Perfecting Advent Loyalists

Advent Loyalists were considered the worst race in the game, and while they've gotten a few buffs lately so they are tolerable, in general other factions are probably better. The main factor IMO is that the difference between the Advent factions aren't as great as the other two Races, where the Rebel's superior titan AoE and Wail of the Sacrificed is viewed as superior to the more durable Coronata and the Loyalist combat bonuses.

A loyalist player really needs to exploit his support cruiser/capitalship/titan synergies to win. They can tank a lot of damage with Suffusion Aura, Vertigo, Shield Regeneration, Shield projection, and so on. I'd say the Halcyon and Drone host also gives the Advent the best defense against strikecraft and the best carrier cruiser. Culture, while getting more prominence lately, is still not useful enough in multiplayer to justify all the research they have in it, really only Fury of the Unity and Cowards submission are their only great unique techs.

Against this though, the Advent face disadvantages with a generally inferior economy, high up Long range unit, vulnerability to phase missiles, and more.

I never research Coward's submission unless they make it so that it doesn't count against fleet capacity otherwise I end up not being able to find these "new" ships and frequently don't want what I just got!

Well at least it doesn't capture your allies ships now. And you can always scuttle them for resources, and your opponent will lose 5% of their forces when phase jumping makes it a good attrition weapon. That said I'd say that's another reason why Advent Loyalists may not be right for you, they have a lot of mind control so if random frigates bother you a lot of their strengths will be wasted on your play style.

Personally I think Advent Loyalists are superior to the Rebels except for Wail. That's a big exception though. Wail is such a great defensive weapon that it makes all the difference. If wail gets nerfed though...the only other Rebel techs I like are the ship clone/ship resurrection ones that give you free ships from owned and enemy ones. Fury of the Unity and Ancient Retribution are both good choices now to buff your late game fleet. I still think Global Unity is too high at tier5 for what it does though...

Imho the main problem with Global Unity is that is basically just a second temple of communion. Imho Global Unity should totally replace the temple of communion for the Advent Loyalist.

Advantages:

More logistic slots for the Advent = better eco

More culture push - fits the factions theme

More dangerous culture as you can can force your enemy to build culture centers in defense without spending money yourself.

Currenty Global Unity suffers from the following:

Harmony Tech 5 - and expensive resarch: By the time I have Harmony 5 for the Advent, I usually will have all the culture I need anyway. 2 temples more are cheaper and more effective than this resarch.

All culture upgrades require the temple of communion. So you have to resarch the temple anyway.

Poor culture rate.... it is cleary designed to be a nice bonus to your culture spread... nothing more nothing less.... but for that I find to way to expensive.

I usually build far more temples for the Rebels for Wail use, than for the Loyalists.

As long as Advent Loyalist culture is only minorly more dangerous than any other culture in the game, as long their faction will suffer.

So to bring the Advent Loyalist to true strength, you need to make their culture more dangerous.... primarly or secondarly.

Examples for secondary effects of culture would be:

A reasonable phase missile block - and not that pathetic excuse both Advent factions have right now. Give the Advent Loyalist a good anti phase missile culture bonus..... and you not only buffed an up faction but also helped the Advent VS Vasari balancing in general.

Stealing ships from your enemy.... perhaps a slight buff to it?

Don't forget the Eradica.  The Eradica is probably the game's strongest titan.

That said: yeah, the Advent rebels are sort of lackluster beyond Eradica/Wail, they have always sort of been kept competitive entirely because they have 2 somewhat OP tools, not because they are strong across the board.  It's only the influence of those two strong tools that prevents them from suffering from the same problems that make the Advent Loyals UP(under the surface they still do, but the effects of Wail/Eradica more then make up for these deficiencies).

Point is, comparing any faction to the Advent Rebels without their 2 key tools(or even removing one of the two from the equation) is rather silly, as those tools pretty much ARE THE ENTIRE advantage of playing the Advent Rebels.  It's like comparing another faction to the TEC loyals kit without early novaliths & Twin Fortresses.

I would be careful.... ever since the large buff to unity mass in 1.4 the Coronata is quite capable of ruining the Eradicas day.... the Eradica is better against many light targets, the Coronate excels at dealing with the big stuff.

I agree about the rest however. Leave the Titan aside, and you see that Advent Rebels suffer from several of the same issues as the Advent Loyalist. Especially against the Vasari. 

I still think that TEC Loyalists need a buff. They have basically nothing usefull below tech level 5.... and their Titan is just umimpressive below level 6.

It's the strongest vs. fleet/ships but I'm pretty happy with how the Coronata got buffed into more of a debuffer/Titan-Cap killer with Unity Mass-Suppression being a nice combo of passive and active abilities. I still think if Wail gets a significant nerf, the Loyalists will be the superior faction.

I love taking a high level Coronata into enemy territory and just being like, "Hey, can I borrow that fleet? Thanks." And just wrecking shit with the frigate fleet the AI is dumb enough to keep sending my way :p

Played an SP game the other day against AL and ended up getting into a 1-on-1 battle between my level 9 Ragnarov and a level 9 Coronata.  It was in my culture and I actually had a couple of carriers backing up my Ragnarov (the Coronata was alone).  The Coronata ate my lunch.  Full Snipe + Overcharge does more dps than Unity Mass, but it really sucks down the antimatter.  About half way through the battle, my antimatter tank was dry and Unity Mass was still firing - the Coronata never ran out of antimatter.  Combine that with Suppression Aura and my Ragnarov turned into a smoldering pile of space junk.

I would argue that a high level Coronata is better against TEC and that a high level Eradica is better against the Vasari.  Phase missiles work to the Eradica's advantage now once it gets Unyielding Will.  Once its hull gets down below 50%, it never runs out of antimatter and is firing Chastic Burst twice as often.  You can then eat up Guardians and/or Defense Vessels to keep its hull points stable and just decimate everything.  And if its hull gets below 25%, you have Chastic Burst 4 times as often.

Actually that does greatly depend on the situation. Yes, a Eradica on Rampage is a very very nasty thing. On the other hand, supression aura has a considerable damage decrease, and so the Coronata tends to live longer against heavy phase missile bombardement.

But suppression Aura doesn't affect bomber, the main source of phase missile bombardment...

Purification on the other hand significantly increases the eradica's ability to deal with phase missiles(large hull heal, somethign very rare for the Advent).

Anyway, regardless I agree the Coronata is a force to be reckoned with now.  Bur the Eradica still is IMO the best titan.  Purification makes Eradica one of the hardest titans to kill if it has a fleet, Chastic burst annihilates fleets, and frankly a combination of upgraded weapons & strength Of the Fallen allows Eradica's weapon systems to rival Unity Mass in terms of DPS(less spike damage, so Unity Mass is of course less affected by shield mitigation when used intelligently).

But the key really is Chastic Burst- Being "good Against fleets" is basically strong in general- If the enemy brings  a fleet against the Eradica it dies spectacularly.  If they don't, the Eradica's supporting fleet of frigates will make short work of enemy capitalships.

The reason anti-fleet is such a catch-all tool is because if the enemy lacks a comparatively strong anti-frigate/fleet ability, suddenly one side can heavily utilize frigates and the other can't- which is an overwhelming advantage.  The Eradica is the greatest example of this as A). it has the best titan AoE and B ). even if it's fleet starts dying around it, it gets benefits to compensate.

Again, the Eradica is one of the key reasons the Advent rebels are competitive(along with Wail), so I'm not complaining so much as explaining why I believe the Eradica is the strongest titan.  The Coronata has become a veryd eadly titan to be sure- but the Eradica is in a league of it's own.

This assume the other side does not have a good anti fleet weapon. The Ragnarov, Eradica, Vorastra at lvl 6 and the Kultorask all have very good anti fleet abilities. In a 5v5 game for sure, you can bet someone on the other team will have on of these titans. While I agree antifleet is usually better than anti-single target, the Eradica being able to exploit having frigates for its abilities is not something that can be relied on.

Your not perfecting shit by just talking about the eradica