Assault ranking

Why do you think these? I tend to have a quite different viewpoint on this, though that may be due to usage differences.

S-Tier
Knight
Halberd

Stun basically makes Knight a strong riotassault, and with an insta-hit it also does well versus things assaults tend to do poorly versus. It's slow, but sits on 6.85 HPpC, has extra damage versus shields, has quite respectable range, and is pretty simple to use but shockingly effective. Very good unit. Halberd is much more nuanced, and has an armored mode requiring some micro for good usage, but is quite cheap(riot-cheap, in fact), with some of the best DPS per cost of all assaults. 96 speed(above ravager, which is insane), and ~4500 EHP means it can absolutely perform as an exceptional assault, without the all-around usecase of something like the Knight.

A-Tier
Ravager
Hermit
Tiamat
Revenant

Ravager is pretty fast, but lacks great projectile speed. Does not clear the threshold of "Likho cannot 1-shot a ravager ball", can get Thunderbirded, and has lower DPS than the Halberd, despite a similar ability to hug it's targets. However, it does tend to scale well. Hermit, I personally don't get, but it's good and people seem to love it. Tiamat is the supreme non-boss chicken assault, and with a heavy flamer for breath, the jaws of hell itself, and spores colored by the blood of it's victims, not to mention a shield fueled by it's undying hatred for the robotic species of Zero-K, the Tiamat is quite a nasty customer. It outranges many a riot, and even some skirmishers, and walks right up to many turrets without a care. Revenant flies, giving it a unique status of being able to go places no other can, and has amazing burst DPS, a plethora of tankiness, and even strong AoE. It is limited by it's cost(which is typical for air units), and only secondly by the fact that AA can target it, unlike the many ground assaults.

B-Tier
Grizzly
Jack
Thug
Siren

Grizzly is a skirmassault, leaving it rather ill-suited to perform as a true assault should. As well, it's an absolutely massive unit, making it easy to hit despite it's strong range. Jack has an opposite issue- it is the very epitome of an assault. It jumps right in, and wreaks massive havoc with it's incredible 10:1 HPpC, and high DPS, only suffering from the issue of being slow and extremely low-ranged. Unfortunately, those issues are glaring and very exploitable. Thug is a workable assault, but it has the dubious honor of being food for the Felon's shield. Despite this, Thuglaw balls can function quite well, and be quite vicious as they walk straight into your base, shrugging off your few skirms and many raiders with the shields they use to perform their duties. It, however, cannot work alone, and is quite weak when caught with it's shield down. Siren is... in theory, quite good, and as overtuned as many of the ships. Unfortunaly, outsped by Hunter, skirmed by Corsair, attritioned by Mistral and Envoy, and even suffering in Siren v Siren due to the sonic turrets placement, it has few uses, the main one being one of the thickest meatshields ever seen.

C-Tier
Detriment
Cockatrice
Minotaur

These do not deserve comment.

I mostly agree with Aquanim's list.

I would swap Jack and Halberd as Jack can fight a lot more things when you add a cloaker and deals enough damage to worry striders. I grant that Jack is situational, but I think the situation tends to vary based on map/front, not so much within the game. If you expect to fight on terrain which makes it hard for your opponent to retreat, then I'd say cloaked Jack is a pretty safe bet. It can also be thrown at enemy Singus. Halberd by comparison seems quite situational and has to dive in, so rarely snowballs like an assault should.

I might also swap Knight and Grizzly. Knight is very solid with the ability to hit light units and decent range. Grizzly has been better in the past but the meta has shifted a bit towards anti-heavy, so it has not quite enough health at its awkward weight.

Cyclops and Minotaur are working as intended. Cyclops is the capstone unit of the tank factory so had better be a good tank, but Minotaur is a bit more of a generalist and still sees plenty of use. I like how games go from producing Minotaur because it is affordable, to getting some Cyclops, then to returning to Minotaur because its just more efficient. Minotaur has been A-tier at points purely based on the pace of the game, without any changes to Minotaur or Cyclops. It would probably be there is Cyclops wasn't in the same factory.

I would like to build Ravager (look at how it has been buffed non-stop) because it seems fun to mass, but it is just a bit too expensive to mass. I am surprised at the lists that rank it highly. Perhaps it is not efficient enough compared to Minotaur to offset the attrition issues with low weight, even if it is significantly faster. Nine Ravagers is a Cyclops, and will easily beat a Cyclops alone, but Ravager rarely gets the chance to fight alone.

I think Hermit is a bit better than D-tier, but I don't think it needs to extend far beyond its niche as the all-terrain assault.

Revenant was buffed recently and seems decent now. It is too early to tell. Krow was quite good in the past but may have been outgrown by the rest of the game.

quote: I am surprised at the lists that rank Ravager highly.

the unit is kitsch but the dream is real

From a 1v1 "how much do I want to make this unit?" perspective:

S tier (this frequently wins games)

Grizzly

Grizzly can define the course of a battle and it's power to push and attrit skirms is amazing. Killing a skirm every few seconds it will generally make cost in under a minute while being hard to kill as long as there's a small escort.



A tier (sometimes game winning)

Crab

Another game defining superskirm, however the fact you'll probably be using it on spider maps where widows lurk makes it a lot dicier than Grizzly in practice (whose hp makes a single widow an unreliable counter).

Thug

A few Thugs can make Rogues and Felons much more survivable and the combined blob's porcbusting power is unmatched.

Knight

The good range, insta-hit and stun make it a pretty flexible unit applicable in a range of situations. Most notably against tank where it essentially counters the entire factory (technically a Cyclops can kite a knight ball indefinitely, but in practice with retreat zones they won't actually die and you probably have area cloaking by then).

Ravager

High speed, high hp and decent DPS. The most assaulty of all the assaults is surprisingly effective as monospam, able to sweep across big open maps in an unstoppable way to threaten important things from a range of angles.



B tier (situational but important)

Halberd

While Halberd's on-paper stats are amazing it lacks the flexibility and battle power of ravager and doesn't solve many problems Hover has (other than LoS for Lance which a Sparrow can often provide). While a Ravager can go an kill some light porc and return home safely, a Halberd will often die due to its need to unarmor.

Hermit

S tier vs Jumpfac (can be monospammed!), other than that there's rarely a good use for it as Redbacks or Recluse can handle porc.

Jack

High HP and jump lets it dive porc and coms to great effect. It's quite specialized though.

Revenant

Not really very assaulty, but its ability to go in, kill that com and get out is valuable.
That said, gunship starts and switches are things I rarely do, so hard to rate.

Siren

More a riot than anything else, but a blob of hp that big means it can serve as an assault in a pinch and it's a good riot and tank.

Corsair

Very strong against hover, with high speed, ok hp and high damage. Needs a bit of fiddling to ensure both guns hit well. It can take on porc quite effectively.



C tier (eh)

Minotaur

Sort of just there, you build it to raid and retreat, particularly against porc, but it doesn't really have many strong matchups and its effective DPS per cost is very low (partly due to its slow bullet speed making chasing/hitting difficult and partly because its anti-breakpoint damage: 8 seconds per Lotus is painful).
It can dive a Lance if your opponent is inattentive and thus doesn't use the fact that Minotaur is only 24 elmo faster than a Lance.



D tier (you probably don't want to build this)

Cyclops

The poor man's Grizzly: a heavy skirm. Given its price, there are very few situations where you want to build this rather than fac switch to fix the holes in tank's gameplan (maybe if your enemy is spamming Minotaurs or has built a Dante to kill your Minotaurs).

Krow

The only way this will work as a surprise strider is if neither of you have gone air much in a fairly high metal game (probably dense and small). In practice there was almost certainly something more important you should have made, like a Silo.



E tier (you should never build this)

Detriment

There is never a reason to make this in 1v1.

In the recent past, I have seen our team be absolutely railed by halberd runs, 50 or 100 in 1 bunch because of no air or riots, and the halberds are able to go through to our backline. The only way we could stop this was to chase the halberds with all our troops, leaving the front open, so it's either lose the front we were holding (not winning) or lose factories/eco. Neither choice was good because of the psychological damage. "How are we losing the front and they also have the troops for one player to build solely halberds?

I think detri should be ranked higher just because of the sheer amout of health it has, and when used right can make a huge cost effective unit, or it can also be used to keep enemies distracted, because if they start winning another front, detri will come and demolish their base, but will retreat when it does enough damage.

For a Detriment to be "cost effective" it has to kill a LOT of stuff (or a superweapon). Which can happen. But it's not trivial to achieve.

quote: Jack and Grizzly These units are A to A-plus tier in a situation where they are good... but you don't always get that situation, and often when they are bad they are big fat paperweights.

An addition to this comment... if you commit to a Grizzly strategy and it's not working I find that Amphfac is almost always at a loss for a continuation, or even a means to hold the line short term, after that. You don't have artillery and your units are slow, and those angles are probably why Grizzly wasn't working. Jack feels a little this way too sometimes.

By comparison, if you make a bunch of Halberds and it does not work out well, Hoverfac has other tacks you can take. It is pretty rare for Cyclops/Minotaur to get completely shut out of a game, and even if that happens you still have Emissary/Tremor as some kind of stalling option.

(Obviously you can facswitch in theory, but you have to survive in the meantime.)