Annatar, I can deal with those afore mentioned other combos with either more frigates, or more capitals. Or the right choices of either.

The Dunov is so far shrugging off all combinations but itself!

3 Antoraks can stop 3 capitals dead: Go with LRMs or Cobalts or Kodiaks, numbers will defeat them, unlike the Dunovs.

3 Sova's could be countered with a Kol, a Dunov, and perhaps Flak, LRM, or even Marza. Tough but possible.

The Vasari Battleships will die to equal numbers of Marzas or Desolators.

They are powerful thats fine, but they have weaknesses, the Dunov's only weakness in a straight combat is that they are garbage trucks

This is a gameplay balance beta, if we don't report what we think Is not balanced, what was the point? To pat them on the back and smile?

Strattegi makes a good point, but running through systems and looking for magnetic clouds isnt going to work against competent players (assuming the map allows for anything but magnetic storms haha) And when it comes time to Attack you wont have that option.

They can also keep each other alive by juggling phase out hulls, spreading out any possible spikes 3 ways (and in case of missile frigs, negating them completely) for as long as antimatter holds. Same as the Dunovs, really.



If they can be caught!



Or will they? They get some insane shield regen, a passive to disable abilities and drain antimatter with attacks and a hefty weapon fire rate boost. Desolators have nothing if phase missile swarm is disabled/no antimatter to fire with, Marzas have nothing comparable either.

The Dunovs have weaknesses too! Anything that goes through shields (planet sucker, phase missiles) screw them completely. Having to jump drains their antimatter (as Strattegi pointed out) and this whole tactic relies heavily on antimatter. They can still be overwhelmed with enough ships. They can be ion bolted, yadda yadda. They can't actually break through any reasonable defenses..

Reporting balance issues is fine, but you have to consider everything, not just one scenario. Hell, catch those Dunovs in a magnetic cloud, and then watch them drop like flies! Not every way to deal with a situation has to be with brute force and matching fleet point numbers.

And to add, your proposed change would actually destroy their 'value' much more than tweaking with antimatter consumption/cooldown, simply because they would be support ships that can't support themselves. Right now, what do you do when you see a Kol and a Dunov? You kill the Dunov first. If you see a Kol and 2 Dunovs, the target isn't as clear, but you should still go for the Dunovs (Kol can get 2 regens, each Dunov can only get 1). What if Dunovs wouldn't be able to target themselves? Everyone would just pop the Dunovs with spikes ASAP, and you may as well not even bother bringing them because they would never get a chance to support *anything* because they would be helpless to support each other and blown out of the sky first.

Unlike phase-out the Dunovs get to continue firing while they are regenning, whereas your phase-out solution reduces A. firepower and B. mobility - a serious risk for the advantage.

I'm sorry that we are not discussing every possibility in one thread, but I havn't consistently seen people using 3 Sovas or 3 Antoraks, I have noticed more and more the Dunov combo, because it isn't Nearly as weak as the other extremes. The phase missiles dont bypass enough to make a serious effect, remember my first post?

Tech Level 3 (all techs) 200 FP
Desolator Level 4
Desolator Level 3
Carrier Level 3 (for the heal and to keep those Dunov's from having bombers)
12 Vasari Missile Frigates

Tech Level 3 (all techs) 160 FP
Dunov Level 4
3 More Dunovs at Level 3

Couldn't kill a Single Dunov, came close, but couldn't quite get there. That is ridiculous that a tailored fleet with more fleet supply couldn't kill ONE enemy ship. How much more Phase Missile Ships do I need? Like I said I'm betting 4 Desolators might be able to deal with 3 Dunovs.

The Marza by the way will really hurt those battleships, as their fire power is distributed to the sides and such, the Marza is entirely upfront with its firepower, I think you will find the Marza is a good anti-capitalship ship. The V-Battleship isn't much different than a Kol, and the Kol will also be generally creamed by a Marza. But that is fine I'm not complaining about that, its as it should be.

Frankly If you are bringing 2 Dunovs to a fight with another capital and you specifically never use the regen on each other, I don't think you will have nearly as much difficulty as you are describing. You could always keep your 2 dunovs back a bit and throw the Kol or what have you forward, with a screen of ships with it, anyone racing in to get at the Dunovs will face maximum enemy fire power/DPS and then start to be hit in the rear, making them at a serious disadvantage once you finish with a single Dunov. Frankly that is what a support ships weakness is supposed to be- that it needs protection and proper placement, Two Dunovs don't need that just fly them forward and huck em at the enemy. As long as you are moderately micro-ing their regen you can do that.

Whatever, increase the anti-matter and cooldown, whatever they think is best, as long as it works to Normalize the effectiveness of multi-dunovs

Okay, like Gauntlet said, the cat is out of the bag. I am noticing more and more players using my strategy.

As for what Gauntlet is saying, believe it. We have done so many weapon/ship tactical tests now, you can trust our results. I don't think anybody has run as many tests as Gauntlet and myself (besides the dev team, of course).

When fleet supply is factored in, the Dunovs CANNOT be beaten by ANY OTHER equal force (unless they are Dunovs as well). Hell, it usually requires 2x as much fleet supply worth of ships to do the trick.

Of course, once you reach the mid game stage, the DUnov combos don't really make as much diff anymore. When massive firepower is focused on cap ships and they die in under 4 seconds, the shield recharge doesn't do a hell of a lot. It is just the surviving against Dunovs until that middle stage that is difficult.

My suggestion in the other thread was to
1. Reduce the amount healed when a Dunov regenned another Dunov. Perhaps 60% of the original value, they would have to spend more antimatter that way and could be more easily overpowered by masses of enemies.

Other solutions:
2. Reduce shield mitigation of the target to 0% upon receiving the shield boost, restoring itself over time or when taking damage as usual. Would then require the target to withdraw or lose its extra shields more quickly. Currently they are at about 60% mitigation when given about 1000 extra shield points, equalling 2500 extra hit points.
3. Let the shield restore take a couple of seconds. Disable the shields of the target while powering them up. This allows tearing down the hit points in the meantime, and again will require the ship to withdraw or face severe damage.
4. Reduce the shields of the Dunov and give them additional hit points instead.

I think I would prefer solution 1 or 2.

Well they could simply stop Dunovs from restoring shields to each other. It could be explained away that doing so fries the special Shield Restore Emitters in both Dunovs and that is why they can't restore each others shields.

But see above for how that pretty much kills the usefulness of Dunovs. They still need to be fairly close to use the ability, and if they can't restore each other's they'll just get priority targeted because nobody in their right mind would leave such a defenseless ship alive long enough to regen other ships' shields

You go from (in theory) having a ship that's too powerful in groups, to a ship that's for the most part useless in groups against anyone who has the common sense to realize that even 5 Dunovs won't be able to do anything to each others' shields, while they can keep that Kol alive for eternity If the nerf bat is destined to bonk the Dunov, that would be too extreme.

Hahahahaha, you didn't read everything above did you?

EDIT: That was at Paradoxnt (you beat me to it Annatar)

I don't think the negative is as bad as you think it is, and 5 Dunovs should suck in comparison to two Dunov's and 3 of anything else. Thats how they should end up being, stuck in the support role.

Right now they are the star player because 5 Dunov's can't be killed by anything of equal value other than 5 Dunovs. That isn't exactly favoring balanced fleet composition.

right now this so called "imbalance" is no less a myth than beta 5. wait until more people (with far more divergent strategies) attempt this before you start crying wolf, then begin shooting.

Schod has a point. We still have time to test this out further in standard multiplayer games. We have a bit of time before the devs have to start production.

Weve been testing these dunov combos versus fleets since beta 3, Ron originally mentioned this too a looong time ago.

Instead of 2 lines of dismasal go test it. 2 Dunovs Versus any equal supply of fleet supply, and both forces controlled by humans. You will see what we mean. I think at the end of the day, I've played too much to just 'cry wolf' for nothing. The game has a wonderful balance overall, This is so far the only thing that I've seen that is glaringly wrong.

That and well, Being able to exceed fleet supply by hundreds with the Dark Fleet lol, but thats more of a bug I assume.


I'll remember to wait for more people to play before I give feedback on a possible imbalance in a public pre-release game play Beta. That certainly sounds best alright. You are shooting down arguments with nothing more than a remark, using the word 'myth' to invalidate legitmate concerns.

Sure those concerns may be wrong, but they are presented in a legitamate and reasonable debate. You on the other hand use a simple word and sentence, address no specifics and simply 'wave away' everyone else's views.

His point doesn't sound as if we have more time to test and report, its that we should just ignore it and somehow it will be proven not a problem in time.


Special Thank You to Annatar for being taking the time to make an informed agrument.

Why don't we repeat every test and then some tonight Paradoxnt and post a replay.

I'm just trying to make sure that when the powers-that-be read over this, they see discussions in the scope of the whole picture, not a limited scenario. The way I see it, "No, you're wrong" types of arguments don't really help anything because they don't make anything any clearer, other than one person's opinion. That's why I was pretty much throwing everything out there, so that the Dunovs' survivability trick can be considered along with a bunch of other nifty things you can do with capitals.

At the end of the day, I'm not one to cry over nerfs (or lack thereof), my goal is to just make sure all angles of the issue are discussed to help the devs with the thought process a bit

I've already shown with MUCH support that this worry is nearly a complete invalidity. I'm just saying that many of the opposers to Thrawn's belief in beta 5 (and consequent dismissals) are turning around and crying "unb4llenc3d!!!" to the devs with minimal support.

its the noobish balance complaints that I knew were never going to stay away.

Well I suppose my original comment comes off strong, I just meant the particular choices mentioned don't work too well.

At any rate, that is the point, thats why I don't mind going back and forth with you, thats why we don't devolve into the Vasari drama, because we are both taking the time to make a rational argument. Its a good thing.

Even if one of us has to be wrong at the end of the day   

people get a little carried away on these forums, jumping into ideas before theres any solid proof that theres some issue. yes, I admit that there might be a problem, but two pairs of two people testing both the duh-stupid and the ... (we have no clue what they are) strategies is just pointless, certainly isnt a means for saying "BROKENZ!!!"

We have every clue what they are, I've described them In detail!

You don't even read the whole posts do you?

Seriously, you must be on a debate team, its the only way you would know how to use every form of invalid argumentation there is. Regular untrained individuals wouldn't make so many mistakes, and uneducated people wouldn't know how to use such bad arguments so well. Maybe Im exagerating but its impressive.

No one screamed 'Brokenz' no one screamed at all. The only person who consistently uses alarmist, insulting, and irrational statements... Is You, again and again and again.

So testing for months with different ships and avoiding variables isn't solid proof... okay, fair enough, you can't take our word for it. So why not just go and test it yourself? Better Yet Ill get to work on that replay.

Is there a recording of this triple Dunov strategy? Wouldn't a recording or a save game go a long way in solving this debate? Then someone could prove or disprove the argument.

Yeah a replay would be nice

Gaunt your theory is all very nice, but I've not heard yet of one person using a decent strategy to counter the T-Ds in practice. come back with some better evidence (a replay! loverly) and then maybe we might consider your point valid. until then you're the vast minority against those who dont believe theres an issue, and those who arent sure one way or another.

This thread is absurd.

If someone can't beat two dunovs with a marauder and anything else, they are really really stupid. Light frigates, carriers, hell, planet bombers can probably do it. Just phase out one dunov and kill the other one with nothing to regen and no one to regen it. An equal number of evacuators will kill both dunovs with their shields at full. They have ample antimatter to chew through the entire hull just fine. Against a nice "little" frigate army, ok, point, dunovs last a really long time when micromanaged. They do dick for damage, but they do last a long time.

I would like to see a change to them, the shield restore would work better on an area effect setting with a lower dosage. That way it would be a better support ability with good autocast use and not be cornball for capital ship fleets. This is specifically because of micromanagement though, not because they are some invincible ship. You're supposed to be scouting the enemy army. If some tard is building dunovs, either match him with your own and spank his ass, spam missile frigates and spank his ass, or use the even better vasari counters and either disable or ignore his shield boosting capabilities. If you get surprised by two dunovs and you've got a kol and 8 light frigates, you deserve to lose.

You're trying to make a point that dunovs are a wee bit specific in requirements to kill them. That horseshit about obvious and devastating counters not working just makes you look like tards.

While I see the point you're making, psychoak, their argument is about 3 Dunovs. Which does increase the complexity of the situation (and keep it increasing as you add more Dunovs) since now you need to deal with 2 extras while killing one, but (especially in the case of the Antorak) it should still be quite doable. An extra shield restore (2 restores instead of 1) also manages to keep up with a larger number of LRMs and buying the Dunovs more time to do (what little) damage they do.

In short.. we do need a replay

The Dunovs are only useful micromanaged, the added complexity is on both sides. It's not exactly a problem for just the reciever. Two dunovs are just 120 fleet points instead of 80. You could neutralize two at once for a short period of time and kill the third easy without even using a second marauder.

exactly how would you suggest using the phase out ability, for the replay I will aim to make I want to use the strategy you prefer.

So-

Phase out the same Dunov/s constantly, or phase out differing ones, or what?

As far as I can understand, the suggested way for the Antorak is to phase out all other than one Dunov, which is to be constantly attacked to destroy it while the others are phased out.

My expectations to this is that the Dunovs will be able to sneak in a restore occasionally, or the Antorak will have to spend its antimatter fairly quickly to keep them constantly phased out. I believe it will run out of antimatter way before the ship is dead because it will take at least 5000 hitpoints of damage to take it out due to mitigation and constant repairs.