one reason why I dont like the Advent, their "godly abilities" prevent you from actually keeping the game balanced.

You know, if you see just that subject line in the Christmas season, people might take it completely the wrong way.

The only real viable counter to Advent with TEC are the Colbolt's Sabatoge Reacter ability. It has enough range to disable Repulse. In addition, massed SC are usable against Guardians, but their damage multipliers are bad against them (75% to Heavy).

I agree with Darvin3 100%

First of all, a level 1 cap doesn't have enough antimatter to repulse constantly.  To the contrary, chances are I'll be able to easily sit out your early game firepower and wait for repulse to expire.  This is one of the reasons why I think it'd be balanced as a capital ship ability; you have only so much antimatter on one cap before you run dry, and then repulse is gone.  This is most true early game on low level caps.

Secondly, to put it to good use you'd need either LRF or carriers to have something that can strike from the safety of repulse.  This means at least two labs, probably three, for the Advent player.  In other words, a TEC or Vasari opponent has ample opportunity to actually get their own counter-units, and has probably seen that you have a Revelation and is getting ready to counter it.  To be honest, I think a Halcyon would still be the more dangerous rusher here.

Simple thing: Repulse 1: pushes away frigates for 15 seconds.

Repulse 2: pushes away frigates and capships for 20 seconds.

Repulse 3: same thing, but costs less antimatter.

(If a "push" also affects capships because of program code, then it should start with 12 seconds).

The "repulse" of strikecraft is a Halcyon's task! So two lvl 6 Halcys and two lvl 6 Revelations would be quite a defensive core. Still reachable by LRM though, and that is where Vasari come into play...

From what it looks like Repulse is here to stay. I'd rather have an ability to beat repulse than just take it out. If sabotage reactor truly is the only counter, thats retarded. I had 20 cobalts running towards them and the illums just shot them down. As I understand bombers are anti-heavy, so we will see how effective they are tomorrow morning.

At least we know why the TEC exiled these freaks....seriously. Death to the Unity.

On the subject of repulse, how about changing it from an AoE to a single target ability that really knocks a ship across the grav well.  Won't stop a fleet but will break it up to an extent reducing incoming damage.

The Halycon is also really too strong, (all the carrier caps have become disproportionately too strong leading to spamming).  All the whining about carrier caps not having enough squadrons was taken too seriously, now they have so many squadrons they are often a better deal than carriers, this is epescially true of the halycon (6! of the best squadrons in the game and a mere level 3!, by level 10 it's an absurd 11 squadrons).   But what really makes the Halycon too good is telekinetic push, you can't counter the swarms of bombers coming from the 3-4 halycons that get spammed against you if your fighters all get slapped out of existence.  Add the best damage increasing aura in the game and you have a cap that excels far past the others.

That's actually the best solution I think that I've ever heard on the subject. But have fun trying to take away the rattle from all the babies... the sounds of crying will rise to the stars themselves.

-Itharus

You basically have to swat the fly long before its bugging you for you to avoid repulse.

I'd like the replay from the OP if there is one, it sounds intriguing.

The balance problems with Advent are far more serious than only bugged Illuminators, scouts and Repulse.  The only solution may be to nerf the entire faction so hard that only a few will play them- then we'll almost be there.  The Disciple has a decided advantage against the Cobalt, but the advantage against the Skirmisher is obscene, and won't be countered by a minor increase in Skirmisher dps.  Shield Restore on the colony cap is another advantage to the Advent first-tier units, TEC have no mobile area cap repair, and the Skirantra won't improve your expansion.  The Advent have the best flak as well- why?  There was a time when Animosity-Malice-Vengeance style combos were deemed powerful, but at least these took some skill, and a variation of cap ships.  We can only wish for some of the old Advent superiorities to reemerge- as it is, Advent are an almost entirely skill-free faction, so that it is not clear how strong they have become.

Illuminators need to be nerfed as well as debugged, this was apparent before the crap 'balance patch' which has ruined the online game for two months.  If they are not hotfixed before the next patch, and then there is no nerf, it'll just be back to the old Illuminator spam, supposedly dealt with by an obscure range adjustment to Kodiaks.  Have anyone's Kodiaks suddenly become more effective?   

What is a 'slight' nerf to seekers?  Is it really proposed that one of the Advent units should not be the most cost-effective combat unit of its class?  A slight nerf will have no effect, as the unit is only used to counter LRF, and enhance the Advent LF and LRF superiority.  If seekers were nerfed to Navigator levels, with 2 supply, they'd still be effective in their role.

That Repulse needs yet a further nerf shouldn't be surprising.  Guardians are hard to kill, unlike subverters which also have a hard counter to the units that supposedly counter them.  Also, Guardians affect caps!  The solution was to nerf Repulse by nerfing the ship itself, by limiting the area affected to a thin cone, so that they took skill to employ properly and by excluding caps. 

I'm tired of Advent players, I hope you can beat them.  At least 1v1 isn't an Advent smurf/rushfest like all the other ICO games.  Can the other factions even rush any more? 

Don't encourage Advent bias- don't play Quickstart.

Honestly, I do think this is the problem with Advent.  Their units aren't so strong to be unbeatable.  Quite the contrary, I spent tonight slaughtering some of those skill-less Advents on ICO (as TEC, it should happen).  If you play 'em poorly, Advent dies like everyone else.  Now, Vasari has a few troubles here, but it's still quite doable.

Someone was talking in a game about a test they did regarding the illuminator's bugged damage.  Apparently their forward beam is doing something like 60 dps instead of 20 (rough numbers), so bug fixing them is actually going to be a massive nerf. 

Actually, yeah, I have noticed them working a lot more smoothly.

I personally favour bringing all scouts in line (on a cost-basis) to the TEC scout.  I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but that means a nerf to the seeker and a buff to the navigator.  I still stand by this stance; the TEC scout is very well balanced currently.

As for quick-start, I don't know what that would change.  Certainly it would help Vasari hold neutrals more easily early on, and it would prevent fast illuminators, but on the flip-side it seems like that would be a hayday for the seeker/disciple rush with Halcyon.

Wow...I had no idea that Repulse was an AOE (not having ever used it).  I can't believe that all this time I've thought Repulse was single target...I wonder where I got that impression.  That's just insane!  Boy, do I feel stupid now.

Also, thanks for the mentions of the bugged Illuminators...I finally found out about the mystery damage bug being confirmed by Blair in one of Deciever_0's posts.  Hm...I wonder if my team will notice if I stop using lums in our next game....lol!

-Gil102