Is flak burst any good? » Forum Post by Agent of Kharma

no idea. But if I played online you sure wouldn't see me pick Advent. I just don't like them (the Halcyon is really the only unit I do like, and only because of Burnside's Zeroth Law and spacefighters (Zeroth Law 101- SF readers want to read about PEOPLE, not microchips)).

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You cannot clear the air with flak burst alone. You need fighters and flaks backing it up to make it effective. Where flak burst excels is that it quickly deals massive damage to a large number of strike craft, leaving your fighters and flaks with a mop-up job. Even if your opponent is foolish enough to let you flak burst most of his strike craft, it will still take three bursts to kill bombers, so you won't have any immediate impact. On the other hand, combine it with backup units and chances are the second burst will kill practically everything.

Beyond that fact, the Halcyon deploys only 5 or 6 squads at lower levels; this isn't really enough to merit a 100 antimatter ability. It starts to shine when you're getting attacked by more than a dozen squads. A lone Halcyon produces 5 or 6 squads at lower levels, so you're not getting much bang for your buck out of flak burst. Remember, it's the same amount of damage to each strike craft whether it's 5 squads or 50 squads in the area of effect, so obviously you're not going to say "wow" when it's only 5.

The answer to the Halcyon is fighters. Yeah, you will get slapped, but the Halcyon has the same conundrum you do. If you hit it with 5 or 6 fighter squads of your own, he's using an expensive area of effect ability to hit a couple of gnats. He's not getting bang for his buck. You will recover from the slap and come back to kill bombers, and I assure you the bombers will die a lot faster than the fighters.

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You cannot clear the air with flak burst alone.

Well screw this idea for a counter. So much for all the things I've heard about the massive kol with its awe-inspiring flak burst striking terror in the hearts of carrier spammers everywhere. I'm not a tec player - I didn't know the ability sucked.

I guess I'm declaring this scout/disciple with halcyon crap officially OP. Yeah, I can counter it by spamming the same crap back at him, but why would I want to do that?

I don't guess a kortul with jam weapons would fare any better than a kol? I mean, it was always the weakest of the anti-strikecraft cap abilities....

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The answer to the Halcyon is fighters.

Nope, tried it. Didn't work for me, even when I severely outnumbered him in fighters.

What about a dunov with magnetize? I guess that won't do much either?

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Two thoughts.

1. Flak burst has a delay. Make sure to use it when SC are coming into range, not leaving it.

2. Capital ships don't use anti-matter when making SC so this weapon is much less effective against them. A carrier cruiser OTOH will run out of anti-matter and be effectively neutralized by flak burst.

I'm not really a big Kol fan personally, but to each their own. As a Vasari player I think the best way to kill the SC is to kill the cap.

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Again you call it crap when it's just not effective int eh senario you were facing. Darvin told you when it would be effective but it seems you didn't read or understand it.

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2. Capital ships don't use anti-matter when making SC so this weapon is much less effective against them.

Yeah, already knew that, but I was still trying like hell to figure out a way to counter

Darvin told you when it would be effective but it seems you didn't read or understand it.

I read and understood. I simply reject it a being a viable strat for me (no offense to Darvin3). If all he has to do is spam scout/disciples plus his halcyons, I cannot be expected to build flak, fighters, multiple kols, and God knows what else to counter it. His strategy is easy, simple, cheap, and effective. Either I find one as easy, simple, cheap, and effective to counter, or it's imbalanced and I just forget about trying to counter it with anything different than just spamming the crap back at him.

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Against Halcyons, you're far better with multiple Sova Carriers than Kols. Sovas with Heavy SC and Fighters are able to clear out 6-12 Bombers easily, and Missile Batteries is a nice offensive power to deal with the Disciples. In this situation, Kols are not worth the cost.

Flak Burst is generally good only when there's an enormous amount of SC (20-50+). Otherwise, use Sovas instead. It's far more effective.

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So much for all the things I've heard about the massive kol with its awe-inspiring flak burst striking terror in the hearts of carrier spammers everywhere. I'm not a tec player - I didn't know the ability sucked.

The Kol does rock against carrier spammers. The problem is, a lone carrier cap is not in any way similar to a carrier spammer. That one Halcyon is producing about 5 squads, whereas a carrier spammer could be flying around with 50. You're hitting for maybe one tenth of the damage you would have against a carrier spammer, is it any wonder this is less effective a choice in this case?

The Kol remains an exceptional tool against someone who is spamming large numbers of strike craft, but a lone Halcyon does not satisfy this condition. The Kol has its place, but not here.

I guess I'm declaring this scout/disciple with halcyon crap officially OP. Yeah, I can counter it by spamming the same crap back at him, but why would I want to do that?

Try getting a Sova; its fighters counter the enemy bombers, and you can create free missile platforms constantly to kill the Disciples. Bring in a cobalt-based army, maybe a few LRM's and Hoshikos, and you can actually go toe to toe with these kinds of Advents. Heck, I often end up killing the Halcyon when he decides to make a retreat and forgets that I have ion bolt. I almost always end up going Akkan/Sova or Sova/Akkan against Advent players these days. There seems to be little reason to do otherwise since this is the best way to deal with both Illum spam and Seeker/Disciple spam.

Nope, tried it. Didn't work for me, even when I severely outnumbered him in fighters.

What about a dunov with magnetize? I guess that won't do much either?

I don't know why that's not working for you, because this is my standard response and it works without fail every time. Maybe it's because I bring out the Sova, which unlike carrier cruisers never runs into antimatter issues when replacing its fighters. I don't even need a numerical advantage, I eventually just whittle those bombers away.

Magnetize should work better than flak burst, but you need to magnetize a good target to grab as many bombers as possible. I don't normally use the Dunov so I'm not the right person to ask for the fine details of applying its abilities.

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Pbhead

Join Date 12/2008

+77

ok... now... how is a vasari supposed to counter disciple/scout/halycon rush?

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For Vasari, I'd say a two cap start, possibly three.

You can forget navigators, and seekers rape assailants. Forget flak. Skirmishers will make good support, but won't turn the tide.

I'd say a Devastator start with a Skirantra support would do it. He won't be able to kill anything and your skirantra will produce fighters forcing him to make fighters too.

An orky also stops the strat hard. Problem is a lot of people don't like doing that strat, but if you can sneak an orky to his homeworld, it'll do wonders.

I'm trying Vasari lately. What worked for me was what I mentioned. I did a Devastator start, saw the rush coming, got a skirantra, and about 8 skirmisher support. I took out the disciples first, and that seemed to do it. As long as you don't make anything with light armor, those scouts are useless in terms of killing anything.

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Heres what you didnt do with the Kols, you didn't use their offensive power! Charge those Halcs! They cant stand the punishment Kols dish out. You said you had 3 caps? Make your 3rd a Sova for bomber cleanup after you flak burst em. Or go dunov so you can shield restore and magnetize. Point is you gotta charge that Halc fast so you can start laying some smackdown upon it/them, it won't last long and so it will die or retreat, either of which is good for you. And without the Halos bombers, seekers and disciples are gonna have a tough time taking down 2 Kols.( you got upgraded repair bays? forget about it)

Magnetize should work better than flak burst, but you need to magnetize a good target to grab as many bombers as possible. I don't normally use the Dunov so I'm not the right person to ask for the fine details of applying its abilities.

Magnetize is a tricky ability, while it kills SC instantly, some conditions seem to apply for it to "grab". I've experimented with the ability and found it works best when the SC are stationary (thats a no brainer), but its grab radius is kinda small. What you will want to do with it to get the best effect is cast it on an enemy vessel on the bombers second pass. On their first pass they flew full speed over the enemy fleet towards your cap ship, dealt their damage and (ideally) spun around for a second pass. Again they fly full speed towards your cap ship, but also towards their own fleet (thats when you get em!) Once they've made a second pass on their target theyre most likely going to be spinning around while immersed in their friendly vessels, or making 2 passes around a magnetized vessel. Choose a target frigate that you think will be in their flight path and hit it with magnetize to maximize the chance of grabbing. Best case scenario is you grab all of those little bastards and theyre killed instantly and deal some damage to the frigate. I wouldnt mind at all if you could cast magnetize on your own ships (theyre the ones being targeted anyway, man that would make it a lot easier) especially since the impact of the SC doesnt do all that much damage. I certainly wouldnt mind having, say, one of my caps take some damage if I could clear out all the attackers bombers with one shot.

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ok... now... how is a vasari supposed to counter disciple/scout/halycon rush?

LOL, don't ask me. I just left a game 5 minutes ago as vasari. I guess this is now the main advent script of choice, because an advent player started right next to me, and rushed me with two halcyons. I starbased, it was destroyed almost instantly. Then he killed my capship. Meanwhile, I snuck a starbase over to his homeworld, where he promptly went over and destroyed that, I think before it even finished building. I managed to get a second egg out, and tried to flee so I could colonize some 'roid somewhere else, but he killed it in the next gravity well as it was running, so that's 2 eggs down and 2 starbases down in the first few minutes of play. Then it was gg.

I think you counter as vasari by not playing vasari. I kicked myself after the game for trying them again, when I had vowed to move on and try tec.

An orky also stops the strat hard.

See above.

Problem is a lot of people don't like doing that strat, but if you can sneak an orky to his homeworld, it'll do wonders.

See above.

Heres what you didnt do with the Kols, you didn't use their offensive power! Charge those Halcs!

In fact I did do that. I put 2 kols plus the akkan on one of his halcyons.

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Flak burst is freakin awesome.I have won many games thanks to flak burst.PLayed a game maybe a week ago ffa ended up being 3 of us.I had around 100 bomber squads against a vas sb and hangers and around 70 fighter squads.Got me 2 kols and wiped them out and won solely from flak burst.You have to know how to use flak burst for it to be any good.It takes 2-3 burst to wipe out a squad so its alot like darvin says it wont win you many battles early but you can literally kill hundreds of sc later game with this ship in an instant.

This ship was the whale shark when carriers were king.

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Quoting Pbhead,

reply 10

ok... now... how is a vasari supposed to counter disciple/scout/halycon rush?

You need to get two capital ships up quickly. There's three particular capitals to look at; the Egg, Kortul, and Skirantra. An Egg/Kortul combo is particularly viable, because Nano Dissasembler will either kill off the Halcyons or at least force their retreat, and the Kortul is virtually invincible against Seekers with Power Surge. In this case, you want to get Jam Weapons instead of Disruptive Strikes; Halcyons have only one AM-using ability until level 6. In this case, the best course of action is to get an Egg, a Kortul, and mass Skrimishers. While Skirms are pretty terrible, they at least can handle Seekers and Disciples with some degree of success. The key is to eliminate the Halcyons, which can make the Advent Seeker/Disciple/Halcyon rush far easier to handle.

Otherwise, getting dual Skirantras might be worth looking at. Instead of Skirms, getting mass Junsuraks might actually work far better. The key with this is not to handle the Halcyons, but the Seekers. Get out Junsuraks to clear out their Seekers and Fighters while having the Skirantras use Repair Cloud. With those out of the way, you can use Scramble Bombers. Two level 2 Skirantras have a total of eight Bombers, so mass an attack on the Halcyon. If needed, Assailants can be built at this point to kill off the Halcyons and Disciples.

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from my experience as an insane swarmer the MOST THING I HATE is not battling some ppl who stack 3 kols or 3 halcyons for their AoE SC killers ability or a huge fleet of flaks, but a DAMN smart peps who stack 3 Dunovs and using a very precise time to magnetize my frontliners at the very time my SCs are manuvering along the choke point.

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Quoting Darvin3,

reply 9

The problem is, a lone carrier cap is not in any way similar to a carrier spammer. That one Halcyon is producing about 5 squads, whereas a carrier spammer could be flying around with 50.

Here's where the bull starts creeping in. For starters level 3 halycon is 6 squads, it only goes up from there. Second when is it ever just 1 halycon? It's very common these days to players with 2-4 halycons. Suddenly the strike craft threat level is extreme.

And here's the rub. Halycon has *nothing else* to spend it's antimatter on than push. It costs nothing to replenish it's strikecraft so all the antimatter goes straight into the best anti strike craft ability in the game, this coupled with more of the best strikecraft than any other ship and an aura that buffs the bombers damage (not to mention illums) and you have the recipe for halycon spam.

Halycon is just too strong in this version of the game end of story.

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NOTE: the Halcyon's "Amplify Energy Aura" ability DOES NOT work on SC. It only works on: everything else EXCEPT SC. So it will work on frigs, caps, structures, and SBs, but not you're fighters&bombers.

The Rapture Battlecruiser has the "Concentration Aura" ability, which is an AoE for damage boost of friendly SC.

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Here's where the bull starts creeping in. For starters level 3 halycon is 6 squads, it only goes up from there. Second when is it ever just 1 halycon? It's very common these days to players with 2-4 halycons. Suddenly the strike craft threat level is extreme.

Okay, fine, two level 3 Halcyons with 6 craft each, we're now at 12 squads. Point is that this still isn't the sweet spot for the Kol. If we were talking about ten drone hosts (30 squads, about the same cost as two caps, all things considered) then the Kol would on average be dealing triple the damage. The point is that the Kol just gets better and better as more strike craft get fielded.

And here's the rub. Halycon has *nothing else* to spend it's antimatter on than push. It costs nothing to replenish it's strikecraft so all the antimatter goes straight into the best anti strike craft ability in the game, this coupled with more of the best strikecraft than any other ship

So now we're directly comparing Halcyon to Kol? Yeah, Halcyon is definitely better, by a longshot. I never said otherwise, and I strongly believe that the Kol needs a buff. However, that doesn't change the fact that flak burst is a powerful and useful ability.

I also agree that capital strike craft are part of the problem here. They're replaced far more efficiently than cruiser strike craft and you never run into antimatter issues, which means the Kol is in a losing proposition in the long run. The way to use it is to clear the skies then hope that flaks and fighters can keep the enemy down. If they just keep popping up back up then flak burst is a very temporary solution.

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If we were talking about ten drone hosts (30 squads, about the same cost as two caps, all things considered) then the Kol would on average be dealing triple the damage. The point is that the Kol just gets better and better as more strike craft get fielded.

It might get better as far as dealing more total damage, but that damage is spread over all the strikecraft. It will be the exact same effect as my two kols hitting the bombers with flak burst in my story above - nothing will happen. Sure, I've taken a small piece out of 30 squads rather than 10, but I still have 30 squads of bombers that are going to rape me. This wasn't the ability or the result I was looking for.

I'm not building kols for flak burst any more. I'm either trying out dunov magnetize, on moving on to the next potential solution.

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double post

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It might get better as far as dealing more total damage, but that damage is spread over all the strikecraft.

Carrier capital: fewer strike craft that are easier to replace.

Carrier cruiser: more strike craft that are harder to replace.

If the Kol deals damage to MORE strike craft that are HARDER to replace, then obviously it's having a much higher impact than if it deals the damage to fewer strike craft that are easier to replace. As I said, flak burst excels in larger situations with many strike craft flying overhead. Two carrier caps is not a situation that favours the Kol at all.

It will be the exact same effect as my two kols hitting the bombers with flak burst in my story above - nothing will happen.

I already said you need backup to finish the job. It's not different than telekinetic push, which won't kill jack shit on its own and needs to be followed up by fighters and flaks. If you cut half the health off of every strike craft, your flaks and fighters are going to be killing them in much more rapid succession. Strike craft don't heal (unless you're up against a Skirantra) and even with carrier caps take a while to be replaced. If you have a good flak presence you can keep those fighters out of the picture. The Kol's purpose is to deal with the initial swarm and cut down the workload for your flaks and fighters.

I'm not building kols for flak burst any more. I'm either trying out dunov magnetize, on moving on to the next potential solution.

Honestly, I don't blame you, but I don't think your results will be any better with magnetize (probably will be worse, although magnetize does kill rather than damage, though it has a very small target cap). As I've already said, the answer is usually to fight fire with fire and bring out a Sova to fight strike craft with strike craft.

I fought a carrier-spammer yesterday and my answer was a big chunk of flaks backed up by a Sova. I actually did bring out a Kol later on, though it saw little action.

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Fuzzy Logic

Join Date 05/2002

+493

I've stopped using Kols, preferring to build Sovas instead. If only they had a couple more squads...

Missile platforms are really good now too.

The Kol's flak burst doesn't seem anywhere near as effective as it used to be

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Quoting Fuzzy Logic,

reply 23

The Kol's flak burst doesn't seem anywhere near as effective as it used to be

The Kol Battleship really lost its luster after Fighters were weakened. It used to be around 1.15 that Kols were fairly common, because Flak Burst really helped clear out the literal swarms of SC. Now largely, the Sova Carrier can kill early SC efficiently, and late-game, Fighters aren't much of a threat. So Flak Burst really became weaker because SC aren't nearly as pervasive as previous patch versions. And Bombers will survive a level Flak Burst.

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