Yeah, a couple years ago Vasari were kicking ass everywhere but enough people cried about it and now they are sucking.  They're all I ever play.  Now I'm sure some people will come along and tell me to just learn to play another race....whatever.

So enough people have played with me to know that I'm not the greatest in 5s, but I don't entirely suck either.  Since the last few patches pretty much every faction is doing LF spam out the ass.  Then they add in another couple dozen corvettes for good measure and now as everyone who has played a reasonably skilled 5s game knows, most of them are over in about 1 hour, this combo has pretty much killed any real usage of long-range frigates, such as the vasari assailants or TEC Javelis, etc.  This is an absolute shame in my opinion because these early frigates were what helped to shape multiplayer games in prior years...what's the point of even researching this ship anymore?  It's an absolute waste because vettes will roll over them time and again. 

So as Vasari where everything ALWAYS costs more, we have few ways of dealing with someone spamming their 50+ fleet of disciples and vettes:

1.  Build flak frigates/skirmishers/vettes

2.  Build an Orky

That Advent player with those 50+ ships will then throw in their free cap ship from the start and you're practically forced to turtle.  I actually im'ed a couple of people who play with me on occasion and asked them about this issue...both of them suggested SB. 

Seriously...let's examine this for a minute:  So far the best strategy Vasari now have to counter the LF+Vette spam is to SB...every single planet they take.  Frankly this is getting almost as bad as the old seeker spam problem a few years ago.  The only other option would be to tech up to carriers but anyone whose played vasari knows how expensive that gets and you absolutely must have the eco to support carriers in the first place.  If your enemy is rushing you with this spam very early there's no way you're going to be able to pull that off, which leaves you with the 2 options I mentioned previously.

So let's say you try option 1, which is to meet spam with spam.  Sounds ok on the surface but remember, Vasari costs more and/or takes longer to build.  As vasari, I try to pump out vette spam.  Ok, no problem since all factions build vettes in 11 seconds.  Only there is a problem and that is Vasari costs more per vette to build.  They are built a little more 'sturdy' with higher hull points/shields and such, but if another faction is sending spam, well, its cheaper for them to build more than care about how good their hitpoints are.  Play this scenario out over a period of a few minutes and any other faction will win because they'll be able to send more spam.

The vette spam scenario is actually the most fair comparison!  LF spam absolutely sucks for Vasari.  As Vasari you simply cannot match the spam output of any other faction's LF equivalent.

So, flame suit on!  Eagerly awaiting replies from others telling me if I didn't suck so bad I wouldn't be posting this, or that I need to capture more neutrals, play as a different faction....I've heard them all.  If you've got a strategy that works, I'd love to hear it.  But I think this presents an issue of imbalance.  Stardock might consider one possibility to reduce resource cost or build time for skirmishers; but for the bigger picture, I think the original problem of long-range frigates being made obsolete should be addressed.