First of all I thank you Unding for the following recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U7joOoFoN8

I assure you that what you see here is the abuse you get for playing with every top substrate player. Let's break this down:

1 - PHC: two node start, same build order, two workers one building radioactive extractors one building metal ones and tech. The worker that builds the radioactive goes to build factory/assembly SUB: same start as above

notes: nothing special about it

2- PHC: brute, archer, archer, medic proceede to cap after fast starting the first 3 units, one worker is commisioned to tech buiding SUB: dominator, martyr, martyr, cruiser, one worker goes to tech

notes: First major imbalance! sub is allowed to build air fighters and drone cruiser without any metal investment while phc has to invest in each tech branch. As you can see dominators arrive when the phc has two squads of brutes, two archers and 1 medic. dominators have no counters and it is very important to note, that if a sub player was at the receiving end he would just build some t1 sky cleanser and end this.

3- PHC: 1 worker continues to tech, but the radioactive income is crippled. SUB: proceedes to clear all the nearby nodes with two martyrs and one drone cruiser readily available from the same T1 building, while finishing up the gate tech

notes: assembly functionality basically hands over the game to substrate that can freely macro and from this point on, if the macro is corect, sustrate should autowin

4- PHC: caps two metal nodes while strugling to build an AA and an armory, but has too low radioactive income SUB: hapily macroing and capping while having total air superiority, gate finishes and two avatars are spawned at the phc node.

note: two avatars are deployed on the radioactive node and begin jump starting an anihilator turret. It is important to note that PHC has all the troops massed for defending operations, that means two brutes 4 archers and 1 medic, that is all what 1 factory has produced until that point. They all get murdered, avatars are fine anihilator turrets is done and no radioactive income means armory cannot be completed.

Conclusion: this was all made possible but design, not by skill, because sub player was able to alternate building air, with tier 1, with cruisers while phc didn't have the required income to build all the logistic necessary to have acces to t2 and air.

5- phc: allmost all the nodes have no extractors, radoactive is lost, I think I have completed another factory and most importantly I have the tech for incursion. Sub: two avatars sitting on my radioactive node, a 3th one deployed on the metal node, basically it's gg

note: incursion comes into play, they proceed and get almost pummeled by two avatars that had the option to run at any time and create even more havoc. they stayed and killed all my troops save a nemesis with the help of the turret and air dominators.

Conclusion: avatar still put a very good show, the only thing that lead to their demise was a nemesis that cannot one shot them, has a huge cost and dies 1 v 1 vs avatar and dies in 2 seconds if a mauler looks at it.

The imbalance is spread to the unit level and tier level, basically whatever phc has, sub can do better. T1:

ARCHER VS MARTYRS: martyrs are very efficient compared to archer, one martyr squad can clear a node, an archer dies horribly. martyrs are equivalent to both brutes and archers at the same time

BRUTES vs REAPER: No contest here, reaper with capacitators add to the offesive values of substrate making them even deadly in t1 spam

MEDIC vs CAPACITATORS: medics win no contest, it;s the only advantage PHC has The only edge of phc remains the medic, but because of the current meta, PHC cannot beat T1 vs T1, they get demolished and the single combo that works are mass medics with zeus, they can surpise a sub player but cannot kill him. Don't forget that sub regenerates shields and they will receive a medic unit that recharges shields. From that point they can outright kill PHC with T1 spam T2.

ZEUS VS MAULER. No contest here, mauler is tier 3 can kill anything in two seconds

ARTEMIS VS DESTRUCTORS. Artemis win and is the only unit in PHC arsenal, besides ZEUS that cand deal with mass T1 and can use radar as artilery. Very usefull unit. Destructors are not build because they are redundant and Maulers can do whatever they do, but better

APPOLO vs DRONE HIVE: Drone hive hands down. If you get cought without an apollo you just die, anything dies to drone swarm. Drone HIVE can also kill AIR!!!! very big advantage

NEMESIS vs MAULER: Mauler is king and as long as one can go in the cruiser backlines anything that PHC has dies. Nemesis has a very low firing rate and is very underwhelming for what it does. I really dont think two nemesis can one shot one mauler, The worst part about nemesis is that it cannot oneshot avatar and dies to avatar 1 v 1. Add on top of that that cruisers can be build by substrate from the same tier 1 building, so PHC is in a very bad position.

AVENGER: he just ads to the injury, he can be massproduced and can outnumber PHC cruisers 3 to 1. very good cost, very good efficiency, build 5 of them in the beginning of the game along with a drone cruiser and watch phc die. just dont enter in fights where sentinel cannons are deployed

AIR: sub air can be buld from the same T1 bulding and we have

PUNISHER vs HADES contest:

Hades: good for a driveby he has some efficiency as long as it is alligned to the target. Has a very slow animation visual, that makes him pretty much useless in small numbers, they could shine in large numbers in carpet bombing missions. if you want to laugh send Hades to kill dreads, it was a brainfart design that they should even atempt to do this with those plasmas and if the dread is on the move, things can get hillarious.

Punisher: the king of bombers, you just shift click a path and he destroys all. The even better part is that he can snipe workers and a squad if theese babies can kill all phc economy if properly used. Also watch 5 of them wreck a dread, they stay on target and pummel him down. As you can see, substrate has anything that phc but better.

I would have expected more specialization from PHC, in terms of ok, you build an armory specialized on T2 cruisers, that should have an edge of what they do. As it is now, the bigest superweapon that PHC has is the sentinel cannon. it;s the only thying that can stop substrate T2. PHC is forced to turtle, if it has no stationary defense it dies to the better units of substrate in mid game and in late game may have the upper hand with dreads and EMP, but still can get zerged if the SUB is smart. A half decent substrate player should not lose any game played vs PHC on equal skill level.

I think further analysys about balance is required and I really hope a dev will give us feedback. I will post this on both forums.