View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0002711 | AI War 1 / Classic | Suggestion - Balance Tweaks | Jan 30, 2011 7:02 pm | Feb 4, 2011 11:36 am | |
| Reporter | Sunshine | Assigned To | |||
| Status | new | Resolution | open | ||
| Product Version | 5.000 | ||||
| Summary | 0002711: Black Widow Golem weak compared to others | ||||
| Description | Black Widow golems are supposed to be crowd control, but with the changes to how tractor beams work now that armor is used, they're problematic. Before, units in tractor beams could always shoot at the tractor beam (even if it's out of range) with a 5% hit chance I think it was. Now I believe a tractored unit can always hit the tractor beam. That makes it so that the 100 tractored units get a huge range boost against the golem - which is a problem if the units are bombers. I think Black Widow golems could easily use a health boost, if not a minor damage boost as well. Sure, they're long range, but they start taking damage right away if you accidentally tractor up a mob of enemy units, and they don't have nearly the staying power of the other main combat golems. HP doesn't matter for hive golems because they just dump-and-run, botnet golems instakill 40 reclaimable ships at a time so health is less of an issue (since things don't get to shoot back very much), and Armored Golems have 7.5x the health of Black Widow golems, as well as having 2.5 million DPS compared to Black Widow's 1.5 million DPS (though this is less an issue because of number of shots + engine damage). Suggest doubling Black Widow health - there have been numerous instances where I've thrown a black widow golem into a large fleet battle and have almost instantly had to retreat it because it's tractored up a large group of mk3 bombers, which can do critical damage to it with a single volley and which target the golem by default because none of my other ships are in range yet. Alternatively, to make this golem more user-friendly/still maintain its bonus of "does not self-damage when attacking" that it used to have, remove attrition from Black Widow golems only. This would make it less of a resource hog and more of a useful long-term consideration even if it does end up a little on the weak side in battle. Though, with the "does not self-attrition when low power" ability, the actual utility of doing this would be pretty low. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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I disagree. The black widow golems are quite powerful if used wisely. For example: My favorite mechanic with them is to go "fishing." When I'm ready to break through to a new AI world that's had time to build up a strong defense or stalking force, I'll position my deathfleet on my side of the wormhole, then run the black widow back and forth through the wormhole, bringing 100 ships to their death each trip. Stop and repair occasionally, and you can clear a wormhole with no losses. They may be a bit weak in pitched fleet battles, but their utility power makes them a great support ship. |
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Perhaps one solution would be to reduce attack strength of tractored units, to comprimise between the new philosophy of attacks never missing, and the old age of tractored units being nearly helpless. |
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I think the black widow is currently one of the weakest golems in raw attack power but quite fine when used as a support ship. I didn't use it on my own much during play, so I cannot talk about that but in combination with a botnet or armored golem or a fleet it can do quite some damage. In my last game, it did 4k kills compared to 6k of the armored, 8k of the botnet one and 16k of the cursed one (unlimited range rocks :D). Taking into account its engine damage and tractors, I think this is quite fine. I cannot tell about its health though because during most of the game it was protected by shield bearers, so I didn't feel the effect of the tractor changes. |
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The problem with tweaking this golem is that you could make it too powerful too easily. I also think your analysis is a tad weak imo. Your charging in with a golem on its own and finding out that 100s of bombers are hurting it badly. Isn't that kind of the point that bombers would kill golems rather easily? And if its in range before the rest of the ships, just hold it back and then charge in. I'm going to say no on this one myself. Tractors + engine damage + no self-damage + quite a bit of firepower needs to have a weakness somewhere. And it says in the tool tip that its health is not particularly strong in that area. Maybe a slight health increase to make up for the tractor changes, but doubling it is a bit much in this case. |
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I'm not charging the golem in alone - it's pretty difficult to manage a large fleet battle of a couple thousand ships and continuously kite your golem out of tractor range so that it doesn't suck up any little ships. Also, none of the golems do self-damage-on-attack anymore, they all have attrition (including Black Widow). I'm not going to argue that tractors + engine damage + quite a bit of firepower isn't powerful, but I haven't found that it works well with black widow golems having as few hitpoints as they have at later stages of the game (or early game on higher difficulties). They'll do a decent bit of engine damage, but it takes a while for a black widow golem to make any appreciable dent in an enemy fleet upwards of 1000 ships. And the Black Widow doesn't have the staying power to be able to stick around to make a decent dent in a large fleet of enemy ships, unlike the other golems (barring Artillery, which is a special case), which each have decent potential against large fleets. I feel like Black Widow is relegated to patrolling to deal with low-size enemy incursions, and doesn't add much to large fleet battles. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 30, 2011 7:02 pm | Sunshine | New Issue | |
| Jan 31, 2011 11:37 am | vinco | Note Added: 0009895 | |
| Jan 31, 2011 1:24 pm | Prezombie | Note Added: 0009898 | |
| Jan 31, 2011 7:21 pm | Burnstreet | Note Added: 0009904 | |
| Feb 1, 2011 12:33 am | kingisaaclinksr | Note Added: 0009905 | |
| Feb 4, 2011 11:36 am | Sunshine | Note Added: 0010014 |
