Countering the shieldball, the most anti-fun thing in the game

If its in front of your base you have lost already

TheSponge, best counter IMO is eraser+zeuses and ticks inside, first you tick as much of the sball as possible from inside the eraser, then send out the hidden zeus (if you manage to tick all felons/outlaws, glaive spam would work too)

quote: the shieldball, the most anti-fun thing in the game

I have to disagree with that. While shieldballs are extremely powerful, successfully tearing one down is immensely rewarding, and thus fun.

Once you catch them off guard, lure them in a trap, disable their shields with stiletto or otherwise make them vulnerable, they start dropping like flies, and the release of bloodlust that you kept building up while planning this destruction is delightfully exhilarating, just like swimming in the blood of Atreides or walking knee-deep in the bodies of banned trolls.

One takes joy in slaughter of shieldballs.

Compare this with Halberd. One does not take joy in slaughter of these unkillable bricks.

The (hypothetical) shieldball in question contains:
1 felon
4 aspises
2 outlaws
10 bandits
4 racketeers
5 thugs
1 fusion
This is a pretty typical strong shieldball. This gives you a revised list of counters:
Stiletto - if you have a lot. The aspises will soak a lot of damage
Tick (can fail against good outlaw positionaing, which almost no players consistently have)
Lots of Sharpshooters - aspises can take a lot of damage - best used with stilettos
Roach (can fail against good outlaw positioning, which almost no players consistently have)
Ravager (can fail when roaches are used to support shieldball)
Reapers, if you have a lot. Probably works for cost.
Goliath
Skuttle
Sumo
Moderator
Grizzly - you need plenty of these to get through the aspises
Buoy
Recluse (not a counter, but helps)
Licho - requires lots of micro to get under the aspises and will likely not work because of the racketeers
Shadow (in combo with Stiletto!)
Penetrator
Lots of Halberds
Krow
Dante
Funnelweb - gets disarmed by the racketeers and the drones are easy prey for felons
Razor's kiss (to loldrain shields, ability to hit air is just a bonus) - not much of a counter
You have to kill the shieldball with 7800 metal of units to make cost. The most obvious solution would be a strider hub and 3 ultis. Can ultis get up to a felon and kill it before being decloaked by the outlaws? Alternatively you can get 5(?) stilettos and something to kill the units with. This costs you 3500 for the stilettos and 600 for the air fac, leaving you with 3700 metal to make units for killing them.

In reality, it is not this easy. You have to build very specialized counters to the shieldball, while your enemy can play as normal. You will be raided while the shieldball is marching across the map to kill you, and you often wont have time to get these counters unless you started building them the instant you saw the shieldball was getting big, which leaves you unable to compete with anything but the shieldball.

quote: In Multiplayer B234750 2 on Hide_and_Seek_v03 you put 3k metal worth of reclaim right into the center of your enemies' base.

After I wiped his expansion and took a load of mexes. That reclaim did not win YurGa the battle.

Not sure, [ISP]Lauri. Felons and Outlaws counter Ticks and Roaches extremely well. Racketeers counter Ravagers and moderators pretty well. Aspis counters Sharpshooter until you run out of energy, which almost never happens, because Thugs provide regen for free.

Also TheSponge, I could think of one more thing: hold Alt+Shift+Q and draw a box of LLTs. Works until Outlaws get close.

quote: The (hypothetical) shieldball in question contains: 1 felon 4 aspises 2 outlaws 10 bandits 4 racketeers 5 thugs 1 fusion

You keep talking about needing massive armies of stilettos to disarm that. You need 1. Even with racketeers in there, one stiletto can disarm such a shieldball. Source, just checked in /godmode. Also, same cost in ravagers absolutely massacres this shieldball. Or same cost in any of the counters I mentioned really(excluding crawling bombs, that'd be silly).

quote: Racketeers counter Ravagers and moderators pretty well.

Racketeer costs more than ravager or moderator...not to mention they get worse with numbers due to wasting their reload on the first target which enters their range...they're basically suicidal to make vs ravager spam.

quote: 1x 620 (Felon) 4x 550 (Aspis) 2x 250 (Outlaws) 10x 80 (Bandits) 5x 180 (Thugs) 1x 1000 (Fusion) ------------ Total: 6020

Did my maths completely fail or am I working to outdated figures? I got the prices from the specific unit guides.

quote: hell 4 sythe will kill the fellon

What? How? They will be decloaked by the outlaw and shredded by the felon.

quote: Bottom line, your shieldball is unrealistically large.

Not unrealistically large. It is a large and powerful ball, but not too uncommon in the later stages of a 1v1 on any map that isn't especially low metal.

quote: You need 1. Even with racketeers in there, one stiletto can disarm such a shieldball

I have used stilettos and seen them do nothing to a shieldball with a few aspises. I must perform additional science on this.

Oops.

4 sythe only need to hit fellon once, they are shield penetrating and have crazy dps, also shield balls, by the name, are usualy great bid balls of tightly packed units... sythe love tightly packed poorly armed units

http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/233746

Here's a rep where I'm against shield ball from a disadvantageous position