That Buggy EMP + Stealth Tank is a pretty nasty combo. Still, I wouldn't call Stealth Tanks OP considering they have a hard counter in the form of Zone Troopers with the Scanner Packs upgrade, which is virtually of identical tier and cost a Stealth Tank is. Just don't go after them with a lone Pitbull or Orca if you can help it. Especially not if that Stealth Tank is being pilotted by Fritobag.
Orca Sensor Pods might work pretty well too, come to think of it.
At any rate, under the right circumstances these new Stealth Tanks are lethal. It's up to a good Nod player to engineer those circumstances to the best of his or her ability, and up to the opponent to counter/prevent this to the best of his or her ability, and subsequently force that Nod player to fight them on their own terms.
Total Sparta. That Buggy EMP + Stealth Tank is a pretty nasty combo. Still, I wouldn't call Stealth Tanks OP considering they have a hard counter in the form of Zone Troopers with the Scanner Packs upgrade, which is virtually of identical tier and cost a Stealth Tank is. Just don't go after them with a lone Pitbull or Orca if you can help it. Especially not if that Stealth Tank is being pilotted by Fritobag.
Zone Troopers seem good "on paper" but they are extremely vulnerable to few venoms. Problem is that few venoms can kill 4500 credits worth on ZT in couple of seconds, and you can't counter them effectively in time. It's almost impossible to kill those few venoms in time as they have anti-infantry as their priority target by default.
Not to mention catalyst missile and cloaking field powers.
QUOTE
Orca Sensor Pods might work pretty well too, come to think of it
Snipers work great as well.
This post has been edited by Maistral: Oct 29 2007, 13:09 PM
The thing about Zone Troopers though is that as long as even a single squadmember survives, you can recover the entire squad for free through the Armory, meaning no cash loss whatsoever. If a Nod player is bringing in Venoms to take out that Zone Trooper squad standing at the backdoor of your base, that's potentially a sign in itself that something else is heading your way.
You're right though -- that's what you get with the rock-paper-scissors thing.
The thing about Zone Troopers though is that as long as even a single squadmember survives, you can recover the entire squad for free through the Armory, meaning no cash loss whatsoever. If a Nod player is bringing in Venoms to take out that Zone Trooper squad standing at the backdoor of your base, that's potentially a sign in itself that something else is heading your way.
You're right though -- that's what you get with the rock-paper-scissors thing.
I know that you can do it with the armory, it's nice also. But IMO pitbulls need to have their AA range buffed like 30-50%, because now in order to counter those venoms they need to come into the frontline where they get slaughtered by other units (tanks, walkers, rpg infantry etc), while at the same time Nod can just make a sweeping flight over your army (which is already engaged in combat) and kill ZT squads in a matter of seconds with minimal losses.
It works better against Scrin (now in 1.09) because few apcs or rail upgraded tanks can take care of buzzer swarm and devastators can either be dodged (with ZT's jump jets), or destroyed with firehawks and they are expensive to mass and replace - ergo they will be present in fewer numbers.
It's just that some Rocks hurt much more than other, and some Scissors can't be broken that easily, and the some Paper seems to cover it all
This post has been edited by Maistral: Oct 29 2007, 13:58 PM
Some patches back they increased the cost of the Venom to 900 from originally 700, if I remember correctly. What I believe they should have done instead was keep that 700 cost in place, but lower the health of the Venom by around 13%. The things do indeed seem to be able of taking just a little too much damage for a craft of their type.
It's true that they're supposed to be readily available and vicious hard anti-infantry counters, hence the name, but in return the opponent should be able to handle them quite swiftly when using the proper counter units. As you've pointed out, right now that's not just quite the case.
It goes to show that while 1.09 was a lovely and big step forward, there still remains plenty of work to be done.
This post has been edited by Dogl: Oct 29 2007, 14:32 PM
BTW, I am -Titus