I've seen so much conflicting information about them to. "tank+shotjas beats shojas" vs "pure tank beats shotjas" vs "with aeon, it's a race to unlock shotjas and spam them". I realize that these things serve the same purpose as mobile arty but are microed and controlled completely differently.
Whenever I mix them in my tanks, probably 1:5 shotjas to tanks, they kill one or two tanks before becoming useless due to their long reload and that they can't kite and are slow as crap. However, whenever my opponent fields them, they mow down my ranks of tanks or bots before they can close the range, and they'll have a few tanks guarding theirs. This thing slaughters me anywhere there is a choke, whether I am fielding them or my enemy is. Especially on those passages in van horn core. I know air counters them, but most will automatically mix a bit of AA with their shotja blob. Plus, being on a 3v3 or 4v4 map, I am usually aeon in the front doing land.
So whats the mind set in using and countering shotjas. Use ctrl groups to keep them separated from your tanks? Not ever retreating them? Adapters? Dont ever go up against shotjas on chokes?|||Tips:
- Shotja are amazing when they're just outside of a factory that has a shield and PD, since that negates their poor kiting ability. MML still works at this range.
- 4 Weeb bombs will destroy every Shotja in its damage radius (Assuming base damage and base health). Scorch bombs just make a mess of them.
- Shotja cannot fire uphill very well, their shots tend to get caught on the brow of the hill a lot.
- Teleportation is god when fighting using and against Shotja. Teleport behind the fuckers for best results, teleport your own shotja in range of their ACU for a fool's mate.
- Shotja can only defend one place at a time. e.g. If you manage to get Harvogs or Yenzoo around the back of them then you can merrily trash their base.
- Shields are stronger by proportion on Shotja than on other aeon units. (I.e. they're about 15% of their base health rather than the usual 10%)
Though, general counters to 1:1 tank shotja (IMO best mix) would be:
- Charge with a all-tank blob (training)
- Speed boosted tanks
- Teleported tanks
- Air, if properly microed
- Mini experimentals, if you can hold the shotjas off long enough to get them. Hold the line with PD+fac shields.
What does NOT work:
- Assault bots or mobile arty (yes, this means cybrans almost auto-lose vs shotjas. If they dont use air.)
- ACUs. Shotjas do a shitload of burst damage. You cant possibly use your com effectively. You cant kite with nanogun or OC, and if you try, your opponent might just get teleport and snipe your half-dead commander when you are retreating after a few nice hits
- PD push, unshielded PDs instantly die
- Air push against a base - If you see AA towers, you are in trouble. Dont go there. Use air to defend and tech to something else. Gunships might do the trick, but only if you stock up on a lot of them and your opponent doesnt see them coming. Also watch out for AA tower crawl.
Also, on maps like Open Palms, you can make use of the terrain. SHotjas cant shoot up hills, so use that high ground. I have found it useful to make ~10 demolishers and ground fire off hills, while keeping my tanks near the edge. If the aeon wants to damage you, he needs to come too close for comfort. In the mean time tech for afterburners or fatboys as UEF, or as Aeon, just hold the high ground and tech for teleport.|||Yea Cybran are so gimped against shotjas. I have to have an extra factory or two to break even. Then when they get shields it's
time.|||As aeon I usually just go pure tank vs shotja/tank. Grab a couple training levels then head down the path to bodabooms and teleAlso shotja's cost 10 more mass than tanks. That may not seem like much, but that means that when somebody is on 4 factory's of pure shotja spam, you can afford to be on 5 factory's of pure tank spam. As long as you avoided losing a sizeable chunk of your blob early on, you should just be able to out-scale and overrun the shotja's with time.|||Thats before the 5% build cost decrease thats on the way to shotjas.|||"on its way"
It's 1 RP at the beginning of the tele tree, there's no reason to NOT get that upgrade unless you're going for something that requires all 5 of your starting RP (like TML's).|||Do I really have to post my how to counter shotjas guide again...?|||You could, but then this account wouldnt reach the 100 posts milestone..|||BTW, my super (Tm) and original suggestion was as simple as follows: Swap Shotjas and Mobile Anti-missile unit positions in the tech tree.
For example.. Aeon Vs. Aeon TML rushes can make you feel pretty naked sometimes.. isn't it ?. Just an idea though.|||The_Silencer|||Quote:|||I preferred them before the nerf tbh. They should obviously be made impossible to get early game though, but I think coming in at some 9RP could make them ok.
Second thought, they would need some kind of nerf, but the current nerf is a bit too harsh for a 9RP unit if we make it that.|||Thanks, Neph. I think I've played you a few times already (Yippyhippy), but I'll add you. It just sucks that during the CEVO tourni, I was able to stop a 4 fact rush of the buggers on QAI Labs of all maps but now just utterly fail with the things.
Cygnus, you should reach 100 posts in no time given how many times you drop into threads to give helpful comments. :)
So I have one for pure tank spam against tanks+some shotjas. The thing is putting training 1+2 on your tanks puts you several minutes behind on getting teleport, which is an almost total counter against shotjas as most have said and is something you know your opponent is trying to reach as soon as he can. Soon he'll have a few minute window where he has teleporting tanks+shotjas while you only have beefier tanks.
Neph, when you do a 1:1 mix, how do you micro the shotjas? Making any kind of micro-style movement renders them unable to shoot. I generally get a few of them in my tank blob and have them fire the opening shots and hopefully kill a tank or two. after that, I micro the whole blob together, at which the DPS of my shotjas goes to 0 as they're trying to shuffle back and forth.
Initially, I thought about going teleport in my games. however, before I reached that point, I was getting mauled and even after I reached that point, on van horn core, there is very little space you can teleport around when you are battling over that narrow strait. I think one of my falls is that I usually try to control the island in the middle of the straits, so I can eventually take the two mass points there.
I've been pro doing-something-with-UEF/Aeon-anti-TML for quite a while now. It makes little sense that the counter for something costs more. Its like the anti-nukes costing more RPs than nukes.|||dawumyster|||Well thanks for taking even that away from me! :)|||I use afterburners against shotjas. It absolutely rapes them. I still haven't found a solution for Cybran though.
You could also add me for some practice (TheSplattedOne), even though I'm not as good as Neph
.|||On Van Core if you know they are going shotjas you could megalith rush.|||I feel like it's never ever a good idea to take that middle point on van horne. It's too expensive and too far forward to appropriately protect it's easy for the enemy to overrun if you 2 are on roughly even mass and numbers and it's basically "I lose" if you take that point with factory's and lose it. If you try and make a secure position on that island, you'll always have less tanks than an opponent who didn't, early on, and that will get you killed consistantly by anyone who knows how to break factory shield and pd.The best way to deal with a front position van horne as aeon is just lay yourself out to spam tanks and worry about long-term economic sustainability later. Be aggressive enough to force some sort of faceoff with your opposing player and see what comes of it. You'll either get forced back, turtle up and try to eco-expand to recover, or you'll end up on top and can run over him. If the latter happens, you can worry about taking those 2 mass points after the 'front' has been pushed back into his base and you'll never have to worry about building factory's to defend it.
I don't usually see games on van horne reach teleport for the front players, 'cause I don't really like giving my opponent enough space for either of us to tech.|||spuddyt|||Megalith rush requires a bit of investment for the first few minutes, which will utterly fail if the opponent is aggressive and their air guy is decent. Besides, I usually don't play cybrans in the front as they are my worst faction at dealing with chokes.
I think I arrived at the same conclusion as you Z32. It takes too long to get that middle established and defended and if your opponent goes 3 fact spam right off the bat, its too difficult to hold and leaves you with no production. However, teleport in my experience is usually what both aeon players are racing to unlock. I have yet mastered beating teleport with training or some other upgrade. I think I went training vs teleport a few times during the tournies and won only once out of those, while unlocking teleport before my opponent pretty much afforded me the win as far as I can remember.
Afterburners I agree would rape shotjas assuming equal number in the blobs. Thing is afterburners is an active ability and so I rarely get it as UEF when I can get some passive ability such as training or range.|||dawumyster|||100% Brack spam for chokes. Works wonders, especially with dumb opponents/ground fire
|||I must be missing something because I don't have any problems dealing with Shotjas.I read all this stuff about how they are overpowered but I just don't see it in action.
Don't get me wrong the Shotja is a powerful unit but I rarely see anybody use them to their full potential.
They were kinda overpowered before the turn speed got nerfed.
I think switching Shotjas with Sliptacks in the research tree is a good idea other than that I think they are balanced.
BTW overcharge kills shotjas en mass.|||-Axiom-
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