Let's talk about arsonists.

[nippleball]

Right now, they appear eta 2, once everyone's troops are committed they can completely neutralize a pom 3 times their size at very little risk to themselves. No other route is hard countered that badly. (Though, that has to do with there being very few NLD units to flak in the average battle)

They are almost guaranteed land if they are sent on an alliance who is dealing with other incoming at the time, and destroy any chance of blocking a grab if sent at the back of a train loaded with scary lethals. It can throw a defence plan completely out, either by stopping LT blockers or essentially removing a pom from a big fight. Sending RPGs at a big battle does not make any robots completely useless, sending CWs does not mean any SAs are wasting their time there but a similar sized arsonist completely nullifies a pom.

Obviously this is their intended design, but in my opinion, they do it far too well for their price tag, and lack of natural predators. I feel that they should either

- Have their damage toned down a little bit
- Have their price upped
- Be given a penalty to attacking vehicles
- Have their targeting switched from NLD/ALL to ALL/NLD
- Init changed to fire after poms, but before gurus.

How does everyone else deal with arsons? Remembering this is not referring to a situation with a lone arsonist mob.

 

[LAFiN]

I completely agree with what you've said. I played Arsonists a few rounds ago, before their price was reduced from 30k to 20k. Even back then they were overly powerful, but not so abundant because people didn't know how to use them properly. All I remember was that anytime I sent, 95% of the time I was going to land. In alliance attacks it was great. Everyone landed, because, like you said, Arsonists nullify POMs up to 150% of their size. Nothing effectively kills Arsonists, either. The only targets I stayed away from were Robos and Strikers (heavy in Apache/Marines). Other than those two routes, anything else was fair game for attacking on my own.

ETA 3 attacks, ridiculously cheap, overly powerful... something's got to give. Personally, I think they should have their ETA bumped to 4, and have their price increased to 24,000. They'd still be powerful, but a little less outrageous than they currently are.

Or, maybe have a unit that actually targets NLTs primarily, like Serfs, except something that doesn't completely suck!

 

[timtadams]

- Have their damage toned down a little bit

ok idea

- Have their price upped

ok idea

- Be given a penalty to attacking vehicles

Don't think this is a great idea. Because you still have exactly the same number of arsons firing on POMs with exactly the same firepower, disabling the same number of POMs.

- Have their targeting switched from NLD/ALL to ALL/NLD

Their effectiveness versus POMs goes down, their flak stopping ability doubles, as does their effectiveness against all units other than NLD. Good for POMs, bad for everything else.

- Init changed to fire after poms, but before gurus.

lol, i dont think this is a good idea. Would be good if you want to completely nullify their effectiveness against POMs, but consider what happens when defending with POMs. POMs distract 'all' the INN, then arsons fire with their ALL targetting getting a good shot at LETs. Arsons can then block a lot of LET, becoming even more awesome.

I personally like Lafin's idea best, mainly changing eta to 4. Gives any eta 5 units a good 20min to send, or 10min to mid tick.
If part of a train, theyre still gonna play their part, but when attacking alone...

Apaches have a good 20min to send and get three ticks of killing INN
Or you have 10min to send for mid tick with grenadiers and apaches
cloners, rexes and flamethowers have plenty of time to LT
I'd be getting some hypnos there first tick.
Get nanos in there for a good two ticks of dedicated INN firing. That armour and health will make em hard to block
PB or terrors would kill that INN nicely
Werewolves are a nice cheap low eta unit that can fire on INN all three ticks.
I imagine sorcs/IG would do ok at stopping an arson landing considering they could get there first tick. A sorc would have a field day with hooligans too.

and of course because you dont want arsons to block your LETs you send an appropriate amount flak to nullify arsons usefulness apart from flakking.

Does anyone know how effective witches are against arsons?

Of course its not like any of these units are super effective against arsons, but that one tick extra will give a much greater chance of killing an arsons INN.

And lets not forget that an arson cant kill you.

So the eta mod will help a lot versus a lone arson. But for that arson at the end of a train, if they werent an arson, what would they be? A lethal route? Marines? Dragons? So instead of blocking a POM they just kill it? The eta mod on arsons would also let an alliance know a whole 10min earlier if they want to send LET last tick. Because that arson is just one less LET to worry about. Send some LET and flak to kill the last tick.

Sure, arsons might play their part for the occasional train, but so do other routes. "omg, i wanted to first tick this SA headed train with my apaches, but an RPG sent with him!!!! NERF RPGS!!!!"
OK, im exaggerating, just saying that arsons might not be as overpowered as you make it out.

 

[Dax]

To keep the route with it's advantage the solution is VERY simple: Arsonists become ETA 4 like TL's. Thieves remain ETA 3. So it's an option to make the attack more likely to land, rather than "oh this is ETA 3 too so I'll send it".

 

[Max]

Well after co-leading an all-PoM and arsonist alliance last round (at the start anyway) I can say with confidence that Elderveld and I had to come up with an arsonist defeating solution!

And that solution is easier than you think actually - hippies. They fire before arsons, they flak PoMs allowing them to fire, and they make great flak generally

Try giving it a go - worked wonders for us.

 

[nippleball]

...

I didn't put a huge amount of thoughts into some of those suggestions. Thanks for picking them apart though, I appreciate the feedback. The reasoning behind the penalty vs vehicles was to allow a pom to focus a bit more on HVs as flak, in the same way an RPG can focus on humvees to make them a tad less vulnerable to SAs. I don't like the idea of upping the ETA to 4, it immedietely makes the thief unit, and that entire branch significantly less useful, but I admit I haven't seriously considered the implications

You are right though, there are many units that can take the INN out from around the arsonist. My problem is that they fire almost exclusively upon poms, and get an incredible ratio upon them despite being less than half the price.

If there is a large battle going on and I choose to defend with CWs, any enemy RPGs fire will be distributed over all my ally-mates, and even those CW that die and don't fire still serve the purpose of soaking that damage for other units.

However, if I send poms to defend, and then an arsonist shows up, I will bare the full brunt of their fire (70% of it anyway... ), without even being a damage sponge, since that firepower would not have been used otherwise. If the arsonist is a similar size to me, then there is basically zero point my units even being there. It's too late to recall and send somewhere else at ETA 2. Poms no longer serve any point in this defence, since they're either disabled, in transit or at home.

Admittedly the above can occur to anyone if an appropriately sized attacker shows up, but it is then a matter of overwhelming forces and a combination of the incoming. Not just one player, who stands to lose very little in the battle.

I might not be phrasing this the best, but do you understand my point?

hippies

This is actually a really good idea, I never thought of it. Hippies are dirt cheap, and as a bonus target NLT secondarily.

 

[timtadams]

I might not be phrasing this the best, but do you understand my point?

hippies

This is actually a really good idea, I never thought of it. Hippies are dirt cheap, and as a bonus target NLT secondarily.

yeah, i totally get you, and it seems Max has provided a very viable solution.

I am interested to hear what kind of ratio hippies get on arsons, Max?

 

[Max]

We were scratching our heads for quite some time until the mighty Davs started massing them - after which we handled the arsons much better.

The hippy to arson ratio was pretty negligible tbh, it will take more than 6 hippies to stop an arsonist in its tracks (educated guess), but just allowing a small number of PoMs to fire is normally enough to prevent landloss.

 

[Garrett2]

whether you have mass inc or not - using flak against arsonist is great. just basic inn/w let and you've killed the gards and thieves out from under the arsonist.

 

[Its not personalits Bush]

Protestor Leader NLD Distracts [close] LET NLT NLD 90 3 £18,000 ** ** *** **

Hippy NLD Distracts [close] INN NLT 120 1 £6,000 * * * *

Arsonist NLT Disables [all] NLD ALL 180 3 £20,000 ** * ** ****

 

[Dax]

Prot Leaders are hopeless unless you're VD.

Hippies are the best unit to defeat Arsonists - Not because they do more damage, but because they are NLD flak.

 

[LAFiN]

Does anyone know how effective witches are against arsons?

Something like 5 Witches : 1 Arsonist

 

[Dax]

The only thing that does well vs Arsons is PB/Sorcs/PA.

 

[CFalcon]

I don't mind that arsonists wtfpwn PoMs, and that they're low eta, 'cos thats the point of them. The trouble is that they're incredibly difficult to kill. PAs get barely 5:1 on them, witches don't fare much better, and those are the only 2 NLT targetting LETs. Sorcs, F117s, PBs, dragons etc do well on them, but there you're relying on getting your ALL targetting to hit them.

Its very rare for an arsonist to have to seriously consider whether to stay or not based on the damage he might take. The decision is usually a binary will/won't land, the damage he'll likely take being negligible.

So that's what I think should be done to counter them, at least that's what I would suggest if there was an admin about.

Hippys to flak poms is a very good plan, but don't rely on them taking any arsonists out. My sources say the ratio's more like 20:1 :s

 

[alwaysnumb]

ig/wk works nice

 

[Garrett2]

The only thing that does well vs Arsons is PB/Sorcs/PA.

vds, attack dogs.

 

[Twigley]

Garrett said it.
Send flak to defend wirh the NLD too.

Can i just ask what your pom players troop ratios are?
I see alot of poms having no idea what their role is in an alliance and wasting funds on troops they shouldnt have.

E.g. 5m guru, 15m pom, 5m hv, 3m p leaders, 500k nv.

These kind if ratios are garbage. You should have something like...

3m nv, 30m guru, 12m pom. Seriously screw anything but pom guru and nv. My advice comes with around 15 rounds playing pom at all levels of play. Using the ratio of 2:1 guru to pom with 2/3/4/5m nv will see you being a land stopping machine. Fun wars where my allies had 4 poms who could stop an entire ally in a big war for rank 1.

 

[Dax]

Garrett said it.
Send flak to defend wirh the NLD too.

Can i just ask what your pom players troop ratios are?
I see alot of poms having no idea what their role is in an alliance and wasting funds on troops they shouldnt have.

E.g. 5m guru, 15m pom, 5m hv, 3m p leaders, 500k nv.

These kind if ratios are garbage. You should have something like...

3m nv, 30m guru, 12m pom. Seriously screw anything but pom guru and nv. My advice comes with around 15 rounds playing pom at all levels of play. Using the ratio of 2:1 guru to pom with 2/3/4/5m nv will see you being a land stopping machine. Fun wars where my allies had 4 poms who could stop an entire ally in a big war for rank 1.

Whilst I don't disagree with anything generally in this advice, you do have to take into account the 'route spread' of the round when forging an 'average effective ratio'. I sit with the high Guru & PoM, but there must always be one in the alliance that uses more Hippies than Gurus, and have a higher ratio of Hippy Vans.

I know this round in the very upper ranking fights, there is a hell of alot of Robo armour wandering around, that Hippy Vans have been an essential element, and there is a distinctly lesser amount of higher ranking SA than previous rounds due to the higher level of Robo targets.

 

[Twigley]

I disagree with poms getting any HV at all no matter how armour heavy the rank 1 alliance is.

If you've got just 2/3 poms then set them up with the ratio i suggested.

If you have anymore than 2/3 poms they restart as a route that is meant to stop armour. Not a sub unit of that route (HV) that is only partially effective.

If the rank 1 alliance is massing armour and your alliance is full of poms, thugs and sa then you restart those routes accordingly or make sure your rpgs, strikers and harriers get very fewer snipers, apaches, marines and rangers, not get units that dont do the job to the same degree as others.

You must look at your alliance troops as a whole. Every single unit counts. Fighting against the rank 1 EFFECTIVELY means you dont go for a solo ratio. You mass the best 1/2 units in your route and stick to it.

 

[Garrett2]

plus it takes 3 hvans to stop 1 cw. if you are using hvans to stop robos, you've planned your mission wrong, imo.