Argh. Last post was eaten, then thrown back up after I made this one.

Actually i think The advent guardians push is glitched when the marza does missile barrage cause the marza does a back flip like capships do when they are destroyed while push is in effect.

AFAIK, any "disable abilities" ability will cancel the missile barrage when it is in progress and the antimatter will still be gone and the ability used.

Advent-Radiance steals antimatter.
Vassari subverter
TEC Akkan ion bolt.

I just tried this ability last night in a 3v3 multiplayer LAN game. My team ended up cornering the other team, so we all agreed to have a final showdown in the gravwell of a star. I managed to bring in my level 6 Marza.

I... I can't believe how powerful that ability is. I just slowly flew into the middle of the fleet battle (which looked like a rainbow) and used the missile barrage. It was like watching a Christmas tree light up when all my allied capital ships got a level up.

In terms of balance, I honestly haven't played enough of the other races to get all their capital ships to level 6 to see if they have an ability similar to this. I'm amazed. If this is the only ship that can do something like this, then I think it's seriously overpowered.

But... my God was it beautiful to watch

It is such a new ability peeps haven't learned to counter it. Once you do though it's pretty easy. Missile barrage once interrupted still takes the anti-matter and suffers a 4 min cool down. In 1.09 beta it has not been an issue. Now vs the ai it's op as the ai does not counter it.

Good point. It certainly does help that the ability can be negated so long as we can see it coming--and if I do see an enemy level 6 Marza or higher, I will be looking at it a lot

However, I see there being a problem being that at least on my computer, you don't see anything quite bright and dazzling to indicate that missile barrage is being used, and that's a tremendous amount of micromanaging to constantly try to interrupt a potential missile barrage from being utilized in the absence of a visual alert. If anything it should have a "spin up" (graphical or otherwise) that everyone could notice so they can counter it, rather than sitting and waiting for what looks like a bunch of small missiles to start flying out--which you can only see if you zoom in enough to miss the rest of the game.

I'm just saying that having the counter to a fleet-finishing special ability is using extended periods of micromanaging seems rather silly.

And exactly how long is the window to counter it btw? I'm assuming in the 10-15 second range. Something like that?

I just saw the ability in action yesterday, and i loved it! Its perfect for cleaning out pirates, and gaining a few levels. But when I tried ramming a lone lv. 9 marza straight into the center of a late game advent fleet, I saw the balancing effects in action. The ai (normal) disabled the abilities of the marza, just when the first few missles were coming out. Then, being surrounded, it died. A lesson learned, a lv. 9 ship lost.

The duration of the ability is 60 seconds. I believe it can be interrupted anytime once activated.

Yeah...as a TEC solo player, I know that the AI will counter it if their ships have the abilities for it. Luckily, the pirates don't. Since getting 1.09, I use a single Mazra and 5 or so Kodiaks to protect a "beachhead" from Pirates. Against the AI player races, I'll take a Mazra, a carrier, a couple Kols, and an Akkan, as well as the other fleet complements. Reason for the Akkan is that, in the presence of an Akkan, the Mazra can do its thing unimpeded. The AI seems to like to target Colonizers before anything else, so tends to focus-fire the Akkan. At least in my experience (which is, admittedly, much less than some others)...

I never noticed that. :NOTSURE:

From what I read on this, the ability seems WAY overpowered, i mean, one cap at level 6 destroying a whole fleet? Sorry but that's just a little much, dun'tcha think? My fleet of 120 Enforcers have trouble doing that sometimes, (and that's a lot of freaking HC's...)

They should make a alert thing (you know the 4 box's down in the corner) where when its used in a grav well your ships are in, it says "multiple radiation signatures detected", or some hocus pocus...yeah i said it, what.

But really the devs get to decide whats up with it, so if you don't like it, don't get the patch, it's that simple.

One level six Marza can not destroy a whole fleet. It can take down there sheilds though. If you have two lvl 6 Marzas now you have a fleet killer.

Going back and using it multiple times, both in multiplayer and singleplayer, I can agree that this is true. I haven't seen it used with twin Marzas, but after engaging fleets that were composed of more than simply just long-range frigates and light frigates, it doesn't look like its that unbalanced at all. By the time I have a level 6 Marza, everyone else shouldn't be just spamming the smaller stuff.

And it does look like the ability lasts 60 seconds. Furthermore, after playing for a while, it's much easier to notice a Marza using this ability since there's just a constant stream of missiles coming out Anyone able to see this clearly on lower graphical settings?

For the time being having two level 6 cap ships, you should have all of support/tactical units and a lot of heavy cruisers.

I've found this ability to be over powered >.>. No other ship in the game can do this alone




If I'm zoomed in to a very close distant yes, otherwise I've never noticed it till all my ships are flashing red and then are gone >.<

Make the missiles have a decent miss chance; that way it needs teaming up with an Akkan to reach full potential. (Especially if the akkan's range bonus also helps).

I haven't seen it at work yet, I've only used Marza's pre - 1.09. I'll give it a go and see what happens.

Now this is an AWESOME idea. Puts it more in line with CB/Malice which requires two ships. I'd sign on for this.

As it stands now, forget the Kol, Sova, or Dunov. Akkans for colonize ( ok, and Ion Bolt ) and Marzas for mass destruction are the only two I get..

Tried a Marza. (1.09b). Only against pirates, the game was basically over by the time I got level 6, but yeah, it destroyed the entire pirate fleet at the pirate base on its own. In one barrage. (It jumped in first. Half the fleet was done by the time the rest of my fleet got there, so it could be it couldn't do ALL of them on its own, but it sure did a lot.).

It does seem a tad excessive. It didn't seem worthwhile before but this is a bit much.

Signed

Hum, this makes me even more sad that malice + cleansing brilliance is impractical, if not impossible post 1.05...

Ah well. Has anything happened to the mostly unstoppable repulse? I haven't updated yet (waiting to finish some older games with friends)

honestly, i believe that the ability is balanced nicely. Its easily interruptable, and every faction has an ability to stop the Marza. The TEC Dunov, Akkan, etc. And other factions have pretty powerful lv. 6 abilities as well. TEC is the weakest late game, and this provides a valuable buff to them.

Switched my stance. It's not OP'd.

In a single player normal game, versus 8 AI's, 3 stars, locked teams. Trying out the new changes in the beta in large scale engagements. I had my missile barrage disabled several times, on 3 different Marzas no less ! 1500 point fleet ( mine ), found myself behind enemy lines on a new star and stumbled across one of the two remaining AI's homeworlds. Ugly fight, and lost one of my level 8 marzas, and almost a second. It's not a sure kill, I should have wiped the floor with them. I won, but I wasn't laughing.

Percherons, BTW, kick much butt now as well.

The Subverter only targets frigs. The only Vasari ship that could counter the Marza is a Marauder. Which leads to my point.

The Radiance pwns. No Advent fleet doesnt have one.

The Akkan is a good support ship. No TEC fleet doesnt have one.

The Marauder is just about useless in combat. Nobody ever builds them. I dont want to build a paper-hulled cap just so I can disable one fleet-smiting ability from an actually good combat cap.

So what can we do? Swap Phase Out Hull and Gravity Warhead? I always thought Gravity Warhead fits the Marauder best, with all its speed manipulaiton. Give Disruptive Strikes a chance to disrupt the enemy's current action? Add ancillary benefits to Phase Out Hull to actually make the Marauder worth using in combat?

Yes, the Advent and Vasari had abilities that could shatter fleets. The thing is, the Advent and Vasari abilities werent one ability, buy synergies between two caps that used abilities that complemented eachother. What happened here is someone decided to go ahead and give Cleansing Brilliance and Malice or Volatile Nanites and Phase Missile Swarm to the same ship.