This topic had been beaten into the ground. People requesting a nerf, then other people requesting a buff. Lets just leave a message for the devs and move on.

Personally I don't think MB is overpowered, especially since I can't think of a better way to shut down an Illum spammer as TEC. The way I see it is if an Illum spammer wants to charge a lvl 6 Marza without anyway to destroy the Marza or stop it from channelling, his fleet deserves to be destroyed.

If you want the tips for killing Marzas and/or halting its ability, there are several posts about it. I would recommend reading them just as you would a post to counter any other of the many ships in SINS. As it so happens, Advent have the best and most counters for Marzas, so learn em and this won't happen to you again.

Another thing about it is I never see posts requesting nerfs to other fleet annihilating abilities like Final Protocol, or using repulse with Mass Disorientation.

Truth is every race has their own "OP" vessels, and if you check the forums closely you can probably take a guess at what they are, but they balance each other out in my opinion.

TEC may need MB as an Illuminator counter, that doesn't mean that it isn't far too skill-free as it is implemented in 1.16.  The game needs to be refined as much as balanced, to reward skillful play.  How about Cielos having to take over the direction of the barrage, so the basic damage is less, but designate becomes a wide area effect ability rather than specific to a ship?  Then Dominas could reduce the barrage, without having them interrupt a cap ship- though the Cielos could just be rapidly destroyed instead...

It seems questionable to complain about LRF spam when what a 'battleball' amounts to is the ability to auto-eliminate the use of close range weapons.  How about a counter where there is the opportunity to prevent the use of Illuminator beams, then there would be 'skilled' players of other factions as well?  The Cielo has almost no armour and only two abilities, and adding 40% to no damage, or missile-only damage for as long as the ship lasts near the enemy close range weapons, is much less useful than the ability to prevent your own fleet taking damage entirely...  If it could use its heavy laser defensively, to project an anti-beam deflection 'grid'(?) in an area, it would be a far more useful unit.  As it is, its both an ineffective and very high level unit, and only joins an already victorious fleet.  

The Mothership and Egg are far too good for coloniser capitals, and though the effect isn't as spectacular as the Marza, it is equally as unbalanced.  As JuleTron suggests, perhaps the Marauder and Revelation could be boosted- how about Nano switched with Subversion and Malice with Clairvoyance?

Return shouldn't cost after its been paid for once (nor mines after the cost of the ship)- why not just reduce the rate of the free ships to that of the present discount?  Also, if the Cielos get the weapon negation ability that their tech level justifies, Subverters could be somewhat restored for balance.  

MB isn't as it should be, but it isn't the only problem with 1.16.

personally i feel malice was fine the way it used to be.. you could perhaps make it unlt targets but you could keep the duration down. MB doesnt need a full overhaul. just give it max targets like phase missile swarm which is ESSENTIALLY THE SAME THING.

i thought that's why they changed the damage to all be dealt out at the end.

I agree, that sounds great to me. I also heard someone suggest make gravity bomb interrupt, which I think is also a great idea. It makes sense considering you just jacked their systems with an a**load of instant gravity. Disable abilities, no, but interrupt abilities, yes.

The Marza is just superior nerfing would be impossible, it like asking sins to nerf the illuminator vessels

yeah the Marza is broken. It's UNIQUE bc its a faction-specific, no-cannon, no resource, "super-weapon." Sure, you can counter it (MUST counter, no choice) but sometimes you don't have the antimatter, particularly if you need to jump multiple systems, and sometimes they go for 2 marzas (why bother with anything else? it's not like YOU'RE the one needing interrupts, and marauder and akkan suck in comparison); Any encounter on their part, they risk losing 100+ UNITS in 20 seconds to 1 unit if interrupter isn't in position AND has anti-mater AND it's not on cooldown AND it's activated in time to make a difference AND if he doesn't have to interrupt TWO or THREE lvl 6's, which together will wipe a fleet easily with minimal support needed. on med maps, lvl 6 isn't hard, particularly after getting the first lvl 6 and feeding others XP).

Reverie, Radiance's interrupt, etc, all have a CD. but if the battle goes for a few minutes, then if you take your eyes off the battle for even 10 seconds when a lvl 6 Marza is in the ring, you risk losing everything in an AOE to MB+support fleet. "overpowered" is relative and it's overpowered.  No question, no discussion needed. Too bad other TEC ships besides Kol suck as bad as Advent's Revelation ship.

I play TEC. Yes it can be countered. BUT, unlike virtually any other ability in the game, it MUST be countered. Yes, I enjoy TEC and having that "I win if I push this and they can't counter it immeidately; if it doesn't work out NOW, it's on  cooldown for 4 min and we'll try again then." or, if frustrated, I'll just use my 2 lvl 6 marzas, kill the planet and clear defenses (thousands of resource points) in a minute and a half, and run somewhere else.

if you're playing a multiplayer game with team allies, the simple fact that one player is TEC means that all others need almost have their capitals selected for them because Marza's is so broken. 2 Marzas, with just the "Raze Planet" ability, can chain that to eliminate an asteroid or 1500 hp planet in under 20 seconds and just leave. MB makes them fleet killers BUT perhaps more importantly, LARGE AOE orbital structure clearers. That's thousands of credits/resource lost in 20 seconds, price of another capital ship (ie. a counter). You get 2 Marzas (why get anything else if opposing players MUST counter or lose the on-site fleet?) up to 6 and they're screwed if you can move them around the map effectively, since they kill planets/fleets/defense QUICKLY, and with almost no effort required.

I stopped playing this game a while back  because Dark Fleet was so broken. It seemed teh DEVs stopped caring. You research RA, and game was over bc people build multiple phase gates on their planets. No need to worry about econ anymore. No need to hardcore research military tech. The game was fun before me and my friend discovered that RA- sure it doesn't guarentee victore EVERY time, but it was game-breaking- made the whole tactical/strategic thinking part of the game a dead issue. Hard tech to RA, then send masses of free units everywhere/ scuttle for resources.

Marza's just as  gamebreaking. Maybe not just one Marza, but multiple. They can wipe out bases before fleet defenses get there, for massive resource damage. They can wipe out fleets if not perfectly timed with an interrupt.  And if you have 2 Marza's, you can count on one to go off, and in 20 sec's deal 100,000+ damage for 150 antimatter routinely. That can mean tens to hundreds of resource points damage over 20 secs for 150 antimatter and a cooldown. It's as bad as RA, and ruins the game. It's kind of sad, but true.

It's so bad that my friend, who has an older computter andcan run the game but micro is sometimes an issue, refuses to play anymore. If you're tired of TEC auto-Marza pick (egg and mother aren't nearly as retardedly broken. you can't compare 100,000+/20 sec/1 capital ship/biggest range in game, to any of their abilities on med-large maps). If you're WAY too tired of Marza being so broken, you might stop playing and come back after they fix it. Michael and Alex just can't stand the fact that I DO abuse it (it's hard to dode in the hands of a novice, but in the hands of someone who'se played for a year and has always been good at RTS... it's game-breaking), and I stop having fun when I can't pick the Marza for its other sweet abilities simply bc its ultimate is so strong and my roommates got tired of see it used hit/run or interrupt/lost entire fleet INSTANTLY bc you're not TEC. Just come back in a few months and see if the DEVs still care, and are still working on this game and not their next title. RA finally got patched with 1.1, and game was playable; Marza is the new RA needing a hot-fix but didn't get around to it. I CAN and enjoy winning w/o the Marza, but it's too tempting and too easy to use it effectively. Particularly if you're playing with an ally who escorts your Marza with their own CP's with ship interrupts.

It should be short duration burst, NON-intteruptible, shorter cooldown.

If you can't understand why it's so broken, just drop the game and come back when it's playable again. I'm sorry, but that's the sad but best option for those of us with a precious premium on our times. This game is supposed to be fun, and do that it needs to be fixed from its present broken state.

Personally, my friends don't have the patience for dealing with something like this that should've been patched ages ago, with other areas changed to compensate. If you don't have the patience for things like RA abuse, or Marza spam abuse, then stop QQ'ing and find another game to play that has something that actually resembles faction balance. There are dozens of titles out there. That's what I did until 1.1 came out, nad and I don't regret it at all. My time is precious and so is my patience.

Personally I think they're working on Sins 2 or some other new project. Updating Sins is not profitable anymore, and will be even less so over time in comparsions with producing new title. Balance issues? doubt they care as much anymore. You've already bought the game, and spent time on it. You've done your part to support Sins. So find another game until Sins 2 comes out.

~Tai

Really, I'd have favored it if it was left precisely as-is damage wise, but turned into an AoE attack similar to the Radiation Bomb/EMP - targeting every ship within a certain radius of where you open fire. A close-packed 'battleball' would at least be forced to break ranks; this alone could be seen as a strategically advantagous use of the thing.

Bonus points being that hostile fleets can hopefully scramble out of the way; while leaving it entirely capable of nailing pinned down forces/forces trapped in a PJI/demolishing massed defenses.

That is such a sublime statement. If there really is such an imbalance with illuminators, I would definitely be up for rebalancing them. Of course, I'm game ONLY if there is an actual imbalance issue. I don't particularly care if people are just tired of fighting off a challenging advent.

I like the idea, BUT, if frigates have the ability to interrupt capitals, then I fear that no capital would be able to get off a channeling ability.

I heard someone suggest switching nano-dissasembler with the subversion on the Marauder, and I really liked that suggestion. It would make the egg on much more equal footing with other colonizers, and make the weaker Marauder a much more viable capital. If you do this, then making gravity bomb an interrupt is not as big of a deal.

Okay, I want to know a viable counter to this. While I will never like MB as it is, I'm open to the idea that it is not overpowered if I know it can be reasonably played against. HOWEVER, it is ridiculous to claim something is balanced if the only answer to it is "Don't let them get it."

"STFU noob, the game is fine as it is" also doesn't count.

MB is hands-down the strongest ability in the game, regardless of your personal views on the subject.  Having a huge range and being able to deliver an obscene amount of damage to infinite enemy targets within that range goes beyond everything else available. If the Marza has any sort of significant fleet supporting it(even if they're outnumbered) then it wins unless the opponent has a hard counter(an ability interrupt). Even then, if they don't notice right away, they might incur 1,000 base damage to all ships.

It can also be used to get some quick level ups for other capitals by taking a short detour to a nearby pirate base and eliminating every last pirate at the click of a button.  It doesn't matter if there are 20 pirates, or 2,000 pirates; they'll all die with a single click of a button.

If they keep the infinite target thing, perhaps the range should be cut back a bit, say 25%  Otherwise, if they keep that range, perhaps a target cap should be imposed; say 30 ships?

It works well enough.

However, it also involves building one of the weakest capital ships on the Vasari side to get it... And even then, as disruption abilities go, it's not terribly impressive.

The Death Egg needs to do its damage over time because part of it's alure is that it decreases armor, allowing other vessels, especially those with phase missiles, to do even greater damage.