JJ Rebalance Proposal

For consideration. Have been testing it, feels decent. Will go by changes in order of ones I most believe in to least.

Constable
Remove slowbeam.
Grant 70 damage beam in its place.
Reasoning: JJ is very bad at defending its cons. Pyros are high weight, and not that fast. Against Fleas especially expanding can become a nightmare. A 35 dps weapon does not really let it bully anything, but it allows the unit to fight off one glaive, bandit, dart, or flea that wanders to harass it. I feel this is actually important for a fac that has no cheap raider - HT has an armed con for similar reasons, but has a much better set of units for defense.


Jack
Increase Jump speed from 4 to 6.
Reasoning: Jacks biggest problem is that it cannot engage. Even if it needs its health nerfed back down a bit, I think a jack that can engage turrets or other slow units with less bombardment time, is a healthier Jack


Puppy
Increase speed from 3.5 to 4.
Decrease range from 170 to 160.
Decrease gray goo cost to 30.
Decrease gray goo rate to 2.
Increase gray goo area to 150.
Reasoning: Puppies are a suicidal unit, with very uninteresting raider matchups.
What this seeks to do primarily is make the puppy a unit defined by wanting to consume wrecks to generate them. Their effective BP is down towards what a con might have, but they are actually quite efficient to make. This, combined with a higher speed (and lower range so they don't dominate raiders) is so they actually feel like a self-replicating support unit. The metal prices are such that they will actually suffer markedly less attrition raiding, if they clean up after themselves. Killing a mex will now just about pay for the puppy that killed it.


Pyro
Increase cost from 220 to 250.
Increase health from 620 to 830
Reasoning: Pyros benefit from higher weight for a few reasons. They are harder to rush, their relative friendly fire is less, and they are more likely to be able to kill a single LLT on their own. This pushes them to the level where they should be able to consistently take out 1 LLT, and have enough health to expect to get home. With no natural repair, they will need to get home too, preventing their raiding from being out of control.


Moderator
Currently experimenting with a 120 cost moderator, that has a beam duration of 0.5-.66 seconds, 375 damage, and 15 reload time.
This feels more consistent with wanting a placeholder, and radically reduces their effectiveness against raiders promoting better counters. With improvements to all other units listed against raiders (if just by making them more usable), I felt like this guy could finally use a nerf there. As it stands, it is probably too difficult a unit for players to deal with at lower skills, because they attempt to use the counter and a real chunk of them get instagibbed at the offset, so when they try to dip their toes in and get a feel for the counter they get punished.

jump lab cab be really strong tho

Beam duration effectively decreases DPS, and allows shots to not fully hit a unit.

With the values I have given, it is a tremendous decrease in effective utility for moderator vs raiders. To be honest, its enough of a weakening of the unit, that I am a bit uncertain about it.

Many units at the 600 price point can be a major threat to commanders. Felon is a good example, as is the Phantom. A similar cost in glaives will also usually do the trick. Jack is not actually a very good unit for many reasons. I believe it would be in a better place with 6 jump speed and, if necessary, some nerfs to balance out the other aspects.

quote: [powercreep intensifies]

I got an idea: Nerf sniper!

Jack mobility is not just about hitting units. It many ways, that is the smaller part.
It is about crossing distance, and the damage and effects that pile on when they start taking damage till they get to their target.

JJ has always had the problem that it has a lot of theoretically powerful units, but when you get down to the reality of the game they are far weaker. Only moderator transcends that and becomes more powerful.



Lets look at this another way. Do people actually think JJ is strong right now? It has a few useful units, but it doesn't compare to the main factories like cloaky that just have an answer to every problem.

The Constable change is just so aesthetically displeasing :/

Jack change seems ok, unsure about the rest.

I suspect people do not understand the implications of the moderator change if they view it as a buff, but really these things can be tweaked if people have balance concerns.

I am arguing for design changes that lead to a more stable JJ, one that doesn't just rely on mod spam to function.

To be honest, the constable change is the one that I am most for.

Yes, slow beam seems interesting. It gets some utility in practice as well. The faction has a massive weakness against light raiders, especially fleas. In theory 'Jump Jet' means they should be good on hilly maps, but on such a map fleas are immensely destructive. They have no cheap raiders, only suicidal and inconsistent units to help defend their cons.

Literally no other Factory has such an inability to defend its cons, and keeping a pyro near them is an overly restrictive solution that prevents any form of harass and slows down their expansion substantially.

They already have sufficient access to slow from the moderator, and I do get that I could argue moderator could have a disruptor beam was because their con already had a slow beam. Its cute, it has its uses, but overall it just adds to the immense amounts of micro requirements and blind RPS of the factory.

There is room for two radically different constructors that are armed. Both factories need help against light raiders, and JJ needs the help even more than HT. It only makes sense that JJ would get an answer as well.


For moderator? This is the change I least argue for, and is only tenable with beam time. I do not know why, but friendly fire seems relatively rare, and if it was a real problem can be disabled for the weapon. I did not include the implied half health along with half cost, but it was intended.


Pyro change is likewise one I am not too enthusiastic about, and can only sanely occur if the Constable gets some ability to defend itself. I feel its a bit weak, but the early rush potential is quite high. Cost reductions were avoided as they could enhance that rush, and that is a genuine concern for me. Likewise, high pyro numbers are a problem because they friendly fire themselves to death. Adding strength to the unit that reduces its numbers seems like a better direction, generally.

Again though, less enthusiastic about these two changes.




Finally, for puppy. There is some truth that removing the energy cost is an improvement to economy. That said, the factory already requires an energy surplus to repair its high-weight units. In practice, its more a method of denying reclaim to the enemy - something valuable, but a bit odd in practice.

Years were spent with a 50% increase in metal cost. The intention behind 30m was a bit odd, but it was in short a similar 50% increase on a 'perfectly efficient' reclaim. Wrecks only grant up to 40% original metal, so including the 1.50x tax, that be a 30m gray goo cost.

In testing, I do not think it problematic. The unit can be strong at times, as it always has been able to be, but its counters are very real, and the gray gooing is well telegraphed.

i know i shouldn't post this here.. can quake missile from silo have slow effect so it has an all round purpose sometimes?
it sort-of makes sense and it could be fun because terra is so rare.. and if the slow aoe can go past shields like amphib crawling bomb it could really help deal with shield balls.. emp probably still better option tho.

could give it a short ranged pulse pistol.. fires a white instant hit flash that lightly knocks back and then stuns for a half a second with no damage.. reloads slowly.. pairing it with slow cannon and jump it would be a very cool unit in groups