Editing User:Aquanim/UnitTierList

= Preface =

<span style="color:#90f">'''S Tier'''</span>: I would happily make a new factory to make only this unit

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>: I feel good when I make this unit

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>: I feel OK about making this unit

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>: I am a bit unhappy if I have to make this unit, other factories have better options

<span style="color:orange">'''D Tier'''</span>: I am quite unhappy to make this unit

<span style="color:brown">'''F Tier'''</span>: I do not make this unit, and you should not make it either

<span style="color:#666">'''Unclassifiable'''</span>: Too weird or specialized to give a sensible grade

Ratings are for a mid-size teams game on a land map unless otherwise indicated. 1v1 ratings would be different.

= Constructors =

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Convict''': Borderline S tier. Basically a combat unit in its own right, between supporting Felon and protecting its own turrets.

'''Welder''': Also arguably S tier. Strong at all stages, although the cost is a little annoying early game.

'''Constable''': Very good early game constructor. Fragile and inefficient in late game.

'''Conjurer''': As a constructor it is B tier at best... but it enables some cloak shenanigans.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Weaver''': Sometimes you need to build things on a hill.

'''Mason, Quill''': Meh.

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>

'''Conch''': On land it is slow and expensive. Spoiler alert: it is in a different tier on water maps.

'''Wasp''': Useless as a combat constructor, but decent at expanding if it doesn't die to Swift.

<span style="color:orange">'''D Tier'''</span>

'''Crane''': I guess expand with this if you absolutely have to... but it's pretty ass.

== Strider Constructors ==

'''Funnelweb''': <span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>, although its construction is less important than its shield.

'''Athena''': <span style="color:#666">'''Unclassifiable'''</span>. Practical efficacy lies anywhere from A to F tier, depending on the vanity of the person using it.

== Commanders ==

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Recon''': Does not die to Placeholder. Dies a lot to Lance though. S tier if it enables expansion for you (like on Quicksilver).

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Guardian''': Dies to Placeholder, but at least it has HP so it's less likely to die to Lance. The free drone is quite handy, use set-target to tell it where to go and scout.

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>

'''Strike''': Dies to Placeholder and Lance.

'''Engineer''': Dies to Placeholder and Lance.

= Raiders etc. =

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Scorcher''': When you need sheer DPS, accept no substitutes.

'''Glaive, Bandit''': Throwing some of these into almost any army composition makes it better. Good screening, good DPS.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Kodachi, Pyro''': Very good early game, but they lose value a lot quicker than the A tier raiders. I have a serious skill issue with both of these units.

'''Scythe''': I also have a skill issue with this unit. At its best this is maddening. At its worst you are just punting metal. YMMV.

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>

'''Dagger''': Good flex-AA and has good matchups against other raiders... but this just does not have the DPS to do a lot of raider jobs, and Hover suffers for it sometimes.

'''Duck''': Just less efficient than the other bot raiders, unless there is water involved.

'''Blitz''': Pretty poor in low numbers outside the very early game. A big ball of these can be scary, but eventually they tend to run into something they can't stunlock and then they get mauled.

== Anti-raider / Escort ==

'''Bolas''': <span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>. Descending towards B tier for me recently, but it's not there yet. Of the units in this role, retains most value against non-raiders.

'''Venom, Archer''': <span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>. Decent, but loses a lot of value when the other team is no longer making many raiders.

== Scouts ==

'''Flea''': <span style="color:#90f">'''S Tier'''</span>. Has no competition at its job.

'''Dart''': <span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>. Maybe a generous grade, but this is surprisingly versatile. Gives vision, baits shots, sets up for Scorcher.

'''Puppy''': <span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>. Placed in this list for lack of a better classification. If you need to deny your opponents reclaim quickly, this is the tool for the job.

'''Dirtbag''': <span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>. S tier at inflicting EMOTIONAL DAMAGE. But if you want to attack, the Dirtbag gets in your way as much as the opposition.

= Skirmishers and Fire Support =

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Fencer and Scalpel''': Good cookie-cutter early game units.

'''Buoy''': Beats a pretty big variety of things while taking minimal attrition.

'''Felon''': Obviously this has the potential to be really good, but the style it fits into is pretty inflexible.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Recluse''': A tier on some maps. Good damage, but a little too flimsy for my taste.

'''Moderator''': When you are ahead this is A tier. When you are behind this is terrible.

'''Crab''': Extremely strong if it is not countered... but everybody knows its counters.

'''Rogue''': Really, really bad at defending itself. Decent DPS if it gets to do its thing.

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>

'''Ronin''': Occasionally good in the early game. Gets outscaled VERY quickly though.

<span style="color:orange">'''D Tier'''</span>

'''Dominatrix''': Overrated. You have to have a lot or they don't pose a meaningful threat, and even if you do have a lot they tend to die all at once.

'''Bulkhead''': Fills a hole in Amph, but if you have access to any other factory it probably has a better option than this.

= Riots =

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Reaver''': Range is a bit of a liability here, but this chews up raiders quite nicely and has strong synergy with cloak/Lobster/Charon.

'''Mace, Ogre''': Expensive, good at bullying in the early-midgame, tend to be a bit too flimsy late-game. A few of these go a long way.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Redback''': Gets kited by a few too many things, and not as explosive as Reaver if it gets mobility help, so this doesn't quite make A tier. Quite strong if it gets a good fight though.

'''Ripper''': Unexciting, but it gets the job done.

'''Outlaw''': Does the job it is supposed to do for a shieldball.

'''Dante''': If you need a bunch of small (maybe cloaked) units fried at a moderate distance, Dante is your guy. A bit too fragile to be used as a generic unit.

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>

'''Scallop''': This would probably be D tier if it wasn't in the same factory as Lobster.

'''Claymore''': Occasionally solves problems for Hover on land. Remember that they can shoot over terraform for no particularly good reason.

= Assaults =

<span style="color:#90f">'''S Tier'''</span>

'''Cyclops''': Difficult to kill, effective against almost anything that costs more than 250 metal and enters its range. An absolute chad of a unit.

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Minotaur''': Has enough HP that a commitment is always required to kill it. What more do you want?

'''Thug''': Good at protecting other units that actually do something.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Halberd''': This is fine. Not amazing. But fine. Can spot for Lance if you don't have air.

'''Jack''': In the right situation it's incredible. Otherwise it chases things and makes sad melee noises.

'''Grizzly''': Good if you are fighting things it cleanly one-hits. Can be quite dubious otherwise.

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>

'''Knight''': Strong if it gets a fight it actually wants. But being slow makes that difficult.

<span style="color:orange">'''D Tier'''</span>

'''Hermit''': Decent range I guess, but 1500 HP is just not a lot.

'''Ravager''': Reasonably fast, but that's really its only redeeming feature.

= Artillery =

<span style="color:#90f">'''S Tier'''</span>

'''Lance''': I don't think that Lance is game breaking, but it has almost no competition in the "delete one unit at a distance" category.

'''Impaler''': Less versatile than Lance, but peerless at prying open defences from a safe distance.

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Phantom''': Lance's only real competition in its role, and a very good unit in its own right.

'''Firewalker''': Clunky, but unless you are willing to spend for Dante this is the best way to clean up small units and detect cloakers at a distance.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Sling''': Reasonable early game option. Some people like to make these in bulk in the midgame, but in my experience the blob gets punished eventually.

'''Badger''': Occasionally somebody makes this look really good. Most of the time it is the better-at-decloaking but worse-at-killing cousin of Firewalker.

'''Merlin''': Fragile and has an unfortunate tendency towards friendly fire. Sometimes the big old missile barrage is just what you need though.

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>

'''Emissary''': I want to rate this higher, but it is a hard unit to make work in a Lance and Impaler world. Terraform helps a lot against Lance at least.

<span style="color:#666">'''Unclassifiable'''</span>

'''Tremor''': Make this when faced with bad terrain (typically terraform) or sometimes against mass shields. Otherwise not worth the metal.

= Anti-Air (mobile and static) =

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Angler''': The best anti-bomber AA at anything like its price point.

'''Razor''': Single-handedly makes Gunship a bad factory.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Ettin''': A tier if you need its area of effect attack. C tier if you don't.

'''Crasher, Tarantula, Vandal''': All quite serviceable missile-based AA. You need a really gigantic blob of Vandal which can be awkward.

'''Toad''': In any other factory this would get built a lot more, but in Jumpfac it competes with Moderator and Jugglenaut.

'''Artemis''': This shuts out enemy air in a way no other AA does... but it is an expensive, flimsy target.

'''Chainsaw''': An unexciting compromise between cost and impact. It's okay.

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>

'''Thresher''': Static, unarmoured and short range is a pretty bad combination. Ettin is almost always better.

'''Flail''': Below average, but not awful.

<span style="color:orange">'''D Tier'''</span>

'''Gremlin''': This disappoints me every time I build it. You get to scout and ambush with it, but its effective damage is just... really bad. 

'''Hacksaw''': Once in a blue moon you need this. You don't enjoy needing it. But you make one anyway. Even at this thing's one job it is often worse than Newton.

= Anti-Heavy and Bombs =

<span style="color:#90f">'''S Tier'''</span>

'''Widow''': Unmatched impact for cost.

'''Snitch''': Combined with areacloak this solves an awful lot of difficult problems. Even without a cloak you can sometimes get these to connect for big damage, if you're wily enough.

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Imp''': Arguably better than Snitch in the early game; the spider movetype is more useful and you can hide one under a commander. Late game you would prefer to be killing things though.

'''Limpet''': Suffers from being in a slow and unpopular factory, but this can turn the tide of a midgame fight.

'''Racketeer''': The safest but lowest-impact unit on the anti-heavy list.

'''Scorpion''': This unit is NOT an assault. This unit is NOT a raider. Stop using it like one. Quite poor at defending itself if caught out of position, so don't let that happen.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Ultimatum''': I can't get this to connect reliably, but when it does...

<span style="color:orange">'''D Tier'''</span>

'''Skuttle''': Incredibly unreliable. I would only build this in desperation.

= Support and Utility =

<span style="color:#90f">'''S Tier'''</span>

'''Lobster''': From rescuing stunned units to facilitating an assault to throwing enemies in lava, the utility is endless.

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Iris, Aspis''': Maybe these should be S tier, but I do sometimes find that these give you a false sense of security.

'''Placeholder''': Potentially completely broken, but its range and HP are poor enough that something generally manages to kill it.

'''Djinn''': I get far more use out of this in a logistics role than its sneak attack applications, but either way this is quite useful once you can afford the price.

'''Charon''': 

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Hercules''': Not a fan of most uses this gets put to, but occasionally you do need one.

= Planes =

<span style="color:#90f">'''S Tier'''</span>

'''Swift''': Intercepts bombers, holds its own against most other air, scouts, cleans up raiders in its spare time. Defines how the game of Zero-K is played.

'''Likho''': There are very few things this is not good against.

'''Owl''': Knowledge is power, and Owl both gives you a lot of information and denies it to the enemy.

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Thunderbird''': I want to put this in S tier really badly, but it just doesn't connect as often as it used to. Of course, if the stars align this can still end a game in five seconds flat at a premium price.

'''Raven''': Not the game-defining unit it once was, but there is nothing wrong with the Raven of today. Does the job it is designed to do.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Raptor''': I genuinely think this is OK, if your job is to fight Swifts and gunships with help rather than chasing down bombers. I would always have some Swifts though.

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>

'''Phoenix''': Sometimes in the early game one or two of these are indicated against certain threats. Don't make these lategame, just find a way to get the job done with Raven or Likho instead.

<span style="color:#666">'''Unclassifiable'''</span>

'''Sparrow''': If your team has an air factory, you're much better off begging for an Owl, but sometimes you have to make do.

= Gunships =

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Revenant''': I'm not terribly good with this, but it is getting popular as of late.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Nimbus''': I don't know that the meta is doing this any favours at present, but it's still decent at putting on pressure.

'''Trident''': Really quite good against planes, Swift in particular.

'''Harpy''': The workhorse of Gunship factory.

'''Gnat''': Niche, but if your opponent slacks on AA to protect their strider this is the punishment. Also has some early game uses.

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>

'''Locust''': Doesn't seem very good at the moment, but maybe it's just unpopular. I could never get this to work even when it was objectively strong, so how should I know?

<span style="color:orange">'''D Tier'''</span>

'''Blastwing''': Has an awful tendency to blow up before it does the job it is supposed to do.

<span style="color:brown">'''F Tier'''</span>

'''Krow''': This flying metal donation is so bad that nothing else deserves to be in F tier alongside it.

= Tactical Missiles =

<span style="color:#90f">'''S Tier'''</span>

'''Shockley, Eos''': These solve problems that nothing else in the game, short of a superweapon, can solve.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Inferno''': Stop firing these at shields and other stuff it is useless against, I beg of you. Properly used this is fine.

'''Zeno''': Throw these at armies in the late game if you have nothing better to do.

<span style="color:#666">'''Unclassifiable'''</span>

'''Quake''': You'll know when you need this. Otherwise quite useless.

= Endgame =

<span style="color:#90f">'''S Tier'''</span>

'''Trinity''': At worst, forces single points of failure on your opponent. At best, ends the game on the spot.

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Paladin''': For bullying your opponent around with the EMP missiles and safely getting attrition with the laser, Paladin is unmatched. Not the greatest unit in a pitched battle, though.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Zenith''': The standard superweapon at the moment, mostly on the basis of its cost. You don't have to be losing a game all that badly for Zenith to be unable to save you, in my experience.

'''Starlight''': Obviously the best superweapon, if you can afford it. It would have to be a pretty weird game for this to be better than getting a Zenith 22K metal earlier, but stranger things have happened.

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>

'''Bertha''': Does not end games. Can be okay on maps I do not choose to play.

'''Detriment''': Giving this the benefit of the doubt. On the rare occasions a Detriment is in competent hands it can look pretty decent. Nevertheless, you are sinking an awful lot of metal into something that goes into enemy territory.

<span style="color:orange">'''D Tier'''</span>

'''Disco Rave Party''': I am told this is terrible now. Not sure I 100 percent buy that, but I guess I will defer to the experience of people who actually make superweapons. If it's good anywhere it is when it won't have to traverse its turret much.

= Water maps =

Assume any water-capable unit not mentioned here has the same rating as it would on land.

<span style="color:#90f">'''S Tier'''</span>

'''Conch''': Absolutely goated. S+ tier. Better than mex. 

'''Envoy''': Very strong artillery. The matchup against Lance is a bit wonky but Envoy can win it sometimes.

<span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>

'''Claymore''': Best anti-sub damage in the game, although if tankiness is a factor you maybe want Siren instead.

'''Siren''': Very solid escort for Envoys.

'''Seawolf, Duck''': The premier underwater threats. 

'''Shogun''': In the late game probably better than Envoy, but even then being a single expensive target has downsides.

'''Scylla''': This is a pretty expensive way to get a tacsilo that can't throw Shocklies. Still sometimes worth it for the mobility.

<span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>

'''Mariner''': Meh.

'''Mistral''': Depending on the matchup this can be A tier, but it does tend to get outscaled.

'''Hunter''': In very small teams on very large maps (think Inculta Wet) Hunter stocks go up a lot. In the typical sea game its mobility is not so much of a strength.

<span style="color:gold">'''C Tier'''</span>

'''Zephyr''': Awful against planes, gets one-hit by Likho, sometimes manages to miss gunships too. If it is hitting then its DPS is very solid.

'''Cutter''': Decent scout, occasionally has combat uses. Expensive enough that you can't just throw them away like Dart or Flea, though.

'''Reef''': The guided disarm missile has interesting applications. Everything else about this unit is somewhere between "useless" and "an outright liability".

'''Detriment''': On the one hand, there might be less to threaten this at sea. On the other hand, sea maps tend to lend themselves to superweapons that outscale Detri. Seems like a wash to me.