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Placeholder needs a nerf

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Firepluk
Right now placeholder is an absolute nemesis of all commanders, no matter if someone poured 10k metal into it - it will be trapped for as long as a cheap commander, near enemy frontline you are as good as dead if this happens.
On top of it placeholder can be cloaked...

Shouldn't placeholder holding strength be dependant on unit's cost/mass?

What do you guys think? I think it's incredibly unfun and frustrating to lose expensive units and striders so easily to such a cheap unit... What's worse it happens from range and there is nothing you can do to stop this, except maybe sending huge suicide flea squads in front of you
+2 / -1

4 years ago
Commander can still terraform or jump to get out, and can still shoot.

Frankly, I am not terribly sympathetic to the frontline commander that cannot handle a cloaked placeholder when it comes up, the enemy just as easily could have stunned them into oblivion.
+6 / -0
Firepluk
Stunning can be prevented with screening, placeholder "stunning" cannot because it comes from the nowhere (big range)
Terraform is out of question since "recent" update because now you cannot terraform in enemy vicinity(terraform speed - 100000% or so)

What use is shooting if enemy outguns you 100 to 1, some com builds(such as dgun) are based on strike && run tactics. Losing mobility for 10 seconds on expensive coms is as good as being dead...
+0 / -0
I somehow lost my morphed commander to a single placeholder, it wasn't a pleasant experience
+0 / -0
My view on this is: suck it up Firepluk.

:D

I have had by commanders blown up, dissected, boiled and vapourized many many times, and a lot of the times by you ;) Dgun comm didn't feel fair for a long time but you learn to play around it. I became a better player because of the lessons I learned, thanks :)

I agree Placeholder is a pain in the ass but it is in no way OP and if cloaked Placeholder gives you trouble then I suggest a screen of light units like Flea.

IF Placeholder were to be nerfed then I suggest a sliding scale where very heavy units with lots of HP are able to slowly move out of the field using their own inertia to combat the gravity field. It would make sense for a small unit to be helpless but a strider to have enough mass and power of its own to escape, even if slowly.

Edit: I read Firepluk's post again and we are saying sort of the same thing. I'd be cool with that.
+3 / -0
I've played 1 or 2 teamgames where i was using very limited amount of placeholder, and, well, it's not just commanders. You try to assault something with minotaurs or cyclops, and a placeholder is near? You've made a nice metal donation, and no you can't change your mind and retreat.

Virgin Widow:
- Relies on cloak to function, drains 10 e/s
- Needs to walk up point blank to enemy, can be screened
- Dies instantly when decloaked
- Need multiple to stun even half-striders like Jugglenaut or Cyclops
- Can only stun one target at once
- Reload takes forever, can't stunlock
- Can't do anything cool

Chad Placeholder
- Brazenly operates in the open, has nothing to fear
- Has skirmisher range, good luck screening that
- Can survive more than 1s in combat
- Can immobilize whole armies with its massive aoe
- Only needs 1 shot to immobilize most heavies
- Reload time is equal to effect duration, can keep a single target locked forever
- Combine with lobster to build space elevators, cool
+6 / -0
I don't like Placeholder. Its yet another Zero-K unit that seems to say "You tried to make a frontal assault and/or use heavy units, how adorable!"

You shouldn't be able to inutilize a strider with a unit that costs 250 metal. At least other BS assassination units have much more severe limitations as listed. Placeholder is an effing skirmisher.

And his BS works against groups of units as well. I suspect the only thing that prevents this unit from being a lot more cancerous than it currently is is that people don't play JJ a lot, and when they do they usually want to smash thing with jack or Jugglenaut, or burn everything with firewalker.

I'd support a nerf making it not have a perfect hold against large units. Even things on the level of minotaur should be able to trudge their way out. Even just slowing down enemies drains a lot of wind out of an assault.
+2 / -0
4 years ago
Missile launcher strike comm can kill it I think.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
Placeholder is the reason I stopped making Dante. One placeholder stops it dead. 250m ranged counter for a 3500m unit? Yeah
+3 / -0
4 years ago
I like having options when there is a heavy unit that makes a more complex game. We have line move (so, no need to always group), the blackhole does not do any damage, and placeholder does not seem to synergize well with many things from factory (a bit with moderator, but they reload so slow, than if you see that you can spam cheap units and line move them, and done). Plus, when I tried to use it I found that the effect is not as predictable as you may want (hard to get exactly what you want).

+2 / -0
4 years ago
You can throw in 1-2 extra placeholders and still make cost by a good margin against striders. It doesn't cause damage but striders are heavily reliant on their mobility to stay alive in a frontline.
+0 / -0

4 years ago
quote:
- Can't do anything cool



Can stun antinuke. Very cool thing btw if u have nuke silo with nuke.
Widov can sneak in enemy base and allow see thing because it invisible.
Placeholder disable unit movment but not it firepower. Widov stop unit fully until stun duration.
Enemy can see placeholder in radar if no cloaker present but widov have its own cloak.
+1 / -0
Firepluk
A single placeholder countered my detriment(jump was not ready and I could not run away):
https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/993424
nice balance, this is just beyond stupid having 24k metal strider be countered by 200 metal little shit
same happens with cyclops

this unit is totally broken
+2 / -1

4 years ago
+21 / -0
Firepluk
I'm curious what does AUrankAdminGoogleFrog think on the matter :)
Should we have a 250m unit that completely blocks movement of anything and everything even 24k metal striders?
one pew and you are fucked...

P.S. I tried to start a serious discussion here and people turned it into a circus :\
+0 / -0


4 years ago
Placeholder has always seems like it could be extremely powerful, but for some reason we don't see much of it. I'd want to build up some understanding of when it is good.
+3 / -0
4 years ago
Could just be because its a pure support unit in a niche factory that is already very micro hungry. Sometimes a unit not being used doesn't mean its bad, it just doesn't occur to people to use it.

Djinn remains obscure despite providing effing teleportation at a reasonable cost.
+1 / -0
Biggest lame about placeholder is that you can't jump out of that hole.
However this unit is rarely used no matter that it is very powerful support attack. Its very had to use placeholder effectively and one or two games doesn't mean that its ultimate counter.
Of course form one side its lame that somebody got his detri trapped because detri doctrine says that you must send it with adequate support not just alone jumping around with some flea screen. I have seen one game where detri was supported by gunshit fleet (nimbus + tridents) + flea screen. Nobody could deal with that combo. In reality you needed more metal then in detri + gunships to deal with such combination.

quote:
P.S. I tried to start a serious discussion here and people turned it into a circus :\


Well detri is already jumping circus. Something doesn't fit together with 'jumping' and 'ultimate assault strider'. I don't also understand why devs put such buffs only now if i proposed (and not only me but many others) things like 100 regen long time ago and that it should take take less dmg form ultis. But now they giving buffs like from unicorn horn. I'm proponent about detri more robust and stronger but opponent about jumping. It becoming Doom Eternal with Marauder in game. We already got lobster for trolling but now jumping detris. What will be next? Jumping/flying ultis? At first this all is of course funny but when some time pass it start to become annoying. So seems if detri is getting his jump permanently then it should be also in similar troll mode be countered by placeholder.
+3 / -0

4 years ago
Placeholder is nightmare to rover's marching.
+1 / -0
Firepluk
quote:
Of course form one side its lame that somebody got his detri trapped because detri doctrine says that you must send it with adequate support not just alone jumping around with some flea screen

this here. Adequate support for detriment(something apart from flea screen and some aa and what allies happen to have) already means well over 30k metal spent... DRP is just better in all regards if u wanna really strong support for detriment
and here u get to the question what role detriment supposed to act in a team game? what does it solve better than DRP?
if it does come earlier it quickly turns into a metal donation
if you make proper screening and support it comes right in time to get killed by DRP...

but anyway let's continue on detriment here https://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/32425
+0 / -0
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