Suggestions for the Mobula and Junker

[Lieutenant Noir]

I wanted to describe some thoughts about changes to the Mobula and the Junker as I believe these two ships are on opposite ends of functionality.
I'm not saying one is better than the other (okay, kinda) but that one ship clearly has more versatility than I think really should.
I wanted to address some issues and lay down suggestions concerning these ships.

The main way I usually describe the versatility of a ship is that I describe the strengths and weaknesses of three aspects of what I think a ship's role serves.
Mobility, Firepower, and Tankability
I'm not going to label every single one of them for each ship or I'll be writing this all day, I'm just going to label the aspects that I believe are most important.
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Mobula

Strengths of the Mobula
-I believe that one of the Mobula's strengths lie in it's ability to have multi-range capabilities in firepower (Due it's multiple front-facing guns as well as decent Max Speed to control distancing).
-I believe another strength of the Mobula is in it's exceptional abilities in controlling Vertical mobility and I believe this gives the ship extra utility in dodging, avoiding arcs, and controlling gun arcs.

My problem
-I think one of the weaknesses given to the Mobula was in it's slow turn acceleration of 3.50 deg/s² . Although I do think that this is a good inclusion for the Mobula to have this weakness, in practice this weakness is negated by the fact that it has a Max turning speed of 14.02 deg/s (a little bit faster than a Goldfish). This aspect even has me being successful in turning without the use of Phoenix Claw.
-I don't particularly like this aspect because I believe it gives the Mobula too much versatility in narrow/cramped environments as well as reaction time in ambushes.

Suggestion and suggested effects
-I would want the Max Turning speed to be similar to that of a Galleon (8.02 deg/s)
-I don't think having a lower Max turning speed would change the popularity of the Mobula too much.
-It would still reign over large open maps with plenty of space to provide covering fire but it would be less successful in cramped environments and be more vulnerable to ambushes where the enemy is behind them.
-I think it would also make captains be more wary about areas where ambushes might occur as well as make crew members jump on close range guns faster.

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Junker

-I think one of the aspects that gives the Junker so many weaknesses compared to other ships is in the traits that lead to it being a slow Max speed, tank.
-I say this mainly because I think the way the Junker is designed doesn't make it a very good slow, tank but more a Fast, Glass Cannon.

Game-play reasons
-The Junker has very exposed guns and engines much like a Squid and Goldfish but unlike those two it doesn't have the mobility to avoid many those disables.
-The Junker's Balloon is also on the top of the ship. This means that the upward arcs of the Carronades and the Projectile drop of the Lumberjack are an easy shot for a slow target like the Junker's Balloon. Before you mention that a Galleon is slow with a Balloon on top, a Galleon has the firepower to fend off such attacks and (Although this doesn't really apply in this scenario) has one of the higher top speeds in the game.
-Although you could say the Hull sweet spot makes the Junker easier to engineer on, components on the Junker will stay broken for longer because they're broken (This makes the ship much more vulnerable to continued disables as mobility and firepower are hindered).
-This also means that it will be easier to keep a Junker disabled because it already didn't have the mobility to avoid the disables in the first place 

Functionality Reasons
-I honestly don't think a scrap of junk ship like a Junker should have the second highest armor in the game
-Especially for a ship with a hull surface area of 350 m² (Smallest hull exposure in the game) as well as a weight of 125 t (Lighter than a Goldfish)
-It is described in it's description as not having the sturdiest armor "Though its improvised scrap-metal construction is not the sturdiest" and I doubt that "mercenaries and freelancers who make their living from salvage, trade, and other odd jobs" have access to Highly durable, Light weight alloys from salvage.
-I will defiantly say that the design of the ship does make it look very tanky but I think the closeness of the components in making the ship easier to engineer on fulfills the purpose of the tanky concept design.

Wrap up
-I understand that the Junker sort of has a role in being a Jack-of-all-Trades but we already have a ship (Goldfish) that kinda takes the place of being a noob friendly as well as fairly versatile, so it kinda already fulfills that role.
-I think that being a jack-of-all-trades makes the Junker very much a master-of-none in many many situations.
-Before you say that you have used the Junker and it works, I have used the Junker too (for 2 years) and the only thing I use it for is for Mines and whenever the match is a pubstomp (there just wasn't that many situations where I have succeeded in using it because the enemy always Hard-countered every variation of Junker I had).
-I know that there aren't that many ships that will be able to tank if the Junker became more of a Glass Cannon but I'm sure people would rather have a ship that would be better designed around the purpose of tanking.

Suggestion
-My suggestion is to increase the Max Speed and decrease the Armor to make it more of a Fast, Glass Cannon.
-I wouldn't want the Junker to replace the Squid and so I would want the Junker to have less mobility than the Squid with the trade-off being more firepower.
-Just have a Top speed similar to that of a Galleon (30~) and Armor more in line with a Goldfish or Spire (400~)
-Then I would see the Junker being more of an Ambush ship with Pilots bringing it for High risk (In regards to the Low Health and Armor) for High reward (Good mobility and Firepower)



If you're wondering if I made these suggestions to make the Junker Hard Counter a Mobula...
A Junker vs. Mobula in a cramped map = Junker would stab a Mobula in the Back
A Junker vs. Mobula in an open map = Mobula would destroy a Junker before it could even blink

[Byron Cavendish]

I have advocated for a while that the junker and spire need to swap stats (more or less, not number for number). I think for the spire to be brought to the level of competitive (that doesn't mean it is never or can never be used, but competitive means current goldfish meta level, not thralls) it needs to have tankiness in armour. The ship needs to be able to afford 3 crew to fire all weapons at the same time, and the only way for that to happen consistently is if it has the armour to allow a main engineer some time to shoot, like on a galleon. Currently with it's armour so low, you almost always have an engineer repairing the hull, and that means the other one more than not needs to keep a chem cycle and repair the bottom. Your gun turret ship quickly becomes just a heavy weapons platform like a goldfish, without the speed or maneuverability. Finally lore-wise, the spire visually is made of almost completely metal, from its balloon container all the way to it's needle. It is an isolated sentry on guard duty. Of course it would be armoured.

If the junker had the squishiness of the spire, it would certainly change the junker's style and use profoundly. However at this point it too is hardly competitive, and I flew competitive junkers as much as I could. Hell I started the triple artemis junker and double artemis/hades junker trends competitively. I will not touch a junker now, unless for fun or munkering. Now I think a cool thing and strength of the junker will always be its versatility and jack-of-all-trades status. That won't change. However with some buffed speed and reduced armour, (perhaps somewhere between the goldfish and squid in terms of speed and armour values both) it could become a harasser that can flirt in combat instead of turtling at range. I agree with you that lore-wise, the junker doesn't have much armour, or much of anything. It has a tarp for a walk-way, and is barely holding itself together. With that light weight and comparatively large balloon, it should be able to move fast.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Yeah I've advocated for awhile that the Junker just seemed like it had stats reversed. Granted when the armor goes down, it folds up like nothing, but it isn't a big ship. Nor is the design one that would have a lot of armor. I think it could potentially be a very modular ship in PVE but the stock version we have in PVP is more or less just junk hacked together and made into a ship. Making it lighter and a little faster  but easier to kill would be a reasonable trade off. In fact for the number of guns and flexibility of it, it is surprising that it can be so tanky.

Suspect Muse is willing to make it tanky because they consider the balloon such a major weakness that if it was weaker it wouldn't be very fun. But consider the Squid, balloons can go out on those and it sorta just floats down. If the Junker is brought lighter and it doesn't fall like a rock when popped, there is the counter blenders. Specially since it can often just turn and broadside a foe. The captain can keep a ship oriented and balloon repaired or under rebuild while the crew can ignore repairs and focus on taking down the blender.

[Daft Loon]

Please no.

Take away my brawl mobula and i will hunt you for the rest of days. More seriously the problem is that people can take a boring merc/hades + double artemis mobula and then add carro-flamer or gat-mortar as well for defence. Crippling it at close range will only force people more into the boring use of the mobula. Dialing back the hwacha and carronade changes 50% would put the mobula in the right place.

If the junker needs to change trade away some of its absurd turning speed (I mean, its 4 times as long as wide with the engines closer together than any other ship but somehow among the fastest turning) for top speed and vertical speed.

The way i think about armor/hull is that the hull makes sense based on the size and solidity of the ship while the armor is just balance. That way the giant plates of armor hull on the goldfish dont confuse me.

Out of curiosity what do you find counters a junker aside from moving backwards shooting at it and laughing at its slow speed?

"but we already have a ship (Goldfish) that kinda takes the place of being a noob friendly as well as fairly versatile" - more or less 100% due to the current hwacha. Minotaur, Flak, Carronade and Lumberjack fish are not at all noob friendly.

[Byron Cavendish]

Out of curiosity what do you find counters a junker aside from moving backwards shooting at it and laughing at its slow speed?

Are you asking based on the current junker or the hypothetical one?

I agree with you on mobula, it's fine.

[BlackenedPies]

He means current junker, which is vulnerable to disable and resistant to kill. Getting popped is bad because it's mostly balloon, and it has a vulnerable component cluster that's easy to hit with artemis or break everything with hwatcha.

[Daft Loon]

I've essentially never felt unreasonably countered by anything outside 2 categories
-Moving backwards too fast - Lumberjack, Artemis
-Not the junker that's the problem - Old H.Carronade, Current Hwacha

[MightyKeb]

Please no.

Take away my brawl mobula and i will hunt you for the rest of days. More seriously the problem is that people can take a boring merc/hades + double artemis mobula and then add carro-flamer or gat-mortar as well for defence. Crippling it at close range will only force people more into the boring use of the mobula. Dialing back the hwacha and carronade changes 50% would put the mobula in the right place.

Yes, let's not presumably "take away" the brawl mobula's oh-so-essential turning speed as it clearly doesn't have anything else *cough* verticals *cough* ridicilously fast kills *cough* going for it. At the same time, let's keep the mobula the way it is so the "boring hades art art" is even easier to play.


At the very least the turning speed nerf makes mobula quite counterable by manouverable ships, it is -MEANT- to be laterally weak. What do you think you have the verticals for?


Aside from making mobula actually balanced, the turning speed nerf may encourage the use of Phoenix Claw on mobula, to the point where it may be a necessity unfortunately. However, this works in the favor of game balance, because then you have several options:

Either sacrifice hydro, aka the ability to shoot up into space whenever you're in trouble, or drouge chute, and make the mobula's balloon an actual weakness again. Or just have both but get circled to death by squids.


Though I think the turning speed nerf should be made so to match the claw's benefits. 7.02 deg/s is -100% of 14.02 deg/s. Claw provides +50% engine thrust. You could simply nerf it down to 10.02/10.52 deg/s and it would make a noticable, though not outrageous difference, and if you wanted the old speed you could just use claw and Daniel would never laugh at any aspiring mobula pilot for using it again.

[DrTentacles]

This is absolutely ridiculous.

We are at the point of GoI where we're talking about nerfing the mobula. Pack it up. Just...pack it up, guys. We've had a good run. This is where a year of nerfs, clans falling apart, and competitive instability has taken us.

For the record, I'm not angry, and I don't think it's a inherently bad suggestion. Just an unnecessarily one, and hilarious if you look at the ship trends in competitive of the past year.

In seriousness, Mobula is not OP, junker could maybe use a overhaul, but it's problem is more fundamentally tied to it's giant balloon, and this seems like a giant problem of people getting complacent in their strategies and not experimenting. We're at a more diverse point in the meta than I've seen it in a long time. There are some problems. The Mobula isn't really one of them. Most of the problems in the meta tie to the paradigm of weapon roles that we currently have. 

And I don't think you can make the Junker more competitive by playing with it's stats. It's a ship that's viability is more tied to the weapons that dominate the meta than it's own effectiveness. Increasing the speed still leaves it with a giant, exposed balloon. There is nothing that is going to make the balloon less giant, or less exposed, and a speed ship without a balloon is even more dead than a slow ship without a balloon.

(Also, Galleon and Pyramideon are in way, way worse places than Junkers, or Mobulas.)

[Byron Cavendish]

I actually love where the galleon is at. It won't win against every ship or build, but it can hold it's own pretty well and I think its way better off than the junker. Like you said, the meta of the guns determines the strength or the weakness. The galleon and junker are very similar in design, crew strategy and fighting style, which is why I switched from junker to galleon. Because heavy guns are slightly stronger right now, the galleon is just better off than the junker.

[DrTentacles]

I'm willing to accept the idea that there aren't too many people doing competitive galleon these days, so my perception is skewed. It takes a team willing to revolve around it, and treat it as the "center" rather than it's own entity, which takes specialized team practice. Alone, it dies to most well piloted ships.

[nhbearit]

There is one thing about this thread that manages to confuse me. Since when aren't Junkers awesome? They are the quintessential escort ship. Period. They have two sets of weapons that they can basically switch out at a moments notice. They also are highly maneuverable, and very easy to coordinate crew on. Like seriously.. Pair a Junker with any other ship (including another Junker) and it just shines. Assuming that the Junker is IN the fight of course. I've seen a lot of ridiculous comments on this thread so a quick note to everyone here: take a minute and think through what it is you're saying before you post.

[Lieutenant Noir]

Hey, hey don't hunt me down just yet 

With the changes you would still be able to bring brawler loadouts on the Mobula, my problem is that the Mobula is both effective at Sniping and Brawling (while also occupying the firepower of a trifecta).
My changes to the Junker and Mobula are to separate the effectiveness of Brawling and Sniping that the current Mobula has into two ships.
You would still be able to Snipe and Brawl on either of these trifecta ships, but one would be more specialized than the other at the job (You bring either ship depending on if you will be spending more time Brawling or Sniping instead of just bringing a Mobula because it's good for both).

Out of curiosity what do you find counters a junker aside from moving backwards shooting at it and laughing at its slow speed?

I mentioned this before so I'll say it again

The Junker is very slow and has very exposed components and this makes it very counter able by Disable weapons.
Let me label some situations where I've been countered:
Hwatcha: Destroyed every single component in a single barrage (Kinda like a Hwatcha on the engines on a Squid)
Lumberjack: Destroyed the balloon and broke armor in two clips from highly exposed balloon and projectile drop of Lumbershot
Artemis: Destroyed multiple components in one Burst shot due to closeness of the components
Carronade: Destroyed balloon every time because the Balloon was at the top of the ship (Playing into the Upward arcs of the Carronades)

In all of these situations the High armor of the Junker never helped because the damage modifier dug into the Armor. 
-I think if you have a ship with so many exposed components, it shouldn't be a Tank!
-I think I could avoid more of these situations to greater success if the ship had more maneuverability in terms of speed like the Squid or Goldfish to avoid shots
-My suggestion to decrease the Armor was to give it a weakness in terms of the benefits in brawling capabilities (If you have firepower and Brawl, you should be avoiding arcs and so Armor should be less). Not to mention, the Hull has a fairly small hitbox and so the Decreased armor makes sense in a way.
-It's high turn speed plays into the specialized nature of Brawling and avoiding arcs which I believe would play towards the play style of Brawling very well.

Let me give a comparison to describe the traits of the suggested changes of the two ships:
Junker:
Mobility: High turn mobility to out maneuver enemy ships in close range engagements. Good Max speed to get into brawl engagements faster.
Firepower: Trifecta (Cause of front gun that can be used either side) for Brawl and Difecta for Range.
Tankability: Poor armor and easy to engineer on which plays into the nature of Brawling (Avoiding arcs and out maneuvering which means less exposure to enemy fire)

Mobula:
Mobility: High vertical mobility to dodge ambushes and close range engagements. Also decent Max speed to control distancing and provide time for crew mates to jump onto short range guns.
Firepower: Trifecta for Range (Cause of front facing top deck gun) and Difecta for Brawl
Tankability: Good armor and easy to engineer on which plays into the nature of Sniping (You will be staying still and so be more exposed to enemy fire so you need that armor)

Both these ships would be very versatile as they both carry long and short range guns. My suggestion is to make one ship more effective than the other at using either short or long range guns while still having the utility of both guns.

Hense the...

If you're wondering if I made these suggestions to make the Junker Hard Counter a Mobula...
A Junker vs. Mobula in a cramped map = Junker would stab a Mobula in the Back
A Junker vs. Mobula in an open map = Mobula would destroy a Junker before it could even blink

"but we already have a ship (Goldfish) that kinda takes the place of being a noob friendly as well as fairly versatile" - more or less 100% due to the current hwacha. Minotaur, Flak, Carronade and Lumberjack fish are not at all noob friendly.

Yeah, I meant Hwatchafish.
I kinda meant it in the manner that a Pyramidion was noob friendly because of the Gat/Mort combo. I still thought the Hwatchafish was very versatile and noob friendly even before the Buff. I think it occupies the Niche of being an effective Jack-of-all-Trades and I don't think the Junker is a very effective ship for occupying that role.

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I do agree that the Mobula is not "that" OP but I still don't think a ship that has Decent forward Mobility and Extremely good vertical mobility should have good Turn speed. I believe the turn speed should be a weakness that the Mobula has in response to Multi-range firepower and High vertical mobility.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

I wouldn't mind the original Junker back. Everyone hated it but I used to do rather well with it. It turned slower and wasn't ultra armored. With the Pyra in godlike form, it would easily fall prey to Pyras if the pilot wasn't proactive enough. Hence why it was hated. But it moved decent enough to perform good ambushes. When Muse buffed it, the change was great but ultimately it forced it into a ranged fighter more than CQC. Slow down + high turn rate made it into the perfect sniper platform.

So really, we're still suffering from the design changes that brought about the sniper era. Part of the game is still balanced for sniper play when sniper play has been nerfed into oblivion.

Personally, I think we'd be in a better state if Muse would not overhaul ships one by one but do a big picture update. Then stick to it. We've had countless updates to the Pyra yet very few for other ships. Its to the point they could spin off a version of the game with just Pyras. Half the time the Pyra didn't even need work, just work being done to other ships or guns in the game.

[Daft Loon]

...

Hey, hey don't hunt me down just yet 

I may have overreacted/exaggerated slightly, a slight loss of turning wont kill dedicated brawl mobulas entirely. Still can't agree with it though, the multi role mobula is powerful at the moment because multi role is more or less the meta, trying to shove everything into a niche seems counterproductive.

My speculative changes:
Junker
Max turn: 16 --> 14
Turn Acc.:15 --> 13
Vertical Acc.: 3 --> 4
Max Speed: 26 --> 30

Artemis
Down Arc: 35 --> 20

Hwacha
Up/Down Arc: 20 --> 15

The junker would still have good close range turning but wouldn't be able to rely on swapping sides in 3s. The vertical acceleration would make it suffer less from balloon damage and the speed boost would be enough to kill 'fly backwards laughing' as a strategy.

Dropping the artemis arc would force the mobula to chose between safety and attacking and would be an indirect buff to the spire, junker and galleon.

Its to the point they could spin off a version of the game with just Pyras.

'Metamidions on battle on the dunes' the game