The Licho is still OP

Even after it's recent round of nerfs the licho still seems overpowered. It has incredible damage, health, speed, AoE and accuracy. It can obliterate shield balls, commanders and most other things. When rushed it can kill almost everything a team has because it is too early in the game for them to field the ridiculously heavy AA needed to deal with it, especially after they lose a commander on the first bombing run. Beyond the statistics of whether it made cost in killing its target it forces the enemy team to make incredibly heavy AA - usually a screamer - to combat it. By the time that screamer is finished the Licho will have been on several bombing runs and likely killed several of a team's commanders, so it has returned several times it's cost in damage.

That is generally what I think about it, but what about how it actually works?
This is a generalist bomber. It can kill heavies, swarms and penetrate to kill high value targets such as singus. What is the Licho intended to do? Is it supposed to be a deep striking bomber, a swarm-killing bomber or an anti heavy asset for air players? I think all of those are mutually exclusive since any combination of them would be overpowered. If it is an anti-heavy unit then that AoE does not belong there, and maybe that health needs looking at. If it is a riot/swarm-killer that huge damage is not necessary, and its health is probably overkill. If it is a penetrative bomber then that health will certainly be necessary and it will need the damage to kill high-value targets like singus

Two things I have not yet brought up are the speed and cost. I think its speed should be reduced regardless of everything else. The cost would have to go in line with everything else if changes were made, but other than that perhaps it's cost should be increased?

I have probably restated several things in here that were already in that other thread but I would like this one to stay on topic and not just be The Generic Licho Thread. That means no neonstorming, no raging at anything and no offtopic. Please keep this thread on topic, using admin superpowers if necessary.

putting the in depth point from the original balance adjustment thread which spawned the silly one here;

(points of "oh it takes too long to rearm and repair/should take longer go here)

The rearm/repair I'm fine with, the health I (would be) fine with if it had that defined roll over its gender confusion after all it is expensive.

(in reference to the huge aa below, the point was made that when AA becomes too heavy air players have to resort to using the OP Beatstick known as "licho" and my adjustments would toally invalidate that, which is false, as I talk about)

The huge AA thing is a point, but planes is a combined arms factory, not a factory made to roll on its own, the same reason you don't go air in a small map 1v1 you'll get ruined. in a case of AA saturation you're meant to get assistance from allied land or just to circumvent the AA and inflict harm elsewhere on the battlefield to keep your pressure on, not to rely on the OP plane to just bail you out.

(atomic bomber with no fancy nuke GFX makes me sadness eternal)
you didn't mention how much sexier it would be with mushroom cloud gfx
/sadness


To take it a step further, with those clear alternate roles you could still use it to move in to AA with its health and do damage as necessary which could assist your team mates in any number of ways, defined role doesn't mean impotence at what its currently used for, it means specialty. If it became a damage dealer it would excel at taking out emplaced AA, no? whilst conversely suffering at the hands of the dreaded Mobile AA which its small AOE couldn't harm extensively enough unless they clustered (granted expensive stuff like the tarantula will still be shut down) whereas alternately if it had wider aoe and less damage Emplacements would make you more wary of using it as you likely wouldn't kill the nastier ones in one run, whilst you'd be able to take out hundreds of metals worth of mobile aa even spread out, they have low health in general.

and that is the long and short of my opinion.

What are you talking about [GBC]Fred? I don't understand what the meaning of that post is.

banana_Ai You forgot that it kills over 9000 metal of units before you get that screamer.

At some time, 1-2 Licho killed a lot of Rapiers.

Is it still OP vs some gunships? (BD, Krow, Rapier-Ball)

In general I have seen that the Licho is a strong statement of how the plane fac operates. It works best skirting light to moderate AA (which it can sustain) and bombing targets of opportunity. It is not particularly good at deep striking as most targets worth a 2000m deep strike don't die to just one bomb. Really it works best to chip away at armies instead of deep-striking targets of opportunity. The main issue with the Licho is that it still excels at killing balls of pretty much any type of unit out there. Right now it has the damage to destroy most assault units, riot units, skirmisher units, and even AA units and the AOE to take large chunks out of any force.

In order to fix this the Licho would mostly have to be refit into a more distinct role (and possibly another unit made or rerolled to fill any new gaps in the factory). It could possibly be a swarm killer, but the phoenix already does that (and the stiletto sort of fits that role too). It could also be an assault or heavy killer, but the shadow already does that. Basically in order to have a distinct role the Licho would have to become a deep-strike aircraft that a planes player could use when AA locks them down. Since this isn't a neonstorm thread I won't spread any ideas on how to best do this, but it has a role issue that needs to be more defined and not redundant in respect to the rest of the factory.

quote: Basically in order to have a distinct role the Licho would have to become a deep-strike aircraft that a planes player could use when AA locks them down. Since this isn't a neonstorm thread I won't spread any ideas on how to best do this

Please go on. I think most people agree that the Licho is still overpowered so now ideas are needed.

Anarchid Yes it is. Any solutions that are not completely outlandish are fine.

This post has been downvoted below -5 and collapsed, click here to expand

Is it? Nvm u still cn make 2 chainsaws (1,8k) or 5 vamps (1,5k). Or make ur own Licho, and licho enemys Licho. Or make a Cobra. Single Cobra pwns Licho, if enemy is dumb enough to try to kill it (with Licho).

http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/214155

Watch this battle, and see how many times I failed to hit anything becasue of failing accurancy. So, 1st of all, fix the bugs involved in Licho, AFTER then think about nerfing it. Cuz ye, it may be OP, but only if it managed to hit enemy unit.

quote: Pretty much an "assault bomber". High flight altitude, a single, slow-falling, high-damage, tossed, low-aoe bomb dropped from high above, such that can't hit mobiles, but won't miss statics.

I dont want to bother you, but bombs are designed to have as much AoE as possible (at least real-world ones). So I think that even Shadow sould get a bit of AoE so i can kill clusterfuck of 5 glaveis with one bomb. But Licho, which drops atomic bomb... I cant imagine atomic bomb w/o AoE.