Any bog standard combat remote brings repeaters to the party. Normal rolls are normal rolls, the last thing you want is to be eating that shit while trying to clear something like a suppressive fire Bulleteer pulling close range point defense on an objective. And Pan-O not being great at hacking is besides the point, Haqq, Nomads, Combine and Aleph are all quite good at it. For christ's sake, Nomads are currently the most played faction in ITS. Are you going to try and pretend that IA really don't need some kind of effective KHD countermeasures here? Even if we were to accept the ridiculous notion that general hacking from factions that don't have a strong hacking presence is equivalent to no threat whatsoever, the fact is the competent hacker factions make up 49% of the ITS field for last season. If IA can't fight their way through this it's gonna be a significant issue into the viability of the sectorial. Personally I give my opponent a modicum of respect and assume they might protect the hacker by making sure if you try to drop on it you get shitblasted by the link team. As we've already proven in the other threads, the odds of actually successfully killing even a weak enemy on drop is not very good, it's not a reliable strategy that replaces the need for KHDs to remove enemy hackers.
It took many Many long years for Pano to finally get nice things. Watching your favorite faction stagnate is not fun. So I can't blame Yu Jing players feeling upset.
They are? Well that's some interesting new thing I've learned today at least. My bets would've been Ariandna and/or CA being the most played.
KHD in a link team, not so much. KHD operating off on it's own, though... And it's looking like another week or two before Army updates. Not soon enough!!! That would be nice, but how would you make them different from the Su Jian? Goddamn!!! That's beastly! I'm honestly trying to stay out of MO (don't have the $$ to spend on it, really), and reading stuff like this does not make that easy. My expectation was a Zuyong statline with Limited Camo, Mimetism, and FD2. basically applying the Zanshi->Guilang upgrades to a Zuyong, but not quite as good as the Daofei (because the Daofei's fluff has always been that it was part of the Invincible Army). Everything we know about the MO update, compared to everything we know about the IA release, makes MO much more attractive for someone wanting to play 'All the HI'. Very much so. Even before KHDs dropped, I have been saying that Assault Hacking Devices need some tweaks (specifically adding the Lockpick program). And now that KHDs are a thing, I've been saying that AHDs need a lethal response program. Any normal hacker, even an Interventor, is going to struggle against a Tinbot B link. They're probably hitting you on 6s (Fairy Dust), and trying to damage you against BTS9 or 12. However, now we're talking about a De Fersen-led Pain Train with a Santiago KHD playing backup. Have fun with that.
Hmmm... how successful would a Santiago KHD be against a Interventor KHD, using Lightning? Both on -6, so the knight hitting on 7s vs the Interventor hitting on 9s? With Redrum, both are 6s or 7s, but the burst advantage is with the active turn - any ARO hitting on a 6 probably isn't going to stop an incoming attack, and the Interventor starts with BTS9, compared with the knight's 3? Doesn't seem that advantageous to me (if we're expecting to meet all the Nomads prepped for HI lists) - is this all that efficient?
Good question... To begin with, they don't transform. Give them some form of visual modifier like DDO and some short range weapons/CC abilities. Basically, I'm thinking Shikamis, because I miss them lol. Maybe not even the visual modifiers, but really good PH and smoke? How about a McMurder wanna-be? Wishful thinking is so fun... :p
The point being made isn't that IA doesnt need hacking defence. Just that it could come in forms that don't involve a shit hot khd in a link which already comes with a tinbot. MO got something cool, that's great. But these comparisons of "equal or better or I'm throwing my toys" is rediculous. I hope IA to bring interesting combos which are different to MO. I expect the same brigade to Herald it as trash and then 6 months slink into the background as people learn how to use new rules. I'd also like to politely point out that we disagree about your "evidence" about the Liu xing. As with your bulleteer example relies on idealised situations to demonstrate. To reiterate: the Liu xing doesn't need to kill the hacker with explode. That's just an added bonus if he wins the face to face.
FFS! Tinbots B at 0 SWC cost on a wildcard All the army HI so all of them benefit from faery dust (this+the previous is an actual -9 to enemy hackers!) Stomp HI paratrooper to goomba enemy key troops or deployment harassment An EVO to enable coordinated hacking, making satlock without penalties, caleidoscope if there are enemy killer hackers, and of course +3 to combat jump Double availability of key remotes 3 wildcard troops ¿what are the odds of one of them with a decent hacking profile being inside a 5 men linkteam? who said disabling enemy stealth and surprise modifiers? Even if we don't get a insane hacker, a killer hacker, an extensive repeater network or whatever, we have plenty of tools to deal with most of the hackers. Everything further will be like a candy to sweeten our experience. What we miss right now in Invincible is a multitool, something that is polivalent and can deal with problems in different ways were the rest of the list can't.
If you use Kaleidoscope instead of Fairy dust against a KHD interventor to drop them to WIP 6, it comes out to about 34-15% in the Santiago's favour to stick a wound. The Nomads really need their own Kaleidoscope to even up the MOD fight, and I wonder if this kind of link popping up more often will push infowar armies towards picking up the EVO hackers more often because right now I see them ignore them and just stick more offensive hackers on the table.
Except for the parts of the army that operate away from the Mixed Link Team of Doom(tm), and therefore only at BTS+Fairy Dust. Definitely agree with this. And the reason it's so blatantly obvious right now is because normal YJ unit design is rather multitool.
My point is the Santiago isn't a particularly offensive piece, just one with lots of defence - perhaps analogous to the ninja sniper; there's plenty of mods to save it from incoming fire, but its damage output is limited, and that impacts the efficiency. Furthermore, at 20 points, you can take 2 KHD Interventors for that Santiago, who then has to split his burst against both in the active turn. Like I've said before, I think the emphasis for HI armies is dismantling the repeater network rather than offensively hacking with mediocre stats.
I don't think you see double KHD interventors normally, one at most. Two is overkill and you lose flexibility that the regular HD+ provides, backup KHDs tend to go onto the midfield skirmishers because against non hackable armies you haven't overinvested into useless KHDs at the back of the field because they can just be infiltrating button pushers instead. As far as dismantling repeater network it doesn't really work against pitcher carrying armies, they can just keep placing them very easily.
True, pitchers are a problem to be dealt with - I'm not arguing it's an easy task, just that WIP13 KHD isn't an effective platform against, say, Lightning. Even with a KHD, we're not going to see hacking supremacy against Nomads, for instance. With Mary Problems (personal favourite of our captive Nomad player), the dual KHD is more likely. And, of course, if the Santiago becomes a favourite across the board, metas will evolve.
I really can't see how it won't become super-popular. Your only other option for KHD in PanO is an AVA1 Hexa, so this opens up other routes of attack for the Hexa (that you'd be taking anyway). 38|0 for a 2W KHD with WIP13 and BTS3 is expensive, but it comes with a Combi and CC21 MA1 for murdering things that aren't hackable the other way.
Just hold my beer. They will be Su Jians with C+ and super-jump in one (and only) profile... and 1W NWI no shock immunity. See? Easy!
I'm not bemoaning the profile! I don't expect it to do wonders (in fact, for balance, it should have a mediocre chance against elite hackers); the point I'm driving at is that such a chassis, even with defensive tech, isn't all that effective against efficient hacking armies. And, if that's the case, is it more like a comfort blanket than countermeasure?
Yeah, getting a KHD for MO at all is the real boon. That actual profile is very unlikely to see play outside MO. The cost/benefit is just too far out of whack.
