I am not sure what others are considering OP. It does take some time to get this unit. But there are three main problems.
Maybe firelancers would be the new OP strategy if they would nerf late game Chinese Siege - but atm the meta in 1v1 with China is just getting those broken bombards with spearman support and skip the yuan dynasty completely. Imperial age is such a huge powerspike.
I saw some people are arguing top player can give Chinese early pressure to avoid them boom fire lancer, but this is completely not related fire lancer are broken.
This is only delay this broken unit comes out.
No one would say Chinese is balance IF they can build a wonder for 1wood only and win immediately without counting down, BECAUSE WE CAN GIVE THEM EARLY PRESSURE TO STOP IT, or still insist we don’t care about team game or something failed to stop them.
Take away it’s building damage, keep half of the bonus damage to siege, and tweak it’s explosive charge and its cooldown.
The main thing is that this unit is fun and different, and should be kept that way.
A group of firelancers should still be dangerous to a blob of units, and they should still be dangerous to siege.
They are a fun kamikaze unit, and they change the game up quite a bit when they are on the field, and I like that about them a lot.
So there is no reason to nerf them. Balancing an RTS, whose primary competitive mode is 1vs1, around 4vs 4 multiplayer would be a horrible idea. In 4vs4, map size has a big effect on balance. If maps were designed with more choke points which are easy to wall with Stone walls, then units like Fire Lancers would be much less of a problem.
There is no reason to nerf a unit if this unit is only problematic in large team games and the problem can easily be solved by adjusting maps.
And since we are talking about team games: Most team games are won or lost depending on army positioning and attack timing, much less affected by actual unit strength. If you can coordinate better than your opponents then you can win easily, even if the overall skill of your team is lower than that of your opponent.
Tbh I didn’t realize fire lancers were stealth buffed. When did they buff their torch damage? Was it the winter update patch? It’s not in the patch notes. I think that change could be reverted and they would probably be ok. Sure they are an issue in team games but so is going 100+ scouts to landmark snipe.
This video has already OBLITERATED any chance for anyone to argue that firelancers aren’t broken. The topic could have already been closed there with a comment from the Devs saying that a hotfix will be done with nerfs. Impossible to play 4x4 or even 3x3 with this unit in play.
In 4v4 or 3v3 sure. But in 1v1 it’s basically impossible to get to fire lancers without falling way behind and on closed maps they get their butt handed to them by non-HRE/Delhi spears as shown in said video.
Yeah but u see the problem here or?
Im posting here now everytime I get wiped out by firelancers that i honestly consider a op move. I have no problem be defeated by skill but not by swiping over a HRE player
This time abused by MiaNò map dry arabia 3vs3 24min in.
Dont say that I have to wall in my teammates and me in 24mins and i was HRE so no spear talk is valid
Nobody is getting nerfed to “fix” a bug that some civ has lol
If they have time to nerf, they have time to fix.
The video really sums it up well. Nerf or remove asap!
The Firelancer is a unit that has virtually no counter unit, while it’s able to deal massive damage to nearly all other units and buildings.
It counters everything but cannot be countered (trading 1:1 is not a counter, like the video where it kills knights, camels etc. 1:1.)
I miss the good old days when I could use Abbasid and have infinite range spearmen and stop Chinese players from getting to castle.
They shouldn’t have fixed that truly
Knights/lancers trade cost efficiently, are faster, are available to everyone soo? Firelancer is a lategame unit. Ofc it’s going to pack a punch.
No they DON’T trade evenly. As HRE you’d need to make Knights for equal resources just to counter the Firelancers, but on top of that you’d need to build Siege, Walls, other counter units to Chinese siege etc. Meanwhile, the Firelancer is a super unit that can be used to trade evenly against an army of Knights, but it’s also usable as a siege unit, counter siege unit, heavy infantry killer, archer killer, villager raider, etc. for JUST the resources you’d need for an army of Knights.
Building an army of Firelancers and a bombard or two means you can take on anything from heavy cavalry, heavy infantry, camels, archers to killing landmarks.
An army of Knights/Lancers for equal resources would need a whole lot of other support units to be even closely as effective, e.g. needs lots of siege for support, might move faster but engagements with infantry and archers last much longer, allowing enemy to counter, meaning you need archers or something as well.
Basically Firelancers with all their bonuses are like a light cavalry/heavy cavalry/mangonel/ram hybrid unit, costing only a fraction of the research and resources to get all those units separately.
You are going against yourself here? AT EQUAL RESOURCES KNIGHTS/LANCERS WIN AGAINST FIRELANCER. FACT.
With that speed advantage, and power advantage.
Against an 100% army of firelancers and bombards, just make spears, knights and springalds, and with micro, you’ll win with a cheaper army.
THERE ARE COUNTERS, use them. Sounds like you don’t want to play a ‘rock paper scissor’ balance style game.
Fact knights barely win and thats exactly the problem. Fire Lancers beat or trade well with everything but spears.
Hilarious how you talk about a rock paper scissors balance style meanwhile you’re defending a unit thats good against every in the game except for Spears.
Fire Lancer is not supposed to be a generalist unit but it is, therefore its objectively overpowered.
Yeah, its hilarious that the people are ignoring that 25% of the factions aka Dehli and HRE cant counter them even with spears cause they get exploded like everything else cause of the spear bracing bug
This are all french/rus/mongol players xDDD
It’s a special unit with special abilities.
It’s fun to play because it’s different
It needs to be good against siege and mobs of units. Tweak until it works.
Knights wins against them, so it is spears and knights.
The fact that they are good against siege is what makes them worth the 1800 res investment to hit the dynasty at all. You still have to beat the army in front of the siege to get value. Massing firelancers is not valid 1v1 it’s a pipe dream hoping it pays of.
Ppl arguing against firelancers skip so much vital information it’s sad.
Bro we gave u huge amount of info.
We dont want to destroy the firelancers but atm there are the complete paket.
They can beat knights in equal value even before u get the 30% reduction in with the imp landmark. U only need to get 2 charges in. So charge and disengage (y u will get some knight hits in but u will have 30 vs 10-15 knights) and after 10 secs u charge in again and u won the trade.
After the 30% reduction there broken off the chard 80f 20w 20g even reduced is insane!!
They only get beaten by spears and again 2 factions are totaly helpless and if u fighting against mass spears u still have nest of bees and bombards up ur sleeve as chinese.
2 bombards + 3 nest of bees + 30-40 firelancers is the ultimate army atm imo.
U can combine serveral overtuned units together.
@Koffemannen please make a counter tipp for me as a HRE player and I will change my mind but I got know over 12 games were I got destroyed without any chance.