Counters to Scarab

[Durandal]

So overall I really enjoy the 'rock paper scissors' style gameplay of Halo Wars, but boy do I hate the scarab, mostly cause of it's ability to just outright ignore the tactical aspects and just murderize everything.

Since I couldn't find any option to disable the scarab entirely, I have to now ask what the best counters to it for both UNSC and Covenant would be

[Polk]

Captain Cutter: Surround the damn thing with ODST's and MAC Blast the absolute ♥♥♥♥ out of it with Vultures and a variety of vehicles as support.

Sgt Forge: Rush with Cyclops which they can surround and keep the Scarab stuck, Grizzlies and Vultures. Use the Carpet Bomb too.

Anders: Cryo Bomb first, send in ♥♥♥♥ ton of Hawks followed by Vultures with vehicles as support.

Conclusion? No single unit can do the job on its own, gotta just be prepared for them with Vultures and fully upgraded vehicles and ready your Leader Power.

I usually upgrade the Leader Powers first thing to prepare for such encounters.

[RYAN56721]

Thats the whole point of them, there just ♥♥♥♥♥. Like do you even play halo lol

[Durandal]

Originally posted by RYAN56721:

Thats the whole point of them, there just ♥♥♥♥♥. Like do you even play halo lol

If you have nothing useful to contribute, go away

[ArborlyWhale]

Mainline Air Units, scorpions, anti tank units, odst's plus MAC. keep all units circling to avoid main beam and minimize it's DPS.

[Durandal]

Originally posted by ArborlyWhale:

Mainline Air Units, scorpions, anti tank units, odst's plus MAC. keep all units circling to avoid main beam and minimize it's DPS.

That is helpful thank you, what about countering as a covenant player?

[Iron Apostle]

As a covenant player, you could counter with you're own scarab. Though if you don't have the resources for that, then make Locusts with the overdrive skill upgrade, Hunters with their beam laser upgrade, and Banshees for harrassment/ cannon fodder, so the scarab dosent just focus on you're Locusts and Hunters. Having either the Arbiter with his rage ability or the Prophet of Regret with his Cleansing Beam also helps in killing enemy scarabs but they must be backed up with troops and armour. Hope this helps.

[The Bored Chairman]

Scarabs are a nightmare, they can single-handedly wipe an army for the measly cost of 3000 resources.

I just finished a 3v3 game vs lvl 111 AIs as Brute Chieftain. Prophet got elim'd at the start of the game (because his AI is retarded. Only ever builds Guards and gets hard-countered by Vehicles and Air). The game was probably an hour and a half of 2v3, with AI Arbiter being relatively useless (spamming Wraiths against Vulture spam). Eventually he ended up with 1 base (which was on the other side of the map).

Now you're probably wondering "why is he saying Scarabs are a nightmare, when he was fighting UNSC?". Well, hypothetical reader, we WON that game, and all I had to do was constantly build Scarabs. The AI would send everything at me, and yet Dual Scarabs with Chieftain managed to thwart their assaults and they straight up ran out of resources. Granted, I had to build a LOT of Scarabs (they aren't immortal), but here's the point:

I should not have won that. I should've been dead the second I added Prophet to my team. I should've been dead when Arby lost all his bases except one Outpost. I should've been dead when they reached my last base.

But I won because of how brokenly strong the Scarab is. One Scarab can level a 40 pop cap army and only takes up 20 and 3000 resources. Two Scarabs, and you have your work cut out for you. If you're playing UNSC and the AI builds multi-Scarabs, you might as well leave, your teammates aren't going to stop them.

The problem with Scarabs is that they require you to commit fully to kill them, whilst the Covanent player is not similarly incapacitated, having another 20/30 or 10 pops to work with, depending on how many they built. They are, in my opinion, the only truly unbalanced unit in the game.

[Blackandfan]

Originally posted by The Bored Chairman:

Scarabs are a nightmare, they can single-handedly wipe an army for the measly cost of 3000 resources.

I just finished a 3v3 game vs lvl 111 AIs as Brute Chieftain. Prophet got elim'd at the start of the game (because his AI is retarded. Only ever builds Guards and gets hard-countered by Vehicles and Air). The game was probably an hour and a half of 2v3, with AI Arbiter being relatively useless (spamming Wraiths against Vulture spam). Eventually he ended up with 1 base (which was on the other side of the map).

Now you're probably wondering "why is he saying Scarabs are a nightmare, when he was fighting UNSC?". Well, hypothetical reader, we WON that game, and all I had to do was constantly build Scarabs. The AI would send everything at me, and yet Dual Scarabs with Chieftain managed to thwart their assaults and they straight up ran out of resources. Granted, I had to build a LOT of Scarabs (they aren't immortal), but here's the point:

I should not have won that. I should've been dead the second I added Prophet to my team. I should've been dead when Arby lost all his bases except one Outpost. I should've been dead when they reached my last base.

But I won because of how brokenly strong the Scarab is. One Scarab can level a 40 pop cap army and only takes up 20 and 3000 resources. Two Scarabs, and you have your work cut out for you. If you're playing UNSC and the AI builds multi-Scarabs, you might as well leave, your teammates aren't going to stop them.

The problem with Scarabs is that they require you to commit fully to kill them, whilst the Covanent player is not similarly incapacitated, having another 20/30 or 10 pops to work with, depending on
how many they built. They are, in my opinion, the only truly unbalanced unit in the game.

Any somewhat skilled player can take out 1 scarabs. They even need a buff. (as UNSC all u need is scorps to take out those scarabs lol)

[Durandal]

Originally posted by Blackandfan:

Any somewhat skilled player can take out 1 scarabs. They even need a buff. (as UNSC all u need is scorps to take out those scarabs lol)

Scarab takes out scorps in no time flat, so...I don't understand how you can make this claim, unless you're also counting in conjunction with freeze bomb

[The Bored Chairman]

Originally posted by Blackandfan:

Originally posted by The Bored Chairman:

Scarabs are a nightmare, they can single-handedly wipe an army for the measly cost of 3000 resources.

I just finished a 3v3 game vs lvl 111 AIs as Brute Chieftain. Prophet got elim'd at the start of the game (because his AI is retarded. Only ever builds Guards and gets hard-countered by Vehicles and Air). The game was probably an hour and a half of 2v3, with AI Arbiter being relatively useless (spamming Wraiths against Vulture spam). Eventually he ended up with 1 base (which was on the other side of the map).

Now you're probably wondering "why is he saying Scarabs are a nightmare, when he was fighting UNSC?". Well, hypothetical reader, we WON that game, and all I had to do was constantly build Scarabs. The AI would send everything at me, and yet Dual Scarabs with Chieftain managed to thwart their assaults and they straight up ran out of resources. Granted, I had to build a LOT of Scarabs (they aren't immortal), but here's the point:

I should not have won that. I should've been dead the second I added Prophet to my team. I should've been dead when Arby lost all his bases except one Outpost. I should've been dead when they reached my last base.

But I won because of how brokenly strong the Scarab is. One Scarab can level a 40 pop cap army and only takes up 20 and 3000 resources. Two Scarabs, and you have your work cut out for you. If you're playing UNSC and the AI builds multi-Scarabs, you might as well leave, your teammates aren't going to stop them.

The problem with Scarabs is that they require you to commit fully to kill them, whilst the Covanent player is not similarly incapacitated, having another 20/30 or 10 pops to work with, depending on
how many they built. They are, in my opinion, the only truly unbalanced unit in the game.

Any somewhat skilled player can take out 1 scarabs. They even need a buff. (as UNSC all u need is scorps to take out those scarabs lol)

I used a whole team of Grizzlies (without support) and barely killed one.

Unless the AI gets DR and bonus damage at higher difficulties, you must be playing a different game.

[ArborlyWhale]

Originally posted by The Bored Chairman:

Originally posted by Blackandfan:

Any somewhat skilled player can take out 1 scarabs. They even need a buff. (as UNSC all u need is scorps to take out those scarabs lol)

I used a whole team of Grizzlies (without support) and barely killed one.

Unless the AI gets DR and bonus damage at higher difficulties, you must be playing a different game.

Legendary AI's get roughly 20% more damage reduciton and damage dealing, so their units really are just kinda OP.
However, I do not beliece the "automatic" difficulty gives them such buffs.

Legendary AI Scarabs are particularly strong because unlike killing part of a regular army, you haven't reduced their army's damage until you fully kill a scarab.

Grizzlies are weaker than Power Turret against scarabs and other vehicles. This is due to thier Canister Shell damage type appearing to be counted as anti-infantry or some such, and as such appear to get a debuff against vehicles. Grizzlies are substantially better against Hunters for the same reason, however. It's also possible they do less main gun damage against non-infantry, but they do have more Health.

Scarabs in general are balanced by having an extremely high investment to start, leaving you vulnerable early-mid game; as well as being weaker than many equivalent pop armies.

Remember, upgrades do more than just abilities, they also normally buff stats. Power Turret Tanks are substantially stronger than just Canister Shell Tanks, and will fare far better against a Scarab.

[The Bored Chairman]

Originally posted by ArborlyWhale:

Originally posted by The Bored Chairman:

I used a whole team of Grizzlies (without support) and barely killed one.

Unless the AI gets DR and bonus damage at higher difficulties, you must be playing a different game.

Legendary AI's get roughly 20% more damage reduciton and damage dealing, so their units really are just kinda OP.
However, I do not beliece the "automatic" difficulty gives them such buffs.

Legendary AI Scarabs are particularly strong because unlike killing part of a regular army, you haven't reduced their army's damage until you fully kill a scarab.

Grizzlies are weaker than Power Turret against scarabs and other vehicles. This is due to thier Canister Shell damage type appearing to be counted as anti-infantry or some such, and as such appear to get a debuff against vehicles. Grizzlies are substantially better against Hunters for the same reason, however. It's also possible they do less main gun damage against non-infantry, but they do have more Health.

Scarabs in general are balanced by having an extremely high investment to start, leaving you vulnerable early-mid game; as well as being weaker than many equivalent pop armies.

Remember, upgrades do more than just abilities, they also normally buff stats. Power Turret Tanks are substantially stronger than just Canister Shell Tanks, and will fare far better against a Scarab.

I was wondering why AI Scarabs seemed to just eat MAC blasts. Yeah, I think scaling difficulty (Automatic) actually has tiers (like 80-90 being considered Heroic for example, I'm not positive on what the actual thresholds are), because I got "Penny Pincher" against Auto AIs few games back (Win a game vs Heroic AI with less than 10 squads).

Currently sitting at 114 for Auto Difficulty.

[Chaos Epoch]

Spartans inside of Cobra's can quickly demolish Scarabs in unison with other units.

[Blackandfan]

Originally posted by The Bored Chairman:

Originally posted by Blackandfan:

Any somewhat skilled player can take out 1 scarabs. They even need a buff. (as UNSC all u need is scorps to take out those scarabs lol)

I used a whole team of Grizzlies (without support) and barely killed one.

Unless the AI gets DR and bonus damage at higher difficulties, you must be playing a different game.

grizzlys have no attack damage and are weaker than scorps(all they have is more health than scopions and some added damage for the main turret, the best thing about the tank is bugged/nerfed and doesnt do much), the ai gets a 133% boost in damage and around 17% less damage received + ressource gathering bonus at legendary

[Blackandfan]

Originally posted by NocturneOfSolace:

Originally posted by Blackandfan:

Any somewhat skilled player can take out 1 scarabs. They even need a buff. (as UNSC all u need is scorps to take out those scarabs lol)

Scarab takes out scorps in no time flat, so...I don't understand how you can make this claim, unless you're also counting in conjunction with freeze bomb

https://youtu.be/QjJra9NDQ10

should note that im talking about actual mp, not ai fights