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.

[Storm 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

[Akos]

Nerf? Ballista eles are crap useless F-tier. Onager and halbs eat them

[Thor II]

I'm not going to say they need Nerf or not. The problem is that there's a great risk that the same thing will happen to him that happened to Steppe Lancer. An overpower unit ended up turning into a useless unit because the community thought it needed a nerf and ended up getting a nerf too big.

I don't know about you, but between an interesting Overpower unit that brings diversity to the game and makes it useless and end up resorting to the same old strategies as always to win using that civ, I prefer it to remain OP.

[mickeyjim2]

引用自 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

1.Speed isn't an issue on Black Forest.
2. Khmer economy can easily support their cost. Food is incredibly easy to get with their farmers and you can just set up trade with a teammate for gold. Since Ballista Elephants are also population efficient it frees you up to have a lot of trade carts.
3. I have been able to kill siege rams easily before they can reach me once I have 20+ ballista elephants, and halberdiers are a joke, not a threat. Not to mention that this is a super specific counter that 99% of the time people won't be using. How many other unique units in the game require a counter that specific? In games where I played as Khmer I saw opponents desperately putting down siege workshops to try to produce rams or onagers once I started attacking but by then its too late.

[mickeyjim2]

引用自 Akos123567：

Nerf? Ballista eles are crap useless F-tier. Onager and halbs eat them

A comment that illustrates that the person didn't bother to read the post. Ballista Elephants can tank multiple onager shots, and halberdiers are a joke. It's not even hard to kill an approaching army of 60 halbs without them landing a single hit.

[Karl Perkins]

Just figure out a better way to deal with it. Can't just have a unit nerfed because of one map and game mode.

[Akos]

引用自 mickeyjim2：

引用自 Akos123567：

Nerf? Ballista eles are crap useless F-tier. Onager and halbs eat them

A comment that illustrates that the person didn't bother to read the post. Ballista Elephants can tank multiple onager shots, and halberdiers are a joke. It's not even hard to kill an approaching army of 60 halbs without them landing a single hit.

I read your post and maybe just get better. Dealing with Ballista Eles is super easy with onagers and ram+halb. Maybe just improve instead of making stupid arguements about the top5 worst unit in the game.

[mickeyjim2]

引用自 Akos123567：

引用自 mickeyjim2：

A comment that illustrates that the person didn't bother to read the post. Ballista Elephants can tank multiple onager shots, and halberdiers are a joke. It's not even hard to kill an approaching army of 60 halbs without them landing a single hit.

I read your post and maybe just get better. Dealing with Ballista Eles is super easy with onagers and ram+halb. Maybe just improve instead of making stupid arguements about the top5 worst unit in the game.

Yes they are definitely in the top 5 worst. That's why Khmer are an incredibly popular civ these days and Ballista Elephants are used in large numbers in every game they appear in. And I'll repeat myself and say that rams + halbs is not an effective counter. I've seen it used against me and I just ignored it. Not to mention that a few Battle Elephants (of which Khmer also get the best in the game) can deal with the rams easily if you are having a problem with them soaking up pierce damage. And I will also ask again, how many other unique units require a counter that specific?

[Akos]

引用自 mickeyjim2：

引用自 Akos123567：

I read your post and maybe just get better. Dealing with Ballista Eles is super easy with onagers and ram+halb. Maybe just improve instead of making stupid arguements about the top5 worst unit in the game.

Yes they are definitely in the top 5 worst. That's why Khmer are an incredibly popular civ these days and Ballista Elephants are used in large numbers in every game they appear in. And I'll repeat myself and say that rams + halbs is not an effective counter. I've seen it used against me and I just ignored it. Not to mention that a few Battle Elephants (of which Khmer also get the best in the game) can deal with the rams easily if you are having a problem with them soaking up pierce damage. And I will also ask again, how many other unique units require a counter that specific?

You will never kill 10 rams (inside halbs) with ballista eles with their very low damage. Also Ballista Elephants are never seen expect in low elo legend games, because they are crap.

[Irondog]

I think a siege elephant was a great attempt at making a new unit that we haven't seen before in the game but ends up being too powerful for any infantry because siege excels at killing infantry and doing area dmg so any infantry don't have a chance.

The unit that should be good against it, the Elite Camel (an anti calvary calvary unit) just isn't as good as it should be unlike in age of mythology where the counter units excel at killing their counters as it should be. Not only that Camels suck. Lol

I agree with the OP that the Siege Elephants have no counter at the moment.

引用自 Thor II：

I'm not going to say they need Nerf or not. The problem is that there's a great risk that the same thing will happen to him that happened to Steppe Lancer

I also agree with the above, stop nerfing the cool new units damn it and make the friggin counter units better with bonus dmg and possibly bonus armor against the units they're suppose to counter! It's not rocket science.

[Akos]

引用自 Irondog：

I think a siege elephant was a great attempt at making a new unit that we haven't seen before in the game but ends up being too powerful for any infantry because siege excels at killing infantry and doing area dmg so any infantry don't have a chance.

The unit that should be good against it, the Elite Camel (an anti calvary calvary unit) just isn't as good as it should be unlike in age of mythology where the counter units excel at killing their counters as it should be. Not only that Camels suck. Lol

I agree with the OP that the Siege Elephants have no counter at the moment.

引用自 Thor II：

I'm not going to say they need Nerf or not. The problem is that there's a great risk that the same thing will happen to him that happened to Steppe Lancer

I also agree with the above, stop nerfing the cool new units damn it and make the friggin counter units better with bonus dmg and possibly bonus armor against the units they're suppose to counter! It's not rocket science.

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

[Irondog]

引用自 Ákos123567：

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

Look another Troll comment and he's complaining about the content of the Forums.
If the Forum is so bad why do you keep looking at it?

What would surprise me is if your IQ was bigger than your shoe size.

[Akos]

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.

[A Pigeon]

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.

[Moist Butt]

引用自 Irondog：

引用自 Ákos123567：

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

Look another Troll comment and he's complaining about the content of the Forums.
If the Forum is so bad why do you keep looking at it?

What would surprise me is if your IQ was bigger than your shoe size.

can't really blame him for getting angry when people that have very little game knowledge are making balance threads. Like he's just trying to help, but people like you are calling him a troll. I can't even find your profile on Aoe2net, so obviously you don't play multiplayer. Akos does and he is in like the top 5% for ranked team games so he obviously know what he is talking about.