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Domination on The Ebon Hawk is now a farce


Nemarus

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The problem with most of suggested fixes is that they would make minelayers almost completely worthless. If damage was affected by shields it would turn mines into the crappiest missiles ever. Extremely long reload time and very slow time to hit target (someone has to drive into your missile). People already hate the AOE Ion railgun because it makes you helpless for 6 secs, an EMP miissile that locks down a Bomber for 20 secs, or any other form of hard counter is not the way to go.

 

I have a much simpler solution, reduce the speed of minelayers boost from 320% to say 200% of normal speed or alternatively increase the cost of boost for bombers dramatically so that they take longer to reach the nodes. This makes bombers more vulnerable to interception as their flight time to nodes would be dramatically increased.

 

The strategy to deal with bombers then becomes one of interception or avoidance. Don't let them get to the node or fight at the node they aren't at or that has the least bombers.

 

Currently with both Lost Shipyard and Kuat Domination maps a bomber can get to a node within two boosts, which means it almost impossible to intercept and destroy a bomber before it reaches a node.

 

The Denon map is different and bombers are much more vulnerable due to the distances between nodes, Reducing boost effectiveness would serve to increase the vulnerability of bombers on all maps.

 

Less boost means the team needs to help their bombers get to where they are going.

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Nem, I think you are somewhat oversimplifying the situation. You mention charged plating in passing, as if it was just another variant of your build. However, the charged plating minelayer build is very different from the overcharged shield build in its strengths and weaknesses, even if they both use the same weapons.

 

The main issue appears to be that the combination of overcharged shield and shield power converter makes a minelayer so tanky that it is extremely difficult for any other ship to kill it in a reasonable amount of time, while at the same time dealing a large amount of direct hull damage to any ship that gets close. However, charged plating is a direct counter to this. A single charged plating minelayer can clear multiple overcharged shield minelayers from a node while taking only minimal damage. The mines from the charged plating ship will deal direct hull damage to the overcharged shield ships, making their shield and power converter totally useless. Meanwhile, the charged plating ship can use the active ability from charged plating to avoid taking hull damage from the opposing minelayers' mines.

 

There is a trade-off to this, of course (as should be): the charged plating minelayer is MUCH more vulnerable to most other ship. For instance, with the 20% bleedthrough from charged plating, and 28% shield pierce and 100% armor pierce from slug, a charged plating bomber will take 48% of the damage from any slug railgun hit directly to their hull. Putting more power to your shield doesn't help when half the damage bypasses your shields entirely. It will only take 2 full-charge and one partial-charge slugs to kill that bomber (2000 hull HP). They are also very vulnerable to rocket pods (which also have 28% shield pierce and 100% armor pierce), and fairly vulnerable to anything else with armor pierce. A T1 scout with EMP and rocket pods can be fairly effective against a charged plating bomber but will not achieve much against an overcharged shield bomber with shield power converter.

 

I usually play GSF with 2 friends. One of my friends likes to play a T1 gunship, the other plays many ships but has lately been playing a T3 strike, with healing probes and charged plating. In Domination, I like to play a charged plating minelayer with hyperspace beacon (shield power converter would make my ship more tanky, but hyperspace beacon means that I can get reinforcements faster, which is particularly nice on the Denon map). The 3 of us can and have taken nodes defended by multiple bombers.

 

In fact, the best counter to your 12 minelayers would be 3 teams (1 per node) consisting of the following: 1 charged plating minelayer, 1 dronecarrier with interdiction drones and healing drone, 1 T3 strike with charged plating and healing probes, and 1 T1 gunship with 40% speed reduction as T5 ability on ion railgun.

 

As you can see, my team would get several stacking slows. Any 2 of the following effects would bring the enemy minelayers to a complete stop, or very close to it, depending on upgrades: interdiction mine (50-60% reduction in speed + turn rate), interdiction drone (40-50% reduction in speed + turn rate), and ion railgun (40% slow with T5 choice). All those debuffs are AOE, and at least 2 of them (interdiction mine and ion railgun AOE) don't require LOS on secondary targets. I don't know if the interdiction effect from interdiction drones requires LOS.

 

You pointed out that charged plating only protects a ship from mine damage for 19 seconds out of every 30. But the charged plating minelayers and strikes don't have to stay at the satellite for the whole 30 sec. They can get to the sat, do damage as long as charged plating is up, then retreat and heal up from any hull damage they may have taken from your minelayers' HLCs. Also, since your entire team (in your hypothetical scenario) is composed of bombers, and mine is not, cover is important for you but not for me. The bombers on my team can move away from the sat when charged plating is on CD, without exposing them to attacks by gunships or missile locks from strikes, since your team has no gunships or strike fighters. On the other hand, the bombers on your team can't leave the node without losing their cover and exposing themselves to more damage.

 

The dronecarriers on my team would drop their repair drone away from the nodes, out of range of your minelayers' mines and heavy lasers, with the approach to those drones being protected by the gunships. Anytime the ships on my team need some hull repair, they can break off from the node and fly to the repair drone, under cover of gunship fire. In addition, my team can get healing while on the node from the strikes' healing probes.

 

The dronecarriers would need to play smart and mostly hang out at the periphery of the action, dropping seeker mines and keeping interdiction drones up as much as possible, preferably dropping them right after the enemy bombers have already been slowed and had their turn rate reduced by an interdiction mine, and chosing their angle so that the drone is not in front of any of the minelayers (so they can't shoot it).

 

At this point, the minelayers on your team would be affected by multiple slows and unable to move or turn, leaving them sitting ducks and vulnerable to our strikes' torpedoes, as well as our bombers' HLCs. Ion AOE from the gunships would keep the minelayers' shields weakened and keep them slowed even after the interdiction mine effect wears off. All of these weapons can be used from outside the detonation range of the minelayers' mines, btw, so our ships wouldn't even have to worry about mine damage once the enemy minelayers are immobilized. Unlike my team, those minelayers would have no way to heal their hull damage, unless they are using hydrospanner, which would not be enough to save them.

 

Once your team's minelayers are dead, they won't make it back to the satellites anytime soon, since the gunships on my team can slow their speed by 40% from 15 km away, leaving plenty of time for the gunships and strikes to kill them while our minelayers and dronecarriers stay to guard the sats (or the bombers on my team could go on the offensive too and put some interdiction drones between your cap ship and the sats, shoot at your bombers with HLC, etc...).

 

Alternatively, the dronecarriers could be replaced by T2 strikes with EMP missiles, Proton torpedoes, and charged plating. This would give us less healing and CC but we would be immune to most of your team's damage anyway. The combination of ion railgun slow and interdiction mine effect is really potent even without adding interdiction drones to the mix, so the dronecarriers may be overkill. Having 6 strikes instead of 3 would also give us increased mobility. In fact, we would have all the nodes captured at the start of the game and some of your minelayers would never even make it to a satellite without getting killed.

 

I have actually been in a Domination game, on the Harbinger, where the enemy team used 7 bombers (out of 8 ships) at the start of the game. I wasn't even flying a bomber in that game, I was flying a Pike with EMP missile/Proton torpedoes/HLC. The bomber-heavy team lost the game. Stacking bombers is not as effective as using a variety of ships with complementary abilities.

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Nem, I think you are somewhat oversimplifying the situation. You mention charged plating in passing, as if it was just another variant of your build. However, the charged plating minelayer build is very different from the overcharged shield build in its strengths and weaknesses, even if they both use the same weapons.

 

The build I linked used Overcharged Shield because, back when I designed it, the biggest threat were attacks that had to go through shields (i.e. the vast majority of attacks in the game). So long as no one else was playing the same build, hull damage was of little concern.

 

Now that everyone is using it, the case can definitely be made for Charged Plating. But so far, I've found that those using Charged Plating tend to get taken out before reaching the node. They might be more suitable for pure node defense, but for offensive node-clearing, I find Overcharged works better.

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So, most of these ideas delete boy bombers (minelayers).

 

Did you ask for shield piercing to be removed from seismic or interdiction? Did you ask for the two mines to not be able to kill a scout? Did you ask for minelayers to be bad at nodes? Did you ask for bombers own munitions to hurt them?

 

If so, you are just whining to delete bombers.

 

 

 

There's a thought experiment about 12 minelayers, which is definitely possible to defeat with a team involving 1-3 minelayers, a few gunships, and some more mobile ships. The ability to be entirely safe at range versus the 12 minelayer team is something that is not being considered, as is the ability of over-under to pretty much ruin a bomber's day.

 

 

 

 

Some suggestions:

 

1- First regarding EMP buffs.

EMPs are meant to be reasonable versus minefields, and they aren't. Their entire utility on live is shutting down

 

1a- EMP missile locks on to mines, drones, and turrets in a quarter second.

1b- EMP explosion (Type 1 Scout system component and Type 2 Strike missile) are 6km explosion, but effect only mines and drones. The engine disable (all ship effects) remains at 3km. This is accomplished with a red ball that is large and the existing blue ball.

 

2- Second regarding mine buffs.

Very few mines are worth using. All of them are short range, and none of them give the boy bomber any job besides guarding a small space. Most of the mines are not worth using, as the minelayer himself is the worst ship outside of domination's requirements to hold a node.

 

Ion mine needs to have a different purpose. It currently serves to minorly debuff those stupid enough to hug a satellite- and anyone hugging a sat doesn't care much about their engine power. Instead, the ion mine would have a 5km trigger AND explosion range. It could probably have a longer trigger time (the time until it becomes active) if it is going to have such a large range. It could also be able to effect a larger area but to less effect, gaining a shorter cooldown in exchange for less drain and damage, but I'm not sure how great that would be.

 

Seeker mines should get armor ignore (NOT shield ignore) as a talent. As an opposed talent (one or the other) they should have enhanced shield damage. Seeker mines have little to recommend them for anything but the girl bomber, who has them as her only mine option. This will give them a particular niche when combined with ion mines (if the ion triggers first, it will deal decent hull damage even to an armored target).

 

Concussion mines are probably ok if they could be pared with the enhanced shield damage seeker mine above. They may need a small buff to their activation and explosion range, but not as big as the ions. They could maybe even deal a bit more damage.

 

3- Mild Mine nerfs.

Seismic mines should not prime themselves for a couple extra seconds- they should take as long as the ion mines under this system. This interesting disadvantage should give a good player more time to attack them. Seismic mines need to remain devastating and good at clearing nodes- the primary job of the bomber. They could also have an additional few seconds added to their cooldown, but since the game is normally in multiples of five, this nerf couldn't really fit well.

 

Interdiction mines are totally fine as is.

 

4- Damage reduction changes

 

The companion secondary that reduces damage taken by 9% instead should reduce damage by 15%.

The damage reduction hull should increase damage reduction by 25% instead of 20%.

The activated "charged plating" ability will only grant a damage reduction of 55%, instead of 60%. This is just so the other two passives don't buff it too much and it sums to mostly the same number- anyone taking charged plating already takes the companion, and also the hull unless they can't (only Starguards/Rycers cannot). I don't really want to nerf them, but whatever, no one runs those.

 

This will reduce the value of the seismic and interdiction mines against opponents who actually try to be harder to kill versus them instead of just stack dogfighting values.

 

 

This would allow for the meta to adjust with a bit more speed- something it has failed to do thus far, as the only result has been low value threads like this one.

 

 

"I didn't take anything good against bombers and then I died to bombers"

 

 

That's... pretty much it. On live, everyone is complaining about bombers, and no one is interested in the components that work against them, and no one seems to understand that a bomber needs to be able to hold a node very well against the ships that can do things besides exactly that. If you aren't taking damage reduction hull and damage reduction companion, you probably shouldn't be here complaining. If you think that the fact that 19/30 seconds is just inadequate because what will you do for the other 11 seconds (hint: spend them off of the damned node by managing your cooldowns), then nothing is really gonna help you. If you are just demanding that bombers be removed- which is most of the tears in this thread- you aren't helping the game.

 

 

 

The minelayers don't have any other role in domination except node defense. They waddle slowly, have poor firepower, turning, and no defense against missiles except huddling on the mine. If you take that away from them, they have nothing at all.

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Now that everyone is using it, the case can definitely be made for Charged Plating. But so far, I've found that those using Charged Plating tend to get taken out before reaching the node. They might be more suitable for pure node defense, but for offensive node-clearing, I find Overcharged works better.

 

On our servers, some of the boy bombers run charged plating for this reason. It definitely makes you have a very large advantage versus this build. If you'll note in my suggestions, I add something that is good against that- the seeker mine. The meta needs to support both the charged plating and not charged plating, the shield ignore mines and the normal mines.

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On our servers, some of the boy bombers run charged plating for this reason. It definitely makes you have a very large advantage versus this build. If you'll note in my suggestions, I add something that is good against that- the seeker mine. The meta needs to support both the charged plating and not charged plating, the shield ignore mines and the normal mines.

 

I'm confused -- how does increasing your mine damage by 50% act as a viable counter to them taking ~90% less damage from your mines? Seems like this would just stall encounters unless one side or the other lacked charged plating.

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I'm confused -- how does increasing your mine damage by 50% act as a viable counter to them taking ~90% less damage from your mines? Seems like this would just stall encounters unless one side or the other lacked charged plating.

 

I am a bit curious what you mean by this. Since you guys asked what would be a better meta (the real version of all this "how to nerf bombers" stuff), I answered.

 

If seeker mines could ignore armor (but not shields), then the damage from it could scare off a bomber using the charged plating build. But seeker comes on two ships, not just one, and also replaces seismic.

 

Right now, the meta is this: Some boy bombers run charged plating. Those boy bombers will beat another boy bomber on the node, hands down. The cost is that they are much more vulnerable to other ships (such as railguns, burst laser cannons, and heavy lasers) that pierce armor, because they always take armor damage and... well, you know why charged plating sucks versus armor piercing. Basically, we HAVE a meta already- we just could nudge it a bit.

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Oh, in your suggested changes. I see.

 

I don't dislike that change, but I'd prefer a change that made skill the determining factor between these two bombers duking it out. I'll sleep on it, since I obviously need to do that anyway.

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Skill is already a big part of the bomber versus bomber matchup, actually. You get to watch their buffs and you want your mines to threaten to blow them up when the charged plating is down- and if they are going to leave the node for that, then you want to be able to heavy laser them if possible, etc.
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Verain, I agree with most of your suggestions, except for this one:

Seeker mines should get armor ignore (NOT shield ignore) as a talent. As an opposed talent (one or the other) they should have enhanced shield damage. Seeker mines have little to recommend them for anything but the girl bomber, who has them as her only mine option. This will give them a particular niche when combined with ion mines (if the ion triggers first, it will deal decent hull damage even to an armored target.

 

Part of the reason minelayers in general, and Nem's build in particular, are so powerful is that so few people are using charged plating, which is the direct counter to them. Charged plating has so many drawbacks already that it is only worth running as part of a specialized anti-bomber build. But few people are willing to use charged plating because it makes them so vulnerable to slug railgun and other armor-piercing weapons. That is the main reason seismic + interdiction mines are so powerful in the current meta: the counter to them exists but very few people are willing to use this counter because they don't want to give up their survivability against other ship types.

 

Giving armor-piercing to seeker mines would move the meta in the wrong direction by discouraging the use of charged plating even more and removing the main reason for using it at all on any ship. Considering how weak charged plating already is against non-bombers, making it vulnerable against bombers would mean that there would be no reason whatsoever to use charged plating in any build anymore. If your proposed change ever went live, I would immediately stop using charged plating on my minelayer and switch to Nem's build.

 

What is needed is the exact opposite: the use of charged plating should be encouraged, which would automatically reduce the impact that seismic + interdiction mines have on the battlefield. Two of the strike fighter types can use charged plating, and strike fighters have other bomber-fighting tools, yet very few strike pilots use those builds. They need to be made more effective, not less.

 

One way to encourage the use of charged plating would be to force gunships to choose between shield pierce and armor pierce on slugs as a T4 choice, instead of automatically getting both. Strike fighters with charged plating are the only strikes that can currently be 1-shot by a gunship because of the combined effect of bleedthrough, shield pierce, and armor pierce on slug railgun (yes, I am aware that this requires a bypass crit and doesn't happen often, but it still helps illustrate why strikes don't use charged plating).

 

I do like both of your proposed changes to EMP: the EMP field's main issue is that its radius is too small and the EMP missile's main issue is that its lock-on time is too long. Your changes would resolve both issues. The bug with EMP missile that causes it to hit ships for 180 damage instead of the 360 damage mentioned in the tooltip should also be fixed to give the missile a little more appeal.

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Considering how weak charged plating already is against non-bombers, making it vulnerable against bombers would mean that there would be no reason whatsoever to use charged plating in any build anymore. If your proposed change ever went live, I would immediately stop using charged plating on my minelayer and switch to Nem's build.

 

Ok, that's fine, but that wouldn't make it bad. If you chose to do that, you'd gain traction over bombers that used seeker mines... which currently none of them do. Seeker mines, which lack shield piercing, would actually be a good meta call, but they wouldn't be able to eliminate most ships with the same power as the shield ignoring ones.

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stuff

 

I agree 100% that the massive weaknesses of damage reduction are a serious problem in the meta, and the strength of seismic/interdiction is a byproduct of that.

 

One way to encourage the use of charged plating would be to force gunships to choose between shield pierce and armor pierce on slugs as a T4 choice, instead of automatically getting both. Strike fighters with charged plating are the only strikes that can currently be 1-shot by a gunship because of the combined effect of bleedthrough, shield pierce, and armor pierce on slug railgun (yes, I am aware that this requires a bypass crit and doesn't happen often, but it still helps illustrate why strikes don't use charged plating).

 

Better answer: every weapon in the game that has 100% armor piercing is reduced to 50% armor piercing (with the exception of protons because they're not all that good anyway).

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Better answer: every weapon in the game that has 100% armor piercing is reduced to 50% armor piercing (with the exception of protons because they're not all that good anyway).

Or exception made of T5 upgrades so that armor piercing upgrades are similar to other upgrades (armor damage 8% -> 16% if T5, weapon damage 5% -> 10% if T5)

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Tier is irrelevant because maxed ships. 100% armor piercing is toxic on any tier.

 

But only one weapon (Concussion Missile) has armor piercing as a T5 upgrade. All others -> 50%.

 

It makes no sense that this kind of upgrade remains the only one without "half version" for lower tiers upgrade.

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Some weapons probably should have full armor penetration. These weapons should have other disadvantages.

 

Good example: Proton torpedo.

 

Some weapons probably should have a high degree of armor penetration. These weapons should have smaller disadvantages.

 

Example: Slug Railgun, Heavy Laser

 

Other weapons should probably have less armor penetration.

 

 

It shouldn't really relate to the talent tier though.

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Its a rock, paper, scissors kind of balance. I still dont see the problem. Everything has a counter its just a matter of people using the countering builds and ships to balance out the use of the FOTM builds theat some are currently using.

Its team play and a variety of builds are needed. A team full of all-star quarter backs would not fair well against a well rounded team. If more people had well rounded hangers and picked their ship based on how they could help their team and not better their own personal score board we would see a lot less of the problems being discussed.

Edited by dailus
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Its a rock, paper, scissors kind of balance. I still dont see the problem.

 

The problem is that RPS is a ****** game and RPS balance is lazy and bad design. The outcome of a fight should depend more on what you actually do during the fight and less on which ship you picked at the launch screen.

 

(Note that that doesn't suggest ship choices should be meaningless, not at all, but that ship choice should determine what you have to do to win a fight, rather than determining whether you win a fight at all.)

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Well you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I fly a strike fighter often and do not feel I die more or contribute less than in my scout fighters. I fly all three types and still enjoy both types of matches very much in the games current state. Changing conditions on the battle field and changing my build to meet the challenge keep me interested.
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I am still wondering why the Minelayers get HLC.

Design wise they are the kings of area denial and close range DPS, who also can shoot back at any medium range fighter?

If they had a smaller laser range, Strikes would have a better way to deal with them by slowly pecking them to death with their HLCs. The Minelayer could either try to dodge/ LOS or leave his mine umbrella to engage.

As they currently are there is no need for the Minelayer to do anything but to shoot back with his HLC...

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I am still wondering why the Minelayers get HLC.

Design wise they are the kings of area denial and close range DPS, who also can shoot back at any medium range fighter?

If they had a smaller laser range, Strikes would have a better way to deal with them by slowly pecking them to death with their HLCs. The Minelayer could either try to dodge/ LOS or leave his mine umbrella to engage.

As they currently are there is no need for the Minelayer to do anything but to shoot back with his HLC...

 

That would not really matter. How many shots a Strike will be able to land while the Bomber can't during the joust ? One ? Two ? Not much more.

It will not offset the fact that you have substantially less Hull+Shield pool... Well with a Concussion Missile, you could hope destroying each other in a tie.

 

But whatever, if they know what they're doing, they go full throttle, to limit the the jousting time and fart mines in your face like an ill-mannered brat as you're about to passing by each other.

It will be more productive for them, giving a better ratio of damage done compared to received damage.

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I dont really worry about Minelayers in open space, my point was that the HLC range when defending a Satellite is too usefull. They can just shoot back at a strike staying outside of the mine field, instead of being forced to act by either LOSing or leaving the node to get into laser or quad range.
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