Funnelweb OP?

funnel is alright at sensible density, don't play clusterfucks

For me Funnel is not really OP in its own sense. I think it is fairly balanced and has it own counters (even if it stacks like mad). The problem that I have with it is that it is just a lazy-man unit + its not very fun to use. "Oh wow I guess this thing will be spawning more drones that I cant control..."
While when using every other strider the player has to devote some attention in controlling them. Particularly when using super cool dguns (besides Banthas' dgun which is just lame).

Funnels have low impact when you initially make them. You can negate their entire strider with like 600 metal in razors. Once they hit critical mass, they can then gun through the razors much more easily (thought still not for cost).

Compare to Dante which comes out and cleaves through non-striders like butter, for 1000 metal less. So you've got to use that extra time your opponent has gifted to you to make the right answers before he hits the critical mass. Tac nuke and silencer are fan favourites for breaking the entire ball. Ultimatum, scorpion,mass gnats, or cloaked Dante will pick off widows to further delay their critical mass.

I think it's better to compare widow to the more expensive striders, since they're largely negatable until you've got 13500 metal or so sunk into them, except they're able to contribute to your defense while they stack up.

Edit: I guess they're pretty much exactly like a higher weight wolverine in this respect.

Very agree. Some units requires a lot more game knowledge to deal with than others, and widows are probably the worst offender.

the problem is that it produces powerful units for free - this can even mean losing map control/eco death but continuing to fight and cause attrition where you possess 2+ Funnyweb.

PowerGuy
Yeah that's not the norm. They are all-terrain, meaning opponents are often limited in what can even move to underneath their shield. They also have large hitpoints (not for cost), meaning killing them can't really 'just happen'. You have to catch it very out of position to cause real casualties, and anything less is the widow beating you. Bad players might send widows out on their own where they can be hit, but a very easy application for widow is parking on a cliff outside range of turrets or units, and just taking the small attrition advantage while you wait for your next funnel.

Forever
I think the discussion is warranted. No need to shout him down. Dealing with funnels takes more experience than most people have.

AA alone doesn't actually kill the funnel -> one funnel can kill infinite aa without taking any damage. Dealing with them is more complex than simple unit counters and your tone does not reflect this.

If you make 900 in razors the funnel can go round. If you then make more razors at every point the funnel could possibly go you are spending a lot of money to hold something back temporarily. You then need to doubledown on those razors in order to maintain their viability or the second widow will compound the power of the first and break through. Pure widow escalation beats pure AA escalation.

So the solution requires the coordination of more than one unit, which is a rare quality and far more difficult to deal with than 'make unit X'.

I'm not arguing that they're OP. I don't really have issues with them either unless I've already lost the game for other reasons.

What I'm saying is that the OP was a question, to which you responded by telling OP not to jump to conclusions (with an obligatory downvote). In your post was a bunch of solid advice and examples, which was what the OP warranted. The addition of your dismissal of the very question was not warranted, as well as being rude.

I'm a little confused as to why you justified the question with an insightful response while also telling him the question was unjustified.

Do I get bonus points for using acronym 'OP' to mean three different things?

funnyweb has terrible scaling. a single funnel is not a big threat and can be taken out by many regular ground units. once you hit 2,3 there are so many drones that they chew through approaching units faster than they can approach.

drones are essentially a riot weapon with artillery range. there are no units that can survive being attacked by a drone cluster from 4+ funnels, so the only options are those that can reliably stay out of range, which arent many.

to shut down the drones entirely, you need more aa as one would normally build to counter air units, and this costs a lot of metal - and eventually even the aa will succumb to the drones.

imo just a bad unit overall. very weak when first built, unstoppable when you invest about a dets' worth. would be much better if drones would cost metal as was proposed, and it had a real weapon to make a single funnel useful. with drones draining metal there would be a real tradeoff to the immense power of drone spam.

watch the replay that [GBC]1v0ry_k1ng linked, its a good example of whats wrong with it. look at how many razors we made in southwest corner only to counter drones and they still grinded through them. only way to get rid off the funnels eventually was to make silo and emp them, because nothing else works.

quote: funnel is alright at sensible density

not really, because at normal density you make like 1, and then it sucks.

Drones seems to be a problem, can do something nice for the gunship factory as main units( like glaves are in cloacky boots) in the built menu.

Regarding the op-nes of the funnyweb drones. If you manange to make 4 funnywebs those are almost a detriment. Most of the problems start from 3 and more funnywebs so you can have at least a bantha worth of metal in that game to counter them.
Making drones cost metal to built will be kind of unfair.That means reef will need to drain metal to for the drone making. Same for goes for protector. If we introduce more realistic feature we must introduce them for all units in order to balance them all at the same %.

Just try and make a felon+ fusion +outlaw and some aspis as same as funnyweb cost and you will notice that it beats funnyweb spam easily. Here is another counter.

Funnelwebs seem to be one of those things that scale up and slog up the game, like shieldballs and wolverines ... combined into one unholy thing!

They aren't OP and they are sometimes pretty easy to kill but they are slow, they kill slow, and they die slow. And they slow enemies with disruptor drones. They rarely take damage themselves, staying "outside combat" and letting drones do piecemeal attrition (again, like Wolverines). All of this leads to a porcy semi-static gameplay which i dislike.

I think it's too late to change their role as a drone unit however, and having an interesting drone unit is a challenge. So here are some ideas.

Drones could be more nuanced and actively controlled for fun to be allowed. Some sort of a drone-affecting dgun (send drones on an extra-range sortie?), or a way to configure their loadout could then make them a bit more interesting.

Drones or their dgun (say, same "long range sortie" option) could cost energy and even metal to produce or fire.

Maybe, drones could be bombers rather than gunships, e.g, they would have to reload after doing a run.

quote: Most of the problems start from 3 and more funnywebs so you can have at least a bantha worth of metal in that game to counter them

The problem here is that 3 funnelwebs will kill a Bantha unless it's supported by a pretty large amount of AA. And 5 funnelwebs, which is same cost level as Det, will gladly kill a Det.