There are a lot of gunships in 1v1 atm, and it feels unhealthy. Just like on flat maps, where scorchers put on enormous comkill pressure, and in the sea, where coms can't shoot at all, in a GS matchup, it feels like your com is a complete liability. However, in these other matchups, you have riot cannon against scorcher, and in the sea urchin is so efficient you don't mind leaving a trail of them wherever your com goes. Against GS, depending on your com, you are vulnerable to a 300-400 metal army. An army that is not affected by chokes, that is hardly deterred by light porc, that annihilates all raiders on sight with little to no attrition. You have no information about what they're building because they have map control. I'm not sure whether GS is OP in 1v1, I haven't played it enough, but even if it's not OP, it feels bad playing against it, like RPS. You can't scout their facswitch, so you have to predict it, but altenatively they could be pumping brawlers, which need a heavy commitment in dedicated AA to handle. So do you hedge your bets with generalist units, or make the razors? What's worse, razors actually start losing in attrition once brawlers hit the field. In the same vein, I don't know if they're going to expand rapidly or all-in me. To stop a swarm of banshees I need a lot of defenses, but if they instead build only two banshees for map control, then expand like only naked air can, all the statics I built to not die are useless. Even taking natural expansion, I need to be really well defended at both my main and my expansion. My com can't defend himself. Finally, the fac you choose at the start decides what mobile AA you have access to. Mobile AA tends to be either good against planes or good against GS, but not both. A JJ fac needs to spend 550 metal in order to have a mobile answer to banshees. Spiders have the tarantula for 400, which IMO is terrible, and has low kill potential. Amph's AA is very slow, and while it does good burst, the overall dps is inneffient (thankfully its range was recently buffed because it was awful before). Comparatively, both LV and hover have excellent mobile AA, that works well against both planes and GS. I want to feel like I can make informed decisions against GS, or at least, I want to be able to make decisions that won't screw me over if I guess wrong. I hope this doesn't sound like baw. I haven't actually lost much to GS. I do know I don't like playing against it because it feel uninteractive, and I do see a lot of it in the replays I watch. These games are often one sided. Thoughts?
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1. Swift is bad, its turn rate has been decreased again and its missiles do some weird arcs now, that makes it so if fired mid boost they hit the ground instead. 2. Vamp is bad and you should feel bad. 3. Raven is ~bad~ actually not sure here since I have been using it with some sucess lately but I think its still inferior to rapier. 4. Phoenix is useful in certain situations I have found and does something that gs cannot. 5. Thunderbird is even more situational, basically the same point as with Phoenix. 6. Wyvern is actually pretty great but the problem is that it costs a lot of resources and 1v1s often do not escalate to that level. 7. Vulture is rather useful in most situations. It gives huge los and is a mobile radar.
+1 / -0
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I have not yet enjoyed any 1v1 games where somebody started gunship, win or lose. I feel that planes is mostly a utility factory at the moment for Thunderbird, Vulture and Wyvern. Swifts are useful for scouting and Raven/Phoenix/Hawk have niche uses where they are superior to other options, but are typically not great.
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quote:
1. Swift is bad, its turn rate has been decreased again and its missiles do some weird arcs now, that makes it so if fired mid boost they hit the ground instead. |
I am fairly sure Swift weapon and movement physics were not touched at least since 2013. The only changes to Swift in 2016 were dynamic lights, translations, and the ability to avoid fire from ground by pulling up after strafing ground targets (coming next stable).
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On the proper topic: i have some experience playing vs GS (mostly on Fairyland) and yeah it doesn't feel that fun because both the gunship raider options eminently roflpwn ground raiders. Playing as gunships is also mostly doing enough damage / instilling enough fear while you quickly switch to ground, because once they amass enough mobile AA, your game is up. I've taken to starting Shields when i think i can get away with it because non-raider Shield units are eminently resistant to both Banshees and Rapiers, and because Racketeer is an actual antiheavy while Spectre is a piece of junk. I could see how Gnat and Banshee swapping weights would be good here. A "flying bandit" feels like it would have a lot of the defining characteristics of the Banshee - speed, ability to pick engagements, liberal allterrain, focussing down on critical things - but also not magically defeat Glaives and Bandits and whatnot. It would also strengthen the riot/raider relationship where banshee is the raider. The obvious downsides of this plan are that 1) this does nothing to Rapier, which still exists 2) banshee-scale Gnat might be a terrifying option for comnaps and have other unexpected side effects. [Spoiler]also duck should fire its missiles in a salvo, reaper-style
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I've been trying out gs start in 1v1 and indeed it feels quite powerful, like airstart used to be. Probably the meta needs to adjust to find proper counter play. As opposed to planestart, you cannot try to expand faster than you are bombed, and there are more options for the gs player. The drawback of banshees is that they have no alpha, so with some defense they cannot do much attrition damage. They are also more vulnerable to flex AA/ground units. Maybe the counter is a strong push with flex AA, maybe it is building a few razors. Also some facs can bypass banshee map control: cloacky can do stuff with scythes, maybe even with jethro ambush. Lveh might be fine with a slasherpush or big scorcherpush. Halberds can ignore gs fire and fac/comsnipe. Finally you can always switch to swifts and wipe out lone banshees, expaning cons...
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quote:
Also some facs can bypass banshee map control: cloacky can do stuff with scythes, maybe even with jethro ambush. Lveh might be fine with a slasherpush or big scorcherpush. Halberds can ignore gs fire and fac/comsnipe.
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1) Banshee+Gnat reaction squad is one of the most efficient solutions to Scythes because their speed allows them to be on top of Scythes very quickly after they start doing damage. Gremlins are very psychologically traumatizing for a GS player, but overexpensive compared to Vandals. 2) Slasherpush might work, "big scorcherpush" will not unless you bring something that will prevent Banshees from hampering you from the moment you leave your base. The longer you travel, the less Scorchers will be left. 3) Halberds suffer from the same problem as Scorchers. Being unable to fight, they will onesidedly take damage; the longer they travel, the more damage they take. IME thug/bandit/vandal/racketeer is the ideal solution to the current balance problem. Vandals are dirt cheap, deal reasonable damage, and snipe Blastwings, saving your shieldball from fire. Thug shields lend them safety from things like Rapiers, dispel slow, and thugs themselves pwn things like Offender. Racketeer makes heavy gunships obsolete, makes commanders obsolete, makes porc obsolete, and makes light gunships sad. Bandits hide under Thug shields until the time is right, and then launch in all directions to clear juicy infrastructure. Even if the inevitable switch happens earlier than you expected, this composition can be relied upon to not completely fail. I mean, all you do is add an Outlaw. Maybe not even that. I think you need 4-5 Gremlin to make things scared of dying if you're cloaky. You need 4-5 Vandals to make things scared of dying if you're shields. Vandals are almost twice cheaper.
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Halberds however need constant guard from the defending player, so while you're roaming around with the halberd (not attacking at all) you're giving yourself enough breathing room to make AA (flail).
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If somebody think that GS is OP in 1v1 games then they have all options to show this OPness and our devs will nerf them so they become useless in team games. Just convince devs to play 1vs1 with person who comply about they OPness. In nerfing our devs is very good. Look at funnelweb, reef, athena. :D :D
+0 / -3
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You can snipe a com/fac with scythes before your opponent has gnats+banshees. When he has a patrol of gnats and banshees in his base, you already achieved your goal: breaking his map control. Same for the other strategies, it is about moving the pressure from yourself to the other player. You can afford to trade quite badly and feed reclaim to your opponent, as long as you can freely expand while he cannot, you are bound to win. Off course there is the risk of not getting enough map control for the pressure you apply.
+1 / -0
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thug/bandit/vandal/racketeer (+ roach) is the ideal solution to the current balance problem zk |
ftfy (I am not even joking much) meanwhile, senaven does have a point in that I would want to see a bunch of 1v1 gunship games before making a judgement as to what changes are appropriate
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Okay let's split it into two claims: 1) Versing gunships in 1v1 is traumatisingly unfun. and 2) Gunships are OP in 1v1. I've long thought they had more potential in 1v1 than they were being given credit for. I really don't know if they're OP. When I'm against them they feel so powerful, but when I actually play GS it feels less great. Maybe I'm just no good with them. Compared to when planes were viable, I found planes pretty easy to 1v1. I would lose lots of stuff, but I could out expand them regardless. I felt as if everyone who complained about them just hadn't figured out the matchup, but once they did they'd be fine. Testing required. As for them being unfun to play against, I don't think we need to run lots of tests for that. Does anyone enjoy spectating GS, or playing against GS in 1v1? Compared to a more standard game?
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I think part of the issue is that people make the mistake of trying to counter banshees with AA when most AA is not very good against banshees. Banshees are mostly weak against ground riots such as warrior, outlaw, venom etc. Defenders are also pretty useless vs banshees, since they don't do enough damage to kill them and don't have enough hp to survive after firing off a volley. The real question is can you counter banshee harass with enough riots and also manage to launch a counterattack against the air player? Usually a GS player will be just short of defenseless, but they can get away with it since they can contain and control their opponent until their fast crane expand gives them the resources to switch.
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As for them being unfun to play against, I don't think we need to run lots of tests for that. Does anyone enjoy spectating GS, or playing against GS in 1v1? Compared to a more standard game? |
Possibly not. Identifying that playing against them is unfun is a much easier task than identifying what changes to the game would make it more fun (or simply not occur).
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As for them being unfun to play against |
I want to delve into this point a bit. In my opinion playing against gunships is very stressful because it's a battle of raid&expand which requires mind-games skills and arguably some luck. Stressful games aren't immediately unfun though, can you elaborate how this scenario is different compared to others?
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I am fairly sure Swift weapon and movement physics were not touched at least since 2013.
The only changes to Swift in 2016 were dynamic lights, translations, and the ability to avoid fire from ground by pulling up after strafing ground targets (coming next stable). |
Yet they are different than they used to be. The turn rate gets broken periodically for some reason and then gets better (no idea why this happens it used to be fine like 3 months ago but was broken around 7 months ago). I recall complaining about it many times in the past and every time I complained it got quickly fixed. Not sure why or how but it did.\ Part of why Banshee is so good nowdays is just because of this change. In the past swifts had a very easy time killing of the banshees but nowdays they are extremely unreliable due to their swings and that they constantly hit the ground with their missiles instead of their targets. Prior to that I could easily switch into air factory and pwn enemy banshees without much problem while still able to contain the enemy expansion via crane. quote:
Does anyone enjoy spectating GS, or playing against GS in 1v1? |
I guess     Shadowfury333 loves spectating GS considering that he always gets so excited to see    raaar use them :P
+1 / -0
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I feel like gunships are very balanced as a second factory. By then your opponent has enough money to respond correctly and defend themselves. The first wave of gunships might do some damage, but then the gunships are relegated to more support/defensive roles. Each gunship has a well defined role, and hes its uses. Gunships are a starting factory are another story. I've had it done vs me, and I've won every time so I dismissed it as a trash start. Watching the replay however tells a different story. The only reason I won those games was because my opponent did not expand at all with their huge map control advantage. The problem is that banshees early game give you huge localized power, and that most aa is dps focused instead of alpha (or if it has alpha, 220m of aa doesnt 1shot a banshee). Unless you concentrate your aa in one place you won't be able to kill any banshees and will just die by attrition. If you concentrate your aa you give up map control. You can expand freely over the whole map. If your opponent moves out with a ball with aa to raid, it doesn't matter. You can just wait for your eco advantage to give you enough air to just overwhelm it. Banshees remind me very much of mutalisks from starcraft in how I think they should be used. I don't want to hit it with the nerf bat just yet, but if it happens I hope the nerfs don't hurt gunships potential as a second factory to hurt the potential of gs as a starting fac. Regen on banshees is cool, but I don't know if it belongs there. I would prefer if it went to the black dawn. Taking healing away from banshees would actually make players be hurt by taking defender shots/llts/random aa. It wouldn't hurt potential of banshees in midgame because you can just heal those with the caretaker farm you will have by then (or commander/con swarm). EDIT: Also lol? Are you complaining about comm dying to gunships in midgame? Do you not remember the days of 3 ravens coming out of nowhere and bopping your commander? Everything except for rocket/flamer/mg is ok vs banshees/rapiers.
+1 / -0
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Heavy regenerating alpha stiker? Pls no. Kodachi, Scythes and Banshees are the top weight tier of things i'm willing to see fast regen on.
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Its not like you ever see black dawns anyways...
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