On the current meta

At last a balance conversation :)))

The way I see it, skirmishers are mid-game units that are traditionally pretty bad, but are far more viable atm than normal. Why?

- Because scalpel beats everything that isn't a skirmisher that outranges it. Pretty much all flat-map games that reach mid-game are decided by how scalpels are dealt with.

- Because rogue beats warrior and rocko, while being too cheap to be countered effectively by spectre, which puts the cloak vs. shield match-up in shield's favour the longer the game goes on. Rogue being too cheap to answer effectively is a common theme. If I make a wyvern to kill rogue, how many runs do I have to make on average to make cost?

The things that counter skirm balls are either heavily countered by small investments in mid-game tech (one outlaw protects 20 thugs from infinite glaives), or win by outranging the skrims (firewalker or pene vs skirms, recluse vs. other skirms, rogue vs. all other skirms but recluse etc.).

The only reliable way to escalate is in terms of range.

Back before rogue buff and hover popularity, skirms were what you built if you had to in order to survive vs. assaults/riots. They felt like dead metal because they gave little pro-active threat, and were so heavily countered by the tech options above them. There was little chance of you making them pay off before they were countered. Now, they seem to provide so much threat that an opponent is hard-pressed to tech to an answer while surviving, and when they do you've taken the ground required to fund your own response.

Ways to change this:
[Spoiler]

Enemy throws fire at you from a distance? Throw back more fire from a greater distance. Build silo.

SnuggleBass I agree with most of what you say, except for the part about rouges, which I still think are bad(or atleast not good enough to make up for shield factory sucking in general; they are the worst skrimisher) and have no role in this problematic situation.
Scalpels are a sort of litmus test which determines whether or not a strategy/composition is viable. I havent seen very many shield vs hover games, but rouges seem to fare better than some other things vs scalpels, however this does not change the penetrator situation at all(and scalpels are still better). Skirmishers are somewhat possible to deal with because stingers counter all of them. The real issue is with the longer range units. I dont think this is due to any balance changes; just that people are starting to discover how broken these units are. Hover factory stopped being played after the last scalpel nerf, and no hover factory means no penetators. JJ was allways an awkward factory and hasnt seen much play either, meaning no firewalkers. Ive been talking about firewalkers forever, and people are finally starting to notice how stupid they are. This recognition of how good these units are has led to the evolution of a meta which leverages their strengths(trading with no loss); a porc heavy meta. A nice bonus is that these units also counter most artillery.

I've said half-jokingly "if a map is small enough for firewalkers to be good, its a bad map". On larger maps you can just build a dante or something before the firewalkers do too much damage. I've won a lot of games by doing firewalkers switches, forcing my enemy to reatreat, and then just winning due to massive eco lead.

gajop
The issue is that zk isn't a triangle. People don't build 1 type of unit at a time. Riots and skrimishers synergize extremely well, with their only drawback being movespeed. They cover eachothers weaknesses and makes raiders irrelevant in larger battles. You can't just buff raiders to "counter arty/skirms" because that means you would have to buff them enough to counter riots as well. I can't really think of a situation in which the triangle balance thing actually works(barring large player errors). A counter to skirms and arty has been provided- firewalkers and penetrators.

Buff phoenix

if u let ur enemy build stinger porc base with firewalkers/other expensive long ranged shit - u failed elsewhere
while he spends metal on useless statics u go around and rape his base, u didn't? ur own fault

Zero K doesn't have its armor system so its not surprise i already long time before predicted this because same problem is also on teams not only on 1vs1. Only exception as i remember is crabe, anhiliator, addm, gauss and razor who got less damage when bunkered or inactive.

My hunch with regard to the skirmisher and artillery situation is that somehow these classes have managed to, in a significant way, untangle themselves of the confines of the role system (and quite possibly also Quant's Law). Not as individuals either; as a broad class.

That is to say, the majority of skirmisher and artillery units have features that help them against their natural predators; and in my indignantly biased perception, this trend towards generalism has been worsening and amplifying. And while some deviation is fine (as SnuggleBass expresses) and even good for variety, i think each role-breaking ability diminishes the window in which the unit can still be type-countered and before it either requires an ultra-specific counter, or becomes only practically countered by more of its kind.

A test to apply to one of those units' generalism potential is, imo, pondering what would happen if you doubled their damage output. This was basically what was done with Rogue, and yet Rogue seems to be reasonably okay for this - it's still beaten by raiders (even if they get oneshotted once in a while, Rogues lack accuracy to fight them). Same would happen to Impaler. But consider the varying degree of horror to be unleashed, were you to apply this to Scalpel, Dominatrix, Racketeer, Firewalker, Spectre, Penetrator, Buoy, Wolverine, Moderator. Crabe.

1 v 1 games should have easier factory switch mechanics. The dfferent factories are not balanced against each other, which can be mittigated in team games with co-operation.