Felon kinda OP

(Ruined the video at the end beacuse of some changes but that's not the important thing...)
I think felon is a still kinda strong even after nerfs (IIRC I think there were some nerfs long ago)
Even though there are plenty of counters I feel like it's great early game and honestly at any point of the match too if you just use it right.
The OP part about the felon is the shield drain IMO, it's just too fast and can pretty much shred with around 1500 health...(OP) Aswell as it's able to cook air which is absolutely insane too.
Definitely needs a nerf, like making shield drain lower.

@PLT_Chomolungma How does it do in equal metal fights?

https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/1930715

Things that beat an isolated Felon while costing less than it:
14 Darts
4 Scorchers, 2 Darts
7 Daggers
8 Bandits
2 Blitzes
3 Welders
7 Dirtbags. And two Bandits that barely mattered, but it was mostly the Dirtbags.

Things that do not beat an isolated Felon:
4 Scorcher
7 Duck, which was close enough that it probably depends on micro
3 Bolas

Not tested: air, sea, Glaive, Archer, Venom, Flea, Pyro. I expect these to do worse.

Perhaps the no interact zone isn't about the Felon itself, it's about the stuff around the Felon.

How would making it cost more per shot nerf it against bombers? It would still have the burst to murder ravens and thunderbirds.

Chungoose appearance lol

Felon feels most annoying to deal with out of them all, if youre not certain you can kill it, interacting with it is a net loss
larger ball strenght youre relying on either pretty volatile or expensive solutions (cloaked bombs, likho)
assaults feel meh, because now you give rogue or racketeer more or less ideal targets, or end up falling into the "mintoaur is only 100 metal cheaper than a jumpfac and placeholder" trap
I suppose lance is the ideal solution, ranged, moving, burst, multifunctional. Though you probably have to start pretty early with them.

I can't agree with the opinion that Felon is too strong.
Instead, I believe that Felon is in exactly the right spot.


The Shield Factory without Felon/a weakened version would simply be bad. As already mentioned by some, Felon carries shield balls . And shield balls are simply the reason why you play this factory. Nothing else, neither Racketeer, nor Roaches or Aspis are good enough to justify building this factory on their own. Basically nerfing Felon just burries Shield-Fac.


Of course shield balls are strong. But they often only really become so when you have already invested a lot of metal. I think that's fair.

In addition, most factories have relatively good/easy counters.



Without going into counters that are not quite so simple:
Bot factory: Slings
Shield factory: Racketeers
Rovers: Wolverines & Impalers
Amph: Bulkhead/Buoy
Heavy tanks: Tremor
Hovers: Penetrators
Gs: Nimbus
Air: Likho


Of course, some of them only work until the sb has reached a certain size, but this is also the case after thousands of metals have been invested.

Also being worse at aa wouldn't ruin shields as a fac, it would just make vandal actually necessary to build

maybe make other units in the shieldfac like bandit, thug, rogue a more powerful addition to an sball, so that there's another potential source of DPS and felon can be nerfed. not sure how without corrupting their independent role and making them too powerful though.

I also think that different pairings of units being viable could be interesting like a bandit/thug/rogue ball being a cheaper, faster attack force that's vulnerable to AOE and needs to disengage to repair and regenerate, while your felon/thug/aspis ball is solid and hard to stop but slow (so vulnerable to artillery). I don't play shieldfac though so take this with a grain of salt

I seriously doubt we want to buff rogues.