What are your early game god-mode mod/unit combinations?

[Sinsling]

And guys, how is it possible that you are still fighting on this? Both of you know what the other is really saying, and you just keep going at it. Feels like I am on a blog with a bunch of damn lawyers that just like arguing.

The premise of this has basically been wether or not the ai is a reasonable tool in assessing balance. In it's current state, it most definitely is not. Requiring 3+ ais to provide any semblance of challenge is actually a negative against using the ai as a balancing point in my opinion.

 

[coodav]

I think there may be a difference on what the premise of the discussion "has been." Either way, that is the premise of what you are saying now, and seems spot-on. The AI isn't particularly good at testing anything IMHO.

 

[Sinsling]

I think there may be a difference on what the premise of the discussion "has been." Either way, that is the premise of what you are saying now, and seems spot-on. The AI isn't particularly good at testing anything IMHO.

I think it became that when it was claimed "celestian mind control was balanced in single player".

 

[NINJEW]

I can't believe it took all that just to get the most basic acknowledgement of some kind of specific balance topic, and then after being baby steps'd on making the most basic of arguments on a topic of his own choosing this guy was still incapable of speaking about that topic at all

Is this what is commonly referred to as a "troll?" Have I gotten "got?" Did someone intentionally argue poorly in an attempt to make me appear foolish by over committing to a pointless argument?

You got me good man

 

[coodav]

I think it became that when it was claimed "celestian mind control was balanced in single player".

I also think that it is the internet bug hitting you guys. Plus Ninjew here kinda likes to argue. The combination means I get to read 30 thesis papers I didn't really enjoy.

 

[coodav]

And if anyone wants to actually post a cool T1-2 god-mode unit with cheap mods, I am still listening to this post.

 

[Ethorin]

not sure if it's strong enough to count as "god mode" and using a hero and a unit is prolly cheating...

Vanguard Synth Sniper hero with Targeting Protocols, Rails, and a Hacker supporting with Calibrate, 11 range!(EDIT: 10 with either of the range boosts solo, 11 with both.)

 

[coodav]

I've gotta say, those snipers didn't impress me at first, but they are definitely growing on me. It is crazy how often you get a guy down to 25% health +/- and need him dead, then you see, oh, this guy has a 90% chance to hit. Wasn't that convenient?

Good pick.

 

[NINJEW]

Did initiates comes up earlier in the thread? Throw any 2 defensive mods on an initiate and enjoy stabbing people in the back to make pain ghosts. Off the top of my head standouts are vanguard initiates, which can get nanites and jetpacks to really mess up someone's day, or shakarn initiates, who can get skitter + xeno defense for some pretty ridiculous survivability. Third mod can be mark of the dark sun or consuming gaze, both are good choices for different reasons.

 

[coodav]

I LOVE initiates. They are crazy-fun. I think we saw them on the last stream too. GREAT pick.

They are also one of the few random spawner stacks that can actually take out a T3 militia. They get pretty crazy.

 

[Ethorin]

I think the silliest thing ever with pure racial techs is Vorpal Snipers maxing Crit Chance.

They start with +15% crit chance as their special feature, with Synth you can easily add another 20% between the Assembly Detector and Targeting Daemon. Adding in Morale Boosts from Small Anomalies or Party Animal or whatever and it can pretty quickly get silly, get's REALLY silly with a Hero, Dead Eye 3 is +15% crit chance for 12 skill points. so that's 30% before mods or morale with a Vorpal Sniper, add in the 20% from mods and another 20% from Best Morale(however you get it) and it's 70% crit chance.

Twas stupid OP before Crit Chance got capped by hit chance lol!

Oh, yeah, and with Shakarn now you could potentially have straight up 90% crit chance lol.

 

[coodav]

Yeah, that is basically right. Sinsling just showed some of that in the Sinsling v THE WORLD thread. Good pick.

 

[NINJEW]

Vorpal snipers singlehandedly carried the entire assembly race super hard until trex patch, where they were made into "perfectly reasonable, maybe even more-than-a-bit above par units" and it turns out that assembly has basically nothing else in terms of competitive 1v1, it was impressive how fast they dropped through the floor as soon as you had to rely on their other units and mods.

But boy, release vorpals were something else entirely. A nice casual 40% crit rate at 10 range with absolutely minimal investment, turning impossible 5% shots into killshots

 

[Sinsling]

Let's not forget to mention firebust consussions, blinds, and whatever other inflicts you wanted to throw on.

 

[NINJEW]

oh i forgot about morale. it was 60% crit (easily 55% with the warmonger doctrine and nothing else). a 5% chance to hit was a secret 60% chance to hit.

 

[Ericridge]

I refrained from commenting for awhile because there's isn't that much of a godmode in planetfall now. Just really good tactics. There was old stuff that could get pretty close to godmode, which was the old vorpal snipers of assembly + kir'ko's engulfer hordes. After those two's early phase, there was that mid-endgame phase of laser tank spam with unnerfed laser cannon. It was so strong that i missed it so much after it got rebalanced. I acknowledge it was quite op. But its fun to whack whole bunch of enemy units for +100 damage after stacking the buffs/debuffs. I set the field up and the ai march in to be lasered.

I'm going to be only commenting vanguard units because i play them the most out of other factions.

Early game good combo set up for me would be

Vanguard Trooper with Flechette + Nanite injectors + Purification field or not.
Second option would be
Vanguard Trooper with Rail Accelerators + nanite injectors + Purification field or not.

Variable factor being the pressure being put on me by the AI will determine whether i want Flechette ammo or wait bit longer for Rail Accelerators. It depends on the map.


Now what elevates a tactic to godmode? Outnumbering the enemy by 2x at minimum. Ideally 3x. It makes the defender have hard time killing your units because they'll be getting rushed on multiple sides.

 

[coodav]

Yeah, that is really being balanced more and more. The troopers are really good, no doubt. In fact, I would say they are basically the benchmark every other build is compared to. So good pick, they are basically the gold standard.

 

[Ericridge]

Yeah, that is really being balanced more and more. The troopers are really good, no doubt. In fact, I would say they are basically the benchmark every other build is compared to. So good pick, they are basically the gold standard.

I forgot to mention one thing that's what I get for staying up the whole night, only faction that I could see needing another balance check is the assembly. Mainly their scavengers. They probably could use something extra but it has to be something that doesn't make them OP again. Its either that or they're completely fine in current form.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

Yes, but as was pointed out how do you know which one is superior? Just because [research sectors > ai] and [battlefield autopsies > ai] does not mean [research sectors = battlefield autopsies]. The use of an inferior metric to justify balance is terrible.

Why do you need to know which strategy the AI doesn't use is superior in PvE?
This is still applying a PvP paradigm to PvE.
Ideally you need to apply both for balance, and consider contradictory results.

Damn dude you want to measure up strategies on whether or not they're capable of beating the ai? Hahaha I guess you really want some serious nerfs thrown around then. Sinsling just beat the ai on stream with DD without ever going near them or being meaningfully threatened, excited for you to advocate nerfing DD into the ground given how it measures up to the AI's capabilities

A) Tactical combat makes a massive difference. Sisling is very good at that, but if you're watched some release streams on twitch, a lot of people really aren't-
B) The question if DD needs a timer extension has literally been asked the day after release (not sure if here or elsewhere though).

Someone realized how wildly pointless their position is and ducked out now that having to meaningfully defend it is too difficult to get away from

Is this what is commonly referred to as a "troll?" Have I gotten "got?" Did someone intentionally argue poorly in an attempt to make me appear foolish by over committing to a pointless argument?

I had real life stuff to attend to.
And it's enlightning that you waste no time showing your character so publicly. I was assuming we had a good faith argument, but evidently not. I wont bother to discuss with you again.

 

[Sinsling]

Why do you need to know which strategy the AI doesn't use is superior in PvE?
This is still applying a PvP paradigm to PvE.
Ideally you need to apply both for balance, and consider contradictory results.

Because measuring 2 objects to an inferior benchmark does not make them equal, as I pointed out. The context of pve or pvp is irrelevant to how the data is measured. The difference is pvp notices the imbalances because the other player(s) are actually capable of using them.

Consider the ai to be the control group in context of balance. Everything the player has is pitted against this test.

The expiremental test is determining if a player with x is greater than player with y. Any huge imbalances can more or less be found on paper without applying pvp situations at all. If a little bit of math shows that x=50 and y=25, there's probably a game breaking discrepancy between the two.