My updated thoughts on the Advent titans

Last week when the false release of .75 happened I posted up my initial thoughts on the Advent titans here: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/420898

 

Since then my thoughts have evolved a bit as I've played more advent games since the *offical* release of .76.  This time around, rather then going over every ability I'm going to focus on the overall issues with these titans and possible solutions.  So without more ado:

 

The Eradica(Advent Rebel Titan):

Problems:

problem 1: The Eradica's biggest problem(as most people know) is it's level 6 ablity.  It requires the loss of a titan to do anything, and has zero synergy with Purification(no point healing a ship that's going to die regardless and is invulnerable until death).  

problem 2: The Aura range on Strength of the Fallen is impractically short.  This greatly limits fleet mobility and the potential for effective micro of forces.

problem 3: One other seldom discussed issue is that once it loses it's retinue of supporting frigates the Eradica essentially loses 2 of it's abilities, and yet the Eradica has no means of protecting it's fleet.  This last issue though I think I'll reserve judgement on until they actually get the "return of the fallen" & "Reanimation" technologies working.

 

Solutions:  

problem 1: This Issue could be fixed by simply having it be activatable with a 150-180 second cooldown, perhaps reducing duration to 30-45 seconds.  A ton of people have suggested this change, so hopefully it will happen.  Also it would be nice if this ability increased the Eradica's weapon cooldowns as well(30-50% increase rate of fire  would be plenty), being that a decent part of it's threat comes from basic weapon attacks. 

Alternative solution:  In addition to the current effect, allied frigates destroyed near Eradica have a 15/30% chance of reviving at eradica's location

 This would add a great deal of usefulness to the current ability(it would basically be a passive version of the discord's level 6 ability with better control over the damage & some utility due to 15 seconds of capitalship preservation).  IF this were too strong capitalships could easily be removed from the effects(only extends life of nearby frigates or eradica that die).

problem 2: pretty straightforward, extend the radius of Strength of the Fallen to maybe 3000-4000.  Also units sacrificed with purification should always proc Strength of the Fallen, regardless of range 

problem 3: The alternate solution to problem 1 would certainly help with this as destroying Eradica's supporting fleet without first destroying it would become much more difficult.

 

 

The Coronata(Advent Lotalist Titan):

Problems:

This titan is currently probably the weakest titan.  Suppression Aura is strong, but that's about it.

problem 1: Subjugating Assault needs to do something when attacking capital-ships.  As it stands the enemy can just focus on carrier fleets(all the carriers of course safely parked on the other side of the gravity well ready to jump away if any trouble arises), using only cap-ships/titans as a fronline.  this is a decent strategy in general as you want to avoid feeding the enemy titan, and use of these sort of tactics basically nullify the benefit of any skill points put in subjugating assault.

problem 2: Subjugating Assault is unreliable and drinks AM way too fast. Sometime you get ships almost instantly, other times you waste AM for 20-30 seconds without a single conversion.  Regardless this ability drinks AM way too fast.  A smaller concern is that even when this ability does steal a ship, the ship often is nearly dead.  Regardlessonsidering so many titans can positively shred large fleets of frigates, Coronata's ability to maybe steal 3-5 frigates(many of which are probably heavily wounded when stolen) over the course of a large late game battle seems a pretty small impact

problem 3: Unity Mass feels a bit underwhelming.  It's basically a much shorter range version of the Ragnarov's snipe with 2-3x the cooldown that potentially does maybe 15-20% more damage and requires a large fleet  to do so(which in long late game fights where frigate survivability is abysmal may not be reliable).  This is probably the lowest priority problem however as Unity mass may feel overwhelming by comparison to snipe, but it is still already useful.

problem 4: Well this one is primarily only a super-lategame concern, but as a support-titan the Coronata needs to be able to protect it's fleet, but can do very little to mitigate the effects of massed bombers(since suppression doesn't reduce the damage of strikecraft).  This means it's retinue is basically about as vulnerable to massed bombers as fleets in trinity are.   That said ti seems like a fairly major oversight that likely the single most dangerous form of weapons-damage(bombers) happens to be the only thing coronata can't protect it's fleet against .

 

Solutions:  

problem 1: Simply put this ability needs a secondary effect for attacks against enemy capital ships.  I think a chance per attack to drain some AM from the damaged enemy(similar to the Kortul) would fit the bill perfectly(and go well with the Coronata's role as a support-titan)

problem 2: In it's current form a simple solution to the overly high AM costs would be to have AM only drained on a successful conversion(maybe increase the AM cost from 6/5/4/3 to 14/12/10/8).  For reliability I think it may be nice just to increase the activation chance, perhaps having the conversion chance scale to the rank of the ability. A more complicated method to increase reliability may be nice(such as the conversion chance getting higher the longer coronata attacks the target), but simply increasing the chance would likely do the job well enough

problem 3: I'd rather not just see a damage buff.  the coronata is supposed to be about utility & support rather then raw damage potential.  The two methods I see are to either add some sort of debuff to the targeted enemy(perhaps disable the target's abilities or reduce it's max shield mitigation?) or alternatively to grant some bonus to all allied ships that take part in the Unity mass(perhaps regenerate some shields, or hull?).   Again though as stated in the problem, this is likely the lowest priority issue.

problem 4:  While at first I was hesitant to make this suggestion, the more I think about it the more I think the best solution is simply to make the weapons damage reduction(but not the slow) apply to strikecraft as well as frigates/capitital ships.  That way coronata could mitigate 40% of bomber damage.  The slow certainly shouldn't be applied to strikecraft(the synergy with telekinetic push would be too great).    That said, as a support titan I think it's reasonable for coronata to be able to apply it's damage debuff to all types of fleet compositions rather then the ability only really debuffing the damage of non-carrier fleets(a titan should be consistent).

 



Conclusion:


Anyway, I definitely think the Advent titans are stronger(and have less issues) then my original reaction a week ago(as you may see in my previous post which highlighted many more "issues").  That said, they definitely need a bit of work(mostly on the Eradica).


Anyway, please post your own thoughts on these new titans!


 

 

 

 

16,436 views 16 replies
Reply #1 Top

I really do feel as though it is strange that the TLT, a tank, does more base damage than the ART, which is supposed to be more combat oriented and less defense. This issue should be addressed.

Reply #2 Top

 I also strongly agree that the Eradica should be powered up as it is designed to be an attacker it even says so on the info card lol

Reply #3 Top

I posted this idea for the Eradica's level 6 ability in another thread, but I think it got a little lost so I'll repeat it here. 

I'm not positive this can be done, but my suggestion is to have the ability be an activated one, but only after the titan has reached a certain health threshold (say 1500). Then, similarly to what the OP said, have it cost somewhere around 200 AM, have a decent cooldown, and buff ability recharge rate, AM recharge rate, and weapon damage, and render the titan invincible for 25-30 seconds. This keeps the general spirit of the ability and justifies it being very strong, seeing as how the titan is in dire straits health-wise. 

I like the idea behind the ability, it fits with the general sacrifice theme of the rebels. In actual play though, it doesn't end up working very well. I like my idea (not just because it's mine  ;P ) but because it somewhat keeps the spirit of the idea intact. Thoughts?

Reply #4 Top

Quoting JJBuck2, reply 3
I posted this idea for the Eradica's level 6 ability in another thread, but I think it got a little lost so I'll repeat it here. 

I'm not positive this can be done, but my suggestion is to have the ability be an activated one, but only after the titan has reached a certain health threshold (say 1500). Then, similarly to what the OP said, have it cost somewhere around 200 AM, have a decent cooldown, and buff ability recharge rate, AM recharge rate, and weapon damage, and render the titan invincible for 25-30 seconds. This keeps the general spirit of the ability and justifies it being very strong, seeing as how the titan is in dire straits health-wise. 

I like the idea behind the ability, it fits with the general sacrifice theme of the rebels. In actual play though, it doesn't end up working very well. I like my idea (not just because it's mine  ) but because it somewhat keeps the spirit of the idea intact. Thoughts?

 

i agree with this and the ops solution for the most part, the eradica needs to be able to use its heal while the invulrability is active, then the player can make the choice of doing his last stand and bringing down everything in a blaze of glory or buying enough time to gtfo out of the combat zone. 

 

more damage wouldn't hurt, and i agree with the range increase for Strength of the fallen's range so that its longer then its heal at lvl 1 that way if you sacrifice a ship you are guaranteed to get the extra damage as well

  

Reply #5 Top

Is it possible to add an effect of Coronata's aura to something like "Aura of Air Suppression"? Like slow down the movement of strikecrafts, or increase the damage of any weapons that can shoot at strikecrafts.

 

I think that may be more reasonable to just only suppress the damage of ships, and it can be somewhat useful to counter the carrier kites.

Reply #6 Top

Adding a buff to an ability is really easy.  Just make a buff on the SC themselves that increases damage received.

Reply #7 Top

Also I just thought of an interesting alternate way of buffing the level 6 ability of the Eradica.  Well perhaps hard to balance, but certainly an interesting method:

 

 

What if it remained passive(as it is now), but also passively applied a reduced version of it's effect to nearby allied frigates that are destroyed(perhaps a 3500-400km aura)- allows them to keep fighting for maybe 15 seconds after being destroyed with a damage boost damage bonus. so perhaps something like:

 

Unyielding Will: Whenever an allied frigate would be destroyed within 4000 KM of the Eradica, that ship becomes invulnerable for 15 seconds before being destroyed during which time the ship's weapon systems do 20/40% extra damage.  Additionally when the Eradica it's self is destroyed it likewise becomes invulnerable for 60 seconds before beign destroyed; during this period the Eradica gains + 75/150% ability cooldown rate and +500/1000% AM regeneration.

 

 It would be like a better controlled(since you can give focus fire commands) passive version of the discord's level 6 ability.

 

It would also give the ability some benefit without killing the Eradica(it lets destroyed allied frigates keep fighting as long as it's around) as well as give a perhaps more persuasive reason then Strength of the Fallen to not just ignore the eradica in favor of killing it's fleet.

 

 

 

Numerical estimation of it's effects:

a Destra Crusader that lives an extra 15 seconds with +20% damage with all plasma research upgrades will deal 18*1.3*1.15*15*1.2=484 extra damage.  With no weapons upgrade researches it would be 18*1.2*15=324 damage

A corvette that lives an extra 15 seconds w/ +20% damage and all weapons research upgrades will deal 7*1.3*1.2*15=163 with it's non-PD weapons.  With no weapons upgrade research it would be 7*15*1.2=126

A disciple that lives an extra 15 seconds w/ +20% damage and all weapons research upgrades will deal 8*1.3*1.2*15=187 .  With no weapons upgrade research it would be 7*15*1.2=144

An Illuminator that lives an extra 15 seconds w/ +20% damage and all weapons research upgrades will deal 9*1.3*1.2*15=162 with it's forward beam(and potentially up to half of that with each side beam).  With no weapons upgrade research it would be 9*15*1.2=210 with it's forward beam(and potentially up to half of that with each side beam)

 

Moreover a Halcyon carrier could improve the damage dealt by any of the above except the crusader by up to 23%.  Either way I think this could be reasonable as it would deal less damage per ship lost then the discord's level 6 ability for all ships weaker then heavy cruiser(and frankyl I think it's reasonable for a titan to deal more reactive damage on losing a heavy cruiser then the discord can deal for every little corvette destroyed).

Also I find it interesting how by contrast to the discord, this effect would make the damage the opponent suffers for destroying your ships be higher for bigger ships destroyed.  Destroying a heavy cruiser produces more then 3x the extra damage of having a lowly corvette blown up.  

 

 

 

 

 

Well I'm sure my numbers aren't perfect, but I think the idea is workable and could be far more interesting, useful, and game changing then the current effect alone.  Please view this idea merely as proof of concept.

 

The part related to allied frigates could justa s easily be made into an active, and the ability would have a ton of knobs to adjust for balancing(aura size, invuln duration,or revive damage boost; heck it could even have a % chance of preserving allies for 15 seconds rather then being guaranteed).

 

Anyway, even if likely a bit too complicated, the idea popped into my head so I thought I may as put it here and see what other think(if for no other reason besides it's interesting).

Reply #8 Top

Instead of having the Eradica's 6th level ability activate when it dies, it should just make the ship more powerful relative to how much damage it has taken.

Reply #9 Top

Quoting MadCowKing, reply 8
Instead of having the Eradica's 6th level ability activate when it dies, it should just make the ship more powerful relative to how much damage it has taken.

 

That could certainly be interesting.  My only concern is that Strength of the Fallen already fails to be a sufficient reason for the opponent to focus the Eradica rather then it's attendent fleet.  Adding a new level 6 ability like that would pretty much mean Eradica would never be focused until it's fleet is dead, which utterly wastes the benefit of purification(which I think is supposed to be a core part of what the eradica is supposed to be).

Reply #10 Top

Then add a damage sharing buff similar to Shield Projection. Make it so that the Eradica absorbs 10%/20% of the damage taken by all your ships within a 3500/5000 radius.

Reply #11 Top


Last week when the false release of .75 happened I posted up my initial thoughts on the Advent titans here: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/420898

 

Since then my thoughts have evolved a bit as I've played more advent games since the *offical* release of .76.  This time around, rather then going over every ability I'm going to focus on the overall issues with these titans and possible solutions.  So without more ado:

 

The Eradica(Advent Rebel Titan):

Problems:

problem 1: The Eradica's biggest problem(as most people know) is it's level 6 ablity.  It requires the loss of a titan to do anything, and has zero synergy with Purification(no point healing a ship that's going to die regardless and is invulnerable until death).  

problem 2: Eradica's poor base stats-primarily it's weapons systems(it's base weapon damage is something like 20% lower then the utility supertank TLT).

problem 3: The Aura range on Strength of the Fallen is impractically short.  This greatly limits fleet mobility and the potential for effective micro of forces.

problem 4: One other seldom discussed issue is that once it loses it's retinue of supporting frigates the Eradica essentially loses 2 of it's abilities, and yet the Eradica has no means of protecting it's fleet.  This last issue though I think I'll reserve judgement on until they actually get the "return of the fallen" & "Reanimation" technologies working.

 

Solutions:  

problem 1: This Issue could be fixed by simply having it be activatable with a 150-180 second cooldown, perhaps reducing duration to 30-45 seconds.  A ton of people have suggested this change, so hopefully it will happen.  Also it would be nice if this ability increased the Eradica's weapon cooldowns as well(30-50% increase rate of fire  would be plenty), being that a decent part of it's threat comes from basic weapon attacks. 

problem 2:  It's worth noting that in terms of weapon types with weapons upgrade research the Eradica is pretty comparable to both TEC titans. The part where they exceed it is in their attacks with no research scaling(railguns & Gauss cannons). The Advent equivalent is Psionic surges, so all increases to Eradica's weapons should be to it's psionic surge attack. I'd say something like a 150-200% increase would be appropriate(from 18+roughly 2 dmg/level to 45-54+5-6/level). doing that would put Eradica's total weapons systems DPS roughly 15% stronger then the TLT, but still substantially lower then the Ragnarov(that ship is squishy enough to be in a league of it's own for weapons damage).

problem 3: pretty straightforward, extend the radius of STrength of the Fallen to maybe 3000-3500.  Also units sacrificed with purification should always proc Strength of the Fallen, regardless of range 

problem 4: as I said I'm skirting around this issue until we get to see how great an effect  "return of the fallen" & "Reanimation"  have on maintaining the Eradica's supporting fleet.

 

 

The Coronata(Advent Lotalist Titan):

Problems:

This baby is actually pretty well designed.  The Suppression Aura is amazing, and the other abilities aren't bad.    It's level 6 ability is so gamechanging I'm inclined to think it may actually be a bit too strong.That said there are a few minor issues.

problem 1: Subjugating Assault needs to do something when attacking capital-ships.  As it stands the enemy can just focus on carrier fleets(all the carriers of course safely parked on the other side of the gravity well ready to jump away if any trouble arises), using only cap-ships/titans as a fronline.  this is a decent strategy in general as you want to avoid feeding the enemy titan, and use of these sort of tactics basically nullify the benefit of any skill points put in subjugating assault.

problem 2: Well this one is relatively small and only a super-lategame concern, but as a support-titan the Coronata needs to be able to protect it's fleet, but can do very little to mitigate the effects of massed bombers(since suppression doesn't reduce the damage of strikecraft).  This means it's retinue is basically about as vulnerable to massed bombers as fleets in trinity are.  Maybe I'm missing something(am I missing some grand new counter to massed bombers in rebellion?) but that strikes me as a bit of an issue being that bombers are one of the largest threats to any capital ships  in the Coronata's retinue and is additionally the only ship type the Coronata does nothing to curb the weapon damage of.




 

Solutions:  

problem 1: Simply put this ability needs a secondary effect for attacks against enemy capital ships.  I think a chance per attack to drain some AM from the damaged enemy(similar to the Kortul) would fit the bill perfectly(and go well with the Coronata's role as a support-titan)

problem 2:  Well as I said, this is mostly a super late game concern, so I doubt the brute froce method of just extending suppression's damage debuff to strikecraft would be a good idea(the ability is already incredibly powerful and doesn't need a buff).  So honestly I'm a bit stumped by this one.  Extending the benefits of some of Advent Loyalist's new researches that buff the damage of frigates(such as "Planet for a Planet" and or "Assimilated populace") to strikcraft(or even just fighters) may allow advent loyalists to muster a more effective fighter-defense to bombers.   But by and large this issue seems like a tough one to target directly.  

 







Conclusion:




Anyway, I definitely think the Advent titans are stronger(and have less issues) then my original reaction a week ago(as you may see in my previous post which highlighted many more "issues").  That said, they definitely need a bit of work(mostly on the Eradica).




Anyway, please post your own thoughts on these new titans!




 

 

 

 

 

I totally agree with you. I think eradica's ultimate is not appropriate because players will do everything to keep their Titan alive. And yes, Subjugation of the coronata is easily stoppable.

Reply #12 Top

problem 1: The Eradica's biggest problem(as most people know) is it's level 6 ablity.  It requires the loss of a titan to do anything, and has zero synergy with Purification(no point healing a ship that's going to die regardless and is invulnerable until death).  

The level 6 ability should keep it from dying period for a set amount of time. This would allow you the opportunity to flee the battle or stay and duke it out until the effect wears off.

problem 2: Eradica's poor base stats-primarily it's weapons systems(it's base weapon damage is something like 20% lower then the utility supertank TLT).

This isn't quite true. It actually has more damage output potential due to targets per bank than the TLT. It does fall substantially short of the TRT. Personally I think the TRT needs a bit of a NERF on it's raw damage output and it's abilities make up a significant portion of it's damage capability. 

Table: Shows Level 1 to Level 10 comparison of raw Titan DPS potential (no abilities or research included).

  All Banks Firing
  Level 1 Level 10
Coronata 279 513
Eradica 383 705
Ankylon 360 662
Ragnarov 447 902

* I'm pretty sure I've got the calculations right for per level damage and cooldown percentages, if not let me know and I'll change my script.

problem 3: The Aura range on Strength of the Fallen is impractically short.  This greatly limits fleet mobility and the potential for effective micro of forces.

Agreed.

problem 4: One other seldom discussed issue is that once it loses it's retinue of supporting frigates the Eradica essentially loses 2 of it's abilities, and yet the Eradica has no means of protecting it's fleet.  This last issue though I think I'll reserve judgement on until they actually get the "return of the fallen" & "Reanimation" technologies working.

Agreed, but not sure this is a drawback rather than a description of how the Titan is fueled.

This baby is actually pretty well designed.  The Suppression Aura is amazing, and the other abilities aren't bad.    It's level 6 ability is so gamechanging I'm inclined to think it may actually be a bit too strong.That said there are a few minor issues.

I think this is the weakest capital ship so far. Subjegating assault is an AM drainer which may give you damage ships from the enemy but not enough to significantly weaken their forces (think 3 targets per bank and duration you can drain your AM in). The Suppression Aura is it's best ability and it's passive so that should allow you to cast the only other good ability Unity Mass. Besides all this it's also the weakest capital ship in terms of durability and dps. It also has no AOE damage and it's suppression aura doesn't affect strikecraft as you pointed out OR abilities.

I think subjegating assaults needs rebalanced to give more bang for the buck.

Suppression Aura is fine.

I'd like to see Unity Mass buffed on it's damage per entity from 50/55/60/65 to 50/60/70/80. This would put it's total damage potential to 3500/4300/5300/6500 which would still be less than an overcharged snipe.

I'd also like to see the raw damage for the Coronata go up. Maybe more targets per bank front/rear. The Coronata already gets lower upgrade passive damage increases then other titans so I don't see any reason the Titans shouldn't START on more equal footing. For example Coronata gets 15/20/25% damage increases while the Eradica gets 15/25/35/45% damage increases for it's passive upgrade.

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Reply #13 Top

hmm interesting, I was unaware the Eradica has multiple attack targets per bank.  I had thought it simply had some of it's damage on side banks that couldn't attack enemies directly in front of it.  If that's the case that certainly makes a sinificant difference.

 

How exactly were you able to run your DPS calculations(which is to say where were you able to find exactly how much if it's DPS can target 2 enemies & such?)  Are all of it's beam banks just 2-target?

 

 

 

 

I agree Subjugating assault needs a buff.  In particular It really needs to do something against capitalships being that now days frigates are becoming increasingly rare in end game fleet battles as people are afraid of feeding titans(again as I said in my OP I'd like tosee subjugating Assault have a chance of draining AM from the target when attacking capital ships/titans).

 

 

As for Unity mass:  I agree it's a bit lackluster(mostly when compared to the Ragnarov's Snipe, which deals almost as much damage at a much longer range on a much shorter cooldown with no fleet requirement).  That said I'd rather see utility added to unity mass then have it's damage buffed.  After all, the Coronata is supposed to be a support titan.  Perhaps something like some sort of buff for all of the units who took part in the unity mass for 20 seconds.  Or alternatively maybe restore shields to units that take part.

 This could be a good opportunity to give the Advent loyalists some counter to the TEC loyalist titan's Disruptive Matrix+Marza Missile barrage combo, by giving the one ship in the advent's fleet that can still cast spells some sort of defensive buff it can apply to it's fleet to absorb some of the massive AoE damage. Alternatively giving the Coronata an interrupt would amount to the same result.

 

 

As for coronata's raw damage output: I like the idea of giving it more targets per bank, as that synergizes with subjugating assault and could potentially improve it's anti-air a bit if ti's flak got additional targets too(which IMO is one of it's weaknesses as bombers are the only major threat suppression aura doesn't reduce the damage of).

Reply #14 Top

Quoting bilun, reply 13
hmm interesting, I was unaware the Eradica has multiple attack targets per bank.  I had thought it simply had some of it's damage on side banks that couldn't attack enemies directly in front of it.  If that's the case that certainly makes a sinificant difference.

Starbases work similarly (4 targets per bank), however the "potential" DPS isn't reflected in the info cards. 

  TargetCountPerBank:FRONT TargetCountPerBank:BACK TargetCountPerBank:LEFT TargetCountPerBank:RIGHT
TITAN_PSILOYALIST 3 3 2 2
TITAN_PSIREBEL 4 3 2 2
TITAN_TECHLOYALIST 2 2 3 3
TITAN_TECHREBEL 1 2 2 2

 

Quoting bilun, reply 13
How exactly were you able to run your DPS calculations(which is to say where were you able to find exactly how much if it's DPS can target 2 enemies & such?)  Are all of it's beam banks just 2-target?

I messed up the cooldown calculations... multiply versus divide. I just compared my results to the debugger giving level 10 experience to the Ragnarov. My #'s above should be correct now.

Basically the Ragnarov has way to much damage in it's rear and sides.

 

Reply #15 Top

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 14

  TargetCountPerBank:FRONT TargetCountPerBank:BACK TargetCountPerBank:LEFT TargetCountPerBank:RIGHT
TITAN_PSILOYALIST 3 3 2 2
TITAN_PSIREBEL 4 3 2 2
TITAN_TECHLOYALIST 2 2 3 3
TITAN_TECHREBEL 1 2 2 2

 

Thanks, that's extremely informative.  I was previously completely unaware that there were suc dintinct differences in the number of targets each titans weapons could be brought to bear upon.  That certainly explains why the eradica has lower DPS per target(the only stat we see in the infocard).

 


Perhaps I'll revise my OP at some point today.  Actually that's probably a good idea in general, my thoughts on a few topics in general have changed  a bit in the 1.5 weeks since I wrote the OP.

Reply #16 Top

Well i updated my thoughts a bit in the OP as I said I would(took a few days to get around to it though  B)  ).