Which faction is the best?

Advent, because of the Progen, Illuminator, and Guardian.

Unless the map lends itself strongly towards TEC or Vasari, Advent is simply overwhelming.

Agreed.

Advent have uber cap ships, illums that have more health and way more DPS for their cost then even HCs. They have a great eco and Guardians are so good that it feels like cheating.

Advent have uber EVERY ship, but they take some getting used to. TEC are the best for a noob i think.

vasari will slap your paper advent ships. ive not lost to an advent in one long time. if they can abuse their ilum bash guardian progen slap il abuse my star base. with all the cash he spends replacing ships i can just chill behind my sb with PJI and regen bays not to mention subverters > your battle ball.

In theory that is how it should work. But repulse...

Also, if you just chill by your sb, the advent will simply go around...

also, star bases cost WAY more than illums.  By the time you can get one up and running, with full health and lots of fire power, which does take a long time, the advent will have destroyed it

A Vasari starbase is nice, but the problem is that illums with guardians and SR will be able to tank their way through a moderately upgraded one, and will simply go around a heavily upgraded one.  You're in an uphill battle against Advent, but the Vasari starbase is probably your best weapon against them.

I'd have to agree that Advent is the strongest atm mostly due to Illums and Repulse being super effective when backed by all the other Advent synergies.  The good news is that the 3 races are all close enough that player skill still makes a big difference. 

Vasari competiveness varies depending on how the neutrals fall on the map.  Vasari are my favorite race, but it can be pretty challenging on a map with no neutrals or where you can't grab some neutrals early in the game.  With a few early neutrals, Vasari can be very competive.  

TEC vs Advent is probably the most challenging fight, but again, still very winnable if you are more skilled than the opponent or on a map where you can rush before Advent get rolling.

bro we get early PJI in our WEAPONS RESEARCH. our MO is trap and kill. my egg has grav bomb. i have PJI. i have star base. you try to jump out ill grav bomb you while my SB rapes you. games over just about. subverters even if they cant get in range of repulse itself can still hit the other ships within the bubble.

it truly isnt an uphill battle. you just need to know how to use your units correctly. synergies are good and all but nothing to straight up correct use of units.

  TEC is the best!!!!!!

My koll will rape all your bombers while I don't even have to touch my mouse or keyboard!!!!!!!! My scouts will rape entire fleets inculding starbases!!!!!!!... Cuz TEC is so speshul !!!!!!!!!!!

And now for something completly different.

Imo advent currently has a slight advantage over the other races where tec somewhat seems to be the weakest. But as mentioned earlier nothing that skill can't overcome.

Grtz,
Flipkik

Trap and kill works, but that implies you have an Advent fleet on the run which can be damn hard to do sometimes.

The correct use of units is why the Advent are so great, their ships work the best together or any race, and they have strong ships to begin with. Any race can beat any other race, but the advent have the definitive advantage in mid-late game fleet.

The TEC can counter this with numbers, and the vasari with some early rushing to keep the player down, but if an Advent player makes it to late game.... watch out

Flipkik

The halcyon is way better at dealing with SC's than the kol.  With telekenetic push, it's the best anti SC weapon out there, also without touching the keyboard.

As for scouts "raping" an advent fleet, I'd like to see that.

Owkay no matter how hard you try sarcasm clearly doesn't work by the internet

Everyone the Tec part was sarcasm.

Grtz,
Flipkik

lol. It does seem like you're pretty screwed if you don't kill off the advent asap.

I wish my vasari navigators were able to beat up starbases.

oh i'd say about 100 should do the trick...against an un-upgraded one

Yep. It's true.

Gotta try that sometime...

Better yet one level 1 Jerrasul Evacuator will beat an unupgraded starbase... and a level 5 one can beat even an upgraded one.  He'll, with repair bays I once beat a fully upgraded Advent starbase (bypassed it, colonized the planet, built repair bays) just with my evacuator.

i've never tried, but I don't think one egg alone can be an upgraded vasari starbase, the health is way to high, and the weapons on that thing are do massive damage.

With a repair bay or two and level 3 nano disassembler it would probably be close...

Can it beat it or not. I rather bring a fleet or something and take it down quicker.....

just attack it from the damn things blind spots. Most people don't even bother giving the damn things metaphorical "glasses".