The problem with spiders in their current state is that they are missing two important unit roles. The first role is a territory capture unit. Units like this tend to be reasonably fast and are able to establish the front line, units like this include, scorchers, halberds, pyros, glaives, and bandits. The problem is that when a player chooses spiders, even on a map with rough terrain it is difficult to establish a front line. Another thing is that the spiders lack a cheap reliable riot unit. The venom is fine if the opponent just sends two to four glaives. But when he does an all in glaive rush, this is where the venom fails. The venom can only stun it can't kill anything! The solution to this problem is to allow the venom to do damage, not much but enough to kill light raiders quickly.
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The spider fac (as well as heavty, gunships, planes) are not main battle facs - if you start with them, you will lack a glaive-like unit. These facs are supposed to be used later, as a 2-nd fac, or if in a team game, a support fac. The tools these facs provide are really not standard, take the spider fac as an example: fleas: #1 anti sniper unit, free mex killer, mass scout. Hermit: like a standard assult unit, but with a much bigger hp/cost ratio. Recluse: the paper skirmisher that outranges most things you deal with. Crabe: just a big problem for your enemy to deal with, but it is still only a support unit (it even does the riot role worse then the venom). Venoms: not only the greatest support for anti-raider, it's also good vs riots, assults and sometimes skirmishers, but can't handle more then 2 targets (unusual for a riot). Infiltrator: like the desc syas: a spy and anti-heavy, and both roles it does very good if you learn how to use it.
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I think your analysis is strong, but in conclusion I actually think spider lab is the design that shines. You have a really interesting raider unit, the flea, which is only enough to kill naked expansion but can get you lots of hidden los over the map. You have an interesting riot unit that cannot kill anything on its own but is super-effective as support or when supported. You have lots of units with strong strengths and weak weaknesses. Nothing is straight-forward, and you need to synergize your units well to maximize your effectiveness. For example, venoms and fleas together work well at fast attacking and territory control. Venoms and cudgel or recluse are better as a main-army composition. Because their strengths and weaknesses compliment each other, you can make interesting compositions. If anything, it is more the other labs that are kind of broken and/or need work, because you can get so much effectiveness out of a single unit, because there is less synergy or need for synergy. (Bandit is probably the worst offender)
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I will not argue that that the spider fac is a strong mid-late game fac. I will also not argue that the venom is a good support unit. It is just the early were spiders are weak. Also the spider factory is not a support factory, the main factories fulfill many of the roles that the spider factory also fulfills.
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We've tried to make these factories more viable as start options, because more start viable factories is good and opens up more diversity from the start of the game. However, they make the map seem 'flat' and really make terrain sort of irrelevant. So if they are secondary factories most of the time, that is okay and may in fact be better for the game than if any even slightly hilly map is a spider-only map where the terrain doesn't matter (Already too much that way IMO).
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quote: But when he does an all in glaive rush, this is where the venom fails. |
Wrong. When sent in mass Venoms have a huge advantage over raiders due to their immense aoe. You shoot a Glaive - it's disabled. Another Glaive runs at you, the emped Glaive works like a wall, so the enemy can't shoot you, but your insane aoe emps the second Glaive right through the first one. This way your Venom gets to build an ever growing bunker. Combine this with multiple Venoms and any damage-dealer other than Flea. Use OP LLT and MT if you have to. If you are better than your enemy, then you should be able to come out on top.
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The flea+venom combo requires a lot of micro to pull of (like so badass micro, that you should really try using normal facs and get to top 5), since venoms like paralizing your fleas as well, but if you have godlike powers and can pull that off on a day-to-day basis, then spider fac becomes a viable starting fac regardless of terrain (since then you can counter raiders witout assults or skirmishers helping, which is the only major reason spiders are hard to do in a 1v1 as starting fac, all other resons you can usually live with). The synergy, yes, is strong with this one, but most spiders are made by 3-year-olds and die to a sneeze, so no matter how you combine them, they still die really fast, this is why the counter to spiders (the whole fac) is raiders - they can get close quickly enough do shoot, can be massed enough to surround the venoms, can avoid a few volleys of the recluse and can kite the hermit for eternity. So effectivly, the spider ball can be destryed by using said bandits, glaives or scorchers (if there are no hills). I'm not taking the crabe into account, since it's an end-game unit, but even it is counterd by a few raiders because of the slow turn speed of the turret.
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quote: The flea+venom combo requires a lot of micro to pull of (like so badass micro, that you should really try using normal facs and get to top 1) |
quote: but if you have godde-like powers and can pull that off on a day-to-day basis |
FTFY. quote: since then you can counter raiders witout assults or skirmishers helping |
You also get a raider/riot combo that is faster than some enemy raiders. Venoms are really lightning-fast for a riot to compensate their lack of real damage. quote: I'm not taking the crabe into account, since it's an end-game unit, but even it is counterd by a few raiders because of the slow turn speed of the turret. |
Next time: shoot ground to multigib those squishy critters with your massive AoE. Now back to topic: if spiders can't have a real raider because they're allterrain, why can jumpies have a more real than life raider which can also gib factory in 15 seconds, have insane survivability due to insta-disengage ninja skill, have a huge antiheavy bonus, AND do riot work, adding insult to injury?
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I'm sorry, Anarchid, but I'm supposing a game where you enemys have brains that are sometimes used. The crabe may have massive AOE but normal raiders don't hug it to get burned. And the spider raider+riot combo works if you can keep the fleas at a safe distance form the massive emp-blast of the venom (which, as you said, requires you to be goddie). If only fleas had a little more range...
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quote: The crabe may have massive AOE but normal raiders don't hug it to get burned. |
Considering bandit range 240, Crabe AoE radius 200, even if raiders stay at max range, it still works as long as you don't shoot directly under yourself. The thing is simply that you need to get the shot off and place the AoE marker on your own (manually). quote: If only fleas had a little more range... |
+1023
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imo increasing fleas range would fix this issue, (lower dps to compensate) it has been said a lot of times in forums though, so i guess there is a reason for not doing this.
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Just from the perspective of a non-spider-player: How would you counter spiders if they had an effective (in the sense you are talking about) way of countering raiders? I've always been told that spiders can only be beat (at least on somewhat hilly maps) by killing them early. Everybody said that once they get 4 recluses you can't effectively work against them. So how would you beat spiders if you give them better tools to survive their early game?
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quote: so i guess there is a reason for not doing this. |
The reason is that venom should have chain lightning, which also has been mentioned and agreed with countless times. Therein lies the problem that chain lightning requires a gadget to actually chain the lightning, and some way to display it, which, from a naive view, looks like, say, 150 SLOC. Flea range, on the other hand, requires 0.5 SLOC to implement.
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quote: once they get 4 recluses |
4 recluses are far from being raiderproof. And when he gets a real recluseball -- you just napalm it with your choice of grill unit.
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4 recluses + 1 or 2 venoms. Obviously. Fleas should give you info about techswitch, so good luck with a surprise napalm... Did i mention hills?
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You seem to already be assuming your opponent is none but godde himself :D
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Don't forget, that spiders lack long (recluse is not long enough) range unit. Arty will drive a spider player mad. Also the hills can work both ways, even if you'r not a spider player, but that's pro talk and i'm not allowed to speak about that. If you can deal with the tarantulas, then air will rip any recluse ball in a matter of seconds. Then mop up the remaining venoms with anything you have left. Just a reminder, that recluse have about 600HP (double defender) and cost something like 300. Every kill puts you that much more foreward then him (where you can loose 3 bandits for a recluse and come out on top).
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I'm just repeating what i was told before. I didn't make any of this up. The essence was "kill spiders before they have ~1500m spiderball". Keep in mind the air thing costs about 900 metal. Not speaking of somehow killing tarantulas. kmar: Interesting idea. Using artillery against units always feels like doing it wrong for me...
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The only arty you REALLY want to use against spiders is Firewalker (which is THE counter). Also napalm missile. You can also just do attrition damage with snipers (if you can defend from fleas) or Penetrators, and a Tremor will also tear down any hills the recluses are on. But investing heavily in arty requires you to have an entrenched position, often ceding territory, etc. A decent assault force will just roll over you.
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if your air transition costs 900M, and 3 recluse costs 900M, then any spider blob will be just a bad idea to make in the first place. A 1500M blob is 5 recluse - you can really deal with that without any transiotions really, but switching to air is the easy way out of your problems. And yes, you could try out a sniper, but that's a hard thing to pull off, since he has fleas.
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