Major and Minor Playstyles

[Grayknight]

I love charts... they're so pretty.

[Spud Nick]

Maenad Ryders: Reactive, Aggressive

Skyborne: Aggressive, Reactive

Team Predators: Aggressive, Control

Clan Clan: Reactive, Control 

[MightyKeb]

Maenad Ryders: Reactive, Aggressive

Skyborne: Aggressive, Reactive

Team Predators: Aggressive, Control

Clan Clan: Reactive, Control

That necro...

Also, Skyborne are Reactive Control. They fly aggressive-reactive builds reactively but if you watch what they do in a typical engagement its more control than anything  Control isnt disable, its just being able to chose who the enemy team focuses (Hint, disable guns help you do this) In addition to that, it may be more accurate to put Control before Reactive on clan clan and possibly other teams to indicate their more dominant style out of the two.

However, if control is only indicated by ships and weapons that can disable or control their range then you are mostly right.

[Spud Nick]

Skyborne tend to favor the  Mobula over other ships. The weapons they choose are often focused more on kill power than disable. That is why I have classified them as aggressive , reactive. Teams that use control builds will use disabling weapons to put one ship out of the fight so they can focus fire on the other target. Control builds also have the ability to split up teams to create  1v1 engagements.

Maenad Ryders have aggressive pilots but favor more reactive builds. Recent matches have shown that they are more reactive than aggressive in there play style. Knowing how each of the pilots fly I think that the reactive style would suit them best. Ryders have some of the best gunners in the game witch allows them to use high skill weapons and ships that need a lot of teamwork.

Neech and myself have always been reactive pilots. We like to use ships that have long range and short range weapons. Our builds will often lack the damage that other reactive teams have because we favor the control style of play. Instead of having one kill ship and one disable ship we have two ships that can disable and kill.

[MightyKeb]

Skyborne tend to favor the  Mobula over other ships. The weapons they choose are often focused more on kill power than disable. That is why I have classified them as aggressive , reactive. Teams that use control builds will use disabling weapons to put one ship out of the fight so they can focus fire on the other target. Control builds also have the ability to split up teams to create  1v1 engagements.

I see. I was referring to the amount of control you could give to skyborne by taking something other than a squid/mob/galleon, but that doesnt fit redria's theory well.


But then again, Mobula is Aggressive-Reactive-Control.

[Spud Nick]

Skyborne tend to favor the  Mobula over other ships. The weapons they choose are often focused more on kill power than disable. That is why I have classified them as aggressive , reactive. Teams that use control builds will use disabling weapons to put one ship out of the fight so they can focus fire on the other target. Control builds also have the ability to split up teams to create  1v1 engagements.

I see. I was referring to the amount of control you could give to skyborne by taking something other than a squid/mob/galleon, but that doesnt fit redria's theory well.


But then again, Mobula is Aggressive-Reactive-Control.

Daniel noticed the same thing about the Mobula. It covers all 3 play styles. Hades Artemis has a reactive quality and can be used for control with all the fire and shatter damage. You can sit back and snipe in the Mobula or you can charge/ram and use close range guns to play more aggressive. The close range guns could ether be used for control (carronades) or for aggressive kill (gat flak)

[MightyKeb]

Skyborne tend to favor the  Mobula over other ships. The weapons they choose are often focused more on kill power than disable. That is why I have classified them as aggressive , reactive. Teams that use control builds will use disabling weapons to put one ship out of the fight so they can focus fire on the other target. Control builds also have the ability to split up teams to create  1v1 engagements.

I see. I was referring to the amount of control you could give to skyborne by taking something other than a squid/mob/galleon, but that doesnt fit redria's theory well.


But then again, Mobula is Aggressive-Reactive-Control.

Daniel noticed the same thing about the Mobula. It covers all 3 play styles. Hades Artemis has a reactive quality and can be used for control with all the fire and shatter damage. You can sit back and snipe in the Mobula or you can charge/ram and use close range guns to play more aggressive. The close range guns could ether be used for control (carronades) or for aggressive kill (gat flak)

And even so, when you're that close without control guns you still have your superior verticals against most ships and about junker level acceleration, whilst being able to decide what part of your ship (hull/balloon) the enemy can fire at with your vertical positioning aswell. I think this was redria's biggest error when he made this thread, his time seemed to be one where mobulas were treated like glass cannons and as such were focused on maximizing firepower. His comprehensive pyramidion guide has also provided one of the more brief descriptions of how to deal with different ships compared to the 6 other summaries, and it can almost be said that he downplayed Mobula's strength considering mobula's and pyra's places in higher levels at the moment.

[Dementio]

The Might of the Mobula, overlooked by people blinded by the Meta of the old.

[redria]

It's been a long time! You all remember the days when a carro-flame pyra could one-shot ram kill a mobula, right? In that time, mobulas were in fact too squishy.

 

Where a ship stands inside ARC can change with balance changes. I would still tend to argue that mobulas should struggle most trying to live as control based on the challenge of maintaining suppressive fire while piloting around obstacles and repairing, but it is certainly a versatile ship.

[Dementio]

Guns can add to the playstyle of ships and give it a new field of options. A Squid, while naturally being aggressive and control with its manouverbility flying around the enemy in close range can turn reactive when you give it a long range gun, which can still be used aggressively.

Having guns for multiple ranges allows for multiple playstyles. A Junker with long range guns can play reactive, but with its limited movement options it can only get so aggressive and can only demonstrate so much control. Forward facing ships profit more from multiple ranges, a long range Pyramidion can be reactive, but as Hillerton demonstrated, can very well be agressive, especially when a Mercury is involved, since it doesn't have arming time.

A Mobula with Hades, double Artemis and double Carro, with one Carro shooting incendiary rounds can be reactive, can easily control the engagement with disable power and its own mobility and can be flown as aggressively as the dear old Metamidion. Although that is cheating, only a handful of people fly actual aggressive ships nowadays, in competitive at least, most of them being Squids or SkBo's Gatling Mobula Wombo Combo.

And I am not saying long range means reactive, but it certainly allows for an easy execution for a reactive playstyle.

Mobulas can still be rammed to death. The difference to now and back then however was that people now are actually, believe it or not, dodging vertically. Sometimes at least.

[redria]

People dodged vertically before, but the pyramidion was nimble enough and had enough armor that those dodges often weren't enough or weren't fast enough.

Don't get me wrong, people have improved a lot with mobulas, but the mobula was not just under appreciated at the time. I won't argue where the mobula is now, but I believe that when I was playing the mobula simply didn't hold up sufficiently in a variety of ranges. Sniper mobula had its time on Dunes, but then dunes is dunes. I wouldn't have brought it to any other map.

I think stamina also probably plays a part in this. Pyra's will use stamina for engaging. I suspect mobula pilots hold it for the dodges. This was not a thing in the old meta.

[Spud Nick]

Aggressive/Control is a good play style too counter Mobulas. A gat/carro pyra or flamer/carro pyra would be a nice counter.

[DrTentacles]

Using Carronades to counter a Mobula entirely depends on a map's height ceiling. Which is one of my main problems with the Mobulas. They are inordinately effective on maps with massive verticallity. And maps vertical space varies wildly.

[Dementio]

Guns can also be countered with guns. I made the mine Mobula purely to counter the influx in Carronades. Reactive counters aggressive, but with Gatling and double Artemis I can still force the the engagement to start, switching to reactive once the enemy makes a move towards me.

Even before the Pyramidion nerf, the Pyramidion had a hard time catching a Mobula, even the Goldfish does and the Goldfish was always more nimble than the Pyramidion and never got a nerf.

I can only remember a handful of times where I ever had trouble with Carronades on a Pyramidion, only the Praetorian's (SPQR) double Pyramidion focus fire and that only on Paritan or the Centurion's (SPQR) double Carronade Pyramidion, because two Carronades wouldn't allow me to use hydrogen the second the balloon was rebuild, because it would instantly die again, but against only one Carronade, hydrogen once the balloon was rebuild on a Mobula will bring you right back up to a decent altitude, which is why I rarely if ever used a Blenderfish against other Mobulas.

[Spud Nick]

Team Highwind: Reactive
Team Highwind primarily uses the Junker and the Galleon in the SCS. The weapons they bring have some control power but the builds they use tend to focus more on reactive DPS than disable/control. I think their style has been very reactive overall. They seem to favor this style over others and it shows with the builds they take and how they fly them.

Sexy Cage Dancers:  Aggressive, Reactive
This is a hard team to pin down. They are still new to the SCS and are still trying to find a team comp that works best for them. Because Grimick is an aggressive pilot, I think an aggressive team comp would suit them best. I labeled them Aggressive, reactive because of the ships they have brought in past events. They tend to bring one aggressive ship and one reactive ship. They also seem to favor kill power over disable power.

The Bards: Reactive, Control
This team has always been very reactive while playing in the SCS. Logicalia will often fly a Galleon and make good use of it's long range fire power. His ally will ether play body guard with a control ship, or support the Galleon with another reactive ship like a Junker or a Mobula. They seem to favor disable power over kill power with the builds they bring.

The Maenad Ryders: Reactive, Aggressive 
The Maenad Ryders have used a reactive team comp for most of the matches they have played in the SCS. Skybox is a very aggressive pilot and Like most Ryder pilots he likes to ram. We saw Skybox take a Pyramidion in the last match of  SCS #96. I think we will see the Maenad Ryders switch to an aggressive play style in the near future. Because this team is Reactive, Aggressive they have the option to play more aggressive if they bring a team comp that suits that play style.

Skyborne: Aggressive, Reactive
This team always has a Mobula in the team comp. They will often bring another Mobula to support it or they will use a control ship like a Goldfish or Squid to be the body Guard. Skyborne are more aggressive than other reactive teams. They will close distance and use short range weapons to secure the 5 kills needed for victory. This is why I have labeled them Aggressive, Reactive. They use reactive builds and fly them aggressively.

Potato Predators: Aggressive, Control
This team will always use a control ship and a aggressive ship. The control ship disables and distracts the enemy until the aggressive ship can get a kill. Sometimes they will bring more disable power instead of kill power so they can maintain control throughout the match.