How to deal with Arc carry?

[ptirodaktill]

Subj. I tried emp storms, but, well it didn`t work cause mustangs make them super unreliable. Marksmans loose to them, cause they can`t deal with canon folder as effective. Sledges don`t live long enough to survive the onslauth.

[Gzar]

Phoenixes work the best I think. Fortesses and stormcallers are also decent options.

[Purple Sauce]

Arcs don't beat marksmen. . . Arcs only beat wasps if they have the air upgrade, crawlers, fangs. They lose to pretty much every thing else.

[Tungdil12]

I am struggling with Arc carry a fair bit myself tbh. I have tried Phoenix with revive and shield and marksmen with stormcallers so far. But nothing seems to really work reliably. I think you need some heavy damage dealer like marksmen or phoenix, the more range the better probably, some chaff cleaners and then some units to tank the damage, i think fangs with shields might actually work best. I wanna try out fortress with fang spawn next, because in theory fortresses should be able to tank a couple shots themselves as well.

[Proper Skux]

Arc Carry relies on XP a ♥♥♥♥ load. If you see them commiting to it literally just sell your light units and make a medium front line or giant frontline instead.

[ptirodaktill]

Originally posted by Proper Skux:

Arc Carry relies on XP a ♥♥♥♥ load. If you see them commiting to it literally just sell your light units and make a medium front line or giant frontline instead.

The question was more about how to deal with Arc carry rather that prevent that thing from happening. Sure a sledge+mark start would invalidate that strategy altogether. I`m more interesting in how to deal with lvl 4/5 arc on round 5 . What i can possibly do if i`m facing them.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I find hackers work pretty well. They distract the arcs badly with hacked units and arcs themselves are usually pretty vulnerable to hacking. If the arc is elite marksmen + range upgrade tho then you can get outranged which is a problem, but c'est la vie.

if you want to EMP them, consider the wide-area EMP on the Melting Point.

Rhinos are a good counter to aoe-spam in general but i haven't tried them specifically against super Arcs. A level 3 RHino with photon coating and health regen has ~115,000 effective HP and is regenerating ~5,000 EHP per second while the coating is up. Its enough to make all but the heaviest single target damage cry.

[Proper Skux]

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

Originally posted by Proper Skux:

Arc Carry relies on XP a ♥♥♥♥ load. If you see them commiting to it literally just sell your light units and make a medium front line or giant frontline instead.

The question was more about how to deal with Arc carry rather that prevent that thing from happening. Sure a sledge+mark start would invalidate that strategy altogether. I`m more interesting in how to deal with lvl 4/5 arc on round 5 . What i can possibly do if i`m facing them.

You... don't? At least not easily, if their arc carry strat has being gaining a level a round while also affording tech they deserve the win.

[Purple Sauce]

Originally posted by Proper Skux:

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

The question was more about how to deal with Arc carry rather that prevent that thing from happening. Sure a sledge+mark start would invalidate that strategy altogether. I`m more interesting in how to deal with lvl 4/5 arc on round 5 . What i can possibly do if i`m facing them.

You... don't? At least not easily, if their arc carry strat has being gaining a level a round while also affording tech they deserve the win.

^

Seriously, if you lose to someone spamming arcs I dunno what to say. It's objectively the weakest unit in the game next to wasps but wasps can do stuff if they get leveled quickly before becoming obsolete. Just like with overlord spam, if used properly wasps can do a lot. The Arc? Yea fat chance, more than half the units in the game sneeze on it and it dies. It has horrible DPS as well so anything with a lot of HP laughs at it.

Edit: The main issue with arcs isn't their HP, their range is somewhat bad, but what cripples them is their trash DPS. Their DPS is so bad they cannot kill anything that actually has any amount of HP, they just die and explode from their own cringe from being so bad. You can use both of their damage upgrades and the thing still can't even beat an non-upgraded overlord if you add AA to it. It's a horrible unit that clearly needs a damage buff.

[ColdFire]

Seen 10k+ game where linked balls completly rekt that build. As they become unkillable by archlights and your backline will have time to deal with them.

[Tungdil12]

Originally posted by Purple Sauce:

Originally posted by Proper Skux:

You... don't? At least not easily, if their arc carry strat has being gaining a level a round while also affording tech they deserve the win.

^

Seriously, if you lose to someone spamming arcs I dunno what to say. It's objectively the weakest unit in the game next to wasps but wasps can do stuff if they get leveled quickly before becoming obsolete. Just like with overlord spam, if used properly wasps can do a lot. The Arc? Yea fat chance, more than half the units in the game sneeze on it and it dies. It has horrible DPS as well so anything with a lot of HP laughs at it.

Edit: The main issue with arcs isn't their HP, their range is somewhat bad, but what cripples them is their trash DPS. Their DPS is so bad they cannot kill anything that actually has any amount of HP, they just die and explode from their own cringe from being so bad. You can use both of their damage upgrades and the thing still can't even beat an non-upgraded overlord if you add AA to it. It's a horrible unit that clearly needs a damage buff.

You have obviously never seen an arclight carry build, so you dont know what you are talking about. Maybe come back once you actually know what we are talking about here.

[Tungdil12]

Originally posted by Kurumi:

Seen 10k+ game where linked balls completly rekt that build. As they become unkillable by archlights and your backline will have time to deal with them.

Do you have a replay, would love to see that, Wouldnt that strategy fall apart if the arclight player just builds 2 melting points though?

[Proper Skux]

There's basically two types of Arcs:

Normal Arc play where you can use utility upgrades like armour or EMP to broaden the units they ruin the fun of.

And Carry Arcs that kick in with like 4 levels and the fact they have... is it 2 or 3 scaling upgrades?

But Carry Arcs should only really work if your opponent sits there and feeds it crawlers.

[BrutalGlory]

Originally posted by Purple Sauce:

Originally posted by Proper Skux:

You... don't? At least not easily, if their arc carry strat has being gaining a level a round while also affording tech they deserve the win.

^

Seriously, if you lose to someone spamming arcs I dunno what to say. It's objectively the weakest unit in the game next to wasps but wasps can do stuff if they get leveled quickly before becoming obsolete. Just like with overlord spam, if used properly wasps can do a lot. The Arc? Yea fat chance, more than half the units in the game sneeze on it and it dies. It has horrible DPS as well so anything with a lot of HP laughs at it.

Edit: The main issue with arcs isn't their HP, their range is somewhat bad, but what cripples them is their trash DPS. Their DPS is so bad they cannot kill anything that actually has any amount of HP, they just die and explode from their own cringe from being so bad. You can use both of their damage upgrades and the thing still can't even beat an non-upgraded overlord if you add AA to it. It's a horrible unit that clearly needs a damage buff.

I don't think it's fair to say arcs are bad (especially not with range upgrades). Arcs are extremely potent at dealing with spam as long as you keep the number of them you employ limited. That said I don't know why the OP is having an issue with them, it's not that they can't be a pain to shut down at times but they should never be the primary thorn in someones side.

[Antpile]

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

Originally posted by Proper Skux:

Arc Carry relies on XP a ♥♥♥♥ load. If you see them commiting to it literally just sell your light units and make a medium front line or giant frontline instead.

The question was more about how to deal with Arc carry rather that prevent that thing from happening. Sure a sledge+mark start would invalidate that strategy altogether. I`m more interesting in how to deal with lvl 4/5 arc on round 5 . What i can possibly do if i`m facing them.

Nothing. You lose because you fed those arclights impossibly well. Like, how did you give him a level EVERY SINGLE ROUND. If the other guy has a lvl 4 or 5 arc on round 5, you should probably just give up. He's better than you.

Arcs are hard to level up. Try playing an Arc centered strategy for a night. Just try and go hard Arcs every game. Watch how often they lose, and you'll understand how to beat them.

They are literally only good if you feed them. They are very bad against every unit in the game except crawlers, fangs, and wasps if you invest 300 in anti-air. Oh, and if they have range they can be alright against mustangs that get out in front of everything else, but that's harder to pull off due to the stangs having enough range to usually stay behind other stuff.

But if your arc is the front unit for even a second... Poof! Gone. Marksmen just popped him like a bubble.

[83athom]

Originally posted by Proper Skux:

Normal Arc play where you can use utility upgrades like armour or EMP to broaden the units they ruin the fun of.

IMHO the armor is overrated. EMP is nice, but I find I really only use it sooner than other upgrades if I get the extended range card for it. Otherwise I only keep it around if they start hard teching their chaff or Stangs (or Balls and Sledges if they're smart and didn't take Damage Share).

Originally posted by Proper Skux:

And Carry Arcs that kick in with like 4 levels and the fact they have... is it 2 or 3 scaling upgrades?

Charge gives flat +200% damage which makes it scale comparable to Sledge damage on an equal lv basis. It makes it go from +400 damage per level to +1200. If you start the arcs at lv2 they have equivalent damage output (damage and rof) to a lv2 Marksman with QR. Hell, it actually outdamages and has a higher RoF than a QR Marksman by like 100 damage and 0.2 seconds, with the damage scaling more in favor of the Arcs every level.

Elite gives it an additional +30% damage per level, higher and higher levels giving increasing attack bonuses.

Armor is the only other one that scales levels harder, and IMHO it's the worst of the 3. In reality it only ever guarantees protection against Mustangs of equal level (even if they get AP), it helps against Fangs somewhat but doesn't make it immune. Everything else barely has their damage reduced at all. The only units the tech is good on are ones that also get repair choices (field repair on Sledge and Rhino, Absorption on Ball), or on units where the tech also gives HP like Overlord and Fortress.

Originally posted by Proper Skux:

But Carry Arcs should only really work if your opponent sits there and feeds it crawlers.

Eh, they're also really good anti-Stang units, and with AA spec it deals with Wasps very well. If you give them range they can trade with Marksmen and force them to spend supply getting range for those.