suggestion for Emissary

I have a suggestion for the Emissary. For now, it's litteraly a sitting duck.

If you compare it to most other arty units, like Badger, Impaler, Firewalker, Recluse, Phantom and other Lance, it's the only one with the Bulkhead (and maybe the cruiser) that need to stop and deploy to fire, but also need to undeploy BEFORE moving.

And the Bulkhead is of big use because it's amphibious and cheap.

Of course, Emissary is not without use. It's the perfect counter for Sling or Badger in opinion, and it's a cute unit.

But when the Impaler come into play, you can't really use the Emissary anymore : when spotted, you need so much time to simply move you are dead, when most other units can immediately run.
Tremor is special because of its firepower, but Emissary is not so powerful in my opinion it need to be counter-balanced in the same way than the Tremor by being a movable tower.
Same for the Impaler : The only real difference between the two is the Emissary has a bit of AOE and the Impaler not. And for the same price and same damage the Impaler don't need to stop to fire or undeploy.

Then here's what I suggest :

When the Emissary move, it can't fire and immediately begin to undeploy its gun. This undeployment has to go to the end : Even if the Emissary stop to move immmediately, it has to finishes the undeployement THEN it can deploy again its gun when immobile.

Then, the Emmissary STILL need to stop and deploy before firing, and still has a period of undeploy-then-redeploy if moving, but at least can do emergency moves, like nearly all the other arties & co.

quote: The way i see it is to make impaler also have to deploy/redeploy so it has the same disadvantage as the other arty maybe then the other arty (emisary/tremor) wont be a noob trap vs imaplers anymore

The problem I see with making Impaler deploy is that it is typically only going to be a disadvantage against other Impalers. Impalers can be far enough back from the front line (or protected by terraform) such that Emissary cannot practically engage even a stationary and deployed Impaler. Therefore the main effect of this change is on the Impaler mirror matchup and I don't think it has a particularly enjoyable effect on that matchup.

By the way, I read somewhere the Impaler can shoot while moving precisely because stationaries ones where insta-gibed by other impalers.

quote: because impaler is the anti arty arty of choice

Eh? How?
Land arti is: Lance, Impaler, Sling, Emissary, Phantom, Firewalker, Tremor, Merlin.

The only ones that Impaler can hit are the tank ones

quote: That's a very interesting idea, and I like it, but what would happen if both the glaives died?

That, is a good question. Perhaps make some more, like drones from a com.

strikeshadow: That sounds more like anti-heavy than anti-arti.

So make a plate and circle guard raiders around your tremor... problem solved.

I think the Emissary is more of a skirmisher replacement for the Tank Foundry. Not exactly meant to fight other artillery but better against moving targets due to Tanks not having a proper skirmish unit. The Emmisary is effective against enemy riot units and the Dominatrix, even effective against other skirmishers like the moderator, which dies in 1 hit.

Giving the tanks a dedicated hit&run artillery unit when they already have saturation artillery in the Tremor would make them OP imho.

quote: The problem i see is impaler ...because impaler is the anti arty arty of choice,thats why nobody makes any other arty than impaler or lance

I'm getting tired of nearly every team game degenerating into impaler/lance standoffs. These are units you MUST get. Maybe people arent being very creative at countering them, but seeing the same things every game is getting boring.

Lance falls to likho easily. If they are clumped, the likho made cost. My strategy evolved around minimizing losses by likhos. It’s why

• make shields (protect from likho unless microed or low shields)
• build 7 flails (they loose the likho in 1 volley)
• updating custom formation (prevent losing more then 1 lance per likho )

This combo works well vs unshielded lances, which is another reason I shifted to shielded lances.
I still need

• anti raid(mace/bola)
• spotters(halberd, but something cloaked may work better)
• anti snitch (still working on this, but probably halberds with another custom formation update)
• anti tremor/impalers since they are more of an issue due to draining shields
• anti nuke. Lately my lance shield balls die due to nuke.
• now anti dirtbag. Starts the same as anti raid, but tremor needed to remove mounds.

The key is having units survive. When your limited to 15 m/s, it’s hard to get a large army.