Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: MightyKeb on September 07, 2015, 07:26:14 am
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Ever since gat mortar pyra was dethroned in February I've had some difficulty nailing down the current meta for competitive. Is there a solid opinion on this as of yet?
So far I've seen a big influx in mobulas as of late. It seems that the versatility of artemis' disable and mediocre kill power and the playstyle freedom hades offers has become the new, reliable go-to kill ship, formerly this was the well rounded gat mortar pyra. Junker meta, just like the junker itself, seems to have survived with little harm and thrives around mobula's level partially thanks to carronade nerfs. Galleon, Spire and Fish have also stepped up as not only can they fight carronades more effectively with their vulnerable balloons, but they are also able to utilize the new hwacha very well. But this is balanced out by the excessive usage of Artemis namely on junkers and mobulas. Hwachafish also seems to have taken blenderfish's place in the meta, being much more reliable than before.
I appreciate any efforts to add to this observation or correct me on anything posted above.
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I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that there is an influx of Mobulas and that seems to be basically the new Meta for Competitive. (Almost no game without one MetaMobula of Hades, double art)
It has very good strengths and noticeable weaknesses.
You missed out the infamous Lumberjack/ Hades combo on a Galleon, probably the only ship with the sheer disable potential of a lumberjack and Hades combination.
I don't even need to mention a squid with a side banshee as it seems to counter the slow mobility of the mobula's turn acceleration
We did have a good few mine launchers on junkers a good while ago and stood fairly well against Blenderfishes, though now they tend to have the standard MetaMob Hades, and Double Art. You tend to see Banshees replace Arts more (probably due to it's versatility in arcs and fast turn speed compensating for the junker's lack of vertical mobility and Art's poor up arcs)
There's a reasonable amount of Hwatchafish w/ Side Carronade and Blenderfish, though you tend to not see Blenderfishes dominate as much as they did previously.
We do get the occasional Pyra and they seem to always have a Hades on it, since you have fairly easy distancing potential with it's forward guns and acceleration.
That's about all I can think of off the top of my head.
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I don't see Squid being used in competitive often except for me and a few other pilots, but I definitely think it has edged a little closer to the meta not only due to the buffs it's recieved but also being accepted as the true counter to a Mobula for obvious reasons, which could explain our team's recent streak of success. I've also ran Carrot a few times, Hades Art pyra is used because of both the range control opportunities and the art disables. Carro art is used because pyra needs to avoid piercing-explosive confrontations to survive. I rarely see gat mortar pyras outside of pubs.
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Mobula OP, I don't even know for how long I have been using that phrase.
The Meta was the Metajunker and Gat/Mortar Pyramidion with either a Hades/Flak (or Artemis) Pyramidion ally or some kind of Fish as ally. The Hades/Lumberjack/Heavy Flak Galleon, with close range heavy guns on the other side, was also a Meta and often accompanied by a Junker or Pyramidion.
Pyramidion is outgunned by a Mobula and the Junker is more easily disabled than a Mobula, while on top of that the Mobula can control the range against the Junker.
The Mobula is guaranteed to be outmatched by a single strategy that only a few ships can execute: Circling. A Squid has a very easy time flying around a Mobula and even Junkers do well circling it when giving the chance. Most other ships don't have the speed to circle around a ship, while keeping good dps against the enemy without taking to much damage itself. As in a Fish loses arcs of its important heavy gun, Spire loses almost all gun arcs when trying to circle, Pyramidion is too slow and a Galleon succeeding in circling a Mobula is a joke.
Although Hades/double Artemis has proven to be a favourite combination for long range light guns, the real Meta will always be close range brawling.
The invincible Paddling lost to the Brood, who charged in and killed them with Gatling and Mortar (while disabling the heavy guns of the Galleon with the Mercury while charging in), Wolfpack was unstoppable, because double Gatling and double Mortar had more power than anything, Holy Roman Army (Holy and SPQR) had a similar strategy with a Metamidion and a Gat/Carro Pyramidion and the Glowwater Thralls' ambushes always ended in close range, with the rare exception of a long range ship playing bait.
To make brawling easier for themselves, teams often took at least one disable ship to ensure that a ship was either in a vulnerable position or that the other ship was basically alone. Some other disable ships are also build on to just weaken the enemy so they die even quicker. Lumberjack, Carronades and Carrots put the enemy in a bad position and ships like the Gat/Carro Pyramidion weakened with a Gatling, negated vertical escape with the Carronade and was able to put a ship completely out of combat too.
A ship that excelled at disabling in close range was the Goldfish. Hwachas could always disable an entire ship with ease and the Carronade could always destroy a balloon in two shots or less. Because teams wanted to snipe each other all the time, the Goldfish was quite low on the tier list, but now that teams actually engage each other inside 1km, I guess it is arguably the perfect and best support ship.
Hwachafish only gets more spotlight than the Blenderfish now, because people for some reason think Blenderfish is bad, but it can still destroy a balloon within one clip, that is all it ever had to do to win a teamfight and survive every 1v1.
Spires also tend to dominate in brawling, because they have a heavy gun of their own and still have 3 slots for light guns left to kill the enemy with.
Thus the conlcusion on the current Meta:
Long range -> Mobula, with Junker and Galleon being behind on the Meta list. Also known as ships that can perform well in any range, which the Mobula does better than the Junker and Galleon since it doesn't have to turn 180° for close range guns to have arc.
Close range -> Goldfish and something with Gatling/Mortar. Also known as the basic Kill Ship plus Support Ship team.
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I think the problem is that at this point everything has been nerfed, except hwacha. It's easy to say hwacha fish is the meta, which it is. But it's not the meta because it's a spectacular build. It's the meta because it's the only build that hasn't been nerfed into boredom. When I look at all the other guns and ships (minus my favourite double lumberjack galleon that I NEED two great gunners for) there so...UGH!
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Isn't this the mark of a well balanced game? If there is no obvious best build?
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Isn't this the mark of a well balanced game? If there is no obvious best build?
The Meta, as I described it, consists of ships excelling in general. Once you go a little bit more specific other ships can dominate.
Example: Squid beats Mobula, but Squid isn't Meta.
But that is just a direct hardcounter. The effectiveness of the Meta also shifts depending on what team has more control of the battlefield or has a direct positional advantage. I am thinking about teams ambushing their enemy or charging at them in formation before the enemy has the chance to think something up.
Example: The Spire can beat pretty much every ship, long range and close range, but that doesn't make the Spire Meta either.
But a Spire with Gatlings, Mortars and a Hwacha would just make a better Metamidion, so are there obvious best gun builds? Same as the above: Gatlings combined with Mortars and Hadeses combined with Artemis is just general.
Ignoring distinctive ship attributes, Example: Gat/Artemis beats Gat/Mortar.
And then we can apply the above logic of control and position again and the example can be turned around.
So what I am trying to say here is that there are obvious best builds in general, but it doesn't mean that they always win.
Example from a scrim of Rydr vs. Mad Hatters (a Gent team) a long while ago: Their Metagalleon beats my favourite Mobula, two matches in a row on Fjords.
There is no best best build, because victory and defeat depend on a lot more factors than just bringing a general ship.
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Good description
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Isn't this the mark of a well balanced game? If there is no obvious best build?
Games that are fairly balanced typically have a meta. These metas almost always change over time. Typically it goes: a good player/team in pub games/competitive uses a certain ship very well. Others copy the build/gameplay style and it's considered a meta.
An example of this is after a popular LoL contest ends, the characters on the winning team are played significantly more afterwards. Over time, builds/styles that beat the meta will arise, and eventually become the new meta. There are other reasons meta's occur, but in competitive, this is usually the reason. As a newer player, if I see a ship being used effectively, I typically copy it and test it out. I imagine many new-mid level players do this.
It's also interesting to note the difference between public server meta's (pub-stomping) and competitive meta's. Though, I usually go for the "easiest for noobs to understand" ship rather than the meta. :p
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It's also interesting to note the difference between public server meta's (pub-stomping) and competitive meta's. Though, I usually go for the "easiest for noobs to understand" ship rather than the meta. :p
An example of this in action - is taking a carronade and flamethrower in a pub game over a gatling and mortar. This is because my definition of a "meta" is: The easiest to execute strategy to yield the highest winrate. In a pub game my crew may not know to break hull before firing a mortar, and in the same vein the enemy crew may not have good chem spray rotations, therefore the simplest method to win would be to disable with fire and fire carronades (carronades being effective anywhere they hit; disabling equipment or popping balloons). Whereas in a competitive game the meta would be something harder to execute with as few counters as possible - such as a mobula with both long and short range weapons resulting in a ship which is usable in most situations (easy to execute) and has a high winrate (main counter is a much harder to execute ship, or "out of meta").
However, as more people get better at using the squid - the squid becomes easier and easier to execute resulting in a new meta arising - and when the squid meta finally comes trust me, I will be there on the front lines #Squid4Life.
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Double buff kill squid is the scariest ship
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Double buff kill squid is the scariest ship
Unless its a buff gunner (as apposed to engi)
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https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2110.0.html
Mobula is op...
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Double buff kill squid is the scariest ship
Unless its a buff gunner (as apposed to engi)
A Bard for only a week and already trolling the community. Atta boy, Kam, atta boy
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The current meta is simple: Mobula + anything else
How I miss the Hades+Echidna Pyra. Actually I miss the Echidna in general. What happened?
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Eric happened
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So the mobula is another ship that went from being considered terrible to the best ship, without any changes being made to IT?
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So the mobula is another ship that went from being considered terrible to the best ship, without any changes being made to IT?
Worst part is, two ships that were considered terrible before are now the two most meta ships. Hades art art mobula + hwachafish and mobula + mobula is like the new metamidion + blenderfish and meta + meta
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So the mobula is another ship that went from being considered terrible to the best ship, without any changes being made to IT?
This is how I sometimes see Muse
(https://i.imgflip.com/qt7qn.jpg) (https://imgflip.com/i/qt7qn) (https://imgflip.com/memegenerator)
But in all fairness, I think mobula was always great. Teams just needed time to learn how to use it.
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Daniel, your duck history is week. It was the Raft (where frogger came from) that defeated the raft. The brood (my home cause we don't talk about the dover) consistently got paddled by the paddling.
As for the echidna. It was making a comeback as the premiere pyra killer. However suddenly killing pyras was suddenly not as important.
But what would I know, I'm just a cranky old man.
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But we all got paddled by the Paddling so that's not too bad
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The invincible Paddling lost to the Brood...
boohoohoo
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Ahhhh, man, I remember being new and the gat/flak was the best thing ever before I discovered the mortar :D
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Ahhhh, man, I remember being new and the gat/flak was the best thing ever before I discovered the mortar :D
Trust me, newbies still think the same...
Then they meet the "Lion gun!" And they think that's the best thing since sliced bread...
Then they get Heavy Flaked and think "Wayyyy OP!" They try it on armoured enemy.. "What dafuq, dis gun be broked! Dem.guts musta bin haxors!"
So nothing new tbh...
I like most of the new changes, but think Hwacha is over-used now...
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Worst thing with le balanced lion gun of disabling is when beginners are owned by it they think it is broken, then they use it themselves but good pilots evade them, so the newbie blames their pilot. The newbie then proceeds to pilot because he knows best in his all hwacha galleon leaving us more experienced players stuck engineering and gunning in his hell hole of a ship!
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I'm not sure If I would call Hwacha builds meta. They are used to great effect in pub matches but they are still hit and miss in competitive play.
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Daniel, your duck history is week. It was the Raft (where frogger came from) that defeated the raft. The brood (my home cause we don't talk about the dover) consistently got paddled by the paddling.
Well, if you would have called your teamnames "Duck team 1" and "Duck team 2" it would have been easier to remember!
The invincible Paddling lost to the Brood...
boohoohoo
I hope some mod changes the Brood to the Raft on that line.
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Personally I've been seeing an incredible amount of goldfish. Previously a hwacha-fish would have a very tough time taking on a carro-fish, but they're relatively closely matched now. I've actually seen a lot of hwacha-fish get the upper hand. Hwacha spire tends to be pretty popular as well. Then the all hwacha galleon. It's just a giant lion-gun party.
Pyramidions still get used, but they get trashed by just about anything, especially lion guns. Mobulas do pretty well, but I think it's mostly coordinated teams bringing those. Random pubs still have a hard time with most ships. Squids are... ok. Again, they would take a coordinated crew, and they still suffer greatly against disables.
Overall a lot of ships seem more disable heavy than being run as pure kill ships. It appears only some of the guns were adjusted for gunner stamina, while the rest were left as they were. This definitely tipped the scales a bit and shifted the meta. I want to say things are still relatively balanced, but I just don't feel that way. Hwacha-fish is the new metamidion though. Should it still be called a metamidion?
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Papermidion..
The biggest problem is, most ships work well with coordinated teams, but most teams (bear in mind us guys on forums are minority of playerbase and form a lot of those teams) are not co-ordinated, which is where the Hwacha is strong and makes it over used, its almost like the new flamer... It has counters but they take time to learn...
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Just like the flamethrower, and the mino, and the everything. Hwacha nerf will come when low levels complain enough to be pandered to.
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Just like the flamethrower, and the mino, and the everything. Hwacha nerf will come when low levels complain enough to be pandered to.
Hwacha Nerf will come.
Though not a big Nerf, it will come.
I predict Goldfish will barely be used again. If they are it'll be good pilots and crews doing flak fish or blenderfish.
Squids will be more efficient with less fish to contest them.
Mobula and spires shall become powerful.
But the Hwacha will be no less effective, it'll just.be a.minor Nerf.but people will avoid it if.its not a goto all purpose weapon.
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Squids will be more efficient with less fish to contest them.
I have no idea why everyone thinks that bringing fish into a match with a squid on the other side is an automagic win...
Mobula and spires shall become powerful.
Mobula OP. Give me big SCS without mobula, we'll actually see different playstyles for once more.
Hwachaspire kills so fast it's a fully legal competitive ship, no thralls' magic required.
Lumberspire benefits a lot from stamina, it can actually dodge and kill.
And carro spire was the scariest of them all, but it's completely useless now, thank you heavy carro arcs.
But the Hwacha will be no less effective, it'll just.be a.minor Nerf.but people will avoid it if.its not a goto all purpose weapon.
Hwachafish was used rarely before. Right now it's considered all purpose meta. Still, it doesn't have natural fast killing potential.
In my opinion nerfing the jitter back to what used to be before the heavy clip nerf would be enough to unmeta this ship.
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Squids will be more efficient with less fish to contest them.
I have no idea why everyone thinks that bringing fish into a match with a squid on the other side is an automagic win...
Not an automatic win at all, but it is able to put up a fight :)
And I agree about the jitter, nothing big, just enough to make a difference. :)
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I don't know about the hwacha-fish not being used before, it was always decently popular as a disable ship, particularly against pyramidions. Mobula and spire are already powerful. Mobula in particular is a good choice against hwacha fish, since it's very difficult to break all the components in a hwacha burst (unless you have a great gunner/pilot combo). Spire is like a less maneuverable hwacha-fish, but hits a lot harder.
In competitive matches, squid might be fine, but in pub matches, trying to coordinate a crew on that fast moving ship is difficult, even if you do manage to dodge a lot of deadly shots. It's hard to stay in arcs long enough to be effective with how vulnerable the squid is, particularly against disables which you have to be certain to dodge.
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I don't know about the hwacha-fish not being used before, it was always decently popular as a disable ship, particularly against pyramidions. Mobula and spire are already powerful. Mobula in particular is a good choice against hwacha fish, since it's very difficult to break all the components in a hwacha burst (unless you have a great gunner/pilot combo). Spire is like a less maneuverable hwacha-fish, but hits a lot harder.
In competitive matches, squid might be fine, but in pub matches, trying to coordinate a crew on that fast moving ship is difficult, even if you do manage to dodge a lot of deadly shots. It's hard to stay in arcs long enough to be effective with how vulnerable the squid is, particularly against disables which you have to be certain to dodge.
From what I've seen the biggest problem with pub crews on a squid is the side Gungineer camping hull or doing repairs because they panic when something is damaged or broken, often leaving the ship with just one gun shooting. Or of using gat mortar I've seen many gubgineers waste clips onto thin air while gat breaks armour, they complain no arcs, armour break comes and they're reloading...
Squid in pubs only works Caro flamer or gat banshee unless you are lucky with crew
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I don't know about the hwacha-fish not being used before, it was always decently popular as a disable ship, particularly against pyramidions. Mobula and spire are already powerful. Mobula in particular is a good choice against hwacha fish, since it's very difficult to break all the components in a hwacha burst (unless you have a great gunner/pilot combo). Spire is like a less maneuverable hwacha-fish, but hits a lot harder.
In competitive matches, squid might be fine, but in pub matches, trying to coordinate a crew on that fast moving ship is difficult, even if you do manage to dodge a lot of deadly shots. It's hard to stay in arcs long enough to be effective with how vulnerable the squid is, particularly against disables which you have to be certain to dodge.
From what I've seen the biggest problem with pub crews on a squid is the side Gungineer camping hull or doing repairs because they panic when something is damaged or broken, often leaving the ship with just one gun shooting. Or of using gat mortar I've seen many gubgineers waste clips onto thin air while gat breaks armour, they complain no arcs, armour break comes and they're reloading...
Squid in pubs only works Caro flamer or gat banshee unless you are lucky with crew
I disagree. Almost every squid loadout works in pubs. Infact, even the ones that aren't supposed to work do work in pubs. You're describing instances of novice crewing. You could put them on anything else but maybe a pyramidion and they would still cause problems.
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I don't know about the hwacha-fish not being used before, it was always decently popular as a disable ship, particularly against pyramidions. Mobula and spire are already powerful. Mobula in particular is a good choice against hwacha fish, since it's very difficult to break all the components in a hwacha burst (unless you have a great gunner/pilot combo). Spire is like a less maneuverable hwacha-fish, but hits a lot harder.
In competitive matches, squid might be fine, but in pub matches, trying to coordinate a crew on that fast moving ship is difficult, even if you do manage to dodge a lot of deadly shots. It's hard to stay in arcs long enough to be effective with how vulnerable the squid is, particularly against disables which you have to be certain to dodge.
From what I've seen the biggest problem with pub crews on a squid is the side Gungineer camping hull or doing repairs because they panic when something is damaged or broken, often leaving the ship with just one gun shooting. Or of using gat mortar I've seen many gubgineers waste clips onto thin air while gat breaks armour, they complain no arcs, armour break comes and they're reloading...
Squid in pubs only works Caro flamer or gat banshee unless you are lucky with crew
I disagree. Almost every squid loadout works in pubs. Infact, even the ones that aren't supposed to work do work in pubs. You're describing instances of novice crewing. You could put them on anything else but maybe a pyramidion and they would still cause problems.
Very true... Well even the pyramidion has the same problems, such as upper deck engi repairing hull instead of shooting...
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Just like the flamethrower, and the mino, and the everything. Hwacha nerf will come when low levels complain enough to be pandered to.
Hwacha Nerf will come.
Though not a big Nerf, it will come.
You knock on wood right now! Dammit man, this Eric we are talking about! He doesn't do subtle.
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I am surprised to see that the spire is not used more in competitive play. A mino spire seems like it would be a great anti-counter to the sniper mob.
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I am surprised to see that the spire is not used more in competitive play. A mino spire seems like it would be a great anti-counter to the sniper mob.
On paper it would seem like it; in practice, one mercury shot and the Minotaur is out. As compared to the Minotaur, Lumberjack has better range, and stronger disable+kill power. I have hardly ever/never beaten a Mobula head on with a Spire, then again not many ships can beat the King of Control head on. The Hwachafish and Mobula meta has hurt the Spire, which is totally my favourite ship, more than I'd like.
Kill meta (Pyra, Blenderfish) gets nerfed, control meta will naturally be more effective, not to mention it has had a few buffs (i.e. Hwacha, stamina). However, I've always taught that the Mobula was always a strong ship. I didn't imagine a sniper ship to be surprizingly tanky (600 armor) and maneuverable (insane verticals, phoenix claw better than Galleon, Pyra, and Spire).
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I wish, the problem is the Minotaur is too hard to shoot at long range due to the low projectile speed of 350 m/s. By the time the mino gunner gets centered the mob is already shooting hades artemis. Plus the spire will be focused down every opportunity.
It sure is annoying being hit by a taur in the wing of a mobula, but you have 9 seconds to position before it finishes reloading. The Minotaur is not balanced. Increase the speed to around 450 and decrease reload to 8 (like lumberjack). There's no reason it needs a longer reload than lumberjack or the projectile speed of light flak (unless it was buffed as a mid range role).
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Speed is not the only problem with the minotaur. It has 15m of scatter at 1000m when using heavy clip. If it had a more reasonable level of scatter lesmok would be an option but currently if you try that you get 15m scatter at 300m. By the time you get to the range you need to counter a mobula you're lucky if 2/5 of the buckshots land.
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Even before the nerf the Minotaur wasn't all that effective. After playing against a Metagalleon with a Minotaur instead of Flak on Waterhazard in comp, the Galleon pilot said he would have wanted a Heavy Flak. A Minotaur/Hades/Flak Spire in the same event on the same day was more troublesome, but we managed to ge early Artemis pressure on it and our Hades made sure that the Spire Hades was repairing the armor. We did have to retreat against it once though, but then our ally ramkilled it from behind. That match and the match afterwards ended with us spawnkilling them, because Minotaur is so annoying.
What I learned from that day was that the Minotaur shouldn't be used as a primary gun, no matter how good it is, it will never be good enough. But buffing it a little bit, including a faster projectile speed, wouldn't be all too bad, it would also mean that the projectiles have less time to scatter, causing less spread over distance, unless I am wrong about that one, but less reload would make it a killer in pub matches, since not all of them time the shots to minimize its effective by using Kerosene/Moonshine.
Although the Minotaur should be able to counter the long range stuff, on a Galleon it was very effective when it protected its ally in a more close ranged scenario.
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I think scatter is independent of projectile speed, the shots just travel sideways faster or slower as well as forwards.
I think Mino/Hades/Flak spire could work well with main kit engineer running the Minotaur and balloon repairs, same with Flak and armor and a gunner or buff engineer focused on the hades. What gun to put bottom left is hard to decide with the engineer needing heavy for the Minotaur. It would seem odd having an engineer running 2 guns one of them heavy while the gunner has just 1 light gun though.
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The original Minotaur was an excellent disable weapon. With buff heavy clip you could one shot heavy guns. On spire it was good against spires, galleons, and fish. The ability to one shot heavy guns at extreme range was very powerful. It has since been nerfed to 292 component damage per shot or 350 buffed.
When using taur spire I keep the standard spire setup of main engi top, spanner mallet buff taur, wrench buff bottom left. You can try it in a brawl role with gat.