So.. what are Vasari about? » Forum Post by innociv

After doing really well with advent, I'm trying to play the Vasari.

They don't seem that fun. For example, before I started I read some decent things about them. They're able to create their own phase lanes, making them move where they want to. They're able to fire missiles past shields, and can lower the credit cost of most things.

When I tried to do these things in game, I found that the phase stabilizers were very deep into the tech trees, and cost quite a bit. They were one hefty investment. I found that the missiles bypassing shields was not as useful as I thought it would be, even with 7 or 8 frigates, since their bomber swarms only have 3, compared to the advents 7 or 8. And finally, that cost reducing upgrade was so expensive to reach 2/2, and for only an 8% reduction, that I don't even know if I broke even.

Combine this with the fact that their ships cost so much, you'll usually only be attacking planets with your cap ship and 4 frigs. After the first battle, you may have had to micro one back to retreat, leaving you with 3 until he repairs. Meanwhile, the Advent have 5 or 6, and it's just a rape-fest.

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That's because you learned to play Advent. Vasari are COMPLETELY different.

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Yeah I don't know, vasari are a little bit weird to play. Men, I can draw so many parallels with Supcom right now, Vasari being Cybrans and Advent being the Aeon.

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I found that the missiles bypassing shields was not as useful as I thought it would be, even with 7 or 8 frigates, since their bomber swarms only have 3, compared to the advents 7 or 8.And finally, that cost reducing upgrade was so expensive to reach 2/2, and for only an 8% reduction, that I don't even know if I broke even.

Combine this with the fact that their ships cost so much, you'll usually only be attacking planets with your cap ship and 4 frigs. After the first battle, you may have had to micro one back to retreat, leaving you with 3 until he repairs. Meanwhile, the Advent have 5 or 6, and it's just a rape-fest.

hmm are you implying that the bombers are identical and the only difference is number per squad, this is incorrect.

without extra buffs (e.g. vasari influence, aura from advent/vasari caps..etc)
a squad of vasari bombers do 17 damage (if it uses real) or 18 damage (if it uses rounded integers)
a squad of advent bombers do 17.84 damage or 21 damage.

I agree that vasari have a really bad early game, unless theres a few of the capture able extractors around (vasari navigators can make the extractors) and on the most balanced maps I've seen (random is far from balanced) this is not the case.

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I once lost 50 cobalts to a lvl 6 kortul's volatile nanites. At fist I though I'd scuttled them all by accident but the replay showed otherwise

That thing is lethal against frigates in formation. This was in beta 4 though so it may not be so powerful now.

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the nanites are quite nice. But i think they end once the target dies, and hte target dies much faster..

btw how do i use the assaliants ability on all, say, 50 of them i have?
Press Q or clicking the button only does it for ONE of the units. How do i turn it on for all units at once??

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That's because you learned to play Advent. Vasari are COMPLETELY different.

Please feel free to tell me whats different, or what i should be doing differently, at the start.

They still need a cap ship along with some frigs in order to expand. Also, since their ships cost more they can't really quickly cap an ice / volcanic planet - meaning they have to look for astroids, desert, or terran planets - the latter of which also have a lot of enemies sitting idle.

Everyone says they're different, but I don't see it. If I'm going against TEC I usually try brute force, and if it's advent, then I'll research phase missiles and focus on getting transports / bombers. Phase Stabs are just so expensive, and come late in the game, that I don't find too much of a use for them.

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If you want to get a feel for how different the Vasari can really play, try a "tech rush" to Returning Armada. I've successfully pulled it off vs 2 hard AIs, and it really demonstrates how different the Vasari can play. Just tech up to Returning Armada as fast as possible, put Phase Gates on all your planets, and watch the ships pile up. You end up not needing any defense because of your ability to always have a fleet be no more than 1 jump from any hotspot.

Edit: just realized you said MP only. No clue if it works for MP. :/

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One thing that makes it hard for me to not play Advent is that their mothership has amazing abilities with the colonize, and it's colonize is frankly overpoweredly good(well really the others are underpowered and practically not worth the points :/).

20% discount on the planet at lvl 1, then 40%, then 60%. I actually find this skill VERY worth 3 points, and just don't bother with the extra damage skill(I want the AM for regening shields anyways). Shortly into the game i'm getting a 40% discount on the upgrades. That saves me about 2-3k credits, hundreds of metal and am. This makes such a gigantic difference to me.

With Vasari you get faster build time, and free extractors with tec. WHAT THE HELL?.. Seriously. :/ Oh so tec saves 200 or an extractor, or 400, if you level it past 1.(assuming you have 20% discount from getting lvl 1 on their early skill that cheapens them. It's worth one research level at least as after 9 extractors it pays for itself). Vasari get faster build time.
These totally don't compare at all to Advents awesome colonize. The others badly need a buff imo..

I've figured out how to play Tec.. a few factories up close and lots of orbital refineries/trades. Lots of civ to get that +8 civil on every planet early. +8 civ is practically overpowerdly good on all planets. Way better than advents +4 tac. Does Vasari even get something similar? Another strike against them

Still having trouble liking Vasari when I really want to.. I'll try a bit more.
And yeah, tech rushing to returning armada doesn't work well in MP. Maybe it'd work on a map like gateway.

"Phase Stabs are just so expensive, and come late in the game, that I don't find too much of a use for them."
Exactly. Too much damn crystal, too much damn tac. Do they have a +tac on all planets research like advent which makes vasari suck more, or am I missing the research for it? :/

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Man, whoever says Phase Gates suck have no idea what they're talking about.

Why bother with a few Hangars that will get overrun anyway when you can warp fleets (even your main one) from all the way across the map?

And then there is the Dark Armada that just comes spilling out of those things.

Yeah. Phase Gates are awesome.

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Phase Gates+big fleet=pwn

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So if the map isn't large it sucks? That's the feeling i already had before posting

Wrong. I love the vasari, even on small maps. Their capital ships and support crusiers are far from useless..
Against your Advent shield tankers for instance, the vasari, with a support ship and tech, have like 40% chance for missiles to pass trough shields..
Thats 4 out of 10 missiles, with 50 frigates thats alot of missiles per second passing trough your uber tanked shields, completely ignoring them.

You just gotta pay close attention to what abilities they have, and use them as intended.

As far as i can tell, the game is pretty damn well balanced! (just look at the "bohoo anti-strike craft frigates are overpowered!", and now there's a "bohoo, cruisers are overpowered!" thread

)

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Phase Gates+Returning Armada=big fleet=pwn

Corrected

To develop :
I'm currently playing my first game against a hard AI with the Vasari and here are a few of the things I like about them :
- They get the extractors upgrades in one research, at the first tier of the research tree. I've never been low on ressources with them, not even crystal.
- They have Phase Lane Stabilizers which allow for greater flexibility in your fleets' usage AND allow you to get free ships with the Returning Armada Tech (expensive, but extremly effective once you get it). Plus, with the adequate research you get a speed increase when using those artificial phase lanes. Once I realized how useful they are I wondered how I could live without them before.
- Their first (from left in the construction menu) capital ship (the Kortul ?) has the "Overcharge" (?) ability which increases the weapons' fire and shields' regen rates. Make a small fleet with one of them (just buy the first 2 levels) and as much basic frigates you can get without upgrading your fleet supply and you can take any planets but the most defended ones.
- They have the "Weapon Dampener" tactical structure which increases your planets survivability. Either the enemy goes to take them down before attacking the other orbital structures or they suffer a penalty on their fire rate. Either way, this gives you just the time to bring in your defensive fleet through the phase jump stabilizers.
- One of their capital ships (can't remember which one, I think it's the support one but I'm not sure) has the ability to increase the speed of all your ships in its immediate vicinity, making frigates moving as fast as fighters/bombers and cruisers and capital ships moving as fast as frigates. That's just the ideal buff to hunt down those fleeing ships.

I could continue on with this list for quite some time, but I'm at work right now and must get back to it before my boss finds out I'm on a game's forums

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and they have a capital ship that eats frigates for breakfast, its called the whale and it swims through the ocean with its mouth open, eating little frigs that dont rush away in time.

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Phase Gates+Returning Armada=big fleet=pwn

Corrected

To develop :
I'm currently playing my first game against a hard AI with the Vasari and here are a few of the things I like about them :
- They get the extractors upgrades in one research, at the first tier of the research tree. I've never been low on ressources with them, not even crystal.
- They have Phase Lane Stabilizers which allow for greater flexibility in your fleets' usage AND allow you to get free ships with the Returning Armada Tech (expensive, but extremly effective once you get it). Plus, with the adequate research you get a speed increase when using those artificial phase lanes. Once I realized how useful they are I wondered how I could live without them before.
- Their first (from left in the construction menu) capital ship (the Kortul ?) has the "Overcharge" (?) ability which increases the weapons' fire and shields' regen rates. Make a small fleet with one of them (just buy the first 2 levels) and as much basic frigates you can get without upgrading your fleet supply and you can take any planets but the most defended ones.
- They have the "Weapon Dampener" tactical structure which increases your planets survivability. Either the enemy goes to take them down before attacking the other orbital structures or they suffer a penalty on their fire rate. Either way, this gives you just the time to bring in your defensive fleet through the phase jump stabilizers.
- One of their capital ships (can't remember which one, I think it's the support one but I'm not sure) has the ability to increase the speed of all your ships in its immediate vicinity, making frigates moving as fast as fighters/bombers and cruisers and capital ships moving as fast as frigates. That's just the ideal buff to hunt down those fleeing ships.

I could continue on with this list for quite some time, but I'm at work right now and must get back to it before my boss finds out I'm on a game's forums

No you don't need returning armada for it to =pwn with a big fleet a factory world and phase gates at all your worlds its already=pwn.

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Vasari are about shield mitigation

-their LRM and bombers upgraded can do sick damage if researched . theit carriers cap are also very good (with repair cloud ability). For late game their support (subverters )are also great - completely disable enemy ships.

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I did some thinking and I'm still right but it goes more like this:

Phase Gates+Returning Armada=big fleet=T3h Uber pwn.

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They still need a cap ship along with some frigs in order to expand. Also, since their ships cost more they can't really quickly cap an ice / volcanic planet - meaning they have to look for astroids, desert, or terran planets - the latter of which also have a lot of enemies sitting idle.

Everyone says they're different, but I don't see it. If I'm going against TEC I usually try brute force, and if it's advent, then I'll research phase missiles and focus on getting transports / bombers. Phase Stabs are just so expensive, and come late in the game, that I don't find too much of a use for them.

Vasari are my second favorite to play for power, and my first for fun. Advent are a little more powerful thanks to their awesome fighters and defenses but Vasari are much more interesting. The first cap ship + 10 light frigates can easily capture an ice world, I've done it with only minor losses (and since Doppleganger forces you to gather resources before you can assault the ice world, as it's off the star, that works great for me.

The Vasari really need to tech, unlike the TEC who can do pretty well with no technology. Once you have Phase Stabilizers and good missiles you can basically appear anywhere, assassinate ships, and then leave quickly (especially if you use the Marauder's phase stabilizer ability then retreat that separately, gotta love dividing your fleet into individual groups, letting the AI chase all the groups without being able to use your phase stabilizers, then regrouping them to fight off an attack...all without making more than 2 jumps

)

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If you want to get a feel for how different the Vasari can really play, try a "tech rush" to Returning Armada.

I just tried this in a single player game against a comp, and it worked well enough and was very unique. Could be worth a shot online.

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Posted a replay with a relatively early Returning Armada vs 2 teamed hard AIs if anyone is curious.

2 AI vs 1 Zed Returning Armada Rush example

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Vasari are my second favorite to play for power, and my first for fun. Advent are a little more powerful thanks to their awesome fighters and defenses but Vasari are much more interesting.

The Vasari fighters and bombers can be just as strong as the Advent's. By researching up the Phase Missile and Armor tech lines for your normal warships, your fighters and bombers are getting fully buffed as well. The Advent will be researching Beams and Shields for their normal ships, but only their bombers' attack strength will get passive boosts from this research.

So when a battle comes around, they'll have hard-hitting but flimsy bombers and weak paper-plane fighters compared to your teched-out Vasari strikecraft. The squadron size for the Vasari may be small, but one individual fighter or bomber is MUCH stronger than an individual Advent drone, more so after both sides have teched up. What's more, Vasari strikecraft can fire straight through shields and hit the enemy's hull directly, while Advent strikecraft have to spend considerable effort and time in bringing down their enemy's shields.

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ah the vasari vs advent bombers comparison again.

Without any buffs and from the drone/transporter.
damage:
squad of vasari bombers does 17.1 dps.
squad of advent bombers does 17.7 dps. The developers used rounding for the display to be more user friendly, not that I think its necessary (even blizzard doesnt dumb down dps display in WOW and thats supposed to be simple) and thus many people might think its 21 dps.
hp and armour:
squad of vasari bombers have 420 hp and 5 armour.
squad of advent bombers have 525 hp and 1 armour.

Benefits that advent bombers can get or advantages over that of vasari.
hangers:
3 squads per hanger instead of 2, the squads can be upgraded to do 22.7 dps, but each hanger is more expensive than for vasari and takes 6 tactical slots and not 4 like with vasari.
capital abilities:
-carrier can increase the squad size to 10 doing 25.5 per its own squads and its level 6 ability can increase the size to 17, like making each of the 6 squads into 14.5 normal squads for a limited amount of time.
-capital ship has an aura that increases bombers damage by 30%.

Benefits that vasari bombers can get
capital abilities:
-carrier can summon 2 extra squads(one will vanish by the time you try to summon 3rd) and thus have 8 out.
-carriers have an aura that make the squads jump towards there target and have specific chance of not being hit (it equates to like 10% at level 3)
-carriers can repair the bombers with the aura.
-not sure to include this, but carriers can make an extra transporter permanently.
-the marauder can increase the speed of the bombers to 4000 (capital ship is 500).
influence:
influence can increase the 17.1 damage of squads to 19.665 dps.
missiles:
bombers can penetrate shields like other vasari missile ships, thus in many cases killing advent caps before their shields drop.

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Well last game I played I won with Vasari..
Phase gates ARE amazing but.. has anyone looed at what they really cost?

tosn of credits, metal, and crystal for one.. let alone 3 or 4. Returning armada and the faster phase stab travel upgrade cost thousands more.

Problem is with all that money you're spending on that.. you're losing planets trying to do so, while a tec is spending everything on massing out ships.

Once you get them, ti's great, i just find it hard to have that money. You'll only have that money if you're already winning, in which point you don't even need them.

And their battelcruiser or whatever, teh first ship IS amazing. Nanites and the faster recharge is godly. I had a level 10, 9, and 7 of them. I quickly realised that game it's worthless to use those carriers healing. It's nothign compared to advent motherships.

With 5k HP and 12 armor those vasari cap ships have effectively over 8k hp. With the regen they are a much better tank and deal amazing damage. Part of their weapons are pphase missiles so they get the phase missiles upgrade benefits.

With only that cap ship your enemy doesn't have a choose to shoot your weakest cap ship(generally the carrier), only your tank. And they dont' die, so they keep leveling up.

And I massed the anti-fighter frigs and made short work of LRMS, assaliants, etc with them. With those gone my caps could take out everything else.

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ah the vasari vs advent bombers comparison again.

Without any buffs and from the drone/transporter.
damage:
squad of vasari bombers does 17.1 dps.
squad of advent bombers does 17.7 dps. The developers used rounding for the display to be more user friendly, not that I think its necessary (even blizzard doesnt dumb down dps display in WOW and thats supposed to be simple) and thus many people might think its 21 dps.
hp and armour:
squad of vasari bombers have 420 hp and 5 armour.
squad of advent bombers have 525 hp and 1 armour.

Benefits that advent bombers can get or advantages over that of vasari.
hangers:
3 squads per hanger instead of 2, the squads can be upgraded to do 22.7 dps, but each hanger is more expensive than for vasari and takes 6 tactical slots and not 4 like with vasari.
capital abilities:
-carrier can increase the squad size to 10 doing 25.5 per its own squads and its level 6 ability can increase the size to 17, like making each of the 6 squads into 14.5 normal squads for a limited amount of time.
-capital ship has an aura that increases bombers damage by 30%.

Benefits that vasari bombers can get
capital abilities:
-carrier can summon 2 extra squads(one will vanish by the time you try to summon 3rd) and thus have 8 out.
-carriers have an aura that make the squads jump towards there target and have specific chance of not being hit (it equates to like 10% at level 3)
-carriers can repair the bombers with the aura.
-not sure to include this, but carriers can make an extra transporter permanently.
-the marauder can increase the speed of the bombers to 4000 (capital ship is 500).
influence:
influence can increase the 17.1 damage of squads to 19.665 dps.
missiles:
bombers can penetrate shields like other vasari missile ships, thus in many cases killing advent caps before their shields drop.

What about fighters? Could you do the calcs for them?

And by 'extra transporter permanently', I think you mean that the in-built factory on board the Skirantra can build a Lasurak Transporter out of antimatter, just like Sovas can build Missile Turrets and Vulkoras can build Siege Turrets. Awesome. That would be an extra squadron and another mobile strikecraft factory, not just a stationary turret like the Sova's.

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about the vasari carrier:
1)The carrier can create 1 squad of bombers every 60 seconds, which last for 120 seconds, these squads are identical to other vasari bomber squads.
2)The level 6 ability lets the carrier replicate any non capital unit, so I was implying that you can replicate a transporter with it.

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