How to win

Why is this thread necissary? Illums are getting nerfed next patch no matter what. I'd at least see how the change works before ranting about them... again.

Illum spam on its own won't win you games.  Smart players can and will beat it, though it certainly is the deadliest of all forms of spam.  The scary thing is illuminators as part of a well balanced army, which definitely are too strong.

if you do that... I will beat you every single time.  (7unless you have a 3 resoruce netural connected to your hw, and I have a magnetic storm)

illum spam is so easy to counter, no matter how op they are.

LOL. I like.

And like it or not, he is right. Sure you may need flak to stop the fighters. But illums even beat their supposed counter, heavy cruisers.

I dont find illum spam so deadly anymore.

I dunno.  In my last loss vs. a pro type the other day, all he did was spam illums, period, besides a small fleet of siege frigs.  The replay showed that I expanded quicker than he did, and had more planets.  I even had a line of 5 trade ports.  I scouted him, knew he was spamming illums.  As vasari I have few options.  I think navigators suck against illums so I didn't build those.  I just think it's ridiculous to counter an lrf spam with an lrf spam, so I didn't spam assailants.  Carriers are too expensive and difficult to bring online in a situation like this, plus I worry about flak, so I didn't build those.  I settled on a mixture of assailants and flak, with starbases.

I lost every single engagement as he rolled into my planets and took them one by one.  His micro was not better than mine (his micro consisted of keeping illums near the mothership, and hitting shield recharge every so often - what person of minimum skill can't do that?).  His thought was not better than mine because I don't think he had to do any thought - it was just a preprogrammed script of "spam illums, go kill enemy."  I think he won simply because he spammed illums.

You should have went massive flak if all he was spamming was ilums.Assailents will get you killed if you dont have enuf to take out his progen and then yoou will be taking losses.Also navs will work.If all he was spamming was ilums you should have won.Ilums will take out an un upgraded sb pretty quick.You will need at least one health on all sb and thats why it isnt always a good option.3-4 Carriers would have been devastating to an all ilum fleet as well and I dont see how they are to expensive compared to cost of deploying and keeping up sb all around.

I don't think Vasari flaks are what they used to be.  It seems like they do less damage now than they did before the last patch.  His best bet might to research phase missiles and spam out Assailants, then have his Egg nanite the enemy cap while focus firing all Assailants on it.  That will at least put an end to any shield restore since it will drive the Progenitor away.  It would also be good to fight in a gravity well where you have a starbase with at least the first weapons upgrade.  Also, I think there is a reason why fewer and fewer people have been playing Vasari lately.

See below.

I agree with this 100%.  I actually did turn out a huge number of flak - basically as many as I could.  It really wasn't a match for the illums.  I knew ahead of time it wouldn't be, because this is an old story (illum spam is all I ever see).  But what else am I supposed to do?  I mixed in some assailants in an effort to "mix it up a bit" and also counter his cap.  But it was mostly flak, with not much results to show for it.

Upgraded starbases are no match for illums.  Once someone hits the 50-something illum mark, the SBs go down pretty quick, even with hefty use of repair bays.

Yeah, got one of his caps that way (he got mine too).  He just built another.  I didn't bother rebuilding mine.

Today, had another match with another "pro-type" (a recognized name on Astax's replays thread).  He picked Advent.  As the game started I sent him a friendly message and said "Hi, I noticed you picked Advent.  Instead of just spamming illums, why not try to build other units to vary the game a bit?"  I got no response at all, so I knew what was in store.  Sure enough, he came with massive numbers of illums, a mothership, a carrier cap, and nothing else.  I had already decided on a strat of "mutually assured destruction," so I had built a ton of siege frigs.  When he jumped in with all those illums, I jumped at him with all the siege frigs and started taking out his worlds.  He jumped back to defend but my siege frigs could toast his worlds faster than he could kill them.  Then I sent some colonizing frigs while his illums were chasing down my siege frigs.  Unfortunately for me, enemy culture was too strong to colonize, but my "mutually assured detruction" strat worked.  While it insured that I could not win the game, it also insured that he could not, so he quit.

I think I'll use this strat more in the future.  Don't get mad, get M.A.D. (mutually assured destruction)!

If they implemented a proper upkeep system, all these imbalances would go away. Hell they could've saved themselves a hella huge amount of time and resources.

Bah I use them all the time.Best works with tec and hoshis.I can tell you will do pretty good if all he spams is ilums and all u spam is flak if your ecoes are similar.You should end up with many more flak then he has ilums.If you get skirantra then your fighters will help big time.

Well you're a better player than me then.

Wel just try it once.One big thing with flak is placement is very important.They fire from all sides so you need to place flak in the middle to use all gunports or keep moving your flak around.Think about it.They have nearly the same dps and both do 75% damage to each other.Flak has much more hitpoints that ilums.So if you can use all 4 banks then you will be dealing out same damage with more hp.Flak is also cheaper.Throw in skiratra with fighters and healing to counter a progen shield and you should be in good shape.I believe flak for vas is tier 2 so you will have more creds and more flak than he has ilums.Thing is if he is going all ilums full on spam you must go full on flak spam.

Minds we r not talking about brainless lum spamm. Every skilled will answer with lf for your  flaks. Then as vasa u will have to use assi to counter lf. And then he will move lums around and screw your assi while using his mothership to  heal area dmg of flaks. As Tec u can go  hoshiko heavy, but as vasa,  sb and subs is what can save u. Simply u wont win  with skilled advent as vasari without massive eco advantage, or when he is retless, too self confidednt. But when he isnt,, its gg

This is what op and entire thread has been about to my knowledge but otherwise I agree with you quar.It can be an endless counter cycle with most skilled winning.Vas seem to have harder time keeping up with the cycel without subs or sb.

I don't keep moving my flak around, but I DO stick my flak right in the middle of all his illums.  I do that every time.  My flak still get mauled (Vasari flak that is.  I can't speak to TEC flak, but I hear it counters illums better).

All of these suggestions assume one thing, that the person you are playing against doesn't take advantage of a ridiculously obvious counter.  I remember wading through similar responses a couple months back when arguing that the advent scout rush is too powerful.  (and even though Raging Amish says plenty about how that doesn't work that well the 4-5 I have played with him he has done a scout/disciple rush every time)

When dealing with advent flak isn't going to get the job done, doesn't matter which one in my opinion.  Flak excel at doing a little damage to a ton of different targets.  The mothership with shield restore is going to completely combat that.  It also takes a long time to kill anything with a flak fleet, enough time to spam light frigates.  Plus "moving them into the middle" plays right into the illums strength too.  Building Javs or Assailants to deal with the cap is throwing ships away and it is 50/50 whether it jumps out in time, sits by a repair bay for 1 minute and then jumps back in. 

Carriers can work but expect to lose a whole lot of them.  Illums are actually quite effective at chasing groups of carriers down.  And then there is the obvious mass flak (or mass light frigates) counter as well, which leaves you at square one still dealing with a large fleet of illums. 

I play Vasari almost all the time, and they only true counter is to make a small fleet of scouts, capture all those neutrals, explode your early economy and SB rush like a mad man before he can get his spam going.  If the neutrals aren't there and you are not matched up against a newbie, try not to lose and hope your team gets the win for you.  I have also had luck with people being overconfident and following me into a trap with carriers and phase inhibitors lying in wait while their forces are strung out. 

Right now IMO that makes two early game tactics that gives the Advent a clear edge over TEC and Vasari.  Illum spam and Scout/Disciple spam.  It is a fairly simple fleet which is hard to counter, but the counter to it is fairly easy to counter.  Lets not even talk about dealing with it mid game when you throw thinks like repulse warfare, multiple motherships with shield restore micro and telekinetic push. 

Now that I think about it...

Another problem with countering an illum spam with navigators is having enough frigate factories in the right place at the right time to build enough to out number the illums.  Build them in the same gravity well and kiss them goodbye, build them too far away and you are constantly out gunned as your ships have to take time to fly in. 

Navigators just suck compared to seekers or scouts.  Actually, they just suck period.

Lol. People are still pretty 1 dimensional in their opening strategies. I won't deny that I use the strategy in the very early stages of the game quite frequently. I find it to be extremely effective on the defensive. I don't care too much for using it on the offensive unless my opponent is spamming long range frigs.....which poeple still do. A LOT.