What Advent Cap to Build First for MP

Advent is perhaps the only faction where you could make a pretty decent case for any of the five, though in practice I think we can nail it down to three; Halcyon, Progenitor, and Revelation.  Even then I'm not a big fan of the Revelation.

The Halcyon and Progenitor probably don't need any introduction at all.  Both are strong at combat, strong at expanding, and scale well into the late game.  In other words, ideal capital ship choices. 

The Radiance is a pretty much a one-trick pony with its interrupt, but at least it does its one trick very well.  However, as a battleship with no strike craft and no way to deal with strike craft, I'd be very hesitant to pick it first.  Similarly, the Rapture has a few nice selling points, but this early in the game its abilities just aren't at their finest and there are other more potent options available.

The Revelation has gotten some attention lately here on the forums for its powerful Reverie ability, and I think the strengths have already been pointed out, but this ability has a catch: if the Revelation must retreat, you lose Reverie and the enemy capital ship comes back online.  This can cause a losing battle to turn into a catastrophe, and carrier caps still have most of their firepower online even while under the effect of Reverie to begin with.  I've seen a lot of Revelation openers get completely hammered because they're forced to retreat their Revelation under focus fire and basically only get one Reverie off, which isn't good.  Combined with hte fact that the other two abilities on their capital ship range from sub-par to useless, and damage output that's too low to effectively clear militia on its own, that's a serious liability for a first capital ship. 

Guidance is worthless, and early-game clairvoyance is worthless.  Seriously, level 1 clairvoyance costs 70 antimatter.  A scout costs you 200 credits.  This early in the game use the scout every time.  Don't waste your antimatter on clairvoyance.  If you need clairvoyance, it's because you don't have enough scouts.

Your safest bet for all situations is probably a Halcyon.  Based on your starting position, if it looks like rapid colonization and econ are most important, make a Progen.  You'll probably build a Halcyon later once you start to fleet up.  If it looks like you will be fighting very soon (front line on a crowded map) build a Halcyon.  You will probably build a Progen later so Shield Restore can maximize fleet survivability.

Radiance and Revelation are situationally good ships if you have to fight someone toe to toe, but not that great if you are fighting against hit and run or kiting tactics.

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95% of the time you want the Halcyon for your starter cap.

actualy tec is the only race where you could make a case for any of the five...vasari 3...advent 2

advent caps are pathetic really save the hallycon

halycon almost all the time

progen only when you are looking for mass and fast expansion 

Idk.... the Dunov and the Kol are kinda late-ish game caps. Iv heard of dunov's being used well early on but I haven't seen it personally and the Kol is only useful past lvl 6. The Marza, Sova and Akkan are different stories.

dunov is very usefull, build two of them (sheild restore + mag pulse)

and the kol is usefull if u get it early and get it to level 6 (then it becomes a SC killing machine)

both of these caps can kill SC and with everyone building several carrier caps early that makes these caps usefull

marza is not really usefull untill level 6 either but when it does get there....

The problem with the Kol is getting it to level six without it being shredded beforehand by focus-fire LRMs. Lower level Kols will very rapidly run out of antimatter and will become an overly expensive brick with poor DPS (on a cost for damage basis).

Capital SC squadrons are also built for free, and can be constantly rebuilt (probably faster than Flak Burst can kill them).

For a lower-level Kol, you'll run out of antimatter before you actually kill anything.  You're better off building gardas...

Kol shines against large swarms of strike craft typical of large cruiser groups, not the smaller support forces you see from carrier caps early on.

I say progen just for the fact or very rapid expansion ( i usually build 4 scouts and 4 disc to go with it) and for the fact that given you are getting cheaper planet upgrades you can get 2nd cap which for me is halcyon for free or at least as great discount. 

I think that progen is best if you do it as first cap or not build it at all but if you go against tec or another advent lvl5 progen is hard to kill. If u have 2 guy will loose half of the fleet before he focus fire kills 1. But reality is that you do need to get air supremacy if not u are most likely to die so u do need to build halcyon. 

The choice between Halcyon and Progen first basically comes down to how far away you believe the enemy is.  If you expect 5+ jumps away, go with Progen.  If you suspect fewer, go with Halcyon.  Precise viability of rushing is always subject to the types of intervening planets; always be sure to scout voraciously and compensate appropriately if you pick the wrong opening cap.

Personally, I always go for the Progen first. It has the easily acknowledged best early-econ boosting ability in the game (low cost planet upgrades are an amazing advantage) that should give you enough of an advantage to counter any rushes the opponent makes. Enough to at least get a second cap ship out (Halcyon is my favourite though I have used Radiance to counter a capship heavy fleet before). As well as that, the idea for the Progen, in my mind, is to expand as quickly as possible toward the enemy, denying him the chance to rush you since you would effectively be rushing him, while not completely forsaking econ build up through the cheap planet upgrades.

Carrier ships and LRF are the mainstay of the Advent at this point, and a medium sized force of LF to counter the flak that should pop up soon is a good idea (keeping them out of range of combat for that period of time is a good plan too.

Of course there is a lot to be said for the Halcyon as a first cap build, what with AEA and such, but I don't believe that forsaking Advent's only econ advantage at the start of the game is a good idea in any scenario (perhaps not for 1v1 small maps though, since you generally don't have time to expand far in those games).

I'm tempted to try Radiance as my first if I know I'll be fighting right away. With the new boost to Reflective armor it should be interesting. AM burn counters most caps nicely and Cleansing Brilliance is ok.

People don't seem to like the Rapture but I find Vengeance a situationally useful ability. I've taken down Starbases and strikecraft with it. Skirantra counters it with Repair cloud of course, and Vasari like to spam Skirantras.

Halcyon is best for Advent though, just because it can keep its distance and not get destroyed.

I like the halcyon first as it makes wiping out militias so darn easy and it gets it the xp it needs to head up an invasion army.

If you start /w progen, how fast do you guys get your 2nd capital up?

A maxed out radiance now has 3 more armor than a maxed out kol.

15.05 vs 18.1

course, kol has damage reduction... but then again, radiance has buffed shield mitigation...

(actually... if you do the math... the damage reduction caused by any advent capital ship's shield mitigation is higher than the kol's force field...but... w/e... that doesnt factor in phase missles or antimatter regen...

either way, a lv 10 radiance is now beefier than a lv10 kol (at least when not facing phaaase missles)

*shrug*

The Radiance will be an interesting ship again with the beta patch. For one animosity will actually work for the most part as it is reapplied every second for the duration of the ability. This means a new order won't override the animosity anymore.

This may make a Rapture/Radiance combo somewhat interesting in multi-player with a Vengence/Animosity combo.

It's damage dealing capabilities is still pretty meh by itself. I'd like to see DrainAntiMatterAndDoDamage split into seperate overTimeActions. As it stands now, this ability does no damage if the target ship has no antimatter reserves.

which is a GOOD thing.!!!

Which is a good thing!!111

Why? I'm don't see why this would be bad or throw balance off. It would actually help to balance Adent capital ship selections with the other races. The interesting builds in soase should be around capital ships IMO.

In my opinion Advent is lacking in two key areas for capital ships compared to the other races.

1. A damage dealing capital ship (non-carrier class), which I'm proposing tweaking an existing ability on the Radiance. TEC get the improved Kol and solid Marza and Vasari get the Kortul, Jarrasul and Desolator and you could probably count the Maurader's phase out hull too. All of these ships have direct damage dealing abilities that work 100% of the time.
2. The second is a viable early game siege capital ship. I doubt this will ever happen, but trying to get a Revelation to level 6 is pretty iffy even mid-late game as you have to field carrier caps to even survive to this point which spreads the experience pretty thin. It would be nice if Advent had a goto siege capital ship like the Marza and Desolator for the other races.

Whenever i randomly decide to give Revelation another chance, I always forget that the siege power/ability is a lvl6 ability. Would be nice to have that right off the bat.

Not to mention one of the best siege animations in the game. Would be nice to see it more often in PvP games.

As much as the guidance rework is interesting, I still believe the best solution for the Revelation is to gut guidance, demote mass hysteria to a 3-level skill, and give it a new ultimate.  Heck, maybe if you compounded enough buffs, guidance could be reworked into that ultimate.

The devs will never move/remove any abilities. It would obsolete all the paperback stuff that comes with the game.

Will run quick visual test on the status of my paper manual for Sins

Ok... manual check complete.

It lists Reverie/Guidance/Clairvoyance/Provoke Hysteria.

So make Guidance the ultimate and add AM recharge to the ability.

Make Provoke Hysteria a 1/3/5 ability.

You don't even have to move them or rename them and the manual doesn't say one word about what they do so we're golden