Etiquette in 3.1.5, esp. concerning Romulans

[Anonymous]

posted on March 3rd, 2011, 6:49 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on March 4th, 2011, 8:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hi!
Yesterday I had a 3v3 against 23(Kli), Dragonfire(Rom) and Immercenary(Feds), on my side fought raven(Kli) and Charybde(Borg). I was using Disruptor Rhienns quite soon and was able to raid Immerc(Feds) quite effectively. Anyway: In the end my team won with the help of Negh'Vars used by Raven, my Rhienns were all gone by that time, since Dragonfrie built Norexans and countered them. Immerc built Ints the whole time.

After the game though, I was blamed to have used unfair tactics(Dis Rhienns). I wanted to know if there is an official etiquette right now where it is pointed out that Dis Rhienns, Frigates and stuff like that shouldn't be used. I never read anything about banning Rhienns in 3.1.5. So I wanted to start a discussion here, if sth. like that should be put up(I don't think it's necessary, shield recharge is the only thing I consider to be out of balance).

The second question refers to that specific match.
Since I think the Klingons are the only race that get hard problems because of those Rhienns I don't think I made sth. wrong, as Monsoons would have countered Rhienns very well. And I didn't build more than 8, which all got destroyed by Dragonfire, who built 16Rhienns. Of course Immerc had a hard time when i raided him. But imo Leahvals would have been even better against Ints, so I didn't even choose the best option. As soon as I had a warbird yard I built D'Deridex. What would have you done?

What do you guys think? Do we need to make up a list of things you shouldn't use? (I wouldn't like that, I think FO is balanced well enough to get away without stuff like that and I say that as a Klingon player who gets his ass kicked constantly by Romulans).

posted on March 3rd, 2011, 7:21 pm

if u didnt make more than 8 then its a bit of a stretch to say you did anything wrong. especially if an enemy was spamming intreps, which used to be op lol.

i think the drhienn is easily spammable because it is so useful in many situations, having a large defence value. most effective spam have an effective counter, but as klinks there isnt a real counter towards drhienns. brels are the only ships producable in a similar time frame with a anti long passive, but they wont be able to retreat/cloak/live for more than 1 volley while the high defence drhienn will usually cloak and live. other races generally tend to have better options monsoons are an example you identified.

but this is a team game, where countering is very difficult, as if u make a fleet of e2 to handle an enemy vorcha fleet, you might get whacked by an enemy monsoon fleet. etc. that is why its frowned upon if u spam something so generally powerful, but 8 is usually considered the limit, and you lost them all, so they really didnt last that long. i wouldnt have complained about that game. if u had made non stop drhienns all game then it would be different.

[RedEyedRaven]

posted on March 3rd, 2011, 7:30 pm

Last edited by RedEyedRaven on March 3rd, 2011, 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Charybde(Kli).

Sorry, but Charybde was Borg 


That's a really odd statement... and Rhienn-Dis-refits still are not op... they are very decent and you can outmicro slow vessels with them, but they're far away from being invincible..

Dragonfire and 23-down lost their (actually not small) fleets of Norexans and Vorchas more to me than to Dis-Rhienns... I can remember to have destroyed all remaining Vorchas and Norexans myself. I lost my destroyers and the Kvorts.^^

posted on March 3rd, 2011, 8:47 pm

The main issue is that, in TEAM GAMES (notice that part) the Klingons have no effective counter for them.

  In 1 v 1's there are ways to really prevent them from massing, but against a skilled player even that can be difficult as they will still have a large number of Rhienns in the beginning.


  There is no "magic number" of Rhienns you can have before it's not fair.  There is no "any more than X and it's OP" number or anything like that.  Feds can counter them, Borg can counter them, Romulans can counter them (Frigates / Norexans are awesome), and an S-2 spamming Dominion can counter them (A mix of S-2 / B5 will also work).


  Again, this is TEAM GAMES I'm really referring to because that's where preventative tactics fall short due to resource sharing and larger maps in general.

posted on March 3rd, 2011, 8:53 pm

It isn't banned or anything, but if you constantly use dis rhienns or frigate spam then people might get annoyed it just depends on the game

[Primigenia]

posted on March 3rd, 2011, 9:13 pm

Last edited by Primigenia on March 4th, 2011, 4:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

In 2v2 and larger, Dis Rhienn spam is almost always OP. This is because you have an ally who can keep some pressure off of you in order to give you some much-needed time to tech up to D-Rhienn, whereas in a 1v1, your single opponent has nothing to distract him from you, and will find it easier to keep tabs on what you are doing. Quite simply, the larger the game, the better the odds that you will have more time to build up a larger force, and this is key to building an OP fleet of D-Rhienn. They're hard to get in mass numbers, but again it's a time issue. The longer you have, the more your fleet exponentially increases, and this is where the OP issue comes in. Now that I've pretty much said the same thing three different ways because of my amazing ability to ramble, let's move on.

The issue I believe some people take with D-Rhienn is that it is such a powerful generalist. It doesn't have a passive that causes it to take more damage from any sort of ship, and relying on your own passives alone obviously makes for a less-than-optimal counter, especially when you're used to heavily countering the highly specialized ships that make up most Romulan fleets. The really big pain, though, is when people field D-Rhienn exclusively when other ships would be a more effective counter. Again, this is a time issue, and in my opinion it only really becomes a big problem in 3v3 or 4v4, although it can be OP in 2 v 2.

Now, this is where I get my soapbox out and make a heartened speech about the nature of Romulan gameplay. (Again. seriously. I'm gonna be like Tok'ra spamming about the AI values and how they're SO WRONG AND AGHHHHHHH)

The Romulan D-Rhienn is a completely balanced ship in 1v1 and most 2v2 games. Why? Because they are so damned hard to get in a large force. It's almost a "look what you let me get" fleet, but it's really not in another sense. This is, as mentioned above, due to the generalist ability it carries. In groups of five or six, the passive allows a decloak to kill even Dom miners in 2-3 volleys. In a group of 10, any non-Borg miner and most destroyers are a one-shot kill, and the special is excellent for forcing off groups of ships rather than allowing your opponent to retreat vessels one at a time.

So, after my digression, why is it balanced? Simple: Almost every Romulan ship is a specialist or support-only ship. Griffins, for example, are a generalist ship, but they can't often be used in a main fleet role - they work better as support for a specialist fleet. This means that Romulans can counter opponents very strongly, but that counter can be reversed, and once done, it is VERY difficult for a Romulan player to adapt due to the nature of the tech tree. In short, this encourages spam on the part of a Romulan player, but the spam is useless without constantly doing heavy damage to the enemy fleet and mining.

The D-Rhienn simply fills a large vacancy in the Romulan ship choices: Again, a generalist that can be used effectively as a mainstay. This is all the D-Rhienn is. The problem is that it's such an attractive choice because it is so hard to counter once in large numbers. Even if you have a hard counter, a sizable group of D-Rhienn can decloak, one/two-shot an enemy ship, take down a second, and retreat with absolutely no losses. In these large numbers, it can be OP, but this is often a case of overcompensation. That is, in a a game where a Romulan player might be overwhelmed against a force that is arguably OP against a Romulan due to the tech tree / necessitated play style (unless you're Mort and like spamming turrets and Sing. transmitters with unholy effectiveness while taking over every last damn expansion on the map), the D-Rhienn allows a Romulan player to counter that overpowering force with an overpowering force of your own.

It's like an auction sale. Your opponent raises a bid to a level that you can't hope to match, so you sell off every possession you own to raise it to a level HE can't hope to match. This statement is incredibly accurate, because D-Rhienn are a very big risk in the 1v2/2v2 where they are not overpowered.

Which brings me to the counter: Don't let your opponent get these ships. It's that easy. Consider the costs for these little terrors - upgrade facility is 600d/300t, the refit upgrade is 300/150, and each D-Rhienn, after refit, costs a total of  765d/309t/35s.

Agh....out of time. I'll finish this later, but these are just some thoughts.

Edit: To conclude, the D-Rhienn is a pain to field in large numbers while fending off raiding. Therefore, just concentrate on the Romulan mining as much as possible. If you see an Upgrade Facility going up, don't bother trying to stop it unless you have been ignoring the enemy mining. In this way, unless he has a good surplus of dilithium, you've just allowed him to waste 600d/300t on a structure that is uselss due to you engaging his mining. Concentrate on all moons of one type if possible, and those Rhienns will never see life as Refits.

posted on March 4th, 2011, 8:59 am

Okay, the impression I get is that people tend to consider Rhienns being OP in large numbers. Dragonfire pointed out after the game, nobody would use Dis Rhienns anymore, since everybody would know they are OP. I guess he was mistaken here, but I also know that Dragonfire has been constantly told to not use this or that tactics/ ships, he almost got the impression no matter what you build as Romulans, someone will say you play unfair - that's sad of course. I think he's just a good player and people blame the Romulan ships and not their own bad playstyle for losing .

I agree with you raven, you were the matchwinner there. Incredible how your Negh'Vars slaughtered those Norexans, Charybde was like "oh my god, what's that, I never saw that ship! He's really kicking their asses, I love large team games." I simply prevented a Fed roll, whereas Charybde tried to annoy Dragonfire every now and then and supported my proxy yard.

About the Rhienn, primi I can't really follow your argument about time. Boggz pointed out in another thread concerning the Rhienn, that you can produce Rhienns all the time and pretty fast and during that time you can also build up those two building you need for Dis Rhienns. It's really not that expensive. It is close to the costs you need for a Taq'roja Vor'cha: Rhienn: 2science buildings plus research = 1300dil650tri, Vor'cha: 1540dil, 480tri.
BUT: after you have invested that money, you may start to build your first Vor'cha for 750dil, whereas you are instantly able to upgrade one of your Rhienns for 388dil. What I'm trying to say here: I don't think the Rhienn is a "look what you let me get" ship. You can get it pretty fast and without much danger, since you can use your unrefitted Rhienns with phase plates to defend your mining and get the seconds you need for Dis Rhienns.
However, I think the Dis Rhienns has been discussed quite a bit already and I hope it gets a strong downside in the upcoming patch. Additional damage from short range would be nice, since many of its counters are short ranged(B'rel, Negh'Var, Monsoon, S2).

PS: you may ask what a Vor'cha has to do with a Rhienn. I don't know, it's simply another very useful ship for similar costs. Of course it serves different roles than the Rhienn.

posted on March 4th, 2011, 9:25 am

I am in agreement with you.

  I've made the case over and over for a change to the D-Rhienn to prevent the (what I would call) abuses it has now.  It is a tech-up strat that does not sacrifice ship production.  Boom.  You rush Vor'cha. Avalon, B5, Sphere, Warbirds, you're more vulnerable at the start and can theoretically be caught with your pants down.  Having Rhienns que'd up and working while you tech is like a slap in the face.


Again this is really only a problem for the Klingons as they lack a real counter to the D-Rhienn.

 
  I've heard that argument:  "If you just spam those Rhienns until you can upgrade them I'll triple-yard B'rel and own you!"  -Great, the second I see you invest up to 120 Supply and over 2k Dilithium into setting up 3 B'rel yards, I'll just start making Leahvals and transition to Frigates before I get the Upgrade facility.  Bye Bye, B'rel.

  It's a simple game of structure cat-and-mouse in the opening game that the Klingons do not win.  No ship should enable that kind of stupid gameplay.

posted on March 4th, 2011, 1:38 pm

Cortez,
I was making that exact same comparison on TeamSpeak last night (Vorcha cost/time vs D-Rhienn). 

Definitely agree with you guys on that one though Primi has some very good points on the specialist nature of Romulan ships.

In my opinion, a tech strategy should involve some form of weakness early on.

posted on March 4th, 2011, 2:49 pm

Well, even Dis-Rhienn tech strats have weaknesses.

Perhaps the largest is you can only put out vanilla rhienns. Granted, you can have phase plates, but any vessel which defensively counters long range will live FOREVER. And as it has been said, it's difficult to change strats when you're roms, and if you do, you'll be weakened for a large amount of time.

posted on March 4th, 2011, 3:08 pm

but any vessel which defensively counters long range will live FOREVER.

And what Klingon ships defensively counter long range?

posted on March 4th, 2011, 5:41 pm

K'beaqs can tank rhienns quite nicely.

posted on March 4th, 2011, 6:14 pm

vorchas arent a bad choice either, their passive may reduce their damage against rhienns, but they are medium sized, and take less damage against rhienn pulses. and when they get their specials, you will find that vorchas can pick off cloaking rhienns with polaron. its not ideal, but its better than nothing.

posted on March 4th, 2011, 6:15 pm

Yea but rhienns still really eat through vorchas and the polaron will miss a bunch

posted on March 4th, 2011, 6:18 pm

Yea but rhienns still really eat through vorchas and the polaron will miss a bunch

they eat through vorchas less than they eat through other klink ships, due to the size. using multiple polarons means u get some hits at least.