This is definitely looking like it might be a faction thing for Yu Jing especially with the premium end HI. The Aquila Guard, Swisse Guard, Gwailos, Omega, and Bronze are all 4-4. Hac Tao, Dao Fei, and Hsien get 6-2 along with Shang Ji and Jujaks.
Its a nice bit of differentiation on the heavy infantry end of things that was WELL needed. I think a lot of people have missed this too. The assumption was ALL HI were 6-2
Yu Jing is the undisputable HI faction. Heavy infantry in general have just generally not being preferred in the meta. That will likely shift. I'm not really following your 'beta' test point. I feel like this is some forum concept that has become agreed upon but really hasn't percolated into the wider infinity community. Yu Jing still has the best Lt Level 2 in the game, and some very synergistic ways to use it. I'm pretty sure yu jing have the most NCO and tac aware profiles in the game - but haven't checked in awhile. On top of that we have great access to CC, smoke, cheap orders, excellent attack pieces. I'm really lost where the 'gaps' are? Is this a dig at invincible army?
Yu Jing's command structure is definitely a point I've overlooked. Only vanilla Combined Army can contend in that regard (although the methodology in how they do differs greatly). That said, Yu Jing's implementation doesn't come without problems. The Daoying is insanely good as a Lt, but it comes to a degree that really leaves most other options pretty far in the dust. Other traditionally strong options just don't stack up to be worth considering when the Daoying is available, and this is especially problematic for White Banner, which struggles to find purpose when compared against vanilla's options. In regards to the 'gaps,' I'm referencing the gaps that other factions have. Yu Jing's generalist approach is meant to leave minimal conceptual gaps (although we certainly have a few) at the cost of efficiency and specialization. Other factions that are developed around more optimized concepts however, end up receiving new releases built to fill in their own gaps over time, devaluing the generalist concept that Yu Jing relies on.
There's one thing that bothers me about discourse on the forums when someone tries to convince someone else that things are okay for a faction, and that is the lack of perspective which results in something being described as "great" or "lots" when in reality it's actually the exact opposite. When it comes to Yu Jing these meta-tropes are that Yu Jing has lots of or fantastic; smoke, CC, hacking. In reality Yu Jing has one of the worst hacking of any factions capable of hacking*, one of the worst smoke of any factions capable of putting down smoke, and fairly mediocre access to units that are able to make good use of CC. Now, now, before someone goes off and blows a gasket; this doesn't mean that Yu Jing is terrible in any of these areas. There is enough of it to make it work, and that's really what that hypothetical someone is trying to convince the other person, but they're being dishonest when doing it. As long as you're not trying to capitalize on any of those areas and keep your reliance on them modest they'll let the rest of your force do work. * Because repeaters multiply a hacker's worth and allows for "coordinated AROs" of an indefinite amount of hackers, and Yu Jing repeater coverage suck
The knights all have BS 14 actually. Without smoke, CC is rare from MO. Its mostly defensive but in very close range it helps negate smoke since throwing smoke at a knight close to you just allows them to get into CC. Saying Pano has better CC ability than Yu Jing is ridiculous. Ninjas alone are better at actually getting into CC then anything in Pano. The new SMG + DA CCW ninja in code one is going to find a lot of use in N4 as an attack piece. Yu Jing is actually very competitive as that ITS breakdown theard shows. Heck, the results of the top 33% of players actually puts Yu Jing as #1. Whats the shtick of Yu Jing? A well balanced force that can handle anything. It leans more towards HI and CC with ninjas and monks. While not as shooty as Pano they more than make up for it with a lot more toolbox units. This makes completing objectives easier. It also gives vanilla YJ far more flexibility than vanilla Pano. Also, YJ has deployable repeaters for expanding your hacking range. Gulang are amazing and deployable repeaters in their FO profile is part of the reason. P.S. Daoying LT is amazing but I think its silly to think that somehow your gimping yourself if you play white banner and miss out on one extra order. Having access to fireteams is a very strong advantage.
Nobody said Vanilla YJ isn't good, that was not the question we were addressing but one of faction identity and meh sectorials. Also, re: - YJ is not the HI faction. It has many HIs, yes, but outside of a few outliers they all do the same and many are redundant and, as already said, other factions can run HI much better because better links, better hacking and better Engineers. - the "beta" testing refers mainly to our "light" HI and all the hyper optimized non hackable NWI/Shock Immune units that came after them and the abomination known as Liu Xing being a precursor to awesome Crushers - @Death, PanO does have better CC than Yu Jing, just go ahead and count how many MA units PanO has and compare to YJ; btw, you seem to forget PanO has ninjas and a monk too, because reasons. - if you are gonna use the "statistics say vanilla YJ is great in the hands of veteran players" I'll agree, and my rebuttal would be "statistics say YJ sucks outside of that niche, including its sectorials and when played by most players", which I think proves the faction has problems
Its kind of funny that Pano is the opposite in this regard. Vanilla Pano is seen as boring and our sectorials are what most vets play.
Explain to us how is that subjective, pray tell us how YJ is good at hacking, CC, and smoke, especially in Sectorials. I'm baffled at that "it leans to CC with ninjas and monks" comment, really. And the fact our AVA 2 skirmishes that doubles as a minelayer has deployable repeaters does not really make YJ able to set a useful hacking net, it would be like saying PanO smoke game is great because GdA has Eclipse (I know I'm exaggerating, but you get my point I hope)
How is ISS or White Banner bad at smoke? "Liu Xing being a precursor to awesome Crushers" But the Fraacta existed before the Liu Xing. Does it not count as awesome? Bruh, your not seriously saying the Merc Ninja is good at CC with a messily shock CCW or that any Pano player is actually going to take that merc ninja. Most of the MA skill in Pano is on the knights which tend not to be taken outside of MO. The rest of Pano just has better HI to invest in. I don't know what your local meta is like but its pretty rare for Pano players outside MO to ever send their units into CC. The lack of smoke combined with high BS makes shooting almost always the preferred action. On the other hand White Banner has several units strong at CC and smoke from monks to get into CC. ISS has smoke LGLs and Crane rank HI who are pretty deadly in CC. Not to mention the ever present KHD Ninja which has a DA CCW and that baby gets into CC plenty.
The only difference between YJ ninjas and the Kunai is the choice of CC weapon, but you are telling me Ninjas are amazing CC units in YJ but bad in PanO? The only source of smoke for ISS is the CG KS controller, even with B2 if you are using your Core for KS that's hardly what I would call "good smoke coverage". And that's exactly what I said, I didn't say bad, I said "not good" as in average at best. WB got Shaolins, that's the same smoke most factions with smoke get, with only the Rui Shi being able to exploit it with their MSV2 and, yes, a couple good CC units. I'd rather play Vanilla because, as I seem to have to state every post, is good and does everything WB does and more. Edit: let me clarify my stance about PanO and CC: if PanO won't ever use CC and it's not its selling point (I agree), why does it have more CC monsters than YJ? I could go into other factions that can actually also get to cc, but it all goes back to the original point: what's YJ faction identity and why do they keep telling players YJ is good at CC and "the HI faction" when it is outplayed at both those points by several other factions?
The Fraacta is not hackable and comes with a price point more comparable to the Tiger. It's damn good in its own right, although it too looks to be utterly shafted by the Crushers. To add to what Benkei has said, Liang Kai would have been a great smoke deployer, but it's pretty clear the reason he doesn't carry smoke is so he could be shoehorned into PanO. It's a shame we don't see the same concessions made from PanO native units. Further, we should keep in mind that in N4, the distinction between MA2 and 3 is going to shrink as to be almost nonexistant. The PanO knights will become much more competent in close combat, leaving our comparable Cranes in a much more disadvantaged position without a significant price cut. In general, this MA change is nothing but a huge cut in efficiency for Yu Jing, who paid a premium for that extra level.
Due to the way Attributes over 20 work, +1 CC on the Ninja over the Kunai makes the Ninja several percentage points better against other CC units, for example against a Hospitaller the Ninja with Shock CCW is about 5% points more likely to cause damage and about 5% points less likely to suffer damage than the Kunai. But the bigger changes are going from a Shock CCW to a DA CCW, making the Ninja something like a quarter as effective again at inflicting damage (so yes, changing the CCW does make a big difference), and going from Forward Deployment (+4") to Infiltration. This assumes that MA levels cost the same in N4 as in N3, that all units have the same MA levels as in N3, have the same CC values as in N3, and see the same comparative change in prices.
That's true, we don't know how MA will change. F. E. Knight of Justice picked up MA while Father Knight had nothing, so there is the possibility Knights get even better while YJ gets shafted again [emoji23] Anyway I thought we were discussing N3 and the lack of faction identity for YJ. My new question is: what good it is having a bazillion HIs when most of them are mostly the same and offer no real appeal?
Zuyong, Jujak, Wu Ming, Shang Ji. Four troopers for the design space of one. This is truly the Yu Jing way. I actually really love the Wu Ming and their eclectic selection of weaponry. It's just that with the Jujak and the Shang Ji being filled with so many redundancies, the redundancies of all of them are made to really shine through.
List can be expanded: Zuyong, Wu Ming, Shang Ji, Hai Dao, Jujak, Krit Kokram and Qiang Gao. That's 7 clonic profiles that do the same you could do with one or two well designed units. Then add Liuxing and Hulang are, at current, steaming piles of crap and all of a sudden our "impressive" 19 HI roster is reduced to 10 units that have some purpose, despite some of them are just different sizes of a stick. Now look at well done and interesting profiles like the Hollowmen, the Beta Troopers, the Bronzes, ... and I can't help but wonder how much of a troll is Gutier. Whenever people say YJ profiles are versatile I do wonder what roster are they looking at.
It's like saying Pano isn't the TAG faction because it doesn't have access to the Avatar, the sphinx, or the marut. Yu-jing is the HI faction because no matter what role you need in your list, there's probably an HI to do it, and while we have as many HIs as pano we have a lot more variety (Pano knights are just 100 flavors of "shooty stabby"). I'd argue the guilang alone is what makes Yu-jing a very serious hacking threat: the guilang FO with deployable repeater, together with his WIP 14 AHD pals are ridiculously good for this (of course it means ISS and IA are sorta left behind). We're also the faction with the most widely available tinbot B + KHD combo, for what it's worth. Zuyong are baseline Infantry in basic power armor. Wu-mings are toolboxy basic power armors. Jujiaks are speedy basic power armors with a focus on close contact. They all fit the "basic power armor" role in their respective sectorial, with a gimmick adapted to the sectorial identity. It's just Shang-ji who are subpar ATM, however looking at C1 they'll have a little rework, and might get a credible niche in N4 (better access to AP ammo at first glance). IMO, Corvus Belli has reworked Yu-jing to be the hyper aggressive faction, instead of just HI + melee: - ISS is hyper aggressive wide order spam, orders you can spend on very high quality HIs (Su-jian, Hsien, Crane), speedy deadly remotes to crush your opponent, or more toolboxy units. Sure, other factions can spam orders, but they don't have su-jian or Hsien HMG haris. - IA is elite, vertical order spam, with the ability to spend 14/15/16 orders on a single fireteam to completely obliterate your opponent. - WB is high tech camo aggression, specializing in flanking with high quality skirmishers (guilangs, daofei) and speedy units who focus on close range engagements (jujiaks, tigers, Blue Wolf). This focus on hyper aggression is the reason why having access to so many HIs is very relevant in Yu-jing. Additionnal wounds and armor matter the most when you're engineering an attack route through chain rifles and mines to gut your opponent's DZ. All-in-all, I think there are 2 things that really hurts Yu-jing identity and CB's rebranding effort: The fact that IA failed to deliver completely (up to debate I guess), and the new CB trend to just give everyone NWI + shock immunity which greatly dilutes the value of HIs. If you don't need to be an HI to have 2 wounds, then what are the perks of being an HI, and the tradeoff for being hackable? The new 15 troops limit is also an attack on ISS's identity, as is the democratisation of HI-led-mooks fireteam we've seen during the past two years. I'm not 100% sure ISS will need help though, it might just put a greater emphasis on using the toolboxy units instead of just ramming 20 orders worth of su-jian, dakini and rui-shi in your opponent's face because you know he can't handle it.
