Personally, I was never trying to get the devs to comment on this.  I don't consider myself as having the right to demand a change to a game, or have any devs explain themselves.  I was simply voicing concerns I have, and it seems those concerns are shared by quite a few group of people.

They may not care about MB.  But maybe they do - they changed the siege frigates of death when those proved to be crazy game design.

It may not, but it doesn't need to.  With the 2 motherships, one can shield recharge, then while it is waiting for cooldown to expire the other can do it.  Rinse, repeat.  I don't mind shield recharge being powerful, but with this particular game described it just seemed ridiculous that a handful of ships could defeat whole fleets over and over again - fleets with large numbers of heavy cruisers no less.

HOLY FREAKIN' CRAP!

Listen to me, please!  The TEC NEED the Marza to counter other races' superior traits!  Advent, how about I start another  Nerf The Carrier?  Vasari, how about a little Nerf the Egg or Nerf the Junsurak Sentinel?  The TEC's OP is focused on the Marza, and NOTHING else, which is why a Marza is essential.  I mean, seriously, no anti carrier spammer or anti LRM spammer has complained as much as you guys!  Maybe if you knew how underpowered TEC Capital Ships are compared to the standard Advent or Vasari Cap. The Marza levels the table, which is why TEC players aren't rioting like you are for being underpowered. 

Koda0

So yeah I hate the egg, but akkan is not really weaker. Maybe it can't take an EGG 1on1 (N-D is FUBAR) but it is still very nice.

The Egg is so good because nano disassembler bypasses shield mitigation, dealing hull-only damage. It's still affected by armor, but skipping mitigation means it's over twice as good as typical damage.

To be honest, I consider the evacuator (and to a lesser extent the mothership) to be on the same page as the missile barrage.  It's simply out of this world compared to everything else out there.

meh. nanos are nice early game, but they really start to pale late game when counters are more common and theres simply more to shoot. gravity bomb is another story. im tempted to suggest they swap it with marauder's subversion like someone around here suggested, so ppl really have a good reason to use them.

shield restore is pretty powerful, yes, but it doesn't screw you in under 20 seconds. and its capability, even at level 3, is still far less than MB. i do agree it is a nice ability, but then again progen is the "mothership" of the fleet. big parental defensive pwnage

part of the problem with capship abilities is their one trick nature, not the mere power level of individual skills.. take, for example, the revelation, sova, marza(more or less), marauder, radiance. they more or less have one nice abilty and mostly meh on the others. the ones that ARE exceptionally outstanding tend to get spammed.

I agree somewhat, except that I think MB is far and away the most OP.  The other 2 ships you listed are "lesser OP," far outclassed by MB.  The egg's nano, as bad as it is, can't compare with the destruction of whole fleets.

yesterday I wiped out a fleet of 40+ kodiaks with 20 hoshikos and some lrm support ,with just 3 marza lvl 6

after that I tried to boom 10 caps with override protocol but game minidumped once I pressed the button :((

I've been off of the forums for a while...

This has got to be the most honorable and truthful post ever typed!

HEAR HEAR!

I'd like to throw something out there:

If we nerf everything in the game (the more powerful ships/abilities)

Then why the HELL would we need interrupting abilities at all?

increase the power of some of the abilities out there that have been nerfed!

Then everything would go back to being "balanced" not symmetrical.

there would be no reason to complain...(maybe)

VN for vasari, CB for advent, and MB for TEC.

when I finnaly get to download Forge Tools I'll try to get some Mods together and try them out...

-sigh-

ok...

I'm probably going to stop coming to the forums...

Every thread here that attracts attention, the ones I want to read, almost always have Agent in them...

Anyone besides me tired of the constant complaning, dislike of any and all attemted "fixes," strategies, and general advice?

(dont forget the language, name-calling, constant anger (I think they have meds for that...), and stupidity...)

And quit with the accusation that we are "demanding a nerf."  Nobody here is demanding anything, nobody is in a position to demand anything.  This is a forum, we are simply using it, plain and simple.
..........

-cough- read the title of this thread -cough-

lol, battleboy, are u aware that you are talking to yourself right now, its like the fifth post in a row. It seems to me that you're just looking to start an arguement with someone.

Allow me, you're wrong, MB is OP. Now, there I've said it. This will allow you to argument with yourself for a 5 to 10 posts. I'll come back in a week to see how you're doing!

The first thing I thought of when I read the OP was "Why didn't you use Reverie?"

Guys, just because something is counterable doesn't mean it's balanced.  You could nerf missile barrage quite heavily and it would still be a pretty damn good ability, and it would still be counterable the same way. But the entire game wouldn't hinge on the level 6 Marzas.

Just for yall...

The Marza missile barrage is indeed very easy to pull off. I'm for a nerf, but a very specific one: Make it a forward shooting weapon like the rest of the Marza's weapons. It simply makes no sense that the MB missiles are fired from the front but can reach anything within 360 degrees when the normal missiles cannot. Make it a cone of fire instead. Then an enemy could flank the Marza and kill it without taking damage, unless the Marza is properly supported.

this seems to be the best idea i've seen yet. it should definitely be a fairly generous cone; but still; its missile barrage, not saturation.

IMO, it isn't hard to avoid this type of attack. Split your fleet in two instead of just swarming the ship. Have the Marza blow it on one half while the other swings around outside of range and then goes in close to rip into it after it's done being fired off. There's long cooldowns on these big damage dealing abilities for a reason: if they use it early, they risk missing the enemy fleet with it, if they don't use it early but try and save it then they risk having their ship stopped right when it gets fired off.

Plus, there's the whole scouting thing. You should know what kind of cap ship your enemies have before it gets anywhere near level 6 except in a few maps where there's a bunch of star travel involved. Even then, scouting becomes even more important.

The key aspect is that we aren't computers, we're humans, so if you want to be better than a comp, stop trying to act like one and find an off the wall strategy that noone will see coming. Seriously, what would you think if you saw two different fleets jump in from the same direction but both land on opposite sides of the possible drop points? "Oh crap, this guy's got some kinda plan to try and..." and you'll be left trying to counter any number of possible steps that the enemy might try.

This strategy might be somewhat effective for multiplayer, but not a consideration offline.  Also, many strategies aim at having two capital ships, and it becomes easier to level capital ships in company with a Marza because missile barrage kills enemy frigates, whereas protective abilities don't produceexperience.  Lastly, it would have the substantial drawback of fighting with half a fleet against a full fleet?

Even as a cone, or with a limited radius, both accompanied by a target cap of 24-32, the ability is still more powerful than any other.  With the cone at least more open formations would work defensively, whereas the current ability, though supposed to be a 'barrage', punishes open formations as much as close ones, due to the huge area affected.  There is no real choice of capship left, especially since the Marzas are effective in the early game as well, with their more limited area attack. 

There is still some need to rebalance the cap ships, though it seems not to have been commented on officially, which might be a cause for concern.   A swap of abilities between the Marauder and Evacuator- Subversion for Disassembler- would bring the Marauder into the game without losing the Egg.  I'd also prefer free mines and returning ships on game logic considerations, once the ships or ability have been paid for- the current method seems just to be a quick fix.  Increased cooldowns would seem to be more consistent.  

look. all you pro-mb people. lets be honest. why does everyone as tec build a marza? because it potentially wins the game. why? it is the MOST POWERFUL CAPITAL SHIP IN THE GAME. and dont deny it. if it wasnt so powerful why would you build it? we can atleast agree on that right? or that its incredibly powerful/massive titan. this is like comparing a star destroyer to a super star destroyer.. dumb. foolish. ignorant. you wont win vs a super star destroyer in a head on battle. it requires trickery to take on such a behemoth. unfortunately the way you tec players are today (spam hoshiko flak then rush for kodiaks + ogrovs and make sb with big red button) the super star destroyer is incredibly hard to touch.

you people will continually say marza is not overpowered you and oh.. 90 percent of teh community CANT FIND A WAY TO STOP IT. sure you say (run away! use interupting abilities! dont engage!) all of which are suboptimal suggestions. the fact of the matter is it costs more for us to counter your 3000 credit 400 metal 250 crystal ability with ANOTHER 3000 credit 400 metal 250 crystal ability along with oh.. 500-600 credit 50-100 metal 50-85 crystal ability to help as well.

my point being. IT IS OVERPOWERED. i did not say ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO WIN. its incredibly hard to beat you tec people because all you do is spam MB.  you all come back and say "spam the counter. its not that hard" when you realize this game is supposed to be of balance in a way that each race has their own strength which DOESNT stem from slapping fleets of 100+ ships with the push of a button. that is NOT what the devs had in mind and that is NOT how a game should be played. get over yourselves and your marzas because when something like the vasari subverter was deemed "op" all you kids agreed. guess what? its nerfed beyond fucking belief. everyone cried CB IS OP!! when all it took was an ion bolt or a phase out hull. if every race can lose something that made it worthwhile to use why cant TEC?

essentially all you tec people tell us when we talk about MB is that " we cant afford to actually micro a fleet or use some sort of skill like the vas and advent do with their fleet. i dont have the mental capacity to micromanage a battle and i need a 'act now or lose' button to even the odds."

I've been trying to keep an open mind on reading this. My initial instinct is to say nerf the damn thing, it's ridiculous,  but the points about needing it versus superior fleets from other races do make me pause for thought. Dolynick's points, on the other hand, seem to be the most well-reasoned so far.

I've yet to see any convincing breakdowns of why the Marza should have such unconstrained potential when none of the others do. In game, I've seen TEC players do fantastic without the use of it, which makes it all the more convincing that it should be nerfed.

Now:

This puzzles me. I agree that MALICE was overpowered in the original version, 30 seconds was just too long (though the pitiful duration and unit cap it has now is just a joke). The combo itself, however, seems far more reasonable than a marza MB.

It requires two capital ships to pull off instead of one, so that requires much more of an investment. Even so, the damage and range is still nowhere near that of a MB. Malice propagates 30% of the damage and Cleansing brilliance is already 1.000 less than a MB. That's 2,000 to the five or so ships that directly get hit, and 600 to those from malice. MB, on the other hand, does 3,000 to every target in range.

How is it much more spammable? You could get 3 marzas to level 6 much easier than you could get 3 radiances to level 6 AND field 3 progenitors beside them.

You say it was uncounterable. This puzzles me further. Why can't you use the exact same tactics against CB + malice as you can against MB?  As far as I know, Cleansing Brilliance is channeling and interruptible (see https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/335807 ) so you could use ion bolt, detonate AM, phase out hull, etc.  Surviving the damage should be even easier because the opponent needs two caps and it does less damage. Finally, CB is much more noticeable WITHOUT a mod, so you can always run from that too.

I'm not trying to flame, I'm just trying to get a solid answer so I can feel certain in my opinion.

On another note:

If I get the get the bailknight mod, will I still be able to play against people who don't have it? And, where can I get it from?

since we necroed this......

thing about malice + CB is, is that dmage will propogate from each ship getting hit, so if Cb is directly hitting 5 ships for 2000 each, thats 10000 *.3=3000 damage to the other 19 ships. back when targets was unlimited it was...well...a lot like MB but more expensive to pull off. it is still pretty powerful now just more tame.

Ahh that makes a lot more sense now.

Nontheless, it still doesn't clarify why the combo needed a nerf and MB doesn't. MB has a much larger radius than malice ever did. And again, the fact that it's a lot harder to pull off cb+malice then it is MB.

After experiencing it for the first time in game, I'm much less inclined to be sympathetic towards it.

You know you love every dirty moment of it.