The Advent Rebels

Culture is critical for the Advent.  Shield mitigation and phase missile (those weapons are the bane of the Advent) block are both caused by the culture reasearch.  As a result, when in their own culture, the Advent become significantly more powerful.  While the TEC gets more AM/s and the Vasari deals a slightly higher amount of damage, the Advent are able to take way less damage.

Idk how much you know about how shield mitigation works, but capitals at level 1 have 65% max mitigation, thus they only take 35% of incoming damage to shields.  Not only that, this reduction still applies to the hull, so even after shields are down, they still receive significantly less damage.  For this reason, Hull points are significantly harder to take down than shield points because you have to contend with armor, not just mitigation reducing your damage output.

I don't remember the maximum number that the AR can have for mitigation, but the AL which are the most culture oriented faction in the game can max out at 88% on level 10 capitals.  As a result, those ships only take about 1/8th of incoming damage as opposed to the third that other races have to contend with.  Now true, the AR aren't as good in culture as the AL, but they are better than the other races.

This reliance on culture is why the Advent have the Deliverance Engine which helps spread culture to a target world and gives your ships a 25% damage boost for a while.

Another thing to consider is that the Advent focus on fleet synergy.  For instance, try casting Malice+Cleansing Brilliance or Malice+Chastic Burst.  You should note how large swaths of the enemy fleet die instantly.  Malice propogates 30% of all damage dealt to each affected unit to each other affected unit.  As a result, when used with Chastic Burst, instead of dealing 1115 damage per unit, you can deal 10,146.5 to each of 28 units.  In other words, you can deal twice as much damage as Snipe to each of those units.

Likewise, using Cleansing Brilliance with Malice under ideal conditions will also yield a nuke, albeit an even more deadly one (though because it's a column AoE and not a sphere AoE, it is more difficult).  At level 2, CB deals 312 DPS for 8 seconds to the afflicted target so even without Malice, you're still dealing 2496 damage to the afflicted units.  With Malice, you deal 22,713.6 damage to each one.  Back in vanilla, Malice was had no target cap and as a result was one of the most feared abilities in the entire game.  Now that it has a target cap, it's uses are limited unless you have a l6 Radiance or Eradica on you.

As I said above, the Advent love their shields.  The AR in particular are good at this.  While other races can only have their repair structures regen hull, the AR can have theirs regen shields, allowing them to be of use earlier in a battle.  The Advent in general also love the Guardian.  First off, it absorbs damage taken by allied forces, allowing damage to be spread across more units which means that the Progenitor's Shield Regeneration becomes more effective.

When using the Illuminators, keep in mind that a good chunk of their damage is through the side beams, so make sure to position them accordingly.

Destras are powerful, but Ruthlessness is not.  It deals 1.5 DPS and doesn't stack.  Not worth it.

Advent hangars can give shields to nearby structures.  Make sure to get this as it will allow your structures to take way more punishment because no longer are they just taking damage straight to hull.  More importantly than the extra health points, this gives them mitigation which on structures results in the negation of 60% of incoming damage.

I could point out that your trolling here.. 10,146.5. Really? 22,713.6..Really?

Mhm-ruthlessness. Let me tell you the truth. It disrupts normal regeneration on the ships affected and is bad business if your counting on your ship to heal its self. 

That's not trolling.  

Chastic Burst+Malice: 1115+1115*0.30*27=10146.5

Cleansing Brilliance+Malice: 2496+2496*0.30*27=22713.6

Malice's peak damage when used with an AoE is just the amount of damage dealt by the AoE multiplied by 9.1.  Not trolling.

As for Ruthlessness, it screws with hull regeneration, but that's it.  It won't ever pop a ship and by the time you get it, focus-fire has taken over, making it more or less worthless.  Yes, you're playing as the Advent which have Illuminators, but still..

Culture is nice for the Advent Rebels but they don't focus on it as much as the Advent Loyalist. Late game its critical to counter Vasari phase missiles and it can be a decent economic boost if you time it right, but you can go quite a while without getting culture and still be fine.

Capitalship wise always start with the progenetor mothership until you get more comfortable with other advent ships and rushing. Its a colony cap like the Akkan and many advent tactics are based on keeping your fleets close to one to take advantage of its AoE shield restore ability, hence the name "Advent Battleball". A Halcyon carrier and Discord Battleship are usually the next capitalship picks.

Frigate wise the biggest differences between the TEC and Advent is that the Advent LRF can shoot in three directions but has far less range, earlier access to carriers, and the support cruisers. The guardian is the most important, able to take some incoming damage for other friendly units (and a vital part of the battleball) as well as physically moving enemy ships, which is extremely powerful if you spend the time to micro manage it. The Donima Subjugator has mostly been ignored but has been buffed quite a bit recently and you might want to start building some for its powerful healing ability.

The Advent Rebel titan, the Eradica, is one of my favorites and a powerful fighter. It gets a damage bonus every time a friendly ship is destroyed, and can sacrifice an nearby ally ship to gain all of its shields, hull, and antimatter, meaning it theoretically has the most healing potential in the game (Guardians are amazing for this). Chastic Burst does great AoE damage can make large fleets far easier to handle. And if the Eradica happens to die while it has its level six ability, if will stay alive for a few minutes and gain huge bonuses to antimatter regeneration and ability cooldown, allowing it to spam chastic burst painfully often. Any human player will run from this monster, but the AI probably won't be smart enough.

Other key Advent Rebel bonuses are Return of the Fallen, which gives a chance of destroyed friendly ships to respawn at your homeworld for free, and Reanimation, which gives a chance of reviving dead foes on your side. Both combo great with the Eradica, as it means sacrifices may not actually die while Reanimation ensures the Eradica can always have expendable ships to sacrifice if you don't want to hurt your fleet. Lastly one of their best toys is Wail of the Sacrificed, which allows a culture center to destroy the planet it orbits to damage all enemy ships in adjacent gravity wells. Sacrifice a planet with 100 population and you'll inflict 2000 damage, enough to destroy most frigates instantly. A fully upgraded terran can probably take out capitalships. The enemy won't know what hit them, and if you have a starbase with enduring devotion on the planet you sacrificed, you won't lose the planet, its health and population will just reset to zero.

i still think your trolling. 

Whats the troll maths for Psionic scream + malice + Chastic Burst + Fracture on 10 kodiak heavy cruisers?

Still not trolling, but whatever..

(1115+500)*9.1=14696.5 raw damage.  Kodiaks have 5 armor by default which will get debuffed by fracture to zero.

This is no trick question..

Going to AL for mathematics sake:

(Level 4 Unity Mass and  suppression with a fleet of Guardians with shield projections)

+ Malice + Psionic Scream+ Fracture

Do the maths when Unity mass hits a rebel titan and the effect and when snipe hits a coranata in advent culture.

Sorry im taking you back to maths exams..i think you love it. 

Well, I suppose we'll have to deal with ideal situations...  Hmm..  Maximum damage of Unity Mass is 5750.  Because it's a 1-target shot, it doesn't work terribly well with Malice.  The other afflicted units will receive 5750*.3=1725.  It'll still hurt, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing like mixing Chastic Burst, Meteor Storm, or Cleansing Brilliance with Malice.

When combined with Psionic Scream's damage (500*9.1=4550), this leads to the target receiving 10,300 raw damage and the surrounding units receiving 6275.

As for ideal conditions against a Coronata?  Well, that'll be 88% mitigation+30% reduction via Shield Projection.  Presuming overcharge and level 4, Snipe does 7500 raw damage.  Because mitigation on a level 10 AL capital/titan reducing incoming damage to just below 1/8 of incoming, before even accounting for SP, you're still reducing the damage to 900 damage.  SP reduces this further to 630.  This is probably inaccurate because we don't know if SP occurs before/after mitigation/armor.

I would assume before, meaning that Snipe would blow through the Guardian's shields because the Guardian would take 2250 damage, enough to wipe out its shields unless mitigation was already maxed.  The resulting damage to the Coronata is the same though because multiplying the 5250 remaining after Shield Projection by .12 will result in 630.

In either case however, it is clearly enough for the Coronata to shrug off.

So in a scenario where theres 10+ guardians, 4-6 capital ships and reinforcements:

Mother-ships and discords with 2 shield renegeration roles, 1 malice, 1 fracture and 2 Psionic Scream roles should ensure the the AL are unleashing more dps output than the tec rebel fleet with their titan?

The advent win? 

Why is this not tested when opening with 2 caps? Specifically a discord and mother-ship that allows you to work your way up to this godlike combo? I play AL all the time but why has it become they are the worst to play online because their titan sucks? It doesn't look like it sucks to me esp when you realize it won't die so long as its fighting in culture.

Doesn't it therefore become a very dangerous opponent  esp when surrounded with abilities like psionic scream that disable your healing abilities and any other offensive abilities on caps and frigates?  

At those counts, it would be faster to load up the dev exe and just spawn those ships.

Anyways, the Coronata has some good abilities but isn't great against any unit type which is probably part of the reason.  That said, in a test I once did between a maxed Coronata and Vorastra.  Only with incessant micro and no points in Suppression Aura (completely unrealistic scenario) did the Vorastra ever win (MPJ can be used to exploit the lack of weapons on the port and starboard of the Coronata).

As for the Malice synergies, bear in mind how hard they are to pull off.  Psionic Scream is a cone.  Malice has a target cap. Even the most powerful AoE the Advent have, Cleansing Brilliance, is incredibly hard to max out Malice.  Yes, you can max it, but it takes a lot of fleet positioning to pull it off.  Even against the AI, I find it hard to line things up properly.  I would imagine that the times under which you could max out Cleansing Brilliance+Malice against a human would be even more difficult.  Even if you manage to line things up. CB is a DoT with a charge time, so you could give some move orders to get at least some ships out of the firing line.  Malice may be a nuke, but it's very difficult to max out it's power.  It is this difficulty that Malice was considered to have been nerfed into the ground.  The target cap made it way harder to sync with Cleansing Brilliance as there's a great deal of luck involved as you can only hope that it will select the additional targets within the column of the beam.

As for the weakness of the AL, I'm assuming it's because of the fact that synergies are required for power, making them difficult to field early on.  Of course, in addition, the AL don't have a whole lot of economic power either.  Buffing culture or Confluence of the Unity are probably the best way to go to buff it as a race.

Relevant question...does malice consider damage dealt or actual damage done?  Let me clarify this...a kodiak may deal 18 DPS, but shield mitigation and amor may result in only 4 damage actually being done on the target...

I bring this up because if malice works like the latter, then it is doing much less damage than you give it credit for...at some point in time I knew the answer to this question, but alas I have forgetton...

I think it damage propagation is through raw damage while damage reflection (such as Vengeance) is processed damage.  I could be mistaken though.

Vengeance is definitely processed damage...I'd go test malice except that I...uhm...am too busy writing forum posts...

Damage happens after armor and mitigation.

Volt don't use Cleansing Brilliance.

Second Malice is still a deadly ability and works all the time. 50am cost and 10sec cool-down is a very strong ability for an aoe with a range of 8000km.

The first units in range and under fire will get hit.. the second malice will hit its target cap and continue to do so. 

how and when this happens is all good.

Speaking of economics then its simple:

The first planet with culture gets allegiance bonuses, the spread continues and the extraction rate of all resources being mined increases.

This is further amplified by the fact it indirectly locks planets from being colonized and forces an opponent to counter culture.

Concentrating on unlocking population limits in planets and building trade ports is enough to build a very strong opening fleet thats under the protection of culture.

The devs have been very systematic about buffing culture for this very reason. 

If the VR Titan is up against the AR, how does the Eradica fare since it gets stronger as its own ships die? As the VR Titan feeds, Does the bonus given by Strength of the Fallen fall short of, match or surpass the strength of the VR Titan?

VR titan is almost impossible to kill with a large fleet around it. It can easily heal thousands of health per second with nano leach. Yet none of its abilities can affect other titans, so the AR titan will probably win one on one, since it can still use Chastic Burst on the VR titan while all of the VR titan's abilities are useless.

That wasn't really what I was getting at. If the AR Titan has a supporting fleet, then the VR Titan will indirectly buff the Eradica by killing its attendant fleet. The VR Titan will buff itself and the enemy Titan at the same time in this case. So which is greater, the VR Titan's nano leech or the buff that this ability would give to an AR Titan via Strength of the Fallen? 

Malice prorogation is based on post-mitigation damage.

Didn't had time to play much, but getting back a bit into it. I notice several Sins Reb updates in the meantime; did something change on how to play the Advent? Did a non cap ship got the overhand to compose your fleet mainly of (eg. like the Hoshikos + LRM combo aside your capitals & Titan for TEC?).

Thank you very much!

Several things have been improved since you last played.

Lastest 1.4 patch:

Quoting ARESIV, reply 19

A very good patch! 

 

 

What I like most:




 


The humbled Coronata is back! And this time she means business!

Until now, she had little answer to an Eradica microwaving your fleet. But not anymore! Now she strikes back with vengeance!


A short excerpt from my first game with the Advent Loyalist with the 1.04 patch:
 

Fleet 1: Advent Loyalist - Level 3 Coronata Class Titan with major battle damage + a few Iconius Guardians + Progenitor Mothership with severe battle damage

Fleet 2: Advent Rebel - Level 5 Eradica Class Titan with medium battle damage

Location: Pirate base - that was just wiped out by the Advent Loyalist when the lone Eradica enters the sector

1. Progenitor Motherships commences retreat

2. Eradica on intercept course

3. Eradica uses chastic burst on the already severly damaged mothership

4. Coronata + Guardians still en route to the Eradica

5. Eradica keeps microwaving the mothership

6. Mothership: Stand by for Phase...... Ahhhhhrg..... transmission lost

7. Eradica comes about determinded to kill the remaining ships aswell.

8. Both Titans open fire.... the Guardians reduce some of the incoming firepower but this is still a fight between a heavily damaged Level 3 Coronata and a medium damaged Level 5 Eradica.

9. Eradica commences microwaving...

10. Coronata charges up Unity Mass...

11: Eradica: Mircowaving.... Microwaving.... WAIT? WTF happened to my shields? 

12. Eradica now in range of Suppression Aura...

13. Eradica: Fine... no need to hurry.... I will still enjoy this kill

14. Coronata charges up Unity Mass...

15. On the bridge of the Eradica several yellow warning lights change to red warning lights

16. Coronata just refuses to die...

17: Eradica: Shhhh....... Guardians

18. Coronata charges up Unity Mass...

19. Eradicas hull looks decisive unhealthily...

20. Eradica: I dont see any remaining warning lights that are not bright red.... lets get the hell out of here! 

21. Eradica flees the Gravity well to avoid certain destruction.


Their words will burn in the Unity's flames... 

No seriously... it makes a lot more fun to play Advent Loyalists if other players have reasons to be afraid of you... the entire Advent Theme is about merciless revenge.... that should somehow be reflected in the game. The change to Unity mass went a long way forward to that end and was a huge step into the right direction. This "Ohh shit!" feeling of other players (like the Advent Rebel above) is a large part of the multiplayer fun factor of the game.




Rework of Unyielding Will! YAY! Awesome work, developers! Thank you very much!


Eradica Titan Buff... it needed it.... alone to compete with the now mighty Coronata. It is still better against larger fleets... something that is underlined with this buff.


Increased Titan cost and build time once destroyed and depending on Level. Wonderful, now you have greatly increased satisfaction when you finally bring down one of those mighty ships.


Well thought out solution for number of fieldable superweapons ,


Game and modding optimization. While I dont mod myself, making it easier/add more options for modders is a BIG "HAVE TO BUY THAT NOW" incentive for me.


New Maps... and quite awesome maps they are!



Stripped to the core balancing - Fantastic!


Pirate raiders despawning after returning to base. That should reduce some lag.


All the bug fixes!  You take it for for granted that developers fix their games?  It is clear to me then that you have not bought a game from EA for ages. It should go without saying that developers fix the games.... but sadly more often than not this is not the case. And so I feel compelled to praise Ironclad Games and Stardock for this.


Ok, admittedly, this has nothing to do with the patch. Still, I feel that the Steam as a copy protection system is halfway tolerable. I still dont like it, but compared to the incredible shit several other game developers try to force onto you nowadays, its a minor annoyance.


Again, this has nothing to do with the patch, but I want to express my gratitude for still supporting LAN play. Until 1 year ago I was stuck on a terrible internet connection... making any internet gaming a pain in the ass.  Besides... nothing like hearing you friend scream bloody murder from across the room when he realizes to late that one of my Marzas made a slight detour to his capital...

 

 

Yes, not everything is perfect yet, Vasari Rebels are probably still too powerfull. But we are moving in the right direction and I dont see any issues that cannot be fixed with a few more patches.

 

Keep up the good work!

 

End of ARESIV's quote

The Ability Unyielding will got majorly reworked.

Once the Eradica hits Level 6 you can (and should) choose it. Like before, should it be destroyed it becomes invulnerable for a a few minutes and has very fast ability cooldown and enough antimatter regeneration to make full use of those few minutes.

Far more important and that is the big chance compared to pre 1.4. Unyielding will now does affect the Titan long before it dies.

When the hull reaches:

75 %

50 %

25 %

the Titan gets increasingly significant buffs to ability cooldown, antimatter restoration rate and a flat reduction of incoming damage.

"The harder you hit it, the harder it fights back".

What starts as a relative harmless buff at 75 % hull gets significantly more painfull to the enemy once it is below 50 %.

Below 25 % hull the Eradica becomes an unrivaled juggernaut of destruction.