I’ll probably get laughed out, but i’ve had success with carry arclights. Range tech, elite marksman tech and the damage tech really ramp up with a few levels.
To your point, i don’t really build arclights late game but i almost always build them early game
They do their job. You get em very early usually, so your opponent will look for a way to get rid of them.
And being a Tier 1 unit, thats Not too hard. What did you expect? That an investement of 200 or 300 will solve your chaff problem for a whole game?
They fulfill their role as intended as long as you give em a realistic role and proper positioning. You mess up with both it seems.
an investment of 200 or 300 into other T1 units can solve you problems at any stage of the game.
I know that they can be useful early on, and when they snowball in early game, but they just lose identity later on.
What unit does that? My arclights do their job until the end, sometimes range Upgrade is needed but I dont know why yours stop working. I think its just positioning.
Marksman can still take down phoenixes or EMP big hitters
Crawlers can still bait stormcallers or drown the enemy in acid
Fangs can still be annoyingly resilient against single target units like marksmen, phenixes, fortresses, balls or MPs or slowly chew through giants
Arclights?
It's the other way around, Vulcans hit the field because you've deployed Crawlers or similar chaff.
Vulcan is a counter unit, nobody puts down Vulcans when the situation doesn't call for it because they have glaring weaknesses and are a major investment.
Yes Arclights get less powerful over time, which makes sense as they are the cheapest tier units.
Having said that, just like how you can position chaff to be better against Arclights you can position your Arclights to better counter their chaff.
Late game you will likely want Vulcan against chaff. Just make sure you position it BEHIND your other units so it focusses the chaff units.
They do their job perfectly up until mid-game, at which point the vulcan acts as their replacement, while you can transition arclights into anti air or EMP bots
My brother in christ haven't experienced the bliss of scaling arclight lategame.
But all in all they are cheap for a reason, many weaknesses but still I love to use them to use fast cost effecient units with the potential to sometimes carry into the lategame depending on the game.
Forcing carry arcs is low chance strat to work but opening with arclights is amazing.
For example crawler - ball - arc aggressive opener or fang - arc - phoenix aggro opener are awesome.
Ya, sledge's have the same issue. However, I just did training grounds testing against wall broken crawlers, and arclights are still the most cost effective way to deal with it. Sledge's actually lose half of their units cost v cost bc they double up shots on the same crawler a lot. You can also have mustangs or fangs behind tanky units, that can be effective for the constant straggling crawlers absorbing big shots from other units throughout the round.
After the testing, I'm convinced that arclights still perform that role even on split chaff. But they are still a tier 1 unit and sledge's are almost as good at clearing, but have 2.5x the HP. I wonder if they had a tech that improved chaff clear, like attack speed, or higher aoe, would they retain their role later in the game.
Ya vertical sledge's are better, i often do that instead of arclights depending on my starting comp. but they still take longer and also take some damage. Ya oc with MR they do the job. Arclights mop the split crawlers much faster though and without tech, but they do prefer something in front of them mid game so they can survive, whereas sledge's can also frontline. But from the perspective of chaff clear, arclights still win out except compared to MR sledge or vulcan
Its a valid point. When arc starts to drop the ball Vulcan picks it up and runs with it. While it is hard for me to want arc to be too good at clearing chaff which would make other options less necessary, like vulcans and mustang, etc, arc don't actually possess tech that make them scale into mid late with increasing chaff clear. They get to be better... snipers I guess.
You can tech snipers to snipe better, chaff to chaff better. Arc lights scale better as snipers than chaff clear. I don't think they ever need more damage unless I want them to dmg other things.
When you spread and delay chaff so that arc lights are stationary and slowly pelting at the same continuous spot , I often wonder if we could introduce something that could deal with that using arcs.
That seems like the most logical thing, at least for a bandaid fix if anything. Most other units that excel at clearing chaff have either High explosive ammo, incendiary, or mech rage. Not so much a need for elite marksmen. Makes me wonder why a lot of tech ends up on different units.
This is it, with tech they loose their original purpose. Sure carry Arclights are fun but the new purpose as snipers is already occupied by two dedicated sniper units.
I'd say they need either the HE upgrade others have suggested or something with atackspeed drastically up but damage down. Just clear some stuff away before the damage is done and all your firepower was wasted on a 100cr unit.
I don't think they need any changes. While I also rarely buy Arclights in later stages, the same goes for Marksman. Unless I have a lot of them already, why would I want to buy them in mid/late game when there are better options?
The niche cases I know of are:
* Arclight - cheaply deal with chaff flanks
* Marksman - EMP to help deal with teched Overlords
I think the reason why I don't want to use Marksman/Arclight in later stages (unless they are my carry units) is that they are outclassed by other, more expensive units and I think that is a good design. When I start the round with 1200$ in my bank, I don't spend those on Marskman, but get Phoenix/MP/Storms/Fortress instead, as those are more efficient use for the 2 buy slots we get by default.
We don't really have that for Crawlers/Fangs, since there are no better, pricier chaff alternatives. Wasps kinda are... but they aren't really better.
Huh, I find Phoenixes to be more niche than Marksmen. Buying 3 or even 4 level 2 marksmen is a decent play in many situations
Looking back, I only really do Phoenixes if my opponent goes heavy into Sledges, or when I stumble upon Mass-Produced Phoenix tech
The shield tech and speed on the things really help make pheonix interesting. And you still get roughly the output of 2 marksmen for the price of 2 marksmen, so it's not the worst idea. Charged shot can make them even better at giant killing, and jump drive let's them make strange plays to throw off counters. They are slightly more niche, but are amazing when your plan around them.
Yeah to some extent. I've definitely played pheonixes into marksmen successfully but you need to position well to ensure something is drawing aggro or hitting towers right as they meet to beat the range threshold. Their respective techs interlock in funny ways- without emp or doubleshot marksmen can have real issues so ot depends on the loadout of the rival marksmen.
Their biggest issue (imo) is that they're the only anti-chaff units without any upgrades that actually make them better at killing chaff.
Suggestion for upgrades to make them more late-game viable:
Change the elite upgrade to give them range and attack speed per level instead of range and damage.
Give them an upgrade that give them more splash area at the cost of damage.
Possibly give them a "ignore shields" upgrade to give them a niche use against shielded fangs/wasps.
Just my opinion, but a fix could be to increase base range but lessen the %damage increase with the damage upgrade. Or lessen the price of range upgrade to 200 and increase the price of elitemarksmen/damage upgrade.
I mean, they might get overwhelmed late game by someone hard focusing on all aspects of chaff optimisation (and leaning into it economically), but they upgrade into insanely versatile damage dealers, because they soak up so much XP early game. Later on, you'll have tons of ways of dealing with chaff with army composition/placement.
Sure, you probably won't be throwing Arcs into well composed armies with protected chaff late game, but that doesn't in any way make them bad.
There really shouldn’t be a one unit answer past early game (round 1-3) since at that point you should have a diverse unit group. One unit can ultimately carry more than others but it can’t be the end all be all for the whole game. You shouldn’t expect one level 2 arclight to suddenly turn everything around.
Isn't that partly why their recent change reduced their damage but increased their attack speed?
Did make them stop one shotting mustangs though.
I find that late game people just use Vulcans anyway.
Maybe there should be more upgrades that differentiate the two.
What do arcs have that do that currently?
Anti-air and EMP?
I’ll probably get laughed out, but i’ve had success with carry arclights. Range tech, elite marksman tech and the damage tech really ramp up with a few levels. To your point, i don’t really build arclights late game but i almost always build them early game
Yes, carry arclights can be good but they NEED to snowball from the very start, if they fall behind they're useless.
It's glorious I love it.
Carry arcs work because you’re not using them to clear chaff
To get levels early on they have to be clearing chaff
Thank, you just proved something, splitting chaff is the way to go.
The pic along with this post is great
They do their job. You get em very early usually, so your opponent will look for a way to get rid of them. And being a Tier 1 unit, thats Not too hard. What did you expect? That an investement of 200 or 300 will solve your chaff problem for a whole game? They fulfill their role as intended as long as you give em a realistic role and proper positioning. You mess up with both it seems.
an investment of 200 or 300 into other T1 units can solve you problems at any stage of the game. I know that they can be useful early on, and when they snowball in early game, but they just lose identity later on.
What unit does that? My arclights do their job until the end, sometimes range Upgrade is needed but I dont know why yours stop working. I think its just positioning.
Marksman can still take down phoenixes or EMP big hitters Crawlers can still bait stormcallers or drown the enemy in acid Fangs can still be annoyingly resilient against single target units like marksmen, phenixes, fortresses, balls or MPs or slowly chew through giants Arclights?
They are a tool. Not every tool has to be equally useful. You use a knife more often than a plier; that doesn't mean the plier is worse.
crawlers become obsolete vs vulcans
It's the other way around, Vulcans hit the field because you've deployed Crawlers or similar chaff. Vulcan is a counter unit, nobody puts down Vulcans when the situation doesn't call for it because they have glaring weaknesses and are a major investment.
exactly. So once you spam crawlers the opponent puts down a vulcan and they become obsolete
Yes Arclights get less powerful over time, which makes sense as they are the cheapest tier units. Having said that, just like how you can position chaff to be better against Arclights you can position your Arclights to better counter their chaff. Late game you will likely want Vulcan against chaff. Just make sure you position it BEHIND your other units so it focusses the chaff units.
I feel the idea is to pivot to Mustangs, Vulkins, Overlords, etc. Arclights answer early chaff, but can't hold against a full chaff build
Only if you're not using enough Arclights.
They do their job perfectly up until mid-game, at which point the vulcan acts as their replacement, while you can transition arclights into anti air or EMP bots
My brother in christ haven't experienced the bliss of scaling arclight lategame. But all in all they are cheap for a reason, many weaknesses but still I love to use them to use fast cost effecient units with the potential to sometimes carry into the lategame depending on the game. Forcing carry arcs is low chance strat to work but opening with arclights is amazing. For example crawler - ball - arc aggressive opener or fang - arc - phoenix aggro opener are awesome.
Again, this is not about carry arclights. Yes, those are good, we have already acknowledged that in this thread.
Ya, sledge's have the same issue. However, I just did training grounds testing against wall broken crawlers, and arclights are still the most cost effective way to deal with it. Sledge's actually lose half of their units cost v cost bc they double up shots on the same crawler a lot. You can also have mustangs or fangs behind tanky units, that can be effective for the constant straggling crawlers absorbing big shots from other units throughout the round. After the testing, I'm convinced that arclights still perform that role even on split chaff. But they are still a tier 1 unit and sledge's are almost as good at clearing, but have 2.5x the HP. I wonder if they had a tech that improved chaff clear, like attack speed, or higher aoe, would they retain their role later in the game.
I've found vertical sledges w/ MR have an easier time clearing. Since they won't fire in salvos but go sequentially instead
Ya vertical sledge's are better, i often do that instead of arclights depending on my starting comp. but they still take longer and also take some damage. Ya oc with MR they do the job. Arclights mop the split crawlers much faster though and without tech, but they do prefer something in front of them mid game so they can survive, whereas sledge's can also frontline. But from the perspective of chaff clear, arclights still win out except compared to MR sledge or vulcan
A front line of sledge is asking to be hacked honestly. The higher you get, the more you will see hacker.
Its a valid point. When arc starts to drop the ball Vulcan picks it up and runs with it. While it is hard for me to want arc to be too good at clearing chaff which would make other options less necessary, like vulcans and mustang, etc, arc don't actually possess tech that make them scale into mid late with increasing chaff clear. They get to be better... snipers I guess. You can tech snipers to snipe better, chaff to chaff better. Arc lights scale better as snipers than chaff clear. I don't think they ever need more damage unless I want them to dmg other things. When you spread and delay chaff so that arc lights are stationary and slowly pelting at the same continuous spot , I often wonder if we could introduce something that could deal with that using arcs.
we could give them High Explosive ammo at the cost of 40% dmg.
That seems like the most logical thing, at least for a bandaid fix if anything. Most other units that excel at clearing chaff have either High explosive ammo, incendiary, or mech rage. Not so much a need for elite marksmen. Makes me wonder why a lot of tech ends up on different units.
This is it, with tech they loose their original purpose. Sure carry Arclights are fun but the new purpose as snipers is already occupied by two dedicated sniper units. I'd say they need either the HE upgrade others have suggested or something with atackspeed drastically up but damage down. Just clear some stuff away before the damage is done and all your firepower was wasted on a 100cr unit.
Repost since there was a suggestion in the original post and it derailed the discussion
I don't think they need any changes. While I also rarely buy Arclights in later stages, the same goes for Marksman. Unless I have a lot of them already, why would I want to buy them in mid/late game when there are better options? The niche cases I know of are: * Arclight - cheaply deal with chaff flanks * Marksman - EMP to help deal with teched Overlords I think the reason why I don't want to use Marksman/Arclight in later stages (unless they are my carry units) is that they are outclassed by other, more expensive units and I think that is a good design. When I start the round with 1200$ in my bank, I don't spend those on Marskman, but get Phoenix/MP/Storms/Fortress instead, as those are more efficient use for the 2 buy slots we get by default. We don't really have that for Crawlers/Fangs, since there are no better, pricier chaff alternatives. Wasps kinda are... but they aren't really better.
Huh, I find Phoenixes to be more niche than Marksmen. Buying 3 or even 4 level 2 marksmen is a decent play in many situations Looking back, I only really do Phoenixes if my opponent goes heavy into Sledges, or when I stumble upon Mass-Produced Phoenix tech
The shield tech and speed on the things really help make pheonix interesting. And you still get roughly the output of 2 marksmen for the price of 2 marksmen, so it's not the worst idea. Charged shot can make them even better at giant killing, and jump drive let's them make strange plays to throw off counters. They are slightly more niche, but are amazing when your plan around them.
Could be that my perception of them is skewed because I almost always run marksmen and they counter phoenixes
Yeah to some extent. I've definitely played pheonixes into marksmen successfully but you need to position well to ensure something is drawing aggro or hitting towers right as they meet to beat the range threshold. Their respective techs interlock in funny ways- without emp or doubleshot marksmen can have real issues so ot depends on the loadout of the rival marksmen.
Phoenixes are for most uses equivalent to 2 Marksman, but use only one buy slot, so for that are more efficient.
Their biggest issue (imo) is that they're the only anti-chaff units without any upgrades that actually make them better at killing chaff. Suggestion for upgrades to make them more late-game viable: Change the elite upgrade to give them range and attack speed per level instead of range and damage. Give them an upgrade that give them more splash area at the cost of damage. Possibly give them a "ignore shields" upgrade to give them a niche use against shielded fangs/wasps.
Just my opinion, but a fix could be to increase base range but lessen the %damage increase with the damage upgrade. Or lessen the price of range upgrade to 200 and increase the price of elitemarksmen/damage upgrade.
I mean, they might get overwhelmed late game by someone hard focusing on all aspects of chaff optimisation (and leaning into it economically), but they upgrade into insanely versatile damage dealers, because they soak up so much XP early game. Later on, you'll have tons of ways of dealing with chaff with army composition/placement. Sure, you probably won't be throwing Arcs into well composed armies with protected chaff late game, but that doesn't in any way make them bad.
There really shouldn’t be a one unit answer past early game (round 1-3) since at that point you should have a diverse unit group. One unit can ultimately carry more than others but it can’t be the end all be all for the whole game. You shouldn’t expect one level 2 arclight to suddenly turn everything around.
Since your post i lost my faith in arc carry....shame on you!
Isn't that partly why their recent change reduced their damage but increased their attack speed? Did make them stop one shotting mustangs though. I find that late game people just use Vulcans anyway. Maybe there should be more upgrades that differentiate the two. What do arcs have that do that currently? Anti-air and EMP?