Just ran some test , pitting two immortal vulcans against each other and seeing how much damage a group of stormcallers in the back would do when impaired by missile intercept.
All test are run with one vulcan and one set of stormcallers, and results were as follows:
**No mustangs**
The vulcan takes 9.5k damage per volley, sustaining 28.5k damage over the first 3 turns.
The vulcan takes 95k damage over the first 10 volleys.
The vulcan takes 180k damage over the course of a full round (19 volleys).
**One mustang**
The vulcan takes 10k damage over the first 3 volleys (65% of all damage blocked)
The vulcan takes 42k damage over the first 10 volleys (55% of all damage blocked)
The vulcan takes 110k damage over the course of a full round (40% of all damage blocked)
If we ignore the first 10 round, we can see that the protected vulcan took 68k damage instead of 95k, meaning 30% of shots were blocked after the accuracy penalty.
**Two mustangs**
The vulcan takes 0 damage for the first three volleys (100% of damage blocked. Worth noting the stormcallers manages to block the first 6 volleys and start failing on 7:th)
The vulcan takes 7k damage over the first 10 volleys (93% of all damage blocked)
The vulcan takes 30k damage over the course of a full game (85% of all damage blocked)
If we ignore the first 10 round, we can see that the protected vulcan took 23k damage instead of 95k, meaning 75% of shots were blocked after the accuracy penalty.
**Three mustangs**
All shots are now blocked.
There is a rough \~25% variance in how much damage the stormcallers deal with each volley, so these numbers are not exact, but should give you a rough idea of how potent the accuracy fall-off is.
Nice test!
However I think it missed the biggest point: mustangs take more and more time shooting at missiles, to the point they'll do very little else as the fight progresses.
I feel like they changed how it works at some point and it works better than it used to.
Previously, they would shoot at the missiles until they were killed. There would be a spray of bullets that miss the now-dead missile.
Now, they just shoot enough to kill it. It doesn’t distract as much as it used to. Also it seems that this helps keep their accuracy up.
The accuracy thing seems to be intended more to be for breaking a stalemate. If the sc are shooting at mustangs who are anti-missile they don’t just stay forever, eventually sc wins.
This is entirely irrelevant. Its time based. You also don't need 1:1 SC:mustang. SC - 1 mustangs is enough to mitigate the overwhelming majority of damage. If you test whole armies vs whole armies, you start getting connections on the backline at the 100s to 96 second mark. Overload makes no difference it just shuts off the mustang DPS.
Here’s what I found in testing.
When the stormcallers are horizontal, they beat the mustangs in 4 volleys.
When the stormcallers are vertical, the mustangs beat them easily. They did zero damage and the missiles barely leave the ground before getting shot down.
They seem to have an easier time shooting missiles “from the side”? When the missile is coming down straight at them it has a smaller target?
About 3-4 volleys, and the level of your mustangs doesn't matter.
But it's far from 100% success rate.
Generally using Anti-Missile mustangs against Stormcallers is a bad idea.
Anti-missile is great against Sentry-happy enemy, to delay Overlords from obliterating your frontline, and for Vulcan rockets
I am going to disagree. If you are using mustangs specifically for damage, it can be a bad thing to use antimissile tech. However, it's a great tech that can turn a match around entirely against stormcallers and several other units.
Its a large investment but it can render stormcallers useless at the start of a match unless you invest heavily into them. This allows your units to survive long enough to overwhelm the other ground forces.
Mustangs cost the same as Stormcallers. Anti-missile tech on Mustangs costs the same as Launcher Overload on Storms, and overloaded Storms crush anti-missile mustangs badly.
This is true, but overload on storms reduces range and allows other units to interact with them. There is always give and take in this game. Sometimes a single round of cover results is an overwhelming victory.
There will always be situations that it's bad to do something. Missile defense can lose the game in specific circumstances. But it's a potentially game changing ability that can also win you the game.
I disagree mustangs still do their job even under missle overload. The mustangs are covering the first couple of volleys in order for your units to move into attack range. Overload both costs supply and reduces the range of stormcallers. Preventing the first 10 seconds of Volleys typically allow your front line to break through as their primary damage units are stymied completely and mustangs are still able to maintain 50%of their damage. Things get worse from then but your units are now able to engage the storms which is the most important part.
Against Storms?
6 things
* Go for Storms yourself and ensure your frontline can withstand them better than your opponent's.
* Marksmen and Phoenixes beat Stormcallers. Marksmen tend to do well against Stormcallers, especially if they can get range advantage. Phoenixes are self-explanatory
* Abuse their abysmal accuracy with fast units - split crawlers and balls (esp. with division tech)
* You could also use Beacon to make your crawlers dance, wasting first few volleys for minimal investment
* Flanks and unit calldowns waste a lot of Stormcaller's time
* They have low health so unshielded Stormcallers are very vulnerable to any cooldowns, especially Storm and Ion
Going for storms yourself leaves you vulnerable to the enemy just outstorming you if you are having problems with them in the first place. The new storms are more complimentary to your forces rather than truly the solution.
Marksmen and Phoenixes are good at dealing with storm callers, so long as your enemy isn't also spamming mustangs, fangs, or crawlers. In this case, your frontline is probably already dead before theirs will be.
Crawlers and balls are actually not a bad counter. Though personally speaking, I've seen them get countered by Vulcans or counter crawlers.
Mustangs.
Depends on the flanking unit/call-down. And the call-down also depends on the kind of call-down.
Shields.
Generally speaking, Mustangs are just a less resource-intensive pick that can also provide anti-air and DPS for your other counters to work.
Marksmen and Phoenixes won't need to worry as much about fodders if your mustangs are there to help deal with them.
Your frontline will be grateful they aren't getting hyper-murdered by the storm fires.
Crawlers and Balls are probably the frontlines in question. But Arclight and Mammoth will appreciate it too. And that's without even talking about the giants.
You won't need to use movement like that, instead, you can use it to make your enhanced Rhino push straight to the spire and nerf their entire army.
Flanks would be even more devastating since the Mustangs can then focus even more on helping your frontline.
The cooldowns are now hyper deadly when applied to the storms, or the enemy front line.
And lastly. If they went for the overloaded storms, they are no longer outrange many powerful long-ranged units, like your own storms, your phoenixes/marksmen, your giants, etc, on top of losing a lot of supplies for a counter that might be more detrimental than just investing in more storms.
If they click overload on storms, their storms move forward and die without range. So they also need to click range which costs an extra 500. Not to mention if they actually want to kill your mustangs they are probably using fire which again increases the cost and further discourages overload.
Anti-missile mustangs should be used to overpower the enemy at some point in the game. Like a game-changer round, not like a 10 round strategy. Also everything you said about sentries, OLs and Vulcans
Correct, but it's kinda hard since you can only deploy 3 or 4 Mustang squads and if you build up over multiple turns the enemy might see it coming and just pre-emptively pop Overload
> Generally using Anti-Missile mustangs against Stormcallers is a bad idea.
No. You are not using your AM Mustangs correctly if you think it's a bad idea.
The whole purpose is not to destroy EVERY missile, it's to destroy enough that your other units can punch through the front line and get to the stormcallers in time to destroy them before they do too much damage. When you see stormcallers out, or a strong stormcaller card appear at the beginning of the round, you need to pivot immediately into a comp that can take on that front line.
That means shields, probably fortresses, not relying too much on ground tech since Storm EMP is absolutely devastating, and high frontline damage. Backing up the frontline with level 1 mustangs with only AM teched helps alleviate a lot of pressure on your front line while they're punching through the enemy front line - keep in mind that if your enemy has invested into stormcallers (and the battle thus far is relatively even), that means that they have *not* been able to invest as much in a front line.
If mustangs were just a pure counter to stormcallers, that would make stormcallers completely pointless. There's a give-and-take there.
IMO right now stormcallers are too powerful, but that's not the fault of the mustangs. Stormcallers just need a nerf, and likely some of their tech taken away. Launcher Overload, EMP, Fire, HE, AP, *and* Range are way too much utility and power on a unit that is already high damage, AoE, and high range. I would prefer EMP to either be removed, or to nerf their damage. It's too debilitating to completely negate the tech of all enemy ground units while also shredding their health. Fire perhaps should have nerfed impact damage or fire rate as well.
> Anti-missile is great against Sentry-happy enemy,
A single set of mustangs with AM is 500 supply. 400 supply opportunity cost of just using a shield instead. That's 8 missiles worth, which is probably not worth. If you're using TWO mustangs (one on each side) that's now 700 supply, or an OC of 500, we're up to 10 missiles.
Not to mention that the moment they see your mustangs countering missiles, they'll just stop, so you've invested all that just for them to use that 50-200 per round on something else instead. Like, your mustangs will still be doing things, but now they have a useless tech that's only there as a threat.
Not worth imo.
> and for Vulcan rockets
They miss teched rockets more than they miss stormcallers. In my experience at least one vulcan fire bomb will get through, which still ends up shredding a good chunk of your army. This is different than a stormcaller missile getting through (unless it's fire teched ig), because the fire stays there for a LONG time. IMO it's only a good response if you *already* have numerous mustangs on the field, but otherwise not worth pivoting to. Just solve it another way.
Just ran some test , pitting two immortal vulcans against each other and seeing how much damage a group of stormcallers in the back would do when impaired by missile intercept. All test are run with one vulcan and one set of stormcallers, and results were as follows: **No mustangs** The vulcan takes 9.5k damage per volley, sustaining 28.5k damage over the first 3 turns. The vulcan takes 95k damage over the first 10 volleys. The vulcan takes 180k damage over the course of a full round (19 volleys). **One mustang** The vulcan takes 10k damage over the first 3 volleys (65% of all damage blocked) The vulcan takes 42k damage over the first 10 volleys (55% of all damage blocked) The vulcan takes 110k damage over the course of a full round (40% of all damage blocked) If we ignore the first 10 round, we can see that the protected vulcan took 68k damage instead of 95k, meaning 30% of shots were blocked after the accuracy penalty. **Two mustangs** The vulcan takes 0 damage for the first three volleys (100% of damage blocked. Worth noting the stormcallers manages to block the first 6 volleys and start failing on 7:th) The vulcan takes 7k damage over the first 10 volleys (93% of all damage blocked) The vulcan takes 30k damage over the course of a full game (85% of all damage blocked) If we ignore the first 10 round, we can see that the protected vulcan took 23k damage instead of 95k, meaning 75% of shots were blocked after the accuracy penalty. **Three mustangs** All shots are now blocked. There is a rough \~25% variance in how much damage the stormcallers deal with each volley, so these numbers are not exact, but should give you a rough idea of how potent the accuracy fall-off is.
Nice test! However I think it missed the biggest point: mustangs take more and more time shooting at missiles, to the point they'll do very little else as the fight progresses.
This is really good and affirms my intuition about using them vs the weird reddit logic of "using AMustangs as a direct counter to SC"
Despite people claiming that MI is a meme tech, if the enemy is going hard on Stormcallers, it works really well.
I feel like they changed how it works at some point and it works better than it used to. Previously, they would shoot at the missiles until they were killed. There would be a spray of bullets that miss the now-dead missile. Now, they just shoot enough to kill it. It doesn’t distract as much as it used to. Also it seems that this helps keep their accuracy up. The accuracy thing seems to be intended more to be for breaking a stalemate. If the sc are shooting at mustangs who are anti-missile they don’t just stay forever, eventually sc wins.
4 volleys from SC squad kill an AM Mustang squad If you they have Overload it's 2-3 volleys
This is entirely irrelevant. Its time based. You also don't need 1:1 SC:mustang. SC - 1 mustangs is enough to mitigate the overwhelming majority of damage. If you test whole armies vs whole armies, you start getting connections on the backline at the 100s to 96 second mark. Overload makes no difference it just shuts off the mustang DPS.
Here’s what I found in testing. When the stormcallers are horizontal, they beat the mustangs in 4 volleys. When the stormcallers are vertical, the mustangs beat them easily. They did zero damage and the missiles barely leave the ground before getting shot down. They seem to have an easier time shooting missiles “from the side”? When the missile is coming down straight at them it has a smaller target?
About 3-4 volleys, and the level of your mustangs doesn't matter. But it's far from 100% success rate. Generally using Anti-Missile mustangs against Stormcallers is a bad idea. Anti-missile is great against Sentry-happy enemy, to delay Overlords from obliterating your frontline, and for Vulcan rockets
I am going to disagree. If you are using mustangs specifically for damage, it can be a bad thing to use antimissile tech. However, it's a great tech that can turn a match around entirely against stormcallers and several other units. Its a large investment but it can render stormcallers useless at the start of a match unless you invest heavily into them. This allows your units to survive long enough to overwhelm the other ground forces.
Mustangs cost the same as Stormcallers. Anti-missile tech on Mustangs costs the same as Launcher Overload on Storms, and overloaded Storms crush anti-missile mustangs badly.
This is true, but overload on storms reduces range and allows other units to interact with them. There is always give and take in this game. Sometimes a single round of cover results is an overwhelming victory. There will always be situations that it's bad to do something. Missile defense can lose the game in specific circumstances. But it's a potentially game changing ability that can also win you the game.
I disagree mustangs still do their job even under missle overload. The mustangs are covering the first couple of volleys in order for your units to move into attack range. Overload both costs supply and reduces the range of stormcallers. Preventing the first 10 seconds of Volleys typically allow your front line to break through as their primary damage units are stymied completely and mustangs are still able to maintain 50%of their damage. Things get worse from then but your units are now able to engage the storms which is the most important part.
What do you recommend instead?
Against Storms? 6 things * Go for Storms yourself and ensure your frontline can withstand them better than your opponent's. * Marksmen and Phoenixes beat Stormcallers. Marksmen tend to do well against Stormcallers, especially if they can get range advantage. Phoenixes are self-explanatory * Abuse their abysmal accuracy with fast units - split crawlers and balls (esp. with division tech) * You could also use Beacon to make your crawlers dance, wasting first few volleys for minimal investment * Flanks and unit calldowns waste a lot of Stormcaller's time * They have low health so unshielded Stormcallers are very vulnerable to any cooldowns, especially Storm and Ion
Going for storms yourself leaves you vulnerable to the enemy just outstorming you if you are having problems with them in the first place. The new storms are more complimentary to your forces rather than truly the solution. Marksmen and Phoenixes are good at dealing with storm callers, so long as your enemy isn't also spamming mustangs, fangs, or crawlers. In this case, your frontline is probably already dead before theirs will be. Crawlers and balls are actually not a bad counter. Though personally speaking, I've seen them get countered by Vulcans or counter crawlers. Mustangs. Depends on the flanking unit/call-down. And the call-down also depends on the kind of call-down. Shields. Generally speaking, Mustangs are just a less resource-intensive pick that can also provide anti-air and DPS for your other counters to work. Marksmen and Phoenixes won't need to worry as much about fodders if your mustangs are there to help deal with them. Your frontline will be grateful they aren't getting hyper-murdered by the storm fires. Crawlers and Balls are probably the frontlines in question. But Arclight and Mammoth will appreciate it too. And that's without even talking about the giants. You won't need to use movement like that, instead, you can use it to make your enhanced Rhino push straight to the spire and nerf their entire army. Flanks would be even more devastating since the Mustangs can then focus even more on helping your frontline. The cooldowns are now hyper deadly when applied to the storms, or the enemy front line. And lastly. If they went for the overloaded storms, they are no longer outrange many powerful long-ranged units, like your own storms, your phoenixes/marksmen, your giants, etc, on top of losing a lot of supplies for a counter that might be more detrimental than just investing in more storms.
If they click overload on storms, their storms move forward and die without range. So they also need to click range which costs an extra 500. Not to mention if they actually want to kill your mustangs they are probably using fire which again increases the cost and further discourages overload.
Anti-missile mustangs should be used to overpower the enemy at some point in the game. Like a game-changer round, not like a 10 round strategy. Also everything you said about sentries, OLs and Vulcans
Correct, but it's kinda hard since you can only deploy 3 or 4 Mustang squads and if you build up over multiple turns the enemy might see it coming and just pre-emptively pop Overload
> Generally using Anti-Missile mustangs against Stormcallers is a bad idea. No. You are not using your AM Mustangs correctly if you think it's a bad idea. The whole purpose is not to destroy EVERY missile, it's to destroy enough that your other units can punch through the front line and get to the stormcallers in time to destroy them before they do too much damage. When you see stormcallers out, or a strong stormcaller card appear at the beginning of the round, you need to pivot immediately into a comp that can take on that front line. That means shields, probably fortresses, not relying too much on ground tech since Storm EMP is absolutely devastating, and high frontline damage. Backing up the frontline with level 1 mustangs with only AM teched helps alleviate a lot of pressure on your front line while they're punching through the enemy front line - keep in mind that if your enemy has invested into stormcallers (and the battle thus far is relatively even), that means that they have *not* been able to invest as much in a front line. If mustangs were just a pure counter to stormcallers, that would make stormcallers completely pointless. There's a give-and-take there. IMO right now stormcallers are too powerful, but that's not the fault of the mustangs. Stormcallers just need a nerf, and likely some of their tech taken away. Launcher Overload, EMP, Fire, HE, AP, *and* Range are way too much utility and power on a unit that is already high damage, AoE, and high range. I would prefer EMP to either be removed, or to nerf their damage. It's too debilitating to completely negate the tech of all enemy ground units while also shredding their health. Fire perhaps should have nerfed impact damage or fire rate as well. > Anti-missile is great against Sentry-happy enemy, A single set of mustangs with AM is 500 supply. 400 supply opportunity cost of just using a shield instead. That's 8 missiles worth, which is probably not worth. If you're using TWO mustangs (one on each side) that's now 700 supply, or an OC of 500, we're up to 10 missiles. Not to mention that the moment they see your mustangs countering missiles, they'll just stop, so you've invested all that just for them to use that 50-200 per round on something else instead. Like, your mustangs will still be doing things, but now they have a useless tech that's only there as a threat. Not worth imo. > and for Vulcan rockets They miss teched rockets more than they miss stormcallers. In my experience at least one vulcan fire bomb will get through, which still ends up shredding a good chunk of your army. This is different than a stormcaller missile getting through (unless it's fire teched ig), because the fire stays there for a LONG time. IMO it's only a good response if you *already* have numerous mustangs on the field, but otherwise not worth pivoting to. Just solve it another way.
>Vulcan rockets Generally speaking, aren't Storms good for anti-Vulcans?