Finest Hour

it can be handy if ure outnumbered or ure on a 1v1 with another cap

That makes sense.

mix that with the Dunvo's ultimate and you get a gauss rail machine gun. great for capping caps

Culture+Finest Hour+Flux Field+GRG=Lots of dead enemy caps.

The Culture and FH regen AM pretty much as fast as you can use it, the flux field makes GRG WAAAAAY more efficient, and GRG is well, GRG.  800 damage per 6 seconds.  Technically this is what happens...

GRG AM Cost: 75

GRG AM Cost /w FF: 25

Culture+FH AM Regen: 4-5 AM/sec.

In other words, you are regening AM just as fast as you are spending it.  In other words, you get to spam GRG which destroys all in its path.  And, you get to do this for 60 seconds...

Finest Hour is an awesome ability, over the course of the ability, it gives you back more antimatter than you use up, so even alone it's worth using. Like other's said, add culture and a Dunov and you can spam your kols abilities faster than advent cap ships with an antimatter recharger. At level 10 this equals a hard to kill Kol, lots of destroyed strike craft and a huge boost to DPS with the gauss rail gun.

Well, by itself, the GRG Spam yields about a 140 DPS buff.  Add that to a ship that already does around 140 at level ten and you doubled your DPS and deal 240.  You can use GRG 9 times in this period, which totals to 7200 damage.  That alone is devastating, but combine that with a fleet, whatever that cannon comes to bear on, will die.

Dunvo Pack + 2 Kols + 1 Marza= Death to all invaders!!!!! lol

and they claim the advent have awesome synergy

GO TEC!

I still think the advent synergies are better, but the TEC sure gets a bang for its buck. And in the Marza's case a lot of bangs at once.

The Holy Trinity is the end-all-be-all when it comes to combat.  

The Halcyon is the best carrier in the game.  It obliterates enemy SC with a back-handed slap.  It buffs all ships around it.  It also buffs its SC and can launch the largest swarm of SC of any ship in game.  170 at level 10.  That is a FF DPS of ~300.  That in and of itself is enough to make any enemy that doesn't have flak spammed quake.  Then, there is Amplify Energy Aura.  It decreases cooldown by 22%.  Now, the average attack is a 4 second burst with a 6 second CD.  By taking 22% off that 6, you'll get around 5.3...  That yields around an 8% increase in damage for all advent weapons.  That is great.

The Radiance is the best direct-combat ship in the game.  It has the best armor, great shields, and good health.  It turns damage into AM, can stop Missile Barrage in its tracks, and can cut a swath of destruction through the enemy fleet with its axial cannon.  Cleansing Brilliance+Malice is better than GRG spam.  Its better than Missile Barrage!  CB+M=24 ships that are receiving massive amounts of damage.  If you slammed the beam through 4-5 ships, that would have such an exponential increase in damage, that each ship hit by the beam, when combined with the damage of Malice would be receiving around 500 DPS for eight seconds.  Nothing, not even MB trumps that kind of power.  If its not a cap, it will die.  And even then, that cap will be in really, really, REALLY  bad shape.  4000 damage is unstoppable.  Even after mitigation, this will kill anything short of a cap instantly.  This ship is absolutely spectacular.

The Progenitor is just awesome.  By itself, it does nothing, but with a fleet, it can launch awesome synergies.  It can bring a level 10 cap back from the grave and create an army of them.  It has such a powerful heal that you can just sit there and absorb Missile Barrage without even getting scratched.  It has the best colonize in the game.  And on top of all that, it has the best synergistic ability in the game.  This ship has Malice.  Malice can be combined with so many other abilities and is useful in every single one.  Use it with Vengeance+Animosity, and you just made an entire fleet feel pain.  Combine it with Destras and everything they have drops health at a very accelerated rate (up to around 9 DPS without even doing anything)  Combine it with Cleansing Brilliance, and you have just created the most powerful attack in the game next to Safety Protocol.

Illuminators defeat just about anything the Vasari throw at them, but the TEC has no such thing.  Illuminators are better than Enforcers which are their defined counter.  Illuminators are arguably the best frigate in the game.  Sure, the Kodiak has health, but even then, its a close match and Illums can duplicate themselves, doubling their DPS and in a sense, health.  In a large group, deceptive illusion effectively increases health by 50% and DPS by 100%.  That is a true force to be reckoned with.

There is no need to describe the Guardian.  It speaks for itself.

These ships are what create the most awesome synergies in the game.  The Vasari don't have synergies.  They have individual attacks.  The TEC have some synergies, but not many.  The Advent can destroy entire fleets with them.  Missile Barrage is good, but it won't weaken a cap to the brink of death.  Cleansing Brilliance can.  Cleansing Brilliance is arguably the best offensive ability in the game save for Safety Protocol.  It is one of the VERY few abilities that can actually go through Shield Restore without thinking twice.  When it comes to sheer power and military might, the Advent is unquestionably the best.

As far as math goes (this is especially applicable to malice synergies), Here is what I did for some of them.

Cleansing Brilliance: The target receives 250 DPS for 8 seconds.  That is 2000 damage.  However, if you have that beam go through 5 other ships first, they will also take 2000 damage.  Throw in malice, and 30% of all that will be spread around.  That means that Malice will increase your damage output by 450 DPS.  Need I say more?  For every ship you hit with that beam, you increase the DPS to everything else by 75.  Don't mess with that.  75 DPS by itself is awesome and is Marza-esque.  If you punched through 10, that is a 750 DPS buff to damage.  Once again, don't make the Radiance angry.  It won't work out so well...  Oh, and the other thing, anything that doesn't get wiped by the beam itself would surely get destroyed by malice's overlap into the surrounding forces.  Throw in another Progenitor, and you could ensure that his entire fleet gets a taste of Brilliance.

As for the Destra's ruthlessness, it automatically damages anything near it for 1.5 DPS.  This is good.  Let's say there are 24 ships in range.  Each one receives 1.5 DPS automatically, but with Malice, it becomes 10.8 DPS.  You aren't even firing at them!  That kills frigates like you wouldn't believe.  As long as Malice is up, enemy frigates will die, HC's will be wounded, and caps will be very unhappy.  The other thing to remember is that this is passive.  You just walk up to an enemy fleet and they just start dying.  Not to mention that Destras have awesome DPS with their plasma cannons anyways.

Oh come on Volt!!!!! Dont ruin our TEC rules topic!!!!!

Geeee....we dont get it often. LOL.

One issue Volt: I am 95% sure that deceptive illusion copies do 0.0000 dps, so they don't increase dps

yeah, they have the "weapons deal no damage" buff on them

Hmm...  Didn't realize that...  I saw them fire, so I figured they dealt damage.  At any rate, the advent are still better militarily.

I knew about alot of these combos, but I didn't know they were still so potent after the nerfs. One question though, does the Destras Ruthlessness stack? I recall reading on some thread that it didn't so I'm not sure.

It shouldn't, if it's scripted like the rest fot he abilaties 90% it doesn't unlest it works like Clusterbombs for TEC witch deal 10 dmg to a 1200 radius to a max of 4 targets that one stacks according tot he game files but ingame it doesn't work at all.

Nah, Ruthlessness doesn't stack unfortunately. But i'd still take it over the Kodiaks ability (sorry TEC, i'm really not trying to turn this into an advent owns post).

No your not however their is no avoiding that glaring fact

But what about adding a Marza with missile barrage to that pack and killing the enemy's frigates in the process?

And what do you mean by Culture? And what is GRG?

that is a major issue with the game balance right now. there is one solution:

NERF THE ILUM!! NERF THE ILUM!!

sorry, just wanted to say that.
as a matter of fact, raging amish had a very good proposal to nerf all lrf, in addition to some other minor balancing changes, in this post
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/360171

RestlessMind:
by culture, he meant that the TEC, when in an area dominated by its culture, gains an antimatter regen bonus, the exact number escapes me now. and grg is gauss rail gun, an ability of the kol

There are other ways than nerfing the illum itself which are better.  An Enforcer buff is needed and would give Vas the ability to cope with an illum spammer.  I do support a slight nerf to it, but not a major one.  The AI already doesn't know how to use them, and nerfing them would just hurt the AI, making SP less enjoyable.  Besides, the Advent are supposed to have the best military...  Its just how they are built:

TEC

Economy: Great

Synergies: decent

Military: decent

Vasari

Economy: Good

Synergies: poor

Military: Good

Advent

Economy: Dreadful

Synergies: Awesome

Military: Great

I have no problem with the Illuminator being the most powerful LRF by a significant margin, I just don't want it to be invincible versus all else.

It is 1.5 AM/sec for friendly culture.

Ohh...

BTW what do you guys mean by nerfing something?

I haven't read this post, but to nerf means to weaken the unit in some way shape or form. For example, people are suggesting nerf repulse by making the ability cost more antimatter (can't be used as much), and we also want Illums nerfed for balance. For illums, I want to lower the overall health/armor to bring it into balance.

Advent eco abysmal? Thanks to the mothership Advent pays up to 60% less for planet upgrades. The tier 8 +10% allegiance bonus aint too shabby either.

Even if the Illum's health is brought down into order, the beams are still a ridiculous advantage. Not only is the Illum tough, not only does it do the most damage of all the lrfs, but it also gets instant hit at long range. It doesn't have to turn. It doesn't have to move. It can just keep firing with instant hit beams. No waiting on the missile to get there. No watching as excess missiles are wasted on a target that blows up and your missiles hit dead space. No damage going to waste. With the Illum appropriately balanced it should be slightly better than lrm's and assailants, not how it is now where it obliterates lrms/assailants, crushes Enforcers, and is in an even fight with Destras and Kodiaks.

It comes from the toy.  A Nerf Gun is taking the concept of a lethal weapon and making it a play thing.  If you replaced all the weaponry in the game with little foam bullets that bounced off that's the analogy gamers use to say your fix made this class/ship/whatever worthless.