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"Small maps are really imbalanced: I lost a game with 2xZeus Medics 1xIncursion 1xAthena  and a few T1 against 2x Annihilator turrets and a lot few t1 units. Over time the ratio of the fights will be better but by the start phc is not able to handle the substrate. Why is Substrate able to run into defense and win the game by both players having the same ammount of minerals."

The game was vs me on that stupidly small map with 2 nodes each and 4 generators. I'd rather see such maps gone rather than balancing around them.
In my opinion you made a poor choice trying to kill the annihilator cannons so early on and that cost you the win. Zeus & medics is good but not immortal.

The Problem was that I saw the cannon a bit to late but it was my decision to try it and it nearly get the cannon down. Consider what happend I had the counter unit against your t1 units and I used all Quanta in order to get rid of that cannon but your t1 and your cannon handle my counter t2 and my Incursion -come on.

After looking at the game it would be much better to go for Artemis but who thinks that 2xZeus 1xAthena a few t1 and an Incursion are not able to handle 2 cannons (one was damaged) and a couple of t1. For what do you invest your Quanta? And we dont even have the whole fight with your cannon support.

But I had a lot of games in which sub is able to overwhelm me by simply attacking me even if they run into a sentinel and that happens most of the time on small maps like that. What is the point in losing every early fight vs substrate: I often see my Athena and Zeus units be melted by the Mauler Avenger units like a hot knife through butter with a nemesis which is not willing to hit the target. Only a critical ammount of Artemis helps me to win the games here but on small maps I wish u good luck.

you shouldn't be looking at the quanta investment vs turret cost, rather unit cost vs turret cost and then consider the abilities for example not being stationary and short range. You should've backed off, sentinel up and Artemis. Incursion behind enemy lines and not to build your army.

Though I do question why we can't control turrets to attack certain targeta as that annoys me also.

regarding your comment about units dying and getting hit but you not taking out priority targets with your army.. Do you continually add to your armies and form and break? It's a massively important mechanic and one I didn't think you were using when we matched yesterday. I was able to kill your cruisers almost on command as they weren't protected by the army cluster.

i constantly form and break armies to make use of different unit speeds but most of all to keep my cruisers protected by frigates.

Alologies if you are and in that case t does come down to numbers and rng. 

2 nemesis, 12 brutes vs 1 mauler 24 matyrs and sub will most likely win. The nemesis has a long cd and will target the mature too, if the army is formed and yours is too, you have a 2/14 chance of priority target with a much higher rate of fire vs 1/25 with a slow rate of fire.

zeUs are great for thinning the crowd but that's why I crowd up.

A lot of T1 are needed to have a fair chance vs SUB in open fights but if I had to decide to go for metal or rad. and the possibility of aicraft and Avatar exist I can only go for rad. but with that mechanic I cannot have enough T1 to have a chance in open field. This is a problem which is brutal on small widely seperated maps (deposits) but even on "normal" maps the problem exists. Consider that problem exist by PHC having the AA at T2.

Fury accomplished two things for phc: hard counter to both avatar and to any stray army without AA

The result was that substrate was forced to fight head on vs emp deathball. Even so Danail always countered this zerg style laughing and pissing away t2 with global quanta. I did fought him and sometimes I just wondered by what madness I even try to stay in the game after seeing 8 assemblies producing cruisers all the way :))

Now fury is no more, athena can do some damage but its not really enough vs substrate monster economy. Sub is outright broken and the main problem is the really low cost to both their t2 cruisers and defense. Anihilator cannons and mrv ar too good for what they cost.

Again someone would argue that sentinel is op but they forget that in order to be op it needs phc t1 and t2 nearby and at any given second 3-5 maulers can erase that in seconds.

ps: unding if you go for athena  you straight up lose the batlle in open because you dont have zeus to soak maulers alpha. there are some noobies that complains about refinery but that is in team games and I really think they dont get substrate and what quanta can do for their economy.

Also assemblies should bleed rads like armory does if they are going to produce T2. it;s unfair to have this versatility for no cost whatsoever. If you see a phc player producing cruiser from 6 armories game is over, but for substrate 6 assemblies is the norm and they always can go for air if they want.

note; phc air is nothing now, outright useless. 

Most people in that thread were not "noobies" as you dismissively label people who disagree with you. It is you who no not get infinite resource increase vs finite and inefficient temporary resource increase. Yes it was a discussion about big team games which play out over an extended period of time but that doesn't mean it isn't just as important for some people as ranked is for you. The game should be balanced for 1v1 and for 3v3 and in the future 6v6. You are demonstrating one dimensional thinking where you tackle something in isolation of other things and are missing the whole picture. We were not saying Subtrate are not powerful or not OP but there are many areas that a game needs to be balanced in and many ways to go about doing that.

you got your imbalance thread. Remain by the topic avatar... i hope we won´t talk again about abusing bug fury.... 

1.) in my opinion you can take the fury, Incursion, nemesis, athena. If you get the avatar with athena you can kill the turret instant and the avatar. The avatar is no gift you need quanta, if you lose him its bat for you

2.) When you start the game the deposite aren´t widely spaced.... as you mentioned you have the problem at the start.. In the lategame its really difficult to come through a phc who plays "towerdefense" with the avatar

3.) i saw your match on youtube on the small map. I talked to you about that game. In my opinion you wasn´t prepert and made a false the decision to attack the tower.

4.) crazy carving turret  i talked a lot with you about this tuerret, for me the this abillity is broken, if some like you heals it all the time its almost not possible to come throught the wall of turrets.

Ticktoc, I call them noobies because they don't get it. This game is not starcraft, it's about macro. Look at that video and please explain to me, why do this game feels like tower defense when played against any of the top 15 substrate players? 

Das Unding had refineries and tried to bolster his economy, but at any given point danail had almost 5 to 1 dread ratio. If that map had been larger than the broken avatar would have a field day vs sentries and maulers would show up for harrasment.

If that map had been larger than dasunding wouldn´t play towerdefense.  

If that map had been larger than dasunding would buy more dreads and the ratio would be even

If that map had been larger than danial would build more quanta

if....

and  at the end dasundin won, because of this not about macro its a rts game. The gamer which had the better strategy... 

stop it. if the map had been larger sub will won because as phc you cannot keep more than two strongholds on the map. It's plain imbalance at macro level, the larger the map the bigger the beatdown.

this was a small map and the amount of dreads fielded by danail was insane, imagine a larger map with avatar caping and disrupting phc while having acces to much more resources.

I can bet das unding only has victories vs substrate on smaller maps! he won it because danail forgot to make maulers and orbital jammers.

(1) I talked about very small maps on the top

(2) If the map is very larg and does have too many ways were the possibilities of an attack from multiple directions exist the gameplay with PHC vs SUB is difficult because of the Avatar+Air and the strong SUB cruisers which are strong if you split your PHC forces.

(3) If the map is larg enough to not have the problems of (1) and the map does not have too many possibilities by attacking from multiple directions you have a good chance with playing passive with PHC vs SUB

I have to agree with points Neinhalt said about the balance -> maybe we did something significantly wrong (not the many little mistakes in the games we had)-> maybe a developer could give an advise.

I don't understand the decision to only give SUB a unit like the Punisher by the existence of the Avatar -> a unit like the Punisher could be a counter against the Avatar for PHC as well. I dont see a point in the Hades. With a couple of Punishers I can destroy buildings and if I have Hades I need a lot of them to get that possibilitie. I don't see the point in that. -> Maybe a developer could tell us the thinking behind that.

If I have air superiority as PHC I dont benefit from that because the Hades in small numbers cannot handle buildings and the Avatar. Hades has problems with moving forces and the fury cannot handle the Avatar. If I have air superiority with SUB I can handle buildings and the Avatar, Incursion, Sentries, little forces. I dont see a significant agrument for the Hades in the game. -> Plz tell me your thinking.

you mean something like that  (that everybody knows about what we talk)

and i have an additional video 

delete

you have to watch the first game after 10 min

Ok I see it ,now you do it (but hey guys it too hard for me ) -> maybe make Punishers and build if he goes for air  with the Avatar an AA in the base of your opponent and rape the nemesis with the punishers

i understand your position, but its a little bit like the chicken and the egg. i prevent him from playing towerdefense with my avater and the phc plays towerdefense to has defense against avater and the substrate units....

Correct and now you see the dependence from the map

Yeah, really nice unit avatar :)) with no phc air to kill it, things are looking great! 

I think they should make a new dlc, named "Kill the avatar with hades" The objective should be to kill the hades without having a mental breakdown :))

I had a lot of breakdowns in the last games vs SUB

Just remember guys...textbook counter to Avatar is....Avatar + turret.

Also, whenever PHC loses, it is never because of skill differential or poor game decisions...it's always due to balance issues! 

The videos from Never show this quite clearly!

Can we start the game with 0 quanta instead of 100?

No instant double Avatar after Gateway.

No instant Sentry for early expanding.

No instant Drone Swarm after Orbital Drone Relay.

Not building Quantum early leads to "supply block" due to the first 50 quanta logistics requirement. So there can be some small skirmishes to free up resources while waiting for the 100 logistics blockage to open up.

Basically slow down the game, like how macro games should be.

This of course severely weakens rush or early pressure play styles. Whether or not these play styles should be embraced is up to debate.

If you had dropped Incursion you would have killed the Avatar instantly. It is true though that showing that video is not a good representation of balance when you are that new to the game vs. a much more experienced player. Plus the issue most people have is how early in the game the Avatar can be deployed - generally a little before Incursion is ready. You need a lot of T1 units (not the most practical) or have your Armory up and produce a Nemesis or Athena (Athena is probably the better choice as it is fairly cheap) vs. a rushed Avatar. 

Seems fair to counter a 50 quanta unit with 125 quanta of your own and further more adding to the injury the population cap block that comes with it. 

From what I am seeing, apart from the poor balance we have with low metal cost of substrate cruisers, substrate defense and the cheap assemblies, the devs need to change two things:

- hades bomber, so it can actually destroy ground units and counter them, like fury did. the unit is so stupid because it exposes itself by only attacking flying over the target, as opposed to punisher (where a shift move command in medium range leads to heavy damage and target snipe, without exposing to heavy AA fire). So more work is necessary to hades, it has no reward correlated to the risk of flying over target. maybe at least giving them a faster animation so they cannot be dodged

- give substrate refinery but take out their ovecharge  ability

Here it is, the most broken substrate global

• Overcharge - Temporarily boost a single Power Generator or Amplifier's output with a short-lived unstable

So how this thing works? From my games vs danail and other top substrate players, I have seen they don;t even bother to play the avatar. if they make these, they use them to cap and construct things in midgame. What need is for an avatar if you could build free assemblies that cost 0 rads and can produce mini dreads, 5 to 10min from the start, cap with reapers and martyrs, overcharge and profit. the momentum gained from this move is gamebreaking.  

They usually have one big attack and if they lose that attack they overcharge and by the time you reach their base you are outnumbered heavily. That is v nice. 

What bothers me more is that even without overcharge, their units are so cheap, they can still mass produce and maybe switch to dreads/overcharge and give storage upgrades with quanta.

Overcharge provides substrate A move win the game at 8-10 mark.

I think the overcharge ability deserves a thread of its own, if the devs do not acknowledge how broken this ability is!! I am starting to be glad when ppl cheese me with avatar and drone swarm, at least I know I don;t have 20 cruiser up my ass in the first 10 minutes of the game and I can actually plan with EMP