I was playing Vasari against an Advent player tonight. I had one level 7 Devastator, one Level 5 Devastator, a carrier for repair, approx. 30 of their LRM equivalents (starts with A), 15 or so of their Cobalt equivalents. I was also packing a bunch of cruiser carriers (about 15) in a separate fleet so I could keep them out of trouble. A few of the Kodiak equivalents too, but not very many (had only recently teched these up). I was the most powerful or second most powerful research player, I had all the hull + armor upgrades, and had made it a point to make my own LRMs powerful through the entire Vasari phase tree. I was #1 in the fleet count under Military.

I got absolutely wrecked by a player with 70 Illuminators and a lv1 capital.

Before I had thought that you could simply shred LRMs with fighters - but not today. All my carriers had fighters save two, and the Illuminators just kept on beaming.

I know the Advent are supposed to have good long-range frigates, but this was absolutely ridiculous. By the time I had destroyed roughly a quarter to a fifth of the Illuminators, all three of my caps were gone, the Illuminators had fried my Kodiak equivs, half of my LRM equivs, and a couple of my carriers. By the time half of the enemy fleet was destroyed, my fleet numbers were pretty much 0 (I had sent in reinforcements, but the original fleet was probably destroyed in full).

So maybe Illuminators aren't overpowered in the early game, but I'd ask someone to take a look at them farther down the tech tree. That fleet ended up retreating because someone was attacking it in another system. It was really that bad.