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Emerging cloakbot playstyle

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4 years ago
It's now common to see Sling being used as cloakbot's combat skirmisher due to the cheap cost. As long as you have vision (Knight, gremlin, constructor, commander), the slings generally tend to hit the targets that a ronin would. I've had a game where GBrankPRO_rANDY managed to push my Jumpbots back almost to point of loss with JUST protected sling spam. Cloak mirrors are often very sling heavy too. Now, I don't mind this, particularly at a time where badger is also back on the roster. What I have noticed though is that ronin is pretty much overshadowed now.

Ronin gets attrition killed by LLTs, misses juking targets, and generally has most of the same weaknesses as sling. Just that they feel more sacrificial than slings. It's only very useful against a handful of units (the slowest riots - mace, redback, and some assaults like thug). It used to be very good against amphbots but ends up getting absolutely toasted now. Worst still is it's comparison to Rogue, who is absolutely dominating the skirmishing scene with it's slighly higher range and incredible damage.

So yeah, players are opening their eyes to the safer choice now and spamming sling. A tell-tale sign that ronin is falling to a lower tier.

As always, looking to hear a wider selection of opinions. Tell me what I'm overlooking with ronin.
+2 / -0


4 years ago
My read here is that this happens in a cycle every few years entirely regardless of unit stats. Sling is on paper a superior Ronin that suffers less attrition, but its DPS is abysmal in comparison, and thus it lacks stopping power; which one is better ends up decided by the question of whether you need that stopping power or not.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
You said Sling spam. Imagine spamming ronins they would absolutely wreck slow units. AS long as you have reavers/glaives to deal with your opponent raiders, you are fine I guess.
Against sling spam:
1)If you can afford it, go for a dante. Toasts slings with the epic d-gun.
2)Other artillery which have superior range. For example- Firewalker.
These are the only counters that come in my head right now. Maybe others can post about other counters.
+0 / -0
Not looking for counters or advice with regards to Sling, INrankTheWarning - I don't see it as problematic or difficult to work around. I'm more pointing out that it foretells a shortcoming where ronin is concerned, despite Anarchid's rightful suggestion that it has more stopping power (when in range, which sling can more often safely be). Maybe Ronin are better used defensively? Though I've had times where 3 ronin have failed to prevent a single warrior from destroying my factory in the past, an incident that a warrior of my own would have solved. Certainly having some difficulty in the cloak vs shieldbots matchup with randy now, and I do think it's partially down to Ronin-Rogue disparity.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
USrankDregs Ronin is cheapest skirmisher so you can't let it be very powerful. They are only good when in numbers. But yeah rogues are pretty good.
+0 / -0
I agree with the feeling of that ronin lives under the shadow of sling. Their roles are too similar, and as such one will always be in the other's shadow. One of them should undergo a radical change, and since ronin is the underdog right now, it probably should be ronin.

I feel like being a very low mental density unit that needs direct LoS to do their thing doesn't work very well for ronin, the're a unit that becomes obsolete fast as the mental density of a game increases. So maybe ronin could get a buff to their weight-class. Think a bigger ronin costing about 200 metal. That would also result in more health which would help with the terrible attrition ronins suffer when compared to slings. The extra height from being a little taller could also make the need for direct LoS hurt a little less.
+0 / -0

4 years ago
A long-standing game where sling spam was a very big problem for me

+0 / -0
4 years ago
Maybe Ronin Ai should kite lotus when reloading
+1 / -0


4 years ago
Sling comes and goes. Ronin has seemed bad at points and good at points, but it takes a lot of being bad to buff it above baseline.

USrankJamtime360 that sounds like it could work. You could have a go at it by editing tactical_ai_defs in a dev version.
+0 / -0
1. ronin got buffed last. to the point where it was before last nerf, then it was considered too strong. Then sling got cheaper i guess.

2. i actually think ronin and sling together is way than sole sling-spam.
i find it interesting that two main characteristic differences btween those units are not mentioned.
Ronin is significantly faster than sling.
Sling has high scalability, Ronin low. Ronins over a certain number shoot themselves in their backs. Sling shoots in an arch, so that is not a problem. I don`t know how many people do this (i assume many), but I usually have slings and ronins onfight-command and micro the other units by hand.
having both effectively means more units shooting on front because they kite on different distances. Ronins exert more stopping power, hence they protect the slower slings behind them.
So ipercieve the ability to have two skirmishers as an upside and an interesting feature of the factory, and that is why at least for me, ronin is still a more than good unit that wouldn`t want to miss in any game i play cloakies.
+1 / -0

4 years ago
Random thought - the attrition factor on Ronins makes them a bit higher maintenance than e.g. Glaives/Reavers/Slings, perhaps some enhanced regen could make them more appealing? Maybe 10+ seconds instead of the 5 Glaives/Reavers get since 5 seconds might actually pass between skirmisher vs skirmisher hits, just something so that Ronins could freshen up after a minute of inaction rather than need to run off to a repair source. They might even be able to take a small max hp nerf to offset it.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
I usually leave slings on auto-fight yes. I find they do pretty well auto-fighting, and that leaves your micro free to handle other units. That is probably the main reason why I don't like ronin: even though they're theoretically better in some situations, the attention cost compared to sling isn't worth it. I'd rather pay more in slings to get the same job done without me having to micro them.
+0 / -0