Advent Rebels = Banned? » Forum Post by WHIPperSNAPper2008

There is a Rebalanced Races Mod, check out the Modding section

There are also a lot of topics regarding Wail, and how to counter it

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WHIPperSNAPper2008

Join Date 03/2008

+126

I didn't know about the mod, thx. Yes, Wail can be countered, but the counters are pretty weak unless you are late game TEC. Regardless, it's severely overpowered and has no place in the game. Losing your entire fleet at your own planet you're defending without an actual fleet to fleet fight has no place in the game. (Interestingly, the original Kostura was nerfed for that reason.)

Would you mind linking to the mod? I found the Reb Optimization mod project.

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Wail of the Sacrificed - How I hate it. First time on the recieving end last week. Don't know any counters to it.

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The counter is amazingly tricky to pull off, only the absolute best players can handle it....

split up your fleet

You've lost less fleet and they still lose a planet. the more fleets you have, the less willing they are to use wail. If you have three fleets attacking, even if they're smaller than you'd prefer, that means they either lose three planets or can't use it.

Another idea don't have them all on the front lines unless you're about to attack.

Damage scales with population, so look for weaker planets and attack there

It's really not that bad, as it is very situationalized and should be easy to avoid in the first place. Focus on weaker/newer planets and split the fleet up a bit.

If you can't handle splitting the fleet, there are various counters (sorta) for each race. Vasari have phase lanes so just build a node at the attacking planet so you'll be there quickly enough anyways. Advent are better with cap ships so focus on those first. TEC can easily replace them doubly so if you have a starbase that can construct them in the grav well. It's really not that big of a deal once you recognize what to look for and how to get around it

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Quoting DirtySanchezz,

reply 2

Would you mind linking to the mod? I found the Reb Optimization mod project.

Here you are https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/411950

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WHIPperSNAPper2008

Join Date 03/2008

+126

It's hard to avoid and Wail if you are trying to defend and can be used offensively to take down a fleet that's defending a planet. It could also be used to knock down a guy who is trying to defend in against a 1v2 and thus can't possibly counter it.

Watch out Blackhawk! Greg thinks it's a great ability and that there's no problem with it. He'll accuse you of whining if he hears you complaining about it.

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Counters to Wail?

Don't make a frontline on an Advent Rebel where he has high population planets. Either take them from him early game or stay away from them.

Don't leave your ships near his high population planets

Send in your Titan and/or cap ships to destroy the temple of communion which is required to trigger the ability.

Fire at the planet from which the Wail will be triggered with the Kostura cannon, it will disable the temple of communion.

Fire at the planet with a Novalith cannon, it will cut down the population and Wail will become useless.

Strangely enough, it's the Advent that have the least counters to Wail.

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OH WHIP WHIP WHIP

Still crying?

Vail is ok compared to your SB spamming and eating rush strategies......

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Seleuceia

Join Date 01/2008

+240

I seriously question the competency of anyone who does not think wail is OP...I really do....these bullshit "oh wail is easy to counter, you only need fucking superweapons" tells me some people are speaking out of their ass without actually dealing with this game online...

I know some of these "wail isn't OP" people play online and are skilled (Greg and Ekko) but, really gentlemen? I mean, really? Is it because AR have nothing else going for them in their tech tree??? Is it because wail isn't as good as half the shit Vasari have?? What gives people? I'm starting to think you're just trolling...

I shall defer to my original stance on wail, that it should affect the home planet instead of neighboring planets....people have thrown out ideas like "have it only affect friendly wells or enemy wells" but there are serious flaws to both of those...this thread highlights a bunch of thoughtful opinions on the matter....

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WHIPperSNAPper2008

Join Date 03/2008

+126

Why do you characterize debate as "crying"? Do you say that every time someone engages you in a political debate?

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OK I wish I had reply of game I played yesterday.... but unfortunately i crashed on stat screen so it doesnt work

Vail as it is it is very map dependant and if you don't get overlapping high pop planets it is very easy to counter. Is it OP ih high population planets overlap YES is it op if they don't NO. And vail has arming time if you want which inst that fast at all and if you play aggressively it can be reduced to 0 without much of a bother.

Now lets look at strategies other not already discussed races have.

VL:

MAW as I said I wish i had reply of that game... Quick summary I was fighting 3 players and in total I ate about 300 frigates. They started with HC which was easy. In gravity Jump eat 40 HC and kill rest of the stragglers. Then they switched to carriers.

Same thing Jumped in gravity well , micro jump and ate carriers. I did this to carriers multiple times and on average I ate 40 carriers in one go. Once I ate 40 drones .... 120 bombers. Once Carriers are eaten another micro jump and GTFO if you dont have carriers with fighters to feed on all experience available from those strike craft or 2 kortuls with Jam weapons. OP MUCH???

Same race can eat planets therefore denies all other races place to build economy ships labs..... Same race can do surgical strikes eat selective planets and retreat while guy tries to go to defend and is jumping 10 jumps just to be to late to do anything.....

This can be done every game and it is not map situational.

VR: Carier spamm bypass all defences and rape unprotected planets just to run away when guy retreats to defend. Again Every game. Note I didn't even mention PJ sb.

Both races above have strongest SB which can be build inside minefield protected by kortuls so SC cannot attack and have subs and overseers to keep them alive untill they are ready to pounce and destroy defences.

TEC Loyals:

Twin fortresses can completely shut down phase lanes therefore completely deny certain points of approach and funnel guy to a point of attack where you want to attack him from. Novaliths ???? You get empire of 20 planets are you gonna SB + AUX all of them???

Truth is vail is situational and provides safe heaven to AR to where he can retreat and hole up to. It has very easy counter and only race that has problem dealing with it is Advent. All other but advent Loyal have a way to provide safe heaven on which you can regroup.

1 kosutra completely negates vail and 1 nova brings planet population to a point where it wont do enough damage to be effective......

EDIT: Oh and yes send few frigates on sabotage mission to kill temple = no vail

Oh I forgot you do not play TEC to have mines on scouts

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Quoting DirtySanchezz,

reply 11

Why do you characterize debate as "crying"? Do you say that every time someone engages you in a political debate?

I call it crying because you are solely focused on a races that you do not play and are not willing to find a way to play against. And strategies that are employed by you which could also be called op are just fine. What I think problem is is that vail kind of counters your play style. Have small fleet of low HP ships and a lot of SBs.

But if that already small fleet dies and you cannot play the way you do (SB leapfrogging) you are very vulnerable to counter-attack which your strategy cannot handle. In terms of predictability you are almost like KOK

As mentioned in my previous post VL are OK, MAW is OK .....

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Disclosure: I'm actually not trolling.

This is a terrific idea. I can't believe I didn't think about also banning advent rebels from the game. Doing so would totally eliminate both the new concepts that ironclad desperately needs to flat out remove from the game, or completely rebalance, but seeing as we are a number of patches in, they apparently have no desire to fix their game.

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Volt_Cruelerz

Join Date 06/2008

+115

For the record, in Rebalanced Races, I don't even touch Wail.. It's a rather complex issue that may require changes beyond what is allowed in modding, so I've left it alone.

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Quoting Seleuceia,

reply 10

I know some of these "wail isn't OP" people play online and are skilled (Greg and Ekko) but, really gentlemen?

I used to think it was OP as well but then I realized that it isn't really. Needs some tweaking maybe. The fact that there is no limit to the number of ships it deals damage to might be a point to change. It doesn't matter if you have a massive fleet or a small fleet - so maybe a cap on the number of targets it affects?

It's only in really selective, overlapping high pop planet map layouts that it reaches OP potential though. It's a once a game killing blow ability on defense and someone has to choose to walk into it. Tec Loyalists and Vasari should have the easiest time dealing with it of all the factions. Greg's already mentioned a number of other powerful abilities the other factions have. The last three times I've seen wail used in my games, it was the fault of the person who blundered into it. Once was on myself (lol) and the other two I used as the person chose a poor path that had overlapping planets when there were other nearby routes to take. Cool story right? Give me a Deliverance Engine that's worth buying and then we'll talk about Wail.

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So many people wailing about Wail. It is really not that hard to counter. Use a Kostura to go directly to the high population planets, or to disable Temples of Communion. Use Novaliths to reduce the populations of threatening planets. If the population is low, Wail does no damage. Wail is an emergency weapon that is very self-destructive to use.

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ARESIV

Join Date 05/2011

+58

*sigh*

Wail is NOT OP. It is way to situational for that. I do agree it could use a bit of finetuning... but thats about it.

Quoting bilun,

reply 17

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Any changes to wail or the Eradica should be VERY carefully considered. The Advent Rebels are and always have been in a very odd position balance wise- Wail and the Eradica are a bit OP without a doubt- But here's the thing: they are also the only reason the Advent Rebels are competitive.

When it comes down to it, under the surface the Advent Rebels suffer from pretty much all the same issues that have made the advent loyals underpowered. The chief differences has really been that the Advent Rebels have two absolute bombs(Wail & the Eradica) that more or less cover up their deficiencies. Frankly if these two tools were actually perfectly balanced the Advent Rebels would not be competitive.

All that said as I've said before I'm not principally against nerfing Eradica/Wail- No faction should be left leaning on a crutch forever. But nerfs to these things should be handled with a light touch and ideally be accompanied by buffs to the less powerful advent rebel techs.

What it really comes down to is while they possess somewhat OP tools, the faction overall isn't really OP. Changes should focus on spreading out and redistributing their strength so that they don't need those OP tools to be competitive(of course accompanied by reasonable nerfs to those tools)- they should not be focused only on said nerfs.

That said when the time to nerf Wail does come, I'm not convinced reducing the damage is the way to go. Reducing the damage y any reasonable cut will likely only really spare carriers from the Wail....and the last thing we need is MORE incentive to just mass carriers- That's just counterproductive tot he goal of having more viable types of late game frigates. Honestly I'm of the opinion the key to countering Wail should lie in attacking the advent rebels on multiple fronts.

One way this could be accomplished is by having Wail just affect a single adjacent targeted gravity well(rather then all adjacent). This means an attack on two fronts will always require 2 wails to knock out. It also removes potential for collateral damage to adjacent enemy planets when a wail is done chiefly to knock out a fleet in another well.

Goa's idea of having Wail just not hit your own adjacent gravity wells also has potential I think. ...

QUOTED

FOR

TRUTH

Yes, 3 terrans that happen to be in a nasty constellation can be a nasty thing... but that happens arround 1 times in 100 games....

Wail is a level 7 Harmony Tech.... by the time the Advent gets there Vasari will have unlocked far more nasty technologies.

I agree, none of the Vasari Tech are as powerful as Wail is in itself.. however combined the possible damage output is easily comparable to Wail. With the little insignificant difference that is not not halfway as situational.

So if you happen to be in such a nasty situation... DEAL with it.Kosturan and Novalith counter Wail HARD.

Unless the Advent has rushed Wail... which means he has a weak fleet... he wont have Wail early.

By the time he usually will go to Harmony 7, many Vasari players will already have Kostura. reserach on the to do list anway. Not to mention that Vasari loyalists usually can deal with a normal wail just fine... his cap ship heavy fleet will just ignore the wail.... if its triggered.... fly to the planet... bomb it into oblivion and then strip it... DENYING the Advent any future use permanently.

As for TEC.... by the time advent has 7 Harmony your eco is unrivalled. Novalith resarch and building? Insignificant spending.... Not to mention that you can probably replace a wailed fleet in a much shorter timeframe.

If you get wailed and loose most of your fleet.... you deserve to loose it. This is like parking your fleet next to an Argonev with BRB..... nobody complains about that. Wail just requires a bit more caution.... and scouting.... if you dont scout and your fleet jumps right over a Argonev with BRB... nobody in this forum would feel any pity for you....

Actually BRB is a better counter a a Kostura attacking Vasari than anything the Advent have. Because as long as Aux Gov is on that starbase, their capital heavy fleet needs to deal with that Starbase before getting the planet. And while Meteor Storm no doubt will do more damage in the long term, your starbase actually has to live that long first. With BRB.... first your base puts up a hell of a fight..... and then it takes the enemy with it..... on the second upgrade level there is very very little that will survive that blast.

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sareth01

Join Date 08/2008

+50

People just need to get used to playing against advent rebels. The advent have gone so long without any serious heavy hitting ability that people think that once they get one its OP. Old thought patterns are the real cause of wail being "OP". In all reality the only OP thing in game at the moment is the vasari Rebel Starbase Rush. Everything else in the game has become a higher stakes gamble that I personally find very fun.

You need superweapons/small strike fleets to overcome the advent wail ability. That isn't OP, considering wail itself is very expensive and situational.

All these vasari players who are so attack minded don't realize that there are other ways to win. They cry when advent have an ability that actually works against their incredibly cheap tactics and cry foul.

As the only race in the game that really can remotely defend against a kostura cannon + insane Vasari bomber fleet, I don't think that it should be wiped from the game because it actually provides much needed balance.

That way vasari players can actually lose ships if they make a bad fleet movement decision. Considering how easy it is to NOT make a poor fleet movement decision, wail isn't overpowered. It inherently gives advent fleets the advantage in a nearby gravity well, yet the vasari do have this thing called an orkulus starbase that can be easily supported by a 10-20 overseer support fleet rendering it almost invincible. If the advent rebels wail away that lil support fleet then its prime time to send your invasion fleet in.

TEC have a harder time dealing with wail, so thats when superweapons come in. TEC have the advantage on the defensive, TEC loyalists are the best counter to advent rebels. TEC loyalists are also quite competent, their heavy cruiser fleet combined with their militia upgrades allow them a lot of time to build up strong defenses. Its just that so many people online are attack oriented that they don't get played, so therefore advent rebels might seem OP because almost nobody is playing TEC loyalists. Dunovs + loyalist titan > Eradica + support fleet, when used properly.

A small buff to TEC loyalists is in order, imo.

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Seleuceia

Join Date 01/2008

+240

This thread is 100% troll bait....I have never seen so much serious trolling...seriously, reading this thread just makes me cringe...

Ekko and Greg have highlighted the only reasons why wail is acceptable and that is because 1) Vasari have even more OP shit (Maw, wtf devs???) and 2) AR really have nothing else other than a good titan....

The more I see stupid shit like "COUNTER WITH TEH SUPERWEAPONS" or "by the time an advent eco has 7 civ labs, people have multiple superweapons", the more I realize a lot of these forum posters either don't play online or are super serious trolls...

It is not hard to get 7 civ labs people...VL did it all the time, and AR can do it just as easily....

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wail is not op. most of the time if you get wailed, it is your own fault. All races have so many counters to wail I can't list them all.

Tec:

Armistice.

Advent: radiance detonate

Vas: sbs, kosturas

All Races: split up fleet, cap ship fleets, titans, planet bombers, and strategic selection of which planets to target.

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Don't make me suicide you

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ARESIV

Join Date 05/2011

+58

Quoting Seleuceia,

reply 20

This thread is 100% troll bait....I have never seen so much serious trolling...seriously, reading this thread just makes me cringe...

Ekko and Greg have highlighted the only reasons why wail is acceptable and that is because 1) Vasari have even more OP shit (Maw, wtf devs???) and 2) AR really have nothing else other than a good titan....

The more I see stupid shit like "COUNTER WITH TEH SUPERWEAPONS" or "by the time an advent eco has 7 civ labs, people have multiple superweapons", the more I realize a lot of these forum posters either don't play online or are super serious trolls...

It is not hard to get 7 civ labs people...VL did it all the time, and AR can do it just as easily....

Nope, it is not. But then unlike strip before 1.4 and jumping orky it is not an instagibLOLZIwinbutton.And as such the inclination to research that is far less strong. Sure, an AR eco can have it.

but an Vasari loyalist in the same spot just might have a fully upgraded orky at the border.... which makes that gravity well unattackable, too.... until you get reasonable ammounts of carriers up.

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@seleucia. playerslayer thinks wail is fine

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Quoting Seleuceia,

reply 20

This thread is 100% troll bait....I have never seen so much serious trolling...seriously, reading this thread just makes me cringe...

Most of these guys aren't trolling Seleuceia. I can tell no matter what the Devs do to it, it will be like the pirates, a lot of people are never going to be happy with it. Of course, we won't have the options to turn wail off...

I know a serious discussion on what should be done to it failed already, but for the record I do not think wail is fundamentally broken. Just one wail planet isolated from others is not OP, only when multiple wail planets are near each other does it become OP.

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Seleuceia

Join Date 01/2008

+240

Quoting ARESIV,

reply 23

but an Vasari loyalist in the same spot just might have a fully upgraded orky at the border.... which makes that gravity well unattackable, too.... until you get reasonable amounts of carriers up.

This isn't even remotely comparable, mainly because you can still amass ships at your border world even if the Orky makes any offensives "impossible"....but with wail, no can do....that wail prevents you from defending your own planets is just asinine...

Quoting GoaFan77,

reply 25

Just one wail planet isolated from others is not OP, only when multiple wail planets are near each other does it become OP.

Consider two planets next to each other that are held by opposing forces, one AR and one non-AR....if the AR have a high pop planet (ice or better) then what is the non-AR supposed to do? They can't keep their forces at the border world because they'll get wailed (even high pop planets can wipe carriers), which means the AR can attack with absolute impunity...the non-AR can defend with caps and a titan, but SB+caps+titan vs. FULL FLEET (likely with massive bomber spam) is hardly a fair fight and is likely going to result in your caps getting sniped since they don't have support...

Please explain to me how this is not OP....having a high pop planet as a border world is hardly situational, nor is having two opposing fleets neighboring eachother in a stalemate...

The only reason AR aren't banned from MP is because wail is the only thing they have going for them...the eradica is a good titan but it isn't that much better than the other titans (excluding ankylon) which have focus fire abilities or the ability to instant kill infinite frigates...if AR had any other good tricks they'd be just as ridiculous as VL...

Quoting dvvdsfasfa,

reply 21

wail is not op. most of the time if you get wailed, it is your own fault. All races have so many counters to wail I can't list them all. Tec: Armistice. Advent: radiance detonate Vas: sbs, kosturas All Races: split up fleet, cap ship fleets, titans, planet bombers, and strategic selection of which planets to target.

Is this a fucking troll??? Armistice?? Right, because you can keep up armistice indefinitely real easily....not gonna do jack shit when trying to hold down your own planet bordering an AR ice, desert, or terran for an unknown amount of time...and there's detonate AM, which can't even affect culture centers because they don't have AM...as for the Vasari SBs, I assume you are referring to VR and their jumping orkies which may I remind you are BANNED...

And Goa tries to tell me people aren't trolling...

Quoting sareth01,

reply 19

All these vasari players who are so attack minded don't realize that there are other ways to win. They cry when advent have an ability that actually works against their incredibly cheap tactics and cry foul. As the only race in the game that really can remotely defend against a kostura cannon + insane Vasari bomber fleet, I don't think that it should be wiped from the game because it actually provides much needed balance.

I'm not looking to nerf wail into oblivion...I've advocated having wail affect only the home planet, which still is an immensely powerful ability (but it resolves the overlapping and "I can't defend my own planet?" issues)...I'm also not a vasari whore complaining that I can't rape AR like everyone else...I've played AR more than the other 5 races combined and to this day I still think wail is absolutely ridiculous...yes, if you get wailed it is almost certainly your own fault but an AR eco with wail can be virtually unapproachable until superweapons come into play...at least with dual SBs with RB, you can still protect your own damn planets....

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