Been toying around with both advent titans a bit since they were released. The loyalist titan feels rather lackluster as compared to their TEC counterparts, and the rebel one in additional to being underwhelming just doesn't feel polished.
I did some thinking on possible ways these capital ships could have some of their issues addressed/buffed.
[DISCLAIMER: I don't think it's necessary to insitutte a change for every ability or even that any numbers I provide are necessarily correct. This post is merely the result of the time I spent brainstorming problems these ships have an possible solutions. If you disagree, please explain why as well as what, if any, you think the problems with these ships are]
anyway I'll go through this ability by ability:
Advent Rebel Titan: The Eradica
The Eradica kind of feels like it lacks unification in the vision of it's abilities. While some are just lackluster in general, a few just don't seem well suited to being part of the same kit.
First ability: Purification
The problem: The biggest problem with this ability is that there is zero synergy with the level 6 ability, which grants substantial ability cooldown speed and antimatter regeneration. The problem is once the level 6 ability has activate, there isn't much point in casting this ability as the Eradica is already invulnerable and will die after a minute regardless of hull/shields. This really means that in reality the Eradica only has one ability to spam when it's level 6 ability activates, meaning the impact of the cooldown speed and antimatter regen buff isn't really all that impressive-especially considering The eradica needs tod ie to recieve said benefit.
Possible solutions:
solution 1: here are two ways to go about this: add some secondary effect to purification(and frankly it could probably bear a buff without being made overpowered as while decent, the long cooldown at lower ranks and sacrifice of a unit keep it from being amazing). One idea I had for this route would be to give the eradica 2 additional bomber squadrons for 60 seconds- that way when it's level 6 ability activates it starts amassing strikecraft fairly quickly. This route would likely be harder to balance then solution 2 though.
solution 2:The second way to fix the problem would be to have the eradica's ult be able to activate without the ship dying(perhaps activate when ship drops below 25% hull left?)-that way it would provide a useful invulnerability, during which time purification could be used to heal up. If this route were use, the ult should probably be made to suspend shield mitigation deterioration during the invuln so the eradica doesn't come out of invulnerability with low shields. That said, if this route were taken at least 20-30 seconds would need to be shaved off the invuln and an internal cooldown would need to be added to prevent the ship from being invulnerable all the time
Second ability: Chastic Burst
After the persuasion of a few others and a few reruns of the numbers in my head I've changed my stance on this ability. So I'm now on the "this ability is plenty strong" wagon.
The problem: This is a clasic case of "kol syndrom". The ability deals damage an not much else, which means it becomes unimpressive in late game fights(which tend to be long which means lots of high mitigation from armor/shields).
Possible solutions:
solution 1: add a secondary effect. This could be a great opportunity to give advent rebels something to stop fleeing ships. The advent has sorely needed this for a long time- the loyalists got it in the form of their titan's suppression Aura, but the rebels lack any such tool. So perhaps have a amx speed reduction added to this ability? or if the devs were feeling really generous perhaps a short duration phase engine disable? Another alternative route if it were desired to make the Eradica more offensively midned would be to have it debuff the primary target(not all enemies in the aoe, just initial target) with a reduction to max shield mitigation. The game has a ton of armor reducers, so this could be a way to debuff mitigation which is more unique.
solution 2: have some portion of this ability's damage pierce shields(possibly reduce damage a bit to compensate). This would allow the ability to retain usefulness is late game battles.
Third ability: Strength of the Fallen
The Problem: This is one of the most interesting parts of the Eradica's kit, and IMO the closest to where it shold be. The only real problem is that the radius is so small that it seriously limits your tactical options(you need to maintain a very tight battle-ball to really reap it's benefits.) While it's a bit disheartening that the TEC's RAGNAROV matches the Eradica's damage output AFTER this ability is fully stacked with just it's basic attacks, honestly I think that's mroe an issue with the Ragnarov then the Eradica.
Possible Solution: this one seems pretty cut and dried- increase the aura radius a bit. it's by far the smallest Aura in the games(most of which have 4k-8k radius as opposed to this ability's 2.5k. I'd like to see something like a 3.5k-4k radius on this ability. Also at the very least units sacrificed with Purification should always proc an instance of Strength of the Fallen's damage buff(which it doesn't necessarily now as purification far our-ranged the aura).
Also while not hugely necessary, I think it would be cool if the damage buff from this ability also affected the strikecraft the eradica carries- that would add some large range threat or antiair-capabilities, further distinguising the ship from other titans.
Level 6 Ability: Unyielding Will
The Problem: The biggest issue here is simply the basic concept: you need to kill off a level 6 or higher titan to reap it's benefit. That's a pretty steep cost. And even then the opponent can just run away from your now invulnerable but temporary titan until the time runs out. The buffs also synergize poorly with purification which has already been discussed.
Possible Solutions: Lots of optiosn come to mind on this one:
solution 1: kill 2 birds with one stone by instituting the possible purifcation buff above: have Unyieldign will activate at 25% hull or so, cur the duration to 30-40 seconds, and add a cooldown between procs/activations of perhaps 120 seconds. This way the ability may actually save your titan.
solution 2: when the eradica hits 0 hull, in addition to the current effects give the eradica a large radius aura that disables enemy phase drive engines. That way while the Eradica is dead, the enemy quite literally can't escape it for the 1 minute it has left
solution 3: Add something similar to the progentior level 6 ability: when an Eradica dies with Unyielding Will, the next one you build starts 1 level lower then the one that just died, rather then starting at level 1 again. this would make Eradicas semi-expendable compared to other titans, encouraging advent rebel players to try to "tread" titans with their opponents. I think some degree of losses is necessary(hence the 1 level lower aspect) to prevent a gurranteed level 6 or higher eradica for the remainder of the game, but the principal is a good one.
[NOTE: the Coronata is discussed in the next post]
