and Archer can be further differentiated by leaning into their strengths. I'm taking it one step at a time though because I am hesitant to buff Scallop too soon.
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The thing about archer is its cheap cost, crowd control capability and high bust damage, so the more archers you have, the more devastating it is to one small area. the only real counter is claymore with its bigger crowd control and due to archer slow respond (floating up animation) to it or simply have more archer :D
+0 / -0
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Post some relevant replays so they can be collected in one place. It is interesting to see Amph do so well after plugging a hole in its lineup. Stats alone are insufficient, but the current ones say:
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Amph can be tweaked to win rates of 50% to 57% depending on how the data is hacked.
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Amph is still one of the least popular choices.
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Amph is doing poorly vs Cloaky and Hover, which would seem to be a dealbreaker in many metas.
(I'm assuming the focus is 1v1 since   Dregs started the thread) The winrate of Amph against other factories is quite worrying, but I am still wary of crushing it before it has a chance to show us how it can be good.
+2 / -0
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I don't like drones because they is too good to decloak my skuttles so i can't kill tasty lobster commanders. Other thing about drones is unlimited fuel they have. They can fly entire map following one target. Badgers and tremors are disease driving community away. So far OP thing in team games still is area cloaker. Ultis too good vs detris/paladins also. Its ok that it kills other strider with one shoot. Factory plates also is OP. They are like indirect buff for some units also.
+0 / -2
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Here's a handful of archer induced wins on Sparkles Reef to demonstrate closed waters.   B974541 2 on Sparkles Reef v1.01 B974837 2 on Sparkles Reef v1.01 B974818 2 on Sparkles Reef v1.01Hopefully someone else can chime in with replays from open waters. Not sure my two most recent matches with @Godde on Jurassic Sands are worth posting as 1. I'm not sure I played great 2. For some reason, if it's @Godde who performed it, it's less a question of balance and more a case of "oh well it's @Godde he can make any factory win" despite as I said earlier his choices appearing to be very much lead by the more subtle nuances in balance fluctuation (see dagger/predictive aiming case). I will describe past land matches and post future ones, as I haven't the energy to dig through all the games to find them. However, some incidents that I've noted: Archer able to indefinitely kite reavers and kill them untouched. Archer able to kite numerous, but not infinite, kodachi. Archer able to draw with pyro, despite pyro's increased cost. Archer able to under rare circumstances, kill a ripper. Archer able to toast numerous scorchers, easily able to make cost in a trade. Most importantly, the ability for archer to kill almost every unit cheaper than it with no contest and no ability for the opposing factory to viably produce those units anymore, with duck being a very competent trap to help solidify this. Edge case that combines the two issues this post is originally comprised of: Guardian commander + Amphbots forces skirmisher response. Drone bug causing skirms/arty to over-fire proceeds to heavily complicate the aforementioned mandatory unit's lives to the point of either complicated fire-state-micro, or loss.
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Oh, this might serve as a good example of cloakbots vs Amph: B972299 2 on Otago 1.4 - Again, not sure if I played great. Covid excuse and all. Potentially, experimental playstyle because of previous losses against Amph with Cloak driving me to try to explore. IIRC I had some early eco screwups too. Ah well. A replay is a replay.
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quote:
They can fly entire map following one target. |
This is no longer true. As of last stable (or two) drones have a 'leash' now.
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quote:
It is interesting to see Amph do so well after plugging a hole in its lineup. |
What hole does the new Archer plug in the amphbot factory? Other raider/riot units (Corsair, Pyro) have to fulfill the Riot role since they don't have a dedicated unit for it. But Amph already has Scallop. quote:
Archer able to indefinitely kite reavers and kill them untouched.
Archer able to kite numerous, but not infinite, kodachi.
Archer able to under rare circumstances, kill a ripper.
Archer able to toast numerous scorchers, easily able to make cost in a trade. |
I think this is due to retreat micro. Units falling back have an advantage in range, enough for Archer to beat Reaver. The alpha damage helps in this so they can duck in and out of range with their superior speed. With some micro, however, the stronger riots will win. quote:
Archer able to draw with pyro, despite pyro's increased cost. |
Pyro has the advantage of burn damage. Hit and run attacks can help I think. quote:
Most importantly, the ability for archer to kill almost every unit cheaper than it with no contest and no ability for the opposing factory to viably produce those units anymore, with duck being a very competent trap to help solidify this. |
Many riots can do this, but Archer is a bit unique as it is also faster than other riots and very cheap, which allows a player to cover more areas with Archers, dodge skirmishers, and intercept raids. I think we need to see how well dedicated riots deal with archer spam. I feel like they have to be attacked like you would bolas... but I haven't played enough with/against them to know for sure.
+1 / -1
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 TitanShadow12 Yes, what you have described is an accurate deeper dive into the "why" with Archer. quote:
I think we need to see how well dedicated riots deal with archer spam. I feel like they have to be attacked like you would bolas... but I haven't played enough with/against them to know for sure. |
They typically deal with archer spam by slowly approaching, the archers retreating, and then being destroyed by lobstered buoys, in most cases. Building riots vs Amphbot is basically playing into one of their greatest strengths and is a bad time waiting to happen. Guarded skirms and arty like rogue, badger or recluse, tends to be a better choice here.
+0 / -0
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Archer cost 180m, has small aoe, high bust damage, a range of 255. If you compare it to supposedly elder brother scallop, scallop look like a shit elder brother with its cost of 280m, smaller aoe, low bust damage, a range of 280. Of course some may argue that scallop in water has sidearms which increase its overall dps, but these sidearms has no comparable aoe to archer's. Archer is a king of its class. Incase people don't know, archer has 64 aoe, scallop is only 16 and 24 aoe. With that much aoe and bust damage, a group of archers can easily destroy many small units.
+2 / -0
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Agree with the above. I don't think the difference between scallop and archer is worth 100 metal, especially with scallop being so slow. But the offender here isn't scallop.
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quote:
Agree with the above. I don't think the difference between scallop and archer is worth 100 metal, especially with scallop being so slow. But the offender here isn't scallop. |
It's faster than the Rover riot (2.35 vs 2.1); i am not sure it should be if it's now a proper riot - and it has the combat stats of an actual riot. In comparison, other biped riots are Reaver 1.71, Outlaw 1.9. Spiders have Venom at 2.8 which is not capable of independent combat, and Redback at 1.8. The remaining bot factory, Jump, does not have a dedicated riot.
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turn archer into a full riot unit and repurpose scallop maybe? Make it a shotgun raider or similar perhaps or a skirmisher.
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I like how even though GoogleFrog evangelizes Quant's Law, this didn't prevent us from having two of the exactly same unit. Archer is just a stronger Ripper. (Even on flat dry maps...) It's got: Lower weight (For a riot, this is a positive) Same HP/cost Better movement Better turnrate Better vision Better DPS/cost Water-capable Hill-capable Water regen
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The literal version of Quant's law is "Buff strengths and nerf weaknesses" or some such, which doesn't cleanly apply to a total redesign like what happened to Archer.
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Agree with the point archer is one generic unit, it made one old strategy: spaming single unit back to us again. Spam glavies, spam blitzs, spam ravagers, now spam archers.
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I did do the initial re-balance of Archer with reference to Ripper. I thought if it were a lighter unit similar to Ripper then it can't be too bad. It will probably lose DPS and a little range, as real riots should beat it. Currently I am thinking of it as something like an Amph version of Bolas, so it is slower than than raiders but faster than riots.
+1 / -0
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D'accord archer is too good. Here's an example of Amphi vs sea: http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/973269
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