Title. Without nerfs to vanilla Nomads and other factions it just smacks of trying to appease specific personalities from the Australian meta. I don't actually think that the Avatar was vanilla CA's strongest build, barring specific scenarios.
The Netrod and Imetron hike was very much needed, though. Hiking Imetron and Avatar both does seem like a double hit to the Avatar's cost when the Imetron hike by itself might have been sufficient.
The change to Avatar and Imetrons are just what infinity needed. Unfortunately, infinity needed a whole bunch of other changes as well, which aren't present in this patch. So there are naturally two schools of thought. If you were already pro-CB, they've just done something incredibly helpful for the game and we should be grateful. If you were already anti-CB, they have insulted us by selectively handing out aid in one small region while snubbing a much wider region. Which side are you on?
Well, if it keeps the [redacted] from being [redacted] [redacted] for more than five minutes it’s worth it.
I'm in the "most changes we see are two steps forward, one step back" camp. Net improvements implemented in less than satsfactory manner.
I'm always on the side of cheering for incremental fixes. just before logging in I was thinking about how we had problems X, Y and Z at work, someone fixed X without being explicitly told to and people complained that she didn't fix Y and Z. I guess that makes me pro-CB then, good job, there is hope for more.
Thing is, the avatar and speculo double-dick-punch is a big NPE for most players to be on the receiving end of. Some factions and some players are equipped to deal with it and will relish the challenge but most aren't. Making NPEs harder to achieve is a good thing imho.
I've been practicing against Avatar lists with O12 a bit recently, and while it's definitely a negative play experience, it's not insurmountable. I'm happy to see the big guy nerfed, but I must admit the Imetron nerf did take me by surprise, it seems a point over to me. Count me firmly in the 'happy with what we got, but would have loved to see a little slap to the Bear and Chimera too' camp.
The imetron is such an enabler of the double-dick-punch though and it got objectively better now there's no scatter from a failed deployment roll. Aleph took a hit on their netrods too.
Both the bear and chimera are able to attack people who null deploy pretty effectively; I think it's a good thing that people are complaining about them and a sign they're doing their job. Not every NPE is a bad thing; sometimes they're good because people/the community have toxic ways of approaching the game i.e. "I should be able to null deploy, take no risks in doing so, and gain a significant advantage."
If it's a faction thing, I agree it needs a look. Do you have any data on this? If it's a player thing... ok, why?
