Big Bertha

The problem with the Bertha is that it's one of those weapons where you have to take a step back and ask "do we want this thing to be powerful"?

I mean, the optimal defense vs. a bertha is a tiny base turtled in behind shields and terra walls. Berthas are excellent against a sprawled-out base where random shots will vapourize several windgens at a time. They're like the raider of the superweapons, able to pick off unshielded eco. I like unshielded eco.

quote: ive been thinking and the bertha is totaly underused, and probably needs a buff.

Current meta, actually, is that bertha gets built more often than nuke.
Last time i played on noobteams, there was a bertha.
Bertha is fine. Disperse.

:P yes bertha is built by noobs...

but when was the last time any halfway serious plaer has even considered building one? and not in a lol game...

im not talking about actualy building it, im talking about even considering it could be usefull in some situation...

me, never. thus i say it is a totaly usless unit, if it is supulferous to the game, remove it. if you want to keep it in, make it useable...

Pxtl hit the nail on the head. At a high level of play, Bertha is not good for the game. It does not make the game better. It encourages shieldporc and allows players to win by sitting inside their bases.

So when is it actually appropriate? With the sort of players who would be sitting timidly behind their giant shield balls REGARDLESS of the optimum way of playing (it is something noobs ALWAYS do). When people are doing this ANYWAY, the Bertha actually allows a 'safe' way to project aggression and contest territory for/against players who are too timid to use units. Plus, the Bertha looks and feels really awesome and cool to use. Now there is a danger that this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. The Bertha encourages porc and is only good vs porc, so these players will never learn that their whole approach is non-optimum, because they'll move outside of their shieldball, get hit by a Bertha and then never do that again. This is why the Bertha needs to be as costly and ineffective as it is- so that if you take that psychological risk and move a Berthas cost in reapers out beyond your shieldball, you are heavily rewarded. The Bertha is not a 'Noob Trap', you don't lose by creating it, it is not 'clearly deprecated' by some other unit, rather, it is only good at low levels of play.

Could we change it's mechanics? As long as shields (and to some extent Terra) exist in their current form in the game, they will always be the best way to stop a Bertha. As long as they are the best way to stop a Bertha the Bertha will always encourage tight porcy bases. We could possibly change the AoE accuracy and cost to DISCOURAGE tight porcy bases (The way that playing against nukes without an anti REQUIRES you to have no more than 3k cost in any one area at a time), but not if shields block it.

If you want the Bertha to discourage porc instead of encouraging it, make it more accurate, but less AOE. Make the damage higher alpha so you can snipe turrets one by one, but with little AOE a wide and sprawling base will take less damage. The wider base will lose small solars/mexes etc one by one with less frequency meaning the Bertha user would have to pick and choose more tactical targets. Then terraform, shields, or radar jamming could be used to defend the base. The main idea is to make it so a Bertha can hammer down a porc line, but not a base.

Bertha is not like behemoth. Behemoth is defensive; bertha is offensive.

Otherwise, +1 to the ax-it sentiment.

quote: big effectivity of nuke.

I haven't seen nuke used to any effect in past few months. Everybody just makes anti faster, and hence bertha is actually popular as a superweapon that, at worst case, drains enemy resources (energy for shields), and not yours (metal for stockpile).

My counterclaim would be is that it used to be that, before people learned to counter it.

However, when i try to put a minimum zk version in modstats text field, it crashes hideously. I think it's too enterprisey for dots. :X

The unit itself has had nothing but buffs in a very long time:

• Cost 6k -> 5k
• Smooths terrain
• 4200 -> 4800 HP
• Can fire at gunships
• Better targeting (does not avoid features)
• No energy cost for shooting

If anything the rest of the game as well as the metagame has moved around it. 5k is not all that much so I think it is just overlooked.

• Can fire at gunships

Does that work? I can't imagine that's terribly effective unless it's a burnblow weapon.