I think I like EGG-RLZ.  If someone asks, and I could just say I like Chinese food.

You must only play SP.  Sure, the AI let's you do it all the time.  No so in MP.

Actually, I manage to set off Volatile Nanites every time ONLY because I'm very careful with the timing.

I can't speak for its full power because I'm having issues with Impulse and haven't patched past 1.05 yet, but the thing that strikes me about Barrage is it takes a very long time to deal its damage whereas most cap abilities are basically fire and forget.  So if you know the other guy has a Marza in play, it should be easy enough to counter with an assortment of level1 cap abilities, or just move the fleet out of the way if it looks like he's about to shoot it off.

Marza is the ONLY thing in this game that can wipe a fleet composed of unlimited amounts of frigs and cruisers single handedly.
There are only 4 abilities in the whole game that can save your fleet from being WIPED. Plus, things like ion bolt can be used on the enemy's Akkan so he can't interrupt your own Marza's Barrage.
In other words, Marza is the ONLY thing in this game that REQUIRES the enemy to have a PARTICULAR CAP SHIP present with a PARTICULAR ability taken, prepared and USED WITHIN SECONDS from the moment Marza starts shooting.

As for interrupting things:
- TEC have Ion bolt on Akkan, which is TEC's colonization cap and second most useful altogether, so they are bound to have one nearby.
- Advent has TWO different caps with an ability breaker, Radiance with Detonate Antimatter and Revelation with Reverie, so they have ability disruptions everywhere.

- Vasari on the other hand have what? Marauder. The coolest ship in my opinion, but it is only useful at most 10 times in any game. A Kortul has useful abilities from left to right, Space Whale is sheer awesome if not for the looks and Desolator is the best planet cracker in game. You see 5 Vulkoras' more often than a single Marauder.
So: TEC have an ability breaker on their second best cap ; Advent has two ability breakers
Vasari have their ability breaker on a Marauder, which is arguably the least useful cap in general, even though its abilities have a huge potential which are simply almost never useful.

Which means "Learn to interupt" = lol at Vasari.

As for the comparison:
Phase Missiles Swarm - lol
Missile Barrage - as close to an I-Win button as one may ever get. 3 Marzas with these ARE an I-win button.

That would be.... WRONG. A single Marza can't kill cruisers with MB. Doesn't happen. Weaken them, yes. Kill, no. 

I WISH !! But not really true, and this has been mentioned numerous times. A Marza is immobile while using this ability. You can simply move out of the AoE. No special abilities required, except for possibly paying attention. Simply moving out of the AoE with the most nimble ships in the game is relativley easy, and has been done to me numerous times in LAN games. Multiple Marzas can wipe entire fleets, yes, if they are also immobile or don't have ability interrupters. But I don't really have an mercy for anyone who lets three lvl 6+ Marzas charge his fleet.

The radius of missile barrage is 10000. Most units have a speed from 500-700, with the scout at 1000. Say that a unit only has to cover half that distance to escape, is already pointing the shortest distance out, AND they start at maximum speed. They'll still need need 10 seconds to escape. So even if you catch missile barrage before it fires, your fleet is still taking half of the damage. Good luck winning a battle with every ship at half health.

If your unit isn't moving, and you didn't catch MB within 5 seconds, you're going to take full damage.

bobucles is right. evading missile barrage is nearly impossible once it starts up, you'll take 10-15 seconds of it no matter what you do. you have to pre-emptively dodge the Marza before it gets close enough to start barraging. thats kinda ridiculous, don't you think? to run away at the mere sighting of a level 6 Marza?

If your entire fleet is standing still and in radius, then yes, you'll get a facefull, and you'll loose all your frigates. No argument on that point. But if you micro'd your fleet, softened it up with a wave of SC, charged with HC's, and brought in the FF/LRF's after MB to assist the WOUNDED HC's and undamaged SC in mopping up, you have a one dead cap ship. Not very effective from a TEC standpoint, is it ? A one shot wonder ? Wow, that works great, once or twice a game.

The assertion that somehow nursing a Marza to lvl 6 gives you the ability to waltz around the map with impunity, wiping out fleets on a whim, while your opponents fleets shrivel to nothingness is less then truthful. It just ain't so. I wish it was.

There are so many ways to beat this one specific ability that it isn't even funny. You can break up your fleet into smaller elements, rotating them in/out so the whole fleet isn't in range. You can attack with HC's and use any number of repair units/abilities to offset the MB. SC work pretty damn good, too. This on top of all the anti-channelling stuff, AM drain, etc.

I'm not debating that MB can clear 14 ba-zillion frigates in a specific instance. That instance being all of them mobbing the Marza. Yeah, OK, it can. But, when ANYONE see's a lvl 6+ marza jump in, you KNOW it has MB. You KNOW it has a specific range. And your first impulse is to take everything you have and mob the thing ?! Thats tactics. Thats micro. Thats the game.

Hasn't it been argued in these forums to find maximized strategies and 'abuse the crap out of it' ? That ' skilled players will always find ways of making the most out of their situation' ? Don't spammers and n00bs get hammered mercilessly for not adjusting tactics/units to suit a situation ? And by some of the very people here yelling 'Nerf MB!', mind you. I'd point out the recent cries ( in order, haha ! ) of 'Flak sux!', then 'SC/Carriers are OP'd !!' followed by 'Nerf Flak!'. Both required adjustment in tactics and fleet compostion. None needed adjustment after all, except in terms of player mindset. 

The only concession I'll make is that MB should really have a more... umm..vivid.. animation to alert people it's happening.

Its radiculous to suggest running away from MB.  You know it doesn't work in fleet to fleet combat.  You will probably take at least half of the volleys and have enemy fleets pound on you while you turn your tail.  Your fleet will be hurt very badly if you somehow got lucky.  It is interrupt or take massive damage.  Once again I think the radius is too big.

What a detailed and involved strategy for fighting a single unit. I hope you don't ever have to fight TWO of them! That would be a real mess.

exactly, Bobucles is on target again. 

the entire basis of the argument against Missile Barrage is that it has an undue influence on strategy and tactics. pointing out that it can be countered, with some effort, does nothing to detract from the argument against. the nature of the imbalance with Missile Barrage is that it demands a disproportionate response compared to what it is. its just wrong, its totally inconsistent with every other capital ship ability in the game. 

transitive hit it on the nose

Well, yeah ! But that's why I gave you NUMEROUS ways to do it, so you could fight more than one ! So when I show up with my ultim8 fl33t of d00mz you'll actually have a chance ! 

And exactly the same thing is/has/was said about Flak, SC, etc etc... Anything takes effort to counter. Well, that and the will to do it.

so malice/CB should've never been nerfed? i mean, C'mon, it can be interrupted, moved around, etc etc

I think the biggest difference there is the time for channeling, CB has a shorter time, and so is harder to kite, simply because moving around your fleet until they fire it is not an option. Thus, CB was considered a necessary nerf because it wiped out entire fleets before you knew what was going on. While, admittedly, MB is dificult to see, the fact that the damage is spread out allows for mature fleets to react to it, either moving away some of the ships or moving in some support to assist. While I don't doubt bobuncles numbers, I believe that if you're not watching (assuming full fleet size) your fleet, then you've already lost, and simply watching is all the prevention a mature fleet might need. The game is, ultimately, balancing your micro- and macro- level play, and your primary fleet is a sizeable investment. However, on smaller scales it is ridiculous to think that the player can be everywhere, watching for every threat. I guess it's a huge difference in whether you're playing larger, or smaller maps. Where a goof up might not be the end of you, you can afford to lose a bit more to them, whereas losing 15 ships might constitute half your forces gone, and a re-grouping at the nearest friendly planet.

I'm sure that I didn't properly express my opinion, but, truth be told, it's a sticky situation that goes down to how important you think Cap ships should be. If you're of the opinion that they're just bigger ships with more to throw around and a few abilities, you're probably more apt to think that it should be reduced in power. However, if you think that Cap. ships are freakin star destroyers, and the mere presence of one in a fight should change a losing battle to a route of your enemy, then I'd think you elieve that the Marza is fine, and the other caps should be buffed. Which itself leads to interesting scenarios, like a decently leveled dunov, and all that it would entail.

Marza is the ONLY thing in this game that requires the enemy to constantly babysit their fleet, even if it is 10 times bigger than the marza's support.
AND it requires a specific cap ship with a specific ability on the field and in range to ensure that you take minimal damage.
AND if you don't have that cap, it requires lightning reflexes and knowledge of how ships find paths to ensure that they are only severely damaged instead of dead.

I say, way too much effort one must make to ensure his 20k credit fleet doesn't go puff to one lvl6 cap ship.
And even if it isn't destroyed, it is STILL way too much effort one must make to ensure his fleet isn't all red and killable with a fart.

Anyone who thinks this ability is very fine even if the enemy doesn't have that one specific cap on the field, just count how much damage 3 volleys of MB do to a 120 ship fleet, before the targets turn around and gtfo. No ability in this game has such potential, except safety override protocol which happens to be put on a stationary object. A well positioned marza will always put at least 3 volleys in, unless the enemy fleet is consantly facing the other way - omg a lvl6 marza, run!!1.

Attacking the Marza in waves so you don't expose your whole fleet at once may sound good on paper, but you'll have to realise that the other guy will having more stuff than just that lvl 6 Marza. Sending in your HC first will get them killed by the rest of his fleet because he'll outnumber the HC grossly. He won't even need to use MB then. If you send in your fleet in little chuncks, it'll get crushed in little chuncks at a time. Atacking a large force with a small force is a very ineffecient way of using your units.

For TEC players, using Akkan as a starting cap helps a lot (and seriously, ion bolt is really powerful ability if you know when to use it, not just countering MB.)

Missile Barrage is fine, for the record.

Again: if MB is fine, why did CB + Malice get nerfed? That's a combo which is much harder to pull off (since you need 2 cap ships, not one) and has a much smaller AoE than MB. And pretty much every counter which works against MB also works against CB + Malice. MB is better in pretty much every way, yet you keep arguing that it's balanced?

Again, we're getting mis-information here... It DOESN'T require a specific cap ship ability. You can drain AM, blah, blah, et al...

Three volleys ? How the hell are you letting THREE lvl 6 Marzas get anywhere near you ? You've gotta be kidding. Thats a way late game fleet. I'd think you could scrounge up enough bombers to nuke ONE of them by the time they got close.

That's your argument?  Really?  So I have to worry about dividing and micro-ing multiple smaller fleets, I have to have already built HC's, yadda yadda.  Well let me ask you a simple question.  What did he have to do?  Did he have to tech to HC's and build a substantial amount of them?  Did he have to divide his fleet into smaller fleets and micro them?  Or did he just have to sit there and pick his nose with one finger while pressing MB with another one?

Your argument reminds me of a guy complaining that he has to fight another guy who has a gun.  "There are all kinds of things you can do!" you would say.  "Dodge the instant he pulls the trigger, then charge!  Throw sand in his face when he gets close enough!"  Ridiculous.

No, that's bullshit.  That's what it is.

For those who are interested, see this post:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/345073

FFS, as I said many times (and other players) that those sucky abilities from other caps need buff, not Marza's MB needs nerf.

If Violate Nanite and Cleansing ever work as intended (which they don't at this point) people would not complain about this.

To be honest though, 1 volley of MB won't wipe out a fleet.  The CB+Malice did.  Heck, it even vaporizes low-level caps.

Now, with that said, I don't think the CB+Malice should have been nerfed, as, others have pointed out, it was much harder to achieve.