Ballista Elephant nerf?

[mickeyjim2]

I'm getting pretty sick of playing against Khmer on Black Forest. All they have to do is get their eco going, which isn't hard since their farms are so good and they have an incredibly easy fast castle strategy because of the skipping buildings requirement bonus, and then they can just spam ballista elephants which also don't need a lot of upgrades to get going - just get siege engineers and later the elite upgrade and you're good to go. Bloodlines, husbandry, the cavalry armour techs, and the double projectile tech are just icing on the cake.

The only counter to massed ballista elephants is siege onagers, nothing else. Regular onagers don't do enough damage to reliably kill a group before they can destroy your onagers since they can tank multiple shots. Halberdiers get slaughtered before they can even get close, and even when melee units can close the distance the Khmer player can just set his units to stand ground stance while in formation and tank the hits while still firing in every direction with the inner elephants being perfectly safe. Even Mangudai, Magyar Hussars, and the Gothic Huskarl spam doesn't work once the Khmer player gets a critical mass of ballista elephants, and I have been on both sides of this. I have never lost a game where I was playing as Khmer and managed to get my ballista elephants going, but a lot of them didn't feel like satisfying victories. It's also worth pointing out that the ballista elephant is the only unit in the game that can cut trees in castle age, which is a huge advantage, and they are a lot easier to use than onagers since they move faster, are less clunky and don't do friendly damage.

And please don't tell me that the strategy to beat a Khmer player is to beat them before this can happen, since that's obviously not always possible on a map like Black Forest where the Khmer player is the pocket.

[Moist Butt]

Publicado originalmente por Ákos123567:

It's not a troll comment, you just have zero knowledge to speak about balance changes. There are zero points of nerfing Ballista Elephants. I didnt make stupid posts about nerfing this and this when I had zero skills.

I've explained it clearly ONAGERS or SIEGE RAM+HALBS counter Ballista Eles on closed maps, on open maps halbs are enough against this crap unit. Gothsaretooopbecauseimtoonoob lvl arguement.

Its okay man you tried. Pretty hard to convince stubborn noobs.

[TheDiaper]

Publicado originalmente por Ákos123567:

OMG, this forum is worse than the official aoe2 forum, what a surprise

Have you been living under a rock? 11111111

[Moist Butt]

Publicado originalmente por HongeyKong (Tony's girlfriend):

Publicado originalmente por Ákos123567:

OMG, this forum is worse than the official aoe2 forum, what a surprise

Have you been living under a rock? 11111111

xD. yeah these noob balance posts are way to frequent. On the bright side its a good laugh.

[Duck Twacy]

Publicado originalmente por DBDstorm runner:

cons very slow
ranged damage is easy to soak
there realy expensive
rams garisoned with halbs are there worst nightmare
there a win more unit where you need a crit mass hard to stop but can be done

Japanese hals backed up by either ballistas or HCs work okay against them, depending on numbers.

[_WALT_]

I would not say this unit need a nerf, infact this whole civ need a nerf badly. Even _Kellar_ thinks so. Maybe he is joking but yes.
The fact that Khmer can clock < 30 min imperial on a map like Black forest or arena for instance, makes them even more dangerous.

I remember the first time when Khmer was launched back in HD, it was not a favourable civilization. Watch SOTL review of Khmer from that time. Then the DEV decided to balance it by giving them a super cool bonus of no farms dropping and everyone started to lose their mind and pick Khmer yo became the latest thing.

That farm bonus is not even historically significant, like where do villagers drop food? In their pockets? Also, you save almost 350 wood at every age advancements, thats like 6 more farms.

You can kill ballista elephants by ambush using Cavalry, Camels or even regular elephants from stable, because they exhibit scorp properties, and scorps suck at close range. Onagers are the next. Helbs are terrible. i don't know if arbs would work..

[Schmandl]

Akos knows crap,
Ballista so OP, pls nerv!!

I am 2k1 Teamgame myself, i can assure you, that i am getting rekt by them in every freaking game, any map, so annoying...

[mickeyjim2]

Publicado originalmente por TurinG.:

Halbs easily beat ballista elephants with onager backup. You just should not trickle them in. Also, onagers are not as bad as you seem to think vs them. Super specific counters include Magyar Huszar, Genoese Crossbowmen (mass them first), seige rams (ofc, but capped rams are ok too). You mentioned goth spam is not effective? Are you trickling them in one by one?! Heck, huskarls wont beat even massed ARBALESTS if you trickle one-by-one. The only annoying thing about Ballista Elephants is that they can cut trees in the castle age. Apart from that, they are pretty useless, maybe due to the fact that going Elite Battle Elephants or Heavy Scorpions are SO MUCH better than ballistas. Fast imp is a choice, italians can go both fast imp (reasonable up-time - about 28 min. Do not hurry so much that you cannot support making units long-term) and make genoese. Try that maybe?

You might be tired of this advice but here you go again - DO NOT LET KHMER GET THERE!

And if the Khmer player is going for Ballista elephants rather than Battle Elephants and skirms (or scorps, heaven forbid), I am inclined to believe this is somewhat of a lower elo bracket (especially if this is in a team game) - please correct me if I am wrong, no offense given, none taken. I have rarely seen people in a 2k+ (team, ofc) elo make ballistas as khmer - they require too much time and too many castles to mass, but still end up performing worse than elite battle elephants or heavy scorpions.

The thing is Ballista Elephants get proportionately more powerful the larger their opponent's army is, due to the nature of their projectiles hitting multiple units. I had a game about a month ago where I had 60 Ballista Elephants, and was attacked by 120 Magyar Hussars coming in 2 groups of 60. I killed the first group before they could even touch me and again, as I mentioned, due to the way ranged units work in AoE2. You can just park you ballista elephants in standard formation and fire at any melee units attacking you. Provided you have a critical mass you can tank the damage being done to your outermost elephants and only have a few casualties. So the net result was 120 anti-siege cavalry vs ballista elephants resulted in 120 dead Huszars and less than 10 casualties for me.

[A Pigeon]

Publicado originalmente por mickeyjim2:

Publicado originalmente por TurinG.:

Halbs easily beat ballista elephants with onager backup. You just should not trickle them in. Also, onagers are not as bad as you seem to think vs them. Super specific counters include Magyar Huszar, Genoese Crossbowmen (mass them first), seige rams (ofc, but capped rams are ok too). You mentioned goth spam is not effective? Are you trickling them in one by one?! Heck, huskarls wont beat even massed ARBALESTS if you trickle one-by-one. The only annoying thing about Ballista Elephants is that they can cut trees in the castle age. Apart from that, they are pretty useless, maybe due to the fact that going Elite Battle Elephants or Heavy Scorpions are SO MUCH better than ballistas. Fast imp is a choice, italians can go both fast imp (reasonable up-time - about 28 min. Do not hurry so much that you cannot support making units long-term) and make genoese. Try that maybe?

You might be tired of this advice but here you go again - DO NOT LET KHMER GET THERE!

And if the Khmer player is going for Ballista elephants rather than Battle Elephants and skirms (or scorps, heaven forbid), I am inclined to believe this is somewhat of a lower elo bracket (especially if this is in a team game) - please correct me if I am wrong, no offense given, none taken. I have rarely seen people in a 2k+ (team, ofc) elo make ballistas as khmer - they require too much time and too many castles to mass, but still end up performing worse than elite battle elephants or heavy scorpions.

The thing is Ballista Elephants get proportionately more powerful the larger their opponent's army is, due to the nature of their projectiles hitting multiple units. I had a game about a month ago where I had 60 Ballista Elephants, and was attacked by 120 Magyar Hussars coming in 2 groups of 60. I killed the first group before they could even touch me and again, as I mentioned, due to the way ranged units work in AoE2. You can just park you ballista elephants in standard formation and fire at any melee units attacking you. Provided you have a critical mass you can tank the damage being done to your outermost elephants and only have a few casualties. So the net result was 120 anti-siege cavalry vs ballista elephants resulted in 120 dead Huszars and less than 10 casualties for me.

Killing the first group before they land a hit is IMPOSSIBLE if the magyar player knows the staggered and flank stances. So I think a very good (and obvious) solution to you is to start using these stances and as some might say "git gud". Now that is not a very nice thing to say ofc, so I suggest you play against this strat over and over with magyars and italians. Once you can beat them with these civs, trust me, you can actually beat them with others - koreans (high onager range + good halbs), Khmer (duh, battle elephants, or go ballista too!), maybe mongols (good onagers and mangudai counter seige), celts (awesome halbs + seige). Specifically for Black Forest team games, try going britons - make a castle, make petards, bust through the Khmer walls as soon as you hit castle age and just support the knight civ on your side while he raids the ♥♥♥♥ out of them. Now keep in mind that britons are special in this way - they can make a castle and still boom VERY well cause of the cheap tcs and no food requirement to make military in castle age.This has worked so well for me that I do not even bother banning Black Forest even though I know that theres a 90% chance that they have a khmer.

EDIT: Now, I see that lots of people think halbs cant even reach these ballista elephants, which is true

BUT

halbs are just a buffer for your onagers to absolutely decimate these units. If your 120 halbs manage to get close and kill even 5 of these while your onager can fire 5 volleys, trust me they are dead. Also, Halbs prevent the Khmer player from making Hussar to snipe your onagers xD.

Also, I tried ballista as khmer on Arena just because of the cutting trees aspect. Yup its broken then, especially if you have teutons on your side (so they cant even be converted safely xD).

[TheDiaper]

Publicado originalmente por Schmandl:

Akos knows crap,
Ballista so OP, pls nerv!!

I am 2k1 Teamgame myself, i can assure you, that i am getting rekt by them in every freaking game, any map, so annoying...

Schmandl knows crap
Ballista no OP, pls no nerv!

I am 2k3 Teamgame myself, i can assure you, that i rarely see them in any freaking game, any map...

________________________________

-They are slow
-They have to be created from castles, which is costly and hard to mass
-Khmer usually go knights or elephants as pocket while flank go archers; if Khmer pocket switches to ballista, there wont be enough meatshield (unless flank also makes some); both players going immobile units is also an issue

[mickeyjim2]

Publicado originalmente por TurinG.:

Publicado originalmente por mickeyjim2:

The thing is Ballista Elephants get proportionately more powerful the larger their opponent's army is, due to the nature of their projectiles hitting multiple units. I had a game about a month ago where I had 60 Ballista Elephants, and was attacked by 120 Magyar Hussars coming in 2 groups of 60. I killed the first group before they could even touch me and again, as I mentioned, due to the way ranged units work in AoE2. You can just park you ballista elephants in standard formation and fire at any melee units attacking you. Provided you have a critical mass you can tank the damage being done to your outermost elephants and only have a few casualties. So the net result was 120 anti-siege cavalry vs ballista elephants resulted in 120 dead Huszars and less than 10 casualties for me.

Killing the first group before they land a hit is IMPOSSIBLE if the magyar player knows the staggered and flank stances. So I think a very good (and obvious) solution to you is to start using these stances and as some might say "git gud". Now that is not a very nice thing to say ofc, so I suggest you play against this strat over and over with magyars and italians. Once you can beat them with these civs, trust me, you can actually beat them with others - koreans (high onager range + good halbs), Khmer (duh, battle elephants, or go ballista too!), maybe mongols (good onagers and mangudai counter seige), celts (awesome halbs + seige). Specifically for Black Forest team games, try going britons - make a castle, make petards, bust through the Khmer walls as soon as you hit castle age and just support the knight civ on your side while he raids the ♥♥♥♥ out of them. Now keep in mind that britons are special in this way - they can make a castle and still boom VERY well cause of the cheap tcs and no food requirement to make military in castle age.This has worked so well for me that I do not even bother banning Black Forest even though I know that theres a 90% chance that they have a khmer.

EDIT: Now, I see that lots of people think halbs cant even reach these ballista elephants, which is true

BUT

halbs are just a buffer for your onagers to absolutely decimate these units. If your 120 halbs manage to get close and kill even 5 of these while your onager can fire 5 volleys, trust me they are dead. Also, Halbs prevent the Khmer player from making Hussar to snipe your onagers xD.

Also, I tried ballista as khmer on Arena just because of the cutting trees aspect. Yup its broken then, especially if you have teutons on your side (so they cant even be converted safely xD).

I will clarify again that I was the Khmer player, not the Magyar player. Everyone always assumes that talks about nerfs are made by the players on the receiving end, not the ones using the unit in question, hence the inevitable "git gud" comments that I got sick of hearing around the time Dark Souls first came out. Also, on the point about staggered formations, we are talking about Black Forest maps, where chokepoints are common and where most of the fighting happens, and so it is not always easy to spread your units out. Yes it is much harder for the Ballista elephant to excel in open areas, but its not like Khmer are a go-to Arabia civ as it is.

And yes, Khmer can be countered by other good siege civs like Koreans, Celts, Ethiopians and Mongols. If I know I am going up against a Khmer player I will always choose one of those, but in my original post I made the point that those civs are the only solid counters, and that it can be overly punitive to civs without decent siege when going up against Khmer. I was once unlucky enough to be Huns against Khmer. Huns only get Mangonels and weak infantry, so my only options were Tarkans or Paladins, neither of which worked very well. Granted that was probably one of the worse match ups out there, but it illustrates my point that you are very limited in the ways you can deal with massed ballista elephants.

[TheDiaper]

Any civ with halb + onager + siege engineer can deal with khmer in late game as long as they didnt fall behind in early game, and there are 18 civs with that combo. Losing BBC was huge.

[Akos]

Publicado originalmente por HongeyKong (Tony's girlfriend):

Publicado originalmente por Schmandl:

Akos knows crap,
Ballista so OP, pls nerv!!

I am 2k1 Teamgame myself, i can assure you, that i am getting rekt by them in every freaking game, any map, so annoying...

Schmandl knows crap
Ballista no OP, pls no nerv!

I am 2k3 Teamgame myself, i can assure you, that i rarely see them in any freaking game, any map...

________________________________

-They are slow
-They have to be created from castles, which is costly and hard to mass
-Khmer usually go knights or elephants as pocket while flank go archers; if Khmer pocket switches to ballista, there wont be enough meatshield (unless flank also makes some); both players going immobile units is also an issue

he was ironic

[A Pigeon]

Ok. Literally jusy played a game against Paladin (Fengxin right?) and his friends. SEIGE ONAGERS WORKS VS BALLISTAS! CASE CLOSED! I was totally dominating everything until he got 15 SOs.

Oh and Khmer Scorps too, since they heavily outrange Ballista Elephants.

[Kenvert]

I just hate that they can cut trees on Castle Age... Very annoying on Hideout/Oasis/Black Forest maps. Not sure if they are actually that much overpowered besides that.

[mickeyjim2]

Publicado originalmente por TurinG.:

Ok. Literally jusy played a game against Paladin (Fengxin right?) and his friends. SEIGE ONAGERS WORKS VS BALLISTAS! CASE CLOSED! I was totally dominating everything until he got 15 SOs.

Oh and Khmer Scorps too, since they heavily outrange Ballista Elephants.

I did say in my original post that siege onagers were effective... My point was not that Ballista Elephants are unbeatable, but rather that they require a very expensive, powerful and/or (in the case of rams) micro-intensive counter that not many civilisations have or can easily transition into.