why did blitz lose death emp -.-

it was basically an armored tick

why not give blitz and pyro the D? (button)

ShadowWolfTJC said it right.

But let me add onto his reply;
Death EMP was extremely likely to cripple your own forces and less likely the enemy because the best way to use blitz is like ravager; make large numbers, then clump them up and focus fire onto one target. Death EMP could single-handedly cripple your blitz force. This was exacerbated because more often than not, your Blitz would be closer to each other than the enemy, effectively making Death EMP a serious liability and not an asset, and in the rare case it dies next to an enemy unit, your other blitzes would often be targeting the exact same target, which means that the death EMP will stun your enemy, and also stun yourself, making any advantage of stunning the enemy at the cost of a blitz moot.

Making Blitz a double-edged sword which cut its user more often than it did the enemy.

quote: why not give blitz and pyro the D? (button

Because its more likely to cut you than your enemy; Pyros have short range and need to clump up in order to kill in a reasonable amount of time, while Blitzes are the most expensive raider ( more than ravager, thug, hermit, which are assault units with more HP) and you cannot afford to suicide a single Heavy Tank because HT wins by having far less attrition than the enemy; at the cost of one Banisher, at least 15 Glaives need to be killed in order to make cost and profit, so giving the most expensive raider a way to kill itself when the factory's playstyle emphasizes killing far more enemies than losing units is a bad decision

Anyone who thinks the buffs were necessary has not seen Sigero use Kodachis and Blitze before the buff.

quote: i would advise that light veh be buffed with some anti heavy before giving heavy veh any more love

Dart.

Got annoying Kodachis that set you on fire and run away? Bite them with Dart and they can't run from your Scorcher. You get a Dart and a Scorcher for one Kodachi, so it's a fair trade. Or just send four darts. One will get killed, the others will sting the Koda to DETH.

Got annoying Blitzes ruining your Scorcher push? You can afford eigth Darts per Blitz. Darts are faster, so Blitz cannot avoid combat any more. Blitzes are not that accurate vs fast-moving Darts, and when they do hit, they cannot apply their stun because the single targeted Dart just dies immediately. While the seven others rip and tear, rip and tear the now barely moving Blitz while the Scorchers close in, whirring up their rays of DETH.

Got annoying Ogres trying to shield other tanks from your glorious rover rampage? Even if you can't just capture them with Dominatrix, you can send a few Darts as chaff to waste the Ogre missiles and slow them. Then the Scorchers rip and tear, as usual. DETH.

Minotaurs try to run from your Dominatrix because the tank player doesn't want to donate you another 800 metal unit? Send in a few Darts, slow it down. How do you run, mister Minotaur, if your threads are stuck to the ground? What awaits you is worse than DETH.

Tank player tries to make a Cyclops to outrange and outgun your Dominatrices? Dart him so that he cannot run, then Scorcher him into a smoldering REK.

The one thing that could cause you trouble with a heavily Dart-laden approach to Rover is Welders. But you know what Welders do against Dominatrix? That's right. Nothing (except heavy porc, which, while problematic to tack without resorting to artillery, is not likely to be present everywhere). What awaits them is worse than DETH.

Or maybe the tank player tries to combine all of the above. Tons of Kodachi, Ogres, a Cyclops to fight Domi, and a few Minotaurs to raze your defenses. What you do is send the glorious SKY DART which disarms his entire group. Then the usual Darts slow everything to prevent them from running away while your Scorchers roving in turns the tank units into lumps of precious TANKIUM ORE which you can smelt into more masterwork rovers.

Executing all of the above is not as easy as i write it here, of course, but i don't think that Rover is weak vs Tank atm. The other factories - which lack Dart - have a much harder case.

In Tank vs Rover, i think the tank player's strongest meta atm is spamming Welders because, assisted with ad-hoc flash-erected turrets, they can often fight most rover compositions directly and not die to Dart.

Hover is like Rover, but full of Herecy.

Everything except the riot and assault has AoE, the assault has full raider speed, their skirmishers are both perfect accuracy, etc. I'd rather see them removed, put out of the misery of their wretched existence. That would be the most loving thing to do.

On a serious note, Scalpel hardcounters most of Tank, and Dagger is both fast enough to catch Kodachi and small enough to efficiently fight Blitz, though it's worse in both matchups compared to Dart, i think.

quote: they cannot apply their stun because the single targeted Dart just dies immediately

Outplayed!

So when Blitz was really good, it had this problem that you would never transition into any of the other tanks. You would just mass blitz's all game. This is because Blitz stacks best with other Blitz's: More blitz's makes you able to stunlock heavies which radically enhances your other Blitz's.

We added the EMP death effect so that in the mid-late game, rather than blitz being the best thing to add to your army of blitz, there comes a point where adding more blitz is actually a detriment as they begin to stun eachother. This has the dual effect of making it stronger early on in small numbers or supporting other units versus raiders, as even if they are caught they stun enemy raiders. This allows Blitz to be a lot stronger, without being the only unit you make from the factory.

However, since it is technically a downside, in a buff round to Blitz, it was removed. Personally I'd bump its EMP death even further and bump it's other stats at the same time, so it's even stronger earlier, and even worse to use in packs. I guess some people like pure blitz play from the Tank factory though.

Do you think Blitz is a strong pick in the lineup right now to even see much use? I see people field Kodachi as their preferred raider, but I'm not hunting down tank 1v1's.

quote: Do you think Blitz is a strong pick in the lineup right now to even see much use? I see people field Kodachi as their preferred raider, but I'm not hunting down tank 1v1's.

Blitz is strong. Typical tank play from what i've seen - aside from players who have awakened to unrivaled goodness of pure welder - is several kodachi into blitz squad into heavier tanks. Kodachi is better as an early raider because of regeneration, cost, and because it needs to only shoot at mex once to kill it. Blitz is better at medium tier because it can stunlock some of its counters, deals better with heavier raiders (like Scorcher), has more range and is generally more self-synergetic. Plus at midgame the repairs it takes become affordable. Blitz and Kodachi seem anti-synergetic so Blitzes, if deployed, tend to phase out Koda.

Blitzes do lose hard against dedicated assault/riot pushes and are too expensive to fight e.g. Dominatrix, so when it gets there, the tanks player has to get creative. Also removal of its EMP death means that lighter raiders have an easier time swarming it. You get 5 glaives for 1 Blitz, so in favorable circumstances Glaives can kill it, etc. Darts and Fleas ruin it extra hard now that they don't get punished for success.