The Anti-ambusher Confederations' poll thread.

[Bottle]

This thread is meant to run alongside FryLock's thread. Any posts on this topic should be made there.

If we get a significant enough response on this poll, maybe we can take it to Bills or Seed and see what they think of it.

If you think the ambusher should have a specific unit created to counter it, choose the top option.

[bludhoundz]

I don't like it, but I don't think its right to take away a unit that others would actually use; as long as you don't have to play against them.

[Mithrandir]

My suggestion is that Seed adds a unit to even things. It used to be reasonably possible for a turtler to beat a rusher, now it isn't. Seed just ought to even the score.

I voted for the top one.

[Hoolwath]

Should be removed. Its very imbalanced. U will have to remove clerics to leave it as it is.

[Dove]

Overpowered if used to its fullest capabilities: Cleric killing, removal of stone and frost focus, and genuinely removes lots of the strategy from this game.

Top option.

[sub the hendrix]

I dont beleive in removing units, but more units are needed to balance it out.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I voted the first option in the sense that, if it isn't removed, serious action has to be taken to balance it out.

[Mithrandir]

Same here, I'm not advocating having the ambusher deleted.

[da1n]

I too would prefer to have something to balance it out. Take this unit here (http://img232.exs.cx/img232/8236/tacticsstuff891hh.jpg), I'd like to see the ambusher touch me now. :cool:

[Wayfaerer]

Seeds not gonna like you posting that :mad:

[sub the hendrix]

:D Nice pic da1n, i want one of those.

[Mithrandir]

Seriously.

[Bottle]

Bludhoundz, da1n, Realist, and Terps rock need to be shot. :)

Ah... hold on...

Blud doesn't like it either. da1n is thinking from Legends' perspective. Realist just likes to disagree with the majority, and Terps is a rusher who likes playing turtles.

It all becomes clear...

[_Thunder_]

I really dont care if its removed or if it stays.

[Megabyte]

maybe i'm alone in this thinking...but I see the barrier ward as the anti-ambusher. Provides that much needed protection, and protects your vulnerable unit from the LOS avoiding GA.

I've used it with some pretty good sucess recently, by incorporating it into several setup types.

[Wayfaerer]

maybe i'm alone in this thinking...but I see the barrier ward as the anti-ambusher. Provides that much needed protection, and protects your vulnerable unit from the LOS avoiding GA.

I've used it with some pretty good sucess recently, by incorporating it into several setup types.

If Bottle thinks it's gotta go, it's gone. End of story :cool:

[Mithrandir]

With all the scouts and stuff, the bw delays the death of the cleric by one turn. Big deal.

[Amaroth]

maybe i'm alone in this thinking...but I see the barrier ward as the anti-ambusher. Provides that much needed protection, and protects your vulnerable unit from the LOS avoiding GA.

I've used it with some pretty good sucess recently, by incorporating it into several setup types.

Finally. Someone figured it out. Major props to you Megabyte (I'm not being sarcastic.)

The Barrier Ward is currently a suitable defense against the Ambusher. If you have a BW and a Furgon, you can fend one off successfully.

Everyone here is doing nothing but complaining. Complaining is not going to get you anywhere. Seed is not going to do anything because the masses want it. He never has before, why would he start now? In the time you've taken to complain, you could have been testing new ways to defend against the Ambusher.

You might as well devote your time to that rather than this, because preparing yourself against an attack will give you better results than trying to change something that won't be changed.

[sub the hendrix]

There are plenty of ways to combat the ambusher, but most rely on first turn. In my anti rush I almost always wisp the ambusher first turn (if its on my side). I completely agree, amaroth, that the GA is not invincible, but using it effectively is much easier than stopping it effectively. That is the key.

[monkus]

I challenge anyone to try and keep a cleric against my cleric-killer rush, if you get the busher side especially. The other side is a tad weaker, but it still kills clerics pretty well. But honestly, it just isn't possible, even w/ bward. Basically,

I shoot cleric with scout.
You bw it.
I muddy quake.
You do something
I busher it.

Or, if you get first turn and block LOS:
I busher cleric.
You barrier it b/c I have a muddy within range (often done)
I muddy quake.
Now you die from busher in a few turns.

[sub the hendrix]

Against your rush I lost my cleric, but won the match monkus :p , so maybe what we need is a units that arent rush, but dont rely heavily on cleric. Dont ask me how this would be done, I'm only talking hypothetical here.

[Wayfaerer]

A self-regenerating nub :cool:

(Or just remove the 2nd scout, which wasn't meant to be used in junction w/ the busher :p )

[sub the hendrix]

(Or just remove the 2nd scout, which wasn't meant to be used in junction w/ the busher :p )

Bah thats Legends talk... *hugs both scouts and glances nervously around*

[Lonely Tylenol]

Yeah, you Legend-playing newbies need to get some sense beaten into you. :cool: But not by me, because a vast majority of the Legenders here would rub my face in the dirt.
But I still don't like you.
All right, as said, the Barrier Ward provides one-turn protection. With this in mind, you can kill the Cleric in three turns, using the same three units, regardless of form. Heck, you can do it in two, based on the positioning of the Barrier Ward. Keep in mind the Poison Wisp, which has 6 move, teleport, unblockable attack, and cannot be reversed by a heal (since the opposing unit cannot move), and things become much more complicated.

[da1n]

Well, the anti-ambusher ward would certainly solve the problem. :cool:

[sub the hendrix]

Yes it would da1n, but i think maybe it is a tad overpowered? :p Anyways, I would use the bw in my gold game if it had higher hp, but focused it is extremely vulnerable to the multitudes of high powered gold attacks. It takes a special unit to work its way into a gold formation that has hp in the 30's, and barrier ward doesnt make par.

[Megabyte]

I revel in those cleric killer setups.

To all you naysayers, with 1 turn, I can make the entire match go completely against you. One block, one heal, one delay, is all it takes. Gaming strategies take several key factors, one of them is turn formula and rythm (and its one of the most crucial, and one of the least recognized). If your disrupt your opponents turn planning, you disrupt their gameplay. Then you substitute your own in there and can force him to move how and where you want him to, not how and where he wants too.

Thats the key to winning any match. You gotta be able to not only tell where your opponent will move, and what he'll do, but you gotta force him to do what you want him to do.

and fyi, normally, when I've used the bw, its saved my cleric for a lot longer than one turn. Your thinking of a very narrow situation, and making a lot of assumption about the way the each players units would be situated and what sort of position they're in.

[cuckoo]

When I see a busher and co. lined up against my cleric, I do something else. Instead of wasting valuable time trying to save my cleric, I let him die. I figure if I can take out his muddy and busher while he's messing around with my cleric, I have a decent shot at winning.
I just shrub up the field, stone my units and if he rushes me I use my frosty/furgy to (hopefully) hold him off. If he lets me come, I rely on my stoned units to outmatch his unstoned units, even with healing.

I'm not saying this is the perfect strategy, in fact it only works if you can hold of his other units while you kill his muddy followed by the busher.

And I still voted against the busher because it just takes the fun out of turtling.

[sub the hendrix]

Wisp the ambusher first turn. I wont post it here, but I have an anti-rush power turtle that has succesfully fended off many a cleric killer. The trick is to think of stone golem as an end game unit, something to keep injured units alive longer. if a busher is in your face, or a mud, or anything, Wisp it! Remember, after one or two turns with wisp, a scout is dead in one hit from dragon, and that can seriously mess up a cleric-killer, because you can slow them down more with frosty.

Yes, sometimes you just have to let cleric go, but often its worth putting up a fight.

[monkus]

First of all, match, I suck at rushing, so if you won, it doesn't really matter. But honestly, it's not just its ability to kill cleric...

A defensive player cannot overextend or his defense layers falter and he dies. Usually, he blocks ranged attacks and draws enemies in to deal with them. Busher cannot be blocked OR drawn in, so it forces a defensive player to overextend and die.

You cannot beat a busher without extending. You cannot extend and then defend. You can no longer play defensively, thus the game becomes unbalanced.

[sub the hendrix]

True. Monkus, I only pointed that out because of your challenge to people to defend against your rush :cool: . Anyways, that is the advantage of the long range debilitating effects of the wisp. The rusher still has the advantage, but I think maybe when Seed created the GA, he thought that the Wisp would be a sufficient anti-ambusher, that the two units would balance out. If this was his thought process, he made a miscalculation.

Anyways, I am merely taking Amaroth's advice and finding a way to fight the GA. As much as I love to do it, complaining about the GA will do nothing.

[Hoolwath]

Against your rush I lost my cleric, but won the match monkus :p , so maybe what we need is a units that arent rush, but dont rely heavily on cleric. Dont ask me how this would be done, I'm only talking hypothetical here.

How about turtle vs. turtle .... Smoke .... long time ago .... my 10th game gold vs. gold ..... *coughcoughcough* - really should get my pills.

[Megabyte]

A defensive player cannot overextend or his defense layers falter and he dies. Usually, he blocks ranged attacks and draws enemies in to deal with them. Busher cannot be blocked OR drawn in, so it forces a defensive player to overextend and die.

You cannot beat a busher without extending. You cannot extend and then defend. You can no longer play defensively, thus the game becomes unbalanced.


this goes with the assumption that a defensive player is turtling. I've seen defensive rushes before, and my fav lineup I use it a sort of power spread defensively (usually defensively).

These types of setups can extrend much better than a turtle. They don't rely on a closed system and a stony for their strengths. As a result, they're much more mobile.

my example is my setup:
http://pic.funtigo.com/img/i33216615_64917.jpg

(sorry for quality, see my tao site in siggy to find a high resolution pic, its on the bottom of the front page of the TAO area)
This setup is defensively positioned at the start, but is mobile and capable of shifting to deal with threats appropiately. See the bowl pattern of the units? Proper playing allows me to shift the pattern of them to defend in the directions that threats will most likely approach from (meaning just because my opponent is in an opposite corner, it won't help him). It also allows for a much faster attack reaction.

[Bottle]

But it would lose horribly to a turtle with a stoney, especially opp-side. It just doesn't have the ability to last in a long battle, and the cleric is easy to kill.

This is why the game is so boring at the moment. Now we have a reasonable set of anti-rushes, it's become rock-scissors-paper again... turtle w/ stoney, rush and anti-rush. As I said, most matches are decided before either side makes a move.

[bludhoundz]

What I really dislike about the busher is how its disfigured rushes. Now they are all about cleric-kill, and that means that everyone misuses the wisp for cleric kill. I can't live to see that, the wisp is one of the more strategical units, and when someone sacrifices it to kill a cleric, I want to shoot them. In a rush game, the wisp can be used to poison a number of units making sure no long ranged units can get it, and maybe poisoning some of them. Followed up by a mudquake, its more much powerfully used than cleric kill.

Thats my main reason for hating the busher. The second one is that people use it in 'power' turtles. Sure, if they suck I can own their ass without the cleric, but if they're ANY good, its annoying as hell.

[sub the hendrix]

I'm going to maintain that when Seed created the two new units, wisp and ambusher, he thought that they would balance each other out, you can wisp a busher thats in your face, if you play defensively.

Unfortunately, the wisp alone takes a chanty amount of skill level, whereas the ambusher is now the easiest unit in the game to use effectively.

Its is also extremely clear, in my opinion, that the wisp was intended to be used in tandem with mud golem, not ambusher. It can maintain poison while you mud quake to finish units off, any good player has used that strategy at least once.

I still think that what we have in the ambusher is a miscalculation of balance when the units where being developed.

[cbsurfinggod]

the ambushers is just away to get easy wins all beacuse of luck. it takes away the skill need to win battle all it is luck luck and luck!!!!!!!!!! :mad:

[Wayfaerer]

Mabye you just lack the skill to stop it ;)

[Lonely Tylenol]

When I see a busher and co. lined up against my cleric, I do something else. Instead of wasting valuable time trying to save my cleric, I let him die. I figure if I can take out his muddy and busher while he's messing around with my cleric, I have a decent shot at winning.
I just shrub up the field, stone my units and if he rushes me I use my frosty/furgy to (hopefully) hold him off. If he lets me come, I rely on my stoned units to outmatch his unstoned units, even with healing.

Generally, I try weigh the situation before assuming this, although I usually come to the conclusion that killing my way through is the only way to do it.

There are different types of unit combinations in the rush. (I'll use real-life examples that I've played against, however, I'll keep names undisclosed.) One is the Scout/Mud Golem/Golem Ambusher, which can be prevented. With the form I drummed up a few days ago, I managed to hold my Cleric for about seven or eight turns, which was almost all I needed. In that time, I managed to kill off his Golem Ambusher and his Scout, and kill his Mud Golem before it could quake post-death (I put him in a position where the only way to kill my Cleric would be to move it within 1 space and attack normally). What we ended up with was a pretty even fight--although I couldn't heal (which he could), he was very limited in range capabilities, which meant he had to come to me in order to kill me, and with my Stone Golem, I was prepared.

The thing you have to take note about the Scout/GA/Mud Golem, is that if you play your cards right, a Cleric death actually IS preventable, even if just for long enough to turn the tide of the game.

Now, let's take the Poison Wisp/Golem Ambusher combination. If you get the first turn, it is perfectly easy to prevent your Cleric from dying in this respect by shrubbing and then repelling the attacking force in the order in which it comes; if he gets first turn, however, and manages to wisp your Cleric, there is absolutely no chance of surviving past the first two or three turns, because you cannot undo the damage done with a heal (since your Cleric can't act during any turn in which it's poisoned), unless your opponent is ridiculously stupid or uses the GA before the wisp (which will never happen). Even if you move your Cleric, either a Scout or the Golem Ambusher will be able to move within range to finish it off. This is the kind of situation where you want to rush in and take as many units as you can in their attempt to kill your Cleric. It is not difficult to kill the Golem Ambusher and Poison Wisp before they can act again; your problem in this case would be preventing him from successfully Mud Quaking your units to the point where they can be picked off.

this goes with the assumption that a defensive player is turtling. I've seen defensive rushes before, and my fav lineup I use it a sort of power spread defensively (usually defensively).

This deserves a rep for exceptional thinking capabilities. There is such a thing as a defensive spread/rush, and Ito think they called me crazy. :bigsmile: However, I think most defensive strategies DO include turtling, the number one reason being Stone Golem. It's useless in a spread.

NOTE: They never actually called me crazy, not for thinking there's a defensive spread/rush at least.