VRT's Nanoleeech just feels too strong at late ranks

from Sins Forums

Honestl;y I think Nanonleech has a bad case of "does too many things and scales up in mutliple ways resulting in OP higher levels".

 

 

If it just did the hull drain/repair it would stil be very competitive(probably better then the TLT's savage defense), but the AM drain being added to the mix makes it go way overboard.

 

Let's go over the perks of Nanoleech:

1). enemy frigates with less then maybe 1000 hull  regardless of shieldsis a liability, and will be dead within the first 2 minutes of battle(this is further enforce by the fact that with the AM drain support ships won't be healing this damage)

2).  enemy support ship become useless(all of their AM will be removed) within the first 30 second of battle

3). Enemy capitalships brought will have all of their AM drained within 30-90 seconds(most will be down in the first 30 seconds), after which they become useless.

4). The VRT is basically immune to AM drain(one of the main counters fo all other titans), as it can easily regenerate it's AM far faster then any ship can drain it

5).  The VRT can spam it's abilities at will- Nanon-leech will always provide more AM

6). Bar-none the best self-survival mechanism in the game.  It's a joke how much better this ability is for regening hull the the TLT's savage defense which doesn't do much else.

 

That just feels like too much for a single skill.  All in one skill we have the best sefl heal over time, likely the second best AoE damage(to chastic burst), the largest area AoE damage ability, the best anti-capitalship titan sbility(drain 300 AM frome evry enemy capitalship? gg?),  and effectively infinite AM to spam abiltiies with & resist AM drain

 

 

Basically in late game fleet battles, the only way to have any chance fighting this thing(once it's leveled up) is to not let it get anywhere near your fleet- which is to say carrier bomber kiting(which can be difficult as it also has a slow ability) and the like.

Yes, none of it's abilities affect titans, but the VRT will have an attendant fleet, and I suspect your unsuported titan will be able to match up to the enemy's entire fleet,especaially with the VRT titan supporting said fleeet with what is likely the best titan fleet support ability in the game(widescale instant hull/AM restroe)

Honestly I don't think a single ship- even a titan should be able to essentially  obsolete two main classes of ships(frigates become a liability due to the hull drain and capitalships get run out of AM extremely fast becoming useles).  It should be possible to fight this ship toe-to-toe, just like every other titan, rather then needing to resort to an undependable carrier kiting strategy.

The devs need to decide whether they want the VRT to be the bane of frigates or capitalships- it can't be both.

 

Personally I think both the higher ranks of the AM drain and the radius need to be reduced(or better yet left at 4/sec at all ranks- the duration increases already increase effective AM drained).  Draining 300 AM over 30 seconds from the enetire enemy fleet is just WAY too much with how important capitalship abilities are to the outcome of a battle.  anything more then 120-150 just isn't managable IMO.

 

 

 

5,693 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Ooh!  You forgot about how when facing this, you'll actually be fighting two titans because there'll be an Orky there.

Anyways, as to a solution...  How about specification?  Capitals get constant 4 AM/second regardless of level while frigate AM drain scales?

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

When I read the description for the the first time my first thought was, "This sounds better than most caps ultimate abilities."  Lets see:

-Deals aoe damage

-Drains AM

-Heals self

-Heals own AM

-Spammable

-Chains with its third ability to turn it into a aoe stun

 

If its other abilities sucked there might be some justification, but no the entire package is pretty decent.  Either the cooldown needs to go way up, or the AM drain/heal needs to be removed entirely.

 

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Basically in late game fleet battles, the only way to have any chance fighting this thing(once it's leveled up) is to not let it get anywhere near your fleet- which is to say carrier bomber kiting(which can be difficult as it also has a slow ability) and the like.
End of quote

Except that with phasic trap, this titan will be unkillable in its own territory.  There is no imbalance quite like it in the game. 

Vasari rebels are the "so easy my kid sister could beat you" race in sins at the moment. 

@lgbsloan

that ability is better then most combined fleet capabilities all by itself.  It is the highest level of OP this game has ever seen, and it is only matched by the orkulus phase jumping capability. 

Not to mention that the vasari rebels get the best teamwork abilities in the game bar none.  This will have huge ramifications in ICO 5v5 play.  It looks to me that the TEC/vasari teams will be back again in full force.  Thank you developers for making the advent loyalist faction all for me(I'll be the only one playing them)!

:)

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting lbgsloan, reply 2
When I read the description for the the first time my first thought was, "This sounds better than most caps ultimate abilities."  Lets see:

-Deals aoe damage

-Drains AM

-Heals self

-Heals own AM

-Spammable

-Chains with its third ability to turn it into a aoe stun

 

If its other abilities sucked there might be some justification, but no the entire package is pretty decent.  Either the cooldown needs to go way up, or the AM drain/heal needs to be removed entirely.

 
End of lbgsloan's quote

 

Pretty much sums it up. I've been playing a single player game as Vasari rebels, where my titan started at level 4 and has already killed three 1600 FP fleets plus their level 3,4 and 6 titans (all at the same time) at least twice, all by itself. How that can be considered even remotely balanced is beyond me.

The biggest contributor I find is the sheer size of the heal you can get with moderate to large sized fleets, where by the time they've damaged ~60% of its hull, (after originally using the ability with no shields and starting at 40% hull) the cooldown time is up and you can pretty much fully heal in the first few seconds, with the rest of the duration making you functionally invincible. ie the cooldown is short enough that they can't outdamage the heal and your titan is never truly in danger of death.

All this while at the same time you're crippling all enemy anti-matter users and hitting every single ship in range with a powerful DoT, (roughly the equivalent of level 3 detonate antimatter minus the ability disable) that can also turn into a fully fledged complete frigate disable when used with the third ability.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

not to mention that it ignores shields when it deals its damage......

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Early levels are not too bad, its only slightly more than the passive regeneration rates. I think they should reduce the duration across the board, then make the main benefit increased duration of each level. Right now it does 5/10/15/20 damage and 4/6/8/10 antimatter drain over 15/20/25/30 seconds.

I would suggest making it something like a 5/5/10/10 damage and 4/4/6/6 antimatter over 10/20/20/30 seconds. In other words either the duration or the potency of the buff goes up each level but not both, which should keep the ability in check and leaves it much weaker at higher levels.

If limiting the healing to 10 HP/6AM per second per ship still makes it indestructible with large fleets, perhaps the healing effect should be capped at a high value, say 30, instead of infinite as is now.

 

That said, this is certainly a ship that should be fought only with your own titan and capitalships if possible. Bring your fleet early on to destroy its escorts, then get your frigates out of their to keep it from healing with nano leach.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

I've done a bit more thinking on the topic and heres the conclusion I've arrived at:

 

IMO the hull damage is fine, the problematic elements are:

 

1).  The ability at higher ranks to deprive entire fleets of capitalships of AM. this ability is pretty clearly meant to be ana nti-frigate fleet tool, but due to the high AM drain it pretty hard-counters capitalship heavy fleets as well.  Consequently the purview of counters is just too narrow(basically titans and starbases only).

 

2). It frankly gains way too much hull/AM from the ability.  A single enemy at higher ranks will return several times the AM cost of the ability and a mere 4 enemies is the break-point at which the ability heals faster then the TLT's furious defense.  IMO against very large fleets this ability's heal rate should be unmatche- but conversely it should be on the weak side for a titan ability if less then 10 enemies are present.  Likewise the ability shouldn't be pretty much guaranteed to pay for it's own AM cost and then some.  With a large number of enemeis it should be a net AM gain, but IMO it should require at least 10 enemies or so to pay for it's self.  It's worth noting for those who don't know that the Kultorask gains AM/sec even for enemies in the area with no AM pool or that are out of AM.

 

 

The radius at higher ranks is also a bit on the high side(7500 radius at rank 4), but I think targeting these first 2 issues will probably be enough to balance the ability.

 

The changes I think would be appropriate would be changing the effect to:

 

Nano-Leech:  Causes all enemies in the area to lose 5/10/15/20 hull per sec & 3/4/4/5 antimatter per second for 30 seconds.  Additionally for each affected target the Kultorask regains 4/6/8/10 hull/sec & 1 AM/sec.

 

[comments: With these changes at max rank, the Kultorask requires 8 enemies to match the heal rate of the TLT on home ground(and will heal faster with more then 8 enemies present).  Additionally at max rank for the ability will require 5 enemies in it's range to have the ability pay for it's own AM cost(after which any additional ships give a net gain).  Also note with the longer duration, the early ranks will still be useful despite the diminished AM/hull returns(since those were the main reasons the early ranks were actually useful).

All said and done, the (total hull damage & total hull healed) per target over the duration changes from (75/200/375/600 & 75/200/375/600) to (150/300/450/600 & 120/180/240/300) and the (total AM damage & total AM restored) per target over the duration changes from (60/120/200/300 & 60/120/200/300) to (90/120/120/150 & 30/30/30/30)]

 

Honestly I think that would make the ability fairly reasonable.  If it still proved too strong I'd say the next step would be to adjust the radius a bit rather the further decreasing the dmg/AM numbers.  That said, I think it would be much more manageable, but still very strong with these numbers.