Firelancer's nerf

The great majority of the player base including many top players were complaining about fire lancers for a reason, to the point where devs felt the need to reassure players that this unit would be addressed when they announced the January patch.
The unit is still good at raiding and destroying buildings which should be their main purspose.

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That is an interesting interpretation. In a 5 v 10 the knights barely win with 70 hp remaining. In a 10 vs 20 fight you end up with only one firelancer killed. You really think the knights are the better choice here? And remember, in the fights the firelancers win which include against all ranged infanty, seige, men at arms, horseman, and knights assuming you have the right numbers, they are obliterating those units extremely quickly. That is way too much combat prowess for a unit that was also the fastest seige DPS in the game. You keep commenting on how people fighting firelancers just need to micro, why is it you think good players microing WITH firelancers can’t accomplish far more?

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Firelancers should and had been nerfed end of story. It was cancerous before

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knights won the battle, and you don’t need spend extra 2400 resouse, to me , yes , knights are better choice.

That video gives very arbitrary picture of FL and demonstrates how poor player get their units killed.

If the player with 5 knights sent 2 of them in front to absorb the firelancer charge dmg then they would’ve won it far more easily.

Same applies to 10vs20. Sent 3-4 knights to soak the aoe dmg and delete FL afterwards.

Its funny that he didn’t demonstrate what happens when opponent sends few units forward to soak the aoe dmg.

Knights always won the battle against FL pre nerf if the user wasn’t brain dead

U are aware forcing other player to do more micro by itself is an advantage as well right? If a more expansive unit have to be micro correctly in order to get a favorable trade against the cheaper unit then something is not right

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Ah good old argument but i have to micro. Dude I tell this about bombards vs springalds and response is always they OP MICRO DOESNT MATTER.

Look dude sending small force forward is hardly taxing micro to do. If you run with cavalry then have small force in 1 and 2 and sent 1 first then 2. Not hard.

Irrelevant amount of micro and excuse to play poorly. Try once you have to micro 10 bombards with each 2 at time to kill 10 springalds. Thats taxing and not splitting some of your units to run forward.

Its funny how whenever someone loses an army of knights to firelancers it is because they are braindead and didn’t know how to play. But when you easily kill an army of firelancers it is purely because of your great micro and gamesense. Not because the person facing you was newbie who didn’t know how to use them effectively. If you send a few bait units up front the firelancer player has the option to accept your generous donation and pull back, or stagger their own charges. They can also attempt to hit from multiple different angles, or just go for a runby. Sure they can be beaten. Especially since many Chinese players in team games reflexively go firelancer without much thought or finesse and can be seen a mile away. That doesn’t mean they are balanced or good for the game.

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I’m not gonna argue with you, just explain to me plain and simple why does Gold intensive heavy knights have to pay extra attention when facing cheaper fire lancers especially when fire lancers by design is not a counter to knights?

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Same way firelancers need to micro against knights to even stand a chance of winning?

Firelancers were and still are far more micro intensive than majority of units.

Great FL player would recycle units between targets at right time to get charge while in melee or cycle them out of combat and start kiting.

Most FL players just right click and leave it to that which works if they’re supported by siege those they become cannon fodder unit. Get one splash out and let them die while rest of army dealt with the aftermath.

With your logic bombards shouldn’t need any micro against any unit and should always just splash through everything because they’re more expensive. Same with elephants

Expansive units needs micro to beat counter units, bombard-culverin, elephants-spear etc, however knights shouldn’t need micro to beat fire lancer because fire lancers by unit design doesn’t counter knights, don’t know why you try to bring bombard/elephant into this discussion. When one unit doesn’t counter another by design then the more expansive unit should win pretty simple logic

I don’t understand the nerf either. RTS should never be balanced around team games. Adjusting the maps, adding choke points which are easier to wall with stone walls would solve this.

Ontop of this was the giant problem of non-bracing spearmin for 2 factions. Of course players have a right to complain about this. After all Firelancers were even abused against these factions in tournaments for prize money.

But finally spearmen have been fixed, so I don’t understand why Firelancers were also nerfed in the same patch. They were never an issue in 1vs1.

Now we are most likely not going to see them anymore. They were already a niche unit because they are bad at direct combat. The Chinese Landmarks are almost all garbage, especially the Age 3 one thats not the Clocktower. Investing 1800 res just to unlock FL and a speed boost is not worth it. If you have those ressources you might aswell go straight into Ming Dynasty, which offers useful bonuses and Grenadiers are much better units.

One may argue that Granaries are useful, which they are. However, we have this terrible system where Chinese players lose access to Dynasty buildings, which makes no sense whatsoever.

No one can argue that Chinese would suddenly become overpowered if they could build all Dynasty buildings when changing Dynasties. Its such a strange limitation that needs to go away. We asked for this since the Stress test.

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Let’s just make this clear, fire lancers are a light raider unit by design and is cheaper then knight. Therefore when the two unit clash knights should automatically win unless fire lancers player can pull off some great micro and not the other way around.

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Casual players don’t care if they win or lose. They just play the game. The ones complaining are the who think they’re pro. Pro-casuals.

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Counters are something that are specifically designed to fight against certain type of unit.

Knights do not counter horsemen but win against them because they got superior stats even with micro.

Same applies to FL. Knights are not designed to counter them but they still win against them when using micro.

Because you bring to table “oh this unit is more expensive so it should win.” Investment to go FL is not cheap. Costs extra 1200 food and 600 gold which is big.

knights are already winning automatically with same resourse spent in most situations. They also got better speed, ealier timing, less counters, and wider utilities. They are the best choice to counter firelancer all the time.

Lets be real. Its not great micro to sent few units forward before main group. Its freaking level 1 micro out of 10 levels. Don’t act like its some super hard micro and super taxing when its not. Cross microing FL between knights is far more challenging even tho its still easy

From what i have heard coming from pro players, nerf FL was good, so if their are only 2 peaples complaining about the nerf , i suppose it mean the change is good.
Also, if that nerf don’t impact hight level but make the life of low level much better, how is that can be a bad change?

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I personally dont mind FL nerf at all, but they need to make up their mind. Is this game around 1v1 or 2v2 or 3v3 or 4v4. They can’t have balance around 4 different modes. It will never work and clearly FL nerf was directed towards TG’s

So if balance is focused around TG’s then which mode? Already nerf swabia and HRE relics in TG’s. Its way too easy to get 3 relics and way too easy to get imperial. I have tried to stop HRE getting relics and successfully stopped them at 2 relics and killed +10 villagers and at the same time I only delayed their imperial by couple of minutes and after that I had big commitment to this and had no 2TC or anything so HRE just steamrolled over me even tho I had 5 relics.

somehow it’s worked fine for age of empires 2. I do not know why people think that it can not be balanced between all mods. Its’ already done(in age2).

PS it’s soooo dump to win by collecting some relics or by “ram push in feudal”, it should be balanced for all tiers.