Ships with the power to kill

[treseritops]

Hey, I'm trying to see if we can sort the discussion from "Pyra is OP" to what seems to be the root of the problem: Kill ships vs. support ships.

As of right now

Kill Ships:
Pyra
Junker
Mobula (honorary support)
Spire (honorary support)

Support:
Goldfish
Galleon
Squid

The problem becomes that two of the kill ships (Mobula and Spire) are difficult to repair and made of glass, dreams, hopes, and kisses. No meat.

The balance issue is that 1v1 the kill ships can all kill each other, but during a 2v2 (the bulk of the match) they have to take more of a support role because if they get in the center of the brawl they can easily be focused and killed, leaving a teammate alone.

So you'd rather take Pyra/Support, or Junker/Support rather than Spire/support, or Mobula/support. I think this is the root of the "Pyra is OP" complaint.

[Nidh]

I think it's pretty simple, Piercing + Explosive takes out a ship very quickly. 2 ships with Piercing + Explosive take out a ship even quicker. Disabling is slower, missing a disabling shot has very dire consequences, and if your ally dies a disabling ship can rarely stand on it's own. Any ship that can make the most of Piercing + Explosive has an edge over all other ships in dps and efficiency.

[Echoez]

The balance issue is that 1v1 the kill ships can all kill each other, but during a 2v2 (the bulk of the match) they have to take more of a support role because if they get in the center of the brawl they can easily be focused and killed, leaving a teammate alone.

So you'd rather take Pyra/Support, or Junker/Support rather than Spire/support, or Mobula/support. I think this is the root of the "Pyra is OP" complaint.

Risk / Reward.

That's all it is about. Both the Pyramidion and the Junker are low risk / high reward ships since they can kill fast and provide solid support as well while being pretty durable.

The Mobula and the Spire can potentialy be better, but only on paper, in the real game, they just too weak and too easily disabled to have potential in a 2v2.

The Galleon's weaknesses are more than offset by its immense firepower hence why it's a brutal enemy with a good ally.


The Pyra is not OP, just overused because it's simple.

The Junker has way too many upsides with just 2 major weaknesses, its relatively 'slow' speed and weak hull, with the second one not realy mattering that much since in order to not die in one armor break you need a hull that will survive the burst of damage you will receive as long as your armor is down, only 2 ships realy can do that reliably so far and that's the Goldfish and the Galleon.

Here is a simple example (Caution, very basic.) of why focusing on disabling isn't realy as efficient as straight out kill builds:


Enemy team runs: 2 Kill

Your team runs: 1 Kill, 1 Disable

Enemy team has double the killing power. You have 1 disabling power though.

So in a normal fight if everything goes according to plan (Very rarely) you will disable on of their ships, meaning their kill power should be 1 instead of 2 for a short time. So basically you just slightly prolong the fight and rely on your ally to take them out.

Now if they take out your ally, even if you killed one of them they still have 1 killing power, you have 1 disable power, but because things aren't that simple, they can still kill you while you can't, so you will have to run away.

Not sure if my point made it across.. explaining it is hard. xC

[Echoez]

I think it's pretty simple, Piercing + Explosive takes out a ship very quickly. 2 ships with Piercing + Explosive take out a ship even quicker. Disabling is slower, missing a disabling shot has very dire consequences, and if your ally dies a disabling ship can rarely stand on it's own. Any ship that can make the most of Piercing + Explosive has an edge over all other ships in dps and efficiency.

Nidh is a superior ninja than I..

[Nidh]

I think it's pretty simple, Piercing + Explosive takes out a ship very quickly. 2 ships with Piercing + Explosive take out a ship even quicker. Disabling is slower, missing a disabling shot has very dire consequences, and if your ally dies a disabling ship can rarely stand on it's own. Any ship that can make the most of Piercing + Explosive has an edge over all other ships in dps and efficiency.

Nidh is a superior ninja than I..

Learned from the best

[N-Sunderland]

The Junker has way too many upsides with just 2 major weaknesses, its relatively 'slow' speed and weak hull

And its bad vertical acceleration and oversized balloon, not to mention that it can't control the range of an engagement.

[Eukari]

I've done alright on Goldfish that go Hwacha/Gatling, where we fire the Hwacha once, swing to the side to take down their armor, then swing back when the Hwacha finishes its reload. Not the same punch as a Gat/Mortar setup, but it does the job.

I also flew a Gat/Flak Squid the other day that did fairly well, too. I think a lot of it has to do with the quality of your competition and what your secondary weapons are. I know I've survived extended periods while having a Heavy Carronade/Flamer Goldfish basically take free shots at me. They could keep popping my balloon, but as long as we were quick on repairs they couldn't finish us off. And Spire can totally do Piercing/Explosive with a Gatling/Heavy Flak combo- as long as you hang back and let the other ship(s) tank, you'll be swatting them out of the sky with no problem.

That's not to say a Pyra or Junker isn't straight-up better in a fair fight, just that you're not 100% useless when using other ships.

[Nidh]

I've done alright on Goldfish that go Hwacha/Gatling, where we fire the Hwacha once, swing to the side to take down their armor, then swing back when the Hwacha finishes its reload. Not the same punch as a Gat/Mortar setup, but it does the job.

I also flew a Gat/Flak Squid the other day that did fairly well, too. I think a lot of it has to do with the quality of your competition and what your secondary weapons are. I know I've survived extended periods while having a Heavy Carronade/Flamer Goldfish basically take free shots at me. They could keep popping my balloon, but as long as we were quick on repairs they couldn't finish us off. And Spire can totally do Piercing/Explosive with a Gatling/Heavy Flak combo- as long as you hang back and let the other ship(s) tank, you'll be swatting them out of the sky with no problem.

That's not to say a Pyra or Junker isn't straight-up better in a fair fight, just that you're not 100% useless when using other ships.

With the examples you give you're suggesting that one is not %100 useless when using a Piercing + Explosive combo, with no emphasis on support. The problem doesn't appear to be the ship you use, but Piercing + Explosive is the only combo that makes a ship reliable. The ships that can best exploit Piercing + Explosive reign supreme. That I think is the real problem. A true support setup that relies on giving your ally an edge, and not looking for a kill is just not as effective as outright killing the enemy ship.

[Echoez]

The Junker has way too many upsides with just 2 major weaknesses, its relatively 'slow' speed and weak hull

And its bad vertical acceleration and oversized balloon, not to mention that it can't control the range of an engagement.

Balloon buff solves the problem more than enough I think (also most ships have bad vertical acceleration anyways, so I do not consider that a legit downside, everyone and their mother knows default vertical is not fast enough for anything anyway in the heat of battle no matter which ship). Oversized balloon is just an exaggeration and the same thing goes for all ships with exposed balloons, basically every ship that isn't the Pyra. Balloon size helps the Junker if anything cause the moment you are lower than your enemy they will have to shoot your balloon, giving you a reliable shield. (Don't even bring up the LJ argument cause the Spire would like to have a word with you about 'oversized' balloons.)

I can't control the range of an engagement but it can reliably approach with a gun on the target, so it's half an issue, considering you can out manuver most ships close range cause of the ridiculous turning rate (which defies all laws of physics btw )

[treseritops]

1. I know I've survived extended periods while having a Heavy Carronade/Flamer Goldfish basically take free shots at me. They could keep popping my balloon, but as long as we were quick on repairs they couldn't finish us off.

2.. And Spire can totally do Piercing/Explosive with a Gatling/Heavy Flak combo- as long as you hang back and let the other ship(s) tank, you'll be swatting them out of the sky with no problem.

That's not to say a Pyra or Junker isn't straight-up better in a fair fight, just that you're not 100% useless when using other ships.

1. I think that's a perfect example. A goldfish without its kill ship can never win a match. I've been in games (although not in awhile) where people brought all support ships and after 10min of 0-0 I just quit. That match will never end until an engineer gets bored and forgets to repair the hull. In short, every death match is required to have at least one kill ship per team unless you have extraordinary teamwork which is not as common in a regular pick-up match.

2. But even then it's essentially a support ship where its support role is "killing". It's not the star of the show, it has to have another ship cover it. And so if your teammate goes down you're in trouble, not dead, but you're going to need to be on your toes compared to a pyra or junker.

[Captain Magellan]

I have skipped the whole conversation merely to say that it does not matter what the ship is, merely the load out and the way the captain and crew use them. Squid can kill very easily, in fact, I find a well piloted Squid (Galleon right there with it) to be the most fearsome thing out there. Every ship can kill, every ship can support.

AND WHAT THE FRICK IS THIS THING ABOUT GALLEON BEING SUPPORT? Two Medium weapons and a Light weapon on one side and you say SUPPORT?

[Rainer Zu Fall]

I had good killing results with Galleon, Spire, Squid, Pyramidion, Mobula and Junker so far. Depends on map, gun loadout and teammate thought.

[Echoez]

I have skipped the whole conversation merely to say that it does not matter what the ship is, merely the load out and the way the captain and crew use them. Squid can kill very easily, in fact, I find a well piloted Squid (Galleon right there with it) to be the most fearsome thing out there. Every ship can kill, every ship can support.

AND WHAT THE FRICK IS THIS THING ABOUT GALLEON BEING SUPPORT? Two Medium weapons and a Light weapon on one side and you say SUPPORT?

Let's see..

Crappy manuverability, relatively slow, moving a lot causes your gunners to miss a shitton of shots, has a huge vertical and horizontal profile and is easily shut down by disablers unless you have an ally to take them off of you.

Yeah I think that is classified as support despite the firepower, by itself, the Galleon is easy prey.

and yet again, people are missing the point, it's not about ships, it's about piercing+explosive being the only reliable loadout choice with disables only coming in when you have 'enough' gun slots to afford them which completely screws over a lot of ships and loadout variety.

[Rainer Zu Fall]

and yet again, people are missing the point, it's not about ships, it's about piercing+explosive being the only reliable loadout choice with disables only coming in when you have 'enough' gun slots to afford them which completely screws over a lot of ships and loadout variety.

No, piercing+explosive isn't the only real thing to kill. I run carronades instead of piercing+explosive and use them with the same killing power. You just gotta know when to use what. Lumberjacks can be deadly too, much more reach than a piercing+explosive combo.

[treseritops]

I have skipped the whole conversation merely to say that it does not matter what the ship is, merely the load out and the way the captain and crew use them. Squid can kill very easily, in fact, I find a well piloted Squid (Galleon right there with it) to be the most fearsome thing out there. Every ship can kill, every ship can support.

AND WHAT THE FRICK IS THIS THING ABOUT GALLEON BEING SUPPORT? Two Medium weapons and a Light weapon on one side and you say SUPPORT?

I think the difference is "on paper" vs. "in a normal match" here. On paper a galleon, squid, or goldfish can mount a gatling gun and then use a flak, hwacha, or mortar to finish the job. In reality this tends to be much more difficult and less efficient than using the ship for support (don't worry about making the kill, just disable, or let some other ship take the armor down and you finish them), and less efficient than killing with what I consider a standard "kill ship". 

I don't have hard numbers but it seems like in the dps war the time it takes for a squid or goldfish to turn to their explosive gun would negate any previous advantage, especially if you have good engineers on the enemy ship. And in my experience the galleon has the ability to kill on paper but is so often out maneuvered that it isn't reliable as a killing ship. All you need to do it be higher than the galleon and it's lost all arc.

I mean technically I can eat a steak with a spoon but why would I when there are knives and forks?