Hello, Ashes fans! The new v2.76 update is a minor balance patch, but it’s meant to improve strategic diversity. Most of the changes are subtle, but the heavy cruisers are receiving some significant power reductions.
Martyr
The Martyr is underperforming but buffing it required careful consideration to not give Substrate too much early capping power over PHC. The Martyr is receiving a cost reduction to further distinguish it from the reaper and make it more cost-efficient.
- Metal Cost reduced from 90 to 75
- Build time reduced from 19 to 16
Archer
Archers suffered from their targeting priorities where they would bypass dreadnoughts to attack cruisers. We are equalizing their targeting priorities for all but frigates and buildings so they attack whatever is closest.
- Cruisers, dreadnoughts and juggernauts now share the same targeting priority
Medic
We are reducing the efficiency of the Medic when healing heavily armored units as they were skewing dreadnought and juggernaut battles too much for their cost.
- Heal ray armor piercing reduced from max to 20%
- Healing “Damage” reduced from 67 to 60.
- Self healing per second reduced from 4 to 1
Artemis
The Artemis was overperforming against Substrate frigates, as a few of them could negate large armies due to their AOE against clumped up soft targets. The Artemis was overshadowing the Zeus in the late game, we want players to counter frigates by investing in anti-frigate units, rather than doing so with the anti-building seige unit.
- Missile attack AOE reduced from 60 to 30
Athena
The Athena vs Mauler performance was quite similar, but the Athena was noticeably better against heavier targets. We are lowering the damage of the Athena to put it more in line with the Mauler.
- Damage reduced from 235 to 220
Hera
The Hera was too versatile and lacked proper counters, we don’t want the heavy cruisers to make lighter cruisers obsolete. As well as reducing its durability and armor-piercing, we are increasing the damage in exchange for a cooldown increase (nerf) to increase its frigate overkill and thus making them more vulnerable to Reapers & Archers. Lowering the armor-piercing makes the Nemesis more desirable in comparison for attacking dreadnoughts & juggernauts.
- Metal cost increased from 600 to 640
- Damage increased from 130 to 170
- Cooldown increased from 2.1 to 2.75
- Attack range reduced from 1100 to 900
- Armor piercing reduced from 40% to 30%
- Armor reduced from 60% to 30%
- Health reduced from 2500 to 2400
Eradicator
The Eradicator was also too powerful and is getting its durability reduced, alongside a damage reduction to its secondary to make it more vulnerable against frigates. It’s also receiving an increase to its energy regeneration as it was too reliant on Capacitors which could be quite frustrating when it loses the ability to fire.
- Armor reduced from 50% to 30%
- Energy regeneration per second increased from 1 to 1.2
- Secondary weapon damage reduced from 4 to 1
- Secondary weapon cooldown increased from 3.5 to 5
- Secondary weapon shots per volley reduced from 15 to 5
- Main weapon cooldown increased from 4.8 to 5.2
- Attack range reduced from 1100 to 900
- Total health/shields reduced from 2600 to 2200
Dreadnoughts
Dreadnoughts are getting a large indirect buff due to the changes to Heras, Eradicators and the Eye of Darkness. However, we’re making a small additional change to the logistics prices to make Dreadnoughts more viable in the late game and have their logistics more accurately reflect their cost.
We've been considering a wider buff to dreadnoughts such as a health increase but that would have a lot of knock-on effects such as difficulty of some campaign missions and Substrate may suffer from their less accessible armor-piercing. We wanted to keep the scope of this update small while all our attention is on Star Control: Origins. We'll be monitoring how dreadnoughts perform post-2.76.
- Hyperion, Chronus, Retributor and Overmind logistics cost reduced from 100 to 90.
- Prometheus and Savager metal cost reduced from 6400 to 6000
- Overmind Metal cost increased from 3200 to 3600
Eye of Darkness:
The Eye was too dominant and is receiving a cost increase and damage reduction to prevent it from two-shotting dreadnoughts by default. While the Leonidas is also incredibly powerful, it has very strong counters in the way the Eye is less vulnerable to.
- Damage reduced from 7000 to 6500
- Metal cost increased from 22000 to 23000
- Radioactives cost increased from 8000 to 8500
- Quanta cost increased from 1200 to 1275
- Build time increased from 900 to 950
- Logistics cost increased from 300 to 320
Hades
The Hades was providing too much value for its price as it could annihilate standard frigates in a single pass, particularly Archers, and its armor-piercing overshadowed the Air Marauder for engaging tougher targets.
- Metal cost increased from 250 to 270
- Radioactives cost increased from 180 to 190
- Armor-piercing removed
Air Harbinger & Strategic Bomber
The heavy air units costed a disproportionately high amount of logistics which we are reducing.
- Logistics cost reduced from 60 to 50
Nano Transport
Nano Transport was so much stronger than the PHC Charon Cruiser as it could be instantly placed anywhere on a tough dreadnought only for a quanta cost. This resulted in too much death blobbing rather than dynamically spreading out forces or having a vulnerable Charon that could be picked off.
- Quanta cost increased from 200 to 300
Thanks to our community for being active with the game and leaving feedback!