Are ultimatums still worth the effort?

Ultimatum still sucks imho.

Since the nerf it apparently does more damage but shoots significantly slower.

The upshot is that it has become combat-incapable and cannot engage units below strider size if outnumbered.

Striders, which it is supposed to counter, don't have much to fear from it. Scorps are invisible, Merlins out of range and the one unit which we really need it to beat, Paladin - it cant. Unless Ulti has absolutely ideal conditions and an unescorted Paladin blunders right into it, it generally simply dies to Pala. It gets one shot off at mediumish range which takes a big chunk out of the HP and then Paladin stuns it and kills it before the second shot goes off. That's the usual scenario and one of the reasons Paladin rush is still viable.

Ultimatum used to be a fearsome unit and one of the few counters to Cyclops spam. It used to be able to deal with shield balls and a 'pro' player could wreck havoc with it. Nowadays its a waste of metal, mostly.

quote: Ultimatum still sucks imho. Since the nerf it apparently does more damage but shoots significantly slower. The upshot is that it has become combat-incapable and cannot engage units below strider size if outnumbered. Striders, which it is supposed to counter, don't have much to fear from it. Scorps are invisible, Merlins out of range and the one unit which we really need it to beat, Paladin - it cant. Unless Ulti has absolutely ideal conditions and an unescorted Paladin blunders right into it, it generally simply dies to Pala. It gets one shot off at mediumish range which takes a big chunk out of the HP and then Paladin stuns it and kills it before the second shot goes off. That's the usual scenario and one of the reasons Paladin rush is still viable. Ultimatum used to be a fearsome unit and one of the few counters to Cyclops spam. It used to be able to deal with shield balls and a 'pro' player could wreck havoc with it. Nowadays its a waste of metal, mostly.

This is a good analysis, I'll probably try two scorps next time. They benefit by being able to be assault units too.

Give its attack a powerful second effect such as slow, maybe some AOE on it.

Give it a jump, but jumping disables the attack for 5 seconds (5 extra seconds if currently reloading). Jumping also decloaks it.

Alternative: give it a short sprint (with the same penalties).

Maybe it's being nerfed in preparation for jump...

But seriously, I think I prefer the idea of Ulti than Ulti in practise. I like screening for striders, how it has an element of risk-reward based on how much is spent on the screen and how fast the strider tries to advance. Ulti in practise is quite swingy though.

I did not like how cost effective pre-nerf Ulti could be against heavy assaults. It only cost 2k and fired a bit faster, so one would easily make 2x cost if it ran into two Cyclops, or even a reasonable ball of Minotaur. The alternative to heavy assaults tends to be heavily screened artillery, which we can agree is already powerful enough. So I think the game is better off overall with heavy assaults not having such a devastating counter (although Ulti often will trade quite well).

Perhaps Utli could 2-shot Paladin though. It deals enough damage to 1-shot a Cyclops so further damage buffs will only affect striders. At the moment it deals 12k damage to Paladin and 16k to Det at max range. It deals 2k extra damage to each at less than max range. These weird damages are due to it dealing 2k damage for every frame it collides with a unit, so it collides for 6 frames against Paladin and 8 frames against Det, with an extra frame at the end if it is fired close enough for the projectile to not expire within the target.

Paladin has 32k health and Det has 86k. Raising Ulti damage to 3k-per-frame would give it 18k against Paladin and 24k vs Det (with potentially extra 3k). This would make it consistently 2-shot Paladin and 4-shot Det (down from 3-shot and 5-shot). That seems fine to me.

Could make ulti's damage emp only, and give it a longer range with a small aoe.

quote: I did not like how cost effective pre-nerf Ulti could be against heavy assaults. It only cost 2k and fired a bit faster, so one would easily make 2x cost if it ran into two Cyclops, or even a reasonable ball of Minotaur. The alternative to heavy assaults tends to be heavily screened artillery, which we can agree is already powerful enough.

Yes.

quote: This would make it consistently 2-shot Paladin and 4-shot Det (down from 3-shot and 5-shot). That seems fine to me.

While you're tweaking a bit, that Detriment could use some help too.

I don't think damage needs to be increased, 3 shots to finish a pala is adequate - besides, paladin is usually slightly damaged anyways.

Give ulti's gun some short-lived EMP (3s?) on top of its current damage? Just enough to prevent the pala from recovering and blapping the ulti. Paladins can still do pretty well against an ulti as long as the person microing the pala is paying attention.. so adding EMP would re-inforce the need to have all-sides cover.

hmmm. maybe play on "ultimatum" more and give it a single shot? But also cut its speed to a third and multiply its health by five.