Great Combinator is a Powerhouse

So, I've been playing a lot of games recently and I have noticed a recurring thing happening. Anyone using GC is a lot harder to take down, and generally more powerful when compared to every other strategy. It doesn't matter who it is, a rank 5-6 or a rank 9-10+, GC is just a powerhouse strategy compared to others.

It takes more units to cap a GC player than it does for any other offensive strategy because of the combination of its defense and +1 HP. By offensive strategy I mean any strategy with an attacking unit boosted in offensive power, so SM, MoS, NC, TG, DS, and GC. Some might call IF an offensive strategy, but I don't count it as such. Even if you were to count it that way, the movement nerf counterbalances the HP bonuses. Out of all of those GC is the only one with an HP boost to defensive and attacking units with already enhanced stats.

This, in my opinion, makes it a bit overpowered relative to everything else. While all of the other offensive strategies have to deal with regular or worse off infantry to pay for the attack, GC gets a defense and HP boost. This results in a player that can attack with powerful units, then turn around and defend with a very powerful defensive unit. The 1 attack doesn't even make them as weak as intended for attacking because of the HP. 4 infantry with 1 attack can kill a militia without losing a single unit because of the HP facerolling.

The +1HP even effects tanks heavily as well, if you watch the battle of GC Tanks attacking they completely rape everything. They already have 9 attack, one of the highest attacks for a single unit in the game. Giving it +1 HP on top of that is overkill, the 1 defense doesn't much to counterbalance this considering you combine infantry with tanks to negate the effect.

The downside to each unit is already offset by the play style of the strat - you COMBINE troops as Great Combinator to cover the weaknesses of each unit. If you're playing it wrong then you'll get smashed to bits. If you play it correctly you'll wreck everything. While you should still get destroyed if you just stack tanks or stack infantry and expect everything to be fine, it's not much of a skill to use two different types of unit instead of one and the bonus for doing so shouldn't be as huge as it is.

Both inf and tanks already specialize in an area, attack and def. The +1 HP isn't needed when it comes to either unit, as they are already powerful. This is what makes GC overpowered. It's over buffed unnecessarily. Reducing the specializing stats (atk/def) wouldn't make sense because it would make the strategy redundant. An easy solution to fixing GC would be -1HP. It would turn into a good balanced strategy, instead of being a huge powerhouse like it is now.

Post if you agree, disagree or have any thoughts to add on the topic. Try to actually list reasoning though, let's keep this constructive and not a thread full of "I agree" and "I disagree".

Fully support this.

I support a small nerf.

I agree.


Look at it this way: GC has the attack/defence bonus and +1hp, at only the cost to two kinds of units. Iron Fist only has +2 hp, but everything is nerfed and even the transports are overnerfed, while GC retains it's full range, and no changes to cost.

GC is as strong as IF(if not stronger), has more range than IF, and is more cost effective in terms of transport movement:cost. The -1 to hp would fit since nothing else was touched besides the attack/def of tanks/infantry.

Leave it as it is, it's perfect. comes from a guy who just started playing GC.

Support for sure

Yess.definetly true.

Bad idea for good people

This is a bad idea. Great Conbinator is perfect, if you add a nerf it will make it useless.
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if you nerf Great Conbinator i think those strategys also need to get a nerf: Sky Menace,Master of Stealth,Tank General,Perfect Defense
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Great Conbinator is aready hard to use on games with low income, because you cant use your infatry to attack.

Escrito por Tundy, 08.09.2012 at 14:07

This is a bad idea. Great Conbinator is perfect, if you add a nerf it will make it useless.
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if you nerf Great Conbinator i think those strategys also need to get a nerf: Sky Menace,Master of Stealth,Tank General,Perfect Defense
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Great Conbinator is aready hard to use on games with low income, because you cant use your infatry to attack.

Thunder3, although you're opinion is respected, you're misinformed since you're ability at a larger stage is limited.

SM needs no nerf, it was already edited and balanced by Pin's suggestion. Master of Stealth and Tank General are not used for competitive play, and PD is balanced as it is. In fact all three Tg/Mos/Pd are gotten early by all players and are the easiest to use when you're a noob, but get weak as you acquire other strategies and learn how to actually play.

Great Combinator isn't hard to use at all, just don't pick an expensive country with lots of infantry and you're fine. The nerf that is suggested here is just take away it's +1hp that it has. This won't make the strategy useless at all.

Escrito por Desu, 08.09.2012 at 14:52

Escrito por Tundy, 08.09.2012 at 14:07

This is a bad idea. Great Conbinator is perfect, if you add a nerf it will make it useless.
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if you nerf Great Conbinator i think those strategys also need to get a nerf: Sky Menace,Master of Stealth,Tank General,Perfect Defense
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Great Conbinator is aready hard to use on games with low income, because you cant use your infatry to attack.

Thunder3, although you're opinion is respected, you're misinformed since you're ability at a larger stage is limited.

SM needs no nerf, it was already edited and balanced by Pin's suggestion. Master of Stealth and Tank General are not used for competitive play, and PD is balanced as it is. In fact all three Tg/Mos/Pd are gotten early by all players and are the easiest to use when you're a noob, but get weak as you acquire other strategies and learn how to actually play.

Great Combinator isn't hard to use at all, just don't pick an expensive country with lots of infantry and you're fine. The nerf that is suggested here is just take away it's +1hp that it has. This won't make the strategy useless at all.

if you remove the +1 hp no one is gonna use the strategy anymore because tank general will be a better option.
look this is a stat i made of 8 Tanks with great conbinator againts 8 neutral infantry:

[1% = 1/100] <--- yeah i attack 100 stacks of 8 infantry with 100 stacks of 8 tanks.
5 Remaining Tanks = 22%
4 Remaining Tanks = 50%
3 Remaining Tanks = 22%
2 Remaining Tanks = 4%
1 Remaining Tanks = 2%

0% chances of failure

A small nerf is needed........I agree ^

This makes sense to me as GC is about combining a bit of PD with a bit of TG, but currently GC tanks are almost as good as TG tanks and GC infantry are just as good (maybe slightly worse, but not much in it) as pd infantry.

Full support

It was balanced before, but other strats got nerfed so it is a bit of an OP strat. I say, remove the HP bonus.

I fully support this.

Tunder... You've compared Tank attack in GC vs Tank attack in TG but then you've ignored that GC has an incredibly strong defence option whereas TG is the worst defensive strat in game and has no viable way to defend itself. Having Tanks and Militia as your highest defensive unit... Yeah, I can totally see people flocking to TG after GC gets nerfed.

I support this.

Support even though my fav strat

Support

>nerf DS
>makes GC stronger
>without HP tanks will have even more weird rolls than before just like tg tanks against neutrals
>attacking the same city as an enemy wont be as good.
>nerf nerf nerf nerf. what about boosts?

I'm not much of a GC player and I disagree here. If we keep nerfing then strategies will lose their authenticity. GC is strong not OP. Players will adjust to counter it through time. (although DS should get its old stats back) What we need to do is boost the weaker strategies not nerf them. (unless they're incredibly OP like IF was a long time ago). GC isn't OP. Just trendy.

I agree with TopHats here.

Perhaps it's time to start to think strategies in a more deep way instead of simple buffs and nerfs. We need to think in the whole system, or else we're just going to keep on making temporary solutions that create other problems.

I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but we should make analyzes similar to what I did with SM, where gameplay, counterbalance and, specially, peculiarities of each strategy are taken into account.

I'm not against the idea that GC needs a nerf, but the way balancement has been discussed concerns me.

Escrito por Pinheiro, 10.09.2012 at 19:49

Perhaps it's time to start to think strategies in a more deep way instead of simple buffs and nerfs. We need to think in the whole system, or else we're just going to keep on making temporary solutions that create other problems.

I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but we should make analyzes similar to what I did with SM, where gameplay, counterbalance and, specially, peculiarities of each strategy are taken into account.

Seeing how it took so long for someone to complain about GC I can assume It's working, after GC I am fairly confident no new OP strat will appear(mostly because I like to play around with different strats so if I found something OP I would use it)

I also don't think that GC is the same as SM that you can change it in terms of gameplay mechanics that much, SM was easy because it had air transports which is completely different from their attacking units but GC only has two main units and that's infantry and tanks, both of which are too strong right now due to hp. I think from the IF nerf we can all see HP makes a pretty huge difference, all It took to fix IF was a simple -1 HP to IF and does anyone complain about it being too strong now? no. do people still play it? yes. All you have to do in GC is stack infantry anywhere you can predict your opponent to attack(Let's face it, this is pretty easy unless they are intentionally being unpredictable, but this hardly ever pays off mid-game), and in most cases especially competitive games of europe this ends up being germany/italy/GC player's cap, countries you simply cannot avoid (the same goes for world games, Iran/India/Spain/RussiaVolga or Ural tend to be the same way). When GC units are better at defending than IF infantry or especially PD infantry, which are literally made to defend and GC tanks are better than IF tanks or any other attacking units (even TG tanks due to them having HP), there is a problem that needs to be solved.

Escrito por tophat, 10.09.2012 at 16:59

GC isn't OP. Just trendy.

don't need to reply to the rest of the post as it relies completely on the above basis, of which I disagree with completely. The only reason something becomes trendy is typically due to it being overpowered, and the community being douchebags.


However statistically Amok can still say TG is the most played strat ok

Just tacking this on to the end of what Fruit said... there was no need for it to be a wall of text just for the sake of a wall of text because the problem (and the solution) were pretty simple. SM was totally different because it needed to eliminate defending with Bombers and so had to create a viable system to defend. GC has no such problems, it's just a matter of numbers.

On the whole the game has got way more balanced thanks mostly to community feedback, however:

DS still lacks its own niche and is no more powerful than SM despite giving up the range and it may as well not even have reduced marine cost because it makes no difference.
TG is powerful on offense but still lacks a viable way to defend itself - We could either buff tanks further and create a super unit or we toy with the idea of removing the static nerf to TG infantry... perhaps moving the nerf to militia range so TG players can't make default walls like IF. Just an idea.
LB is fundamentally flawed because of how ARB scales (posts have been written about this but for some unknown reason it was decided to add even more ARB to LB in an attempt to fix it). I think LB needs a more fundamental overhaul and I've seen some good ideas for this. One of which involves LB gets double chance to turnblock compared to every other strat. It still remains expensive and broadly ineffective due to the nature of ARB however it does get a kind of niche... albeit one that will probably make people rage.

I guess you're right. Maybe we should change it and make some tests on how it work out.

As for TG, I think that removing the +10 cost on militia would already be enough, as it already got a little buff before. Let's remember that GC is a premium strategy and should remain more powerful than TG, despite it's harder to play in my opinion.

I agree that DS needs to be rethinked in order to become more useful.

The point is to balance strategies, by boosts or nerfs, doesn't matter. But we have already nerfed other strategies so I think that's easier to nerf GC too than to boost all other strategies.

I think I can say a few things about GC, since I am probably the player who played it the most. After the nerfs, GC really is the strongest strategy. Simply because if you combine tanks and infantry the right way, you can expand very easily and at the same time have equally great defense. Also, what most of the people don't do, you can load 5 tanks into an air transport if you have enough money and make a terrible mess with just 5 units which isn't really the case with other strategies, even the attacking ones, because no strategy has such good attack rating and range for it's units.
I really think that if we just remove 1HP, the strategy will still be very good, but also balanced comparing to other strategies.

Maybe i was wrong, since everyone is supporting this. But as soon as GC gets nerfed another strategy will evolve from the ashes and be considered OP. Also just restating what Barrymore said. TG and LB are the weak links. They need boosts. Considering GC is already getting nerfed we should only give small boosts for now.

TG: remove the +10 cost to militia and the -1 attack to infantry.

LB: remove none, and the +10 cost to all units. (making LB none except with the extra 10 ARB)

or this http://afterwind.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=4959

Also here are some great threads I made that never went anywhere

http://afterwind.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=4864
http://afterwind.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=4788
http://afterwind.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=4414
http://afterwind.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=5098
http://afterwind.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=4853

Escrito por tophat, 11.09.2012 at 10:38

They need boosts. Considering GC is already getting nerfed we should only give small boosts for now.

TG: remove the +10 cost to militia and the -1 attack to infantry.

One or another. Both would mean a big boost already in my opinion. I would prefer the remove of +10 cost to militia, as it would make it easier for TG to player to defens himself, while - 1 attack wouldn't interfer in nothing on this problem, while also taking the strategy away from it's original purpose.

Removed +1 HP bonus to infantry & tanks for Great Combinator.