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Spiders vs Tanks (Ogre+Emissary beats them all?)

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7 months ago
Just lost a grueling, 22 minute 1v1 against @skigear on Mecharavaged where I played spiders and they played tanks: http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/1854380

Their Ogre + Emissary combo killed everything from the Spider factory I could throw at it. The Ogre seems to be good against Venoms, Redbacks, AND Hermits, but not the Recluse, and their Emissaries killed all my Recluses with range due to the Emissary having AoE and the Recluse being quite fragile. Hermit assaults on key positions went especially poorly due to the small, cheap nature of the Hermit and the Ogre's big AoE.

What's a viable Spider counter here? building a Crabe or two did not seem wise because the Emissary is such a longer ranged artillery than the Crabe.

Is spider supposed to make frequent use of the Widow against tanks? I never see Widow used against normal units, only against heavy stuff like Grizzly or Jugg.

+0 / -0
You weren't as aggressive with your early fleas and venoms as you should have been, so the tank player got their share of the map experiencing minimal pressure. The tank player managed to build two stingers covering the midpoints with zero opposition, which shouldn't be happening. This is despite the map heavily favoring spiders and heavily unfavoring tanks.

You definitely should have been more active with your fleas at certain times. At 2:25 you have four fleas idling southeast against an incoming kodachi instead of applying any sort of pressure on the tank player's base.

If your venoms were meant to be defensive, then you might as well have built redbacks instead. Redbacks, being a DPS riot rather an AOE riot, should be able to handle sparse tanks and lotus expansions much more effectively. Early on, tanks have nothing to answer against redbacks + recluse, regardless of widow, but the tank player's unthreatened economy lends well to building emissary.

At 11:15, you amass 1.5k in hermit in your base instead of a crab, before you see your first emissary. Hermits have next to no value against tanks due to their low range and low DPS, so they're a bit of a waste. At 13:40 your engineer commander runs into a stinger, tanking for hermits. It should be the other way around.

Crabs are okay. Spired crabs against tanks are great. At 20:00 you lose your unspired crab and many recluses in a very avoidable situation.

Widows can make great cost as a consequence of removing key targets, so you can build widows against units as light as ogres or even stingers. Teams example: In https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/1648668 , unknownrankaioeieoiao uses his widow to stun a felon at 4:50, allowing us to easily remove the felon + another felon. He does it again at 9:05, enabling us to remove another felon + an aspis.
+1 / -1

7 months ago
What's a viable Spider counter here?

Weaver... For building air.

It is important to understand that some matchups are changing over the course of a game. In a time long forgotten (I think it`s called the Presuperfluidian) cloakie used to utterly dominate the first few minutes against spiders, then beginn to fall behind against recluses... Since tanks have more expensive and strong units than spiders, your strategy should be to use the early game to get an advantage and then switch.
Also: If you find yourself in a bad situation that you seem to find no good way out, then very likely something went wrong EARLIER. (I got that from my go-teacher and that thinking helped me a lot over the years.)
+1 / -0
7 months ago
This is really good advice re: timing. I'm going to work on my spider openings and flea raiding more. Still don't have the hang of that.
+0 / -0
Hermits are actually quite effective vs Tanks, but you're suppose to abuse their range against Ogres as despite Cabinboy's claim. They actually have one of the highest ranges for a non-skirm. Keeping them spread out to also means reducing not only AoE damage they take but gives more with line of sight to fire.

Widows should've been made early as well to pick off Ogres/Stingers and honestly due to Emissary. Recluse were probably a poor option to be making over Hermits as there's not really much a Hermit couldn't deal with over a Recluse.

Similar to how the AoE of Venoms isn't really needed against tanks and you likely would've been better with Redbacks.

I should also mention you cannot count on Hermit AI vs Ogres, despite having extra range over them. They attempt to shoot at 310 range which causes them to end up running into Ogre range and even end up chasing them whilst being freely shot by Ogres.

This should hopefully be patched though soon enough in a update.

I'd also recommend you give hermits the auto-retreat at 66% health. Because they are so squishy in comparison to other assaults. They need to drop out of fights a lot sooner if they want to have a chance of getting away, but you can make up for it with numbers.
+0 / -0
While it's true that hermit has higher range than ogre, this matters less on a hilly map like Ravaged where taking the wrong walk uphill can be met with ogre volleys, especially given that hermits require a direct line of fire. Hermits are also too specialized compared to redbacks, as they aren't able to handle the kodachis that were often partnered with ogres, and they definitely wouldn't be able to threaten any minotaurs if the tank player decided to build any.

Range matters more in the case of crab which is ideally paired with a spire, in which Ravaged's hills become much less meaningful. Abuse spirejank well enough and most tanks can't even reliably target the crab, ogre being the most realistic exception, but good luck to any ogres trying to get in range. Range also matters more in the case of recluse as it is not a frontlining unit and can fire beyond walls.

Thus, I have doubts that 1.6k in hermit would achieve more than one crab or equivalent cost in redback + recluse, at least in this particular map and matchup.
+0 / -0
7 months ago
Hermits can definitely threaten Minotaurs. It's just the issue of finishing them due to speed, otherwise. Hermits beat Minotaurs for cost, auto-retreat also can severely damper Minotaurs getting kills out of them and even more so you can micro Hermits to dodge shots.

Also the whole issue of screwing up with Hermits vs Ogres is fair enough. The map is fairly awkward for em, at the same time. Hermits become very useful at guarding the top of ramp sections.
+0 / -0
quote:
Hermits can definitely threaten Minotaurs. It's just the issue of finishing them due to speed

That's what I mean. If you let the tank player accumulate minotaurs, you're in for a bad time.

An example of spider vs. tank that I can think is the team game of https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/1764068 , in which I play spiders vs. (coincidentally) AUrankCharmedmage's tanks. There are a few troublesome ogres and minotaurs early on. Once the spider player accumulates a few redbacks + recluses + some terra, the tank player is no longer able to threaten the spider player for cost, unless they decide to build emissary or cyclops. Some minotaurs were sent into this spiderball, but the redback DPS is too overwhelming for a lot of them to be able to escape in time. Hermits wouldn't have nearly the same results. (Ultimately, the spiderball loses to thunderbird.)
+0 / -0


7 months ago
With Flea and Weaver radar, I'd expect Spider to know where the enemy tanks are and avoid running into them. If Spider wins on Ravaged, I'd expect it to be done by abusing the short travel times over cliffs to fight where Tank is weak. Two Tank armies could be pinned down by one Spider army in the right position, so having the Spider army cost 50% more doesn't seem like a problem.

If Tank is fielding multiple Minotaurs, then army sizes have grown to the point that a switch would be reasonable. Factories are not expected to all be able to evenly fight against every other factory for the entire game. Once armies cost 3k+, dropping 700 metal on a different factory is fine.
+2 / -0