Breen Cruiser may be underpowered.

posted on August 20th, 2010, 1:58 pm

Myles, in most cases, you got the point, but now i have to agree with Drrrrr. You dont see the biggest problem with them, that they are so inmobile that you cant mix them to other dom ships.... Just watch the guide....(or try it ingame, i did it many times) every single dom ship is much faster than breen cruisers, and yes you can send your fleet on the same speed as the cruisers, but then you loose the biggest advantage of the dominion, the mobility. And this is the key of playing with them, flexibility and speed....  Being slow with dominion is especially bad aginst feds, they will have about the same speed as you but they have MUCH higher defense...

so the breen ship is different from the other dominion ships? i like this, i dont want all ships to be the same. adapt your strategies to account of breen's lack of speed.

when i play online i see breen cruisers, not all the time, but about the same amount as any specialist ship.

they are most useful against battleships, which generally wont be outrunning them by much.

i dont think there are any issues with the breen cruiser, i think people are having trouble with it as they are used to the old one, a unit which was useful in most situations.

posted on August 20th, 2010, 2:09 pm

Dont get me wrong but FFA ist the most crappy gametype available...it is mostly a matter of luck who wins...I had so many games and everytime the player that ppl think is the strongest right atm is attacked by all others...and dies since you cant stand even against only 2 non-nub players.

just because 80% (where did u get this number?) of people ignore a ship doesnt make it bad.

Its the same with OP units...if ppl use certain tactics many times, you can count those as efficient. The Breenships are not flexible enough to use them. They are good against certain ships but suck to most of them. They require a PT, do almost no damage to defensive stations, even miners are difficult to crack. So you can only use them after late mid-game. And at this time other ships seem to be better imo (bombers or s2 with a useful special).

To be honest, the cloak ist not that useful with the current role of the breenship. Its only purpose is to hide the exact number of Breenships in your fleet. BUT as Elim mentioned...you dont want to mix your main fleet with these Breen since they slow you down alot. On the other hand you could send them to the destionation before your main fleet goes there. But again you will be screwed if you are attacked by e.g. the whole enemy fleet at your base since you splitted up your ships (while the breen cant even to damage where they are since they require fleetengagement). Hope you got the point here.

A slightly different role for Breen might be nice though. Make them faster so they can go with the main fleet. Or give them an advantage against medium size ships and not Battleships.

posted on August 20th, 2010, 2:40 pm

Ok, battleship killers, lets see what do they counter! Only hard counters, not mentioning
the medium sized medium range ships, because breen torpedoes, and size completely cancel the advantage of single stage energy conduits.

Breen cruiser has 90 speed
- Sphere, has 100 speed, you will never catch a single one...
- Cube, nanites+ single stage energy conduits... the resoults are ugly...

- Sovereign, actually it counters pretty well, it has the same speed as
the cruiser, but if feds spam sovs (it is very rare indeed), maybe
you will have the time to have the engine upgrades
- Galaxy, tactical weapons array, 100 speed no more commentation needed...
- Descent, same speed as the cruiser (LOL)  (Descent spam? )

- Luspet, 110 speed, short range....
- Bortas, same (Bortas spam? )
- Neghvar, 110 speed, short range....

- Cehlaer, 100 speed long range....
- Eresis, yeas at least medium ranged battleship!! oh but 130 speed LOL
- D'deridex, uh-uh-uh, meduim ranged battleship!! with 90 speed,
maybe you can catch one with, engine upgrades and cloak detection...
- Norexan, Tactical Weapon Arrays... (same speed)
- Tavara, uh-uh-uh at least something! Tavara spam? LOL again...

- aaaand v-13, yes it killis v-13s, but again same speed lol, BUT
breen cruiser costs 493,150,34
v-13 costs, 566,162,59  so, can you outnumber them?
I gues not....

Lets see what are breen cruisers made for!
Killing Sovereigns (with engine upgrades)
Killing D'deridex (also with engine upgrades)

Man! You are right, breen cruisers are Super-Awesome!

posted on August 20th, 2010, 2:46 pm

about speed: a speed difference of 10 isnt too huge, well positioned cruisers will catch a sphere off guard.

also those with the same speed obviously can be kept up with.

about v13: these are endgame ships, u can have several breen cruisers early on in a mixed fleet. build time is also a consideration.

all of your arguments are based on breen cruiser spam vs something else spam. if u are spamming ships like that u dont deserve to win. mix your fleets, the breens will add some diversity.

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on August 20th, 2010, 2:46 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on August 20th, 2010, 2:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

  Yaaaaay you have to use your brain when you play with them!!!

  EDIT:  Oh, and Neb:  may I suggest you at least TRY and use them for the purposes I suggested?  If you use them to target specific things while other ships in your fleet take the heat, you'll find that they are pretty badass .

I've heard the "put weaker ships in your fleet to take all the damage" argument before. It doesn't work since any non-newbie player will just notice the slow, unable to get away, Breen Cruisers and obliterate them before they can get out. Also, if I'm having to do a mainly large yard tactic because of the enemy's ships, then my Breen get targeted first.


I keep hearing the argument I should use them for medium ranged and battleships, but the thing is, the Breen Battleship counters those same units far better (Elim just Ninja'd me with more details on why the Breen Cruiser sucks for countering.) And it even counters small sized units by using beams that won't miss or do reduced damage. Breen Battleship's ability is way better in fleet engagements whereas the Breen Cruiser's ability is only really good for Breen Cruiser-only sneak attacks (but keep in mind it sucks at raiding or base attacking) or possibly to escape (but its defense and speed aren't high enuff to give it the 3 seconds it needs to keep its hull intact, plus SSEC makes it lose subsystems a lot while cloaking out.)

I think Breen Battleship is fine, the Breen Cruiser either needs a new role, a much better special, or better stats.

about speed: a speed difference of 10 isnt too huge, well positioned cruisers will catch a sphere off guard.

also those with the same speed obviously can be kept up with.

about v13: these are endgame ships, u can have several breen cruisers early on in a mixed fleet. build time is also a consideration.

all of your arguments are based on breen cruiser spam vs something else spam. if u are spamming ships like that u dont deserve to win. mix your fleets, the breens will add some diversity.

Remember the problem of giving an attack order and the ships only move to engage once target is out of range? Well, that happens a lot when you've got 10 speed less. Spheres make it worse since they take a lot of hits to go down, especially while regenning. You can indeed make up for the speed difference...if you spam so many Breen Cruisers that you manage to kill things before they can run out of range.

Same speed is fine, until the enemy cloaks away. Hmm, which faction was it that had mostly medium ranged battleships with high hull health and system values again? Keep in mind that Dominion remote ping is medium ranged and your fleet will only match the speed of, not catch up with, the warbirds.

I agree the point about V13s is not too great, but thing is that Breen Battleships will do far better.

Sure it adds diversity, but the thing is that it cannot be used to counter things effectively and cannot raid. It will only hinder fleets facing small sized ships or stations, not give them any advantage. It will not give your other ships a boost like an S2, it will not stay with the rest of your fleet, it will not attack things to the side or behind it, and it will probably not survive to fight again if the enemy targets it.

posted on August 20th, 2010, 2:50 pm

People use certain tactics many times not because they are most efficient, but because that is what they are comfortable with. Most people seem to be afraid to take risks and learn a new strategy, and if they try, most will try once and then blame it on some "unbalanced factor". This is why we see only one or two strategies per faction being used in games rather than the half dozen or more that are feasible and quite powerful.

We hardly see support ships being utilized except for very specific purposes - does that make them useless? In fact, many ship classes are just plain ignored by individual players, although over the entire spectrum of online gamers, more units are used of course, just not usually by a specific player. This has nought to do with those ships being useless - it has all to do with players not knowing how to use them. It will always be easier to rely on brute force and that will work as long as one plays against similarly minded people. However, as soon as players start incorporating more ship classes in fleets strategy becomes more and more complex and more efficient as well. The majority of players cannot do that, nor do they wish to (at least subconsciously) as it requires a great deal of practice.

posted on August 20th, 2010, 2:54 pm

about all this talk of countering, fleetops isnt about hard countering everything. if u are only willing to build a ship if it hard counters something then u are making a mistake.

make some breens, put them in some fleets, dont spam them and you'll be fine. if u spam them and die, then dont complain they are up.

if your enemy spams battleships then u can spam breen cruisers, then breen battleships.

posted on August 20th, 2010, 3:09 pm

Ok, i think it a dead cause... We have mentioned both the countering and mixing problems, but you just refuse to see it.  Maybe the problem is,  that funny has also proved, ppl have so bad memories with the cruisers that, they dont want to see them again ever.

Just give me back the b-8 in the next patch, and i will be very happy with pure. 

posted on August 20th, 2010, 3:12 pm

there is no countering problem, it hard counters few ships (i dont like hard counters) and medium counters battleships, which i dont mind. it doesnt have to counter hard to be useful.

it is slow, so what? the e2 is slow as well, but we see many people mix them in. it suffers the same weaknesses as the e2. nobody calls that up. funnily the e2 was also op at one point.

posted on August 20th, 2010, 3:13 pm

The Breen Cruiser had to be rebalanced for 3.1.3 again because it still was too powerful (too much of an ubiquitous unit) in 3.1.2 .

posted on August 20th, 2010, 3:25 pm

Myles, you miss the point again and again... I dont want to have a rude argument with you because, i really enjoy to play with/aginst you so, i will just give up now...

Yes, e2s are slow, but do feds have slow high defense ships (from warp ins) to guard it? Yes, they have.

Do the dominion have cannon fodder-like fast, low defense ships (early-midgame, warpins are  early game too) Yes they have. Can they allow themsefls to sacrifice the mobility? No, they cant....

posted on August 20th, 2010, 3:30 pm

can the dominion sacrifice its mobility? u mean by building giant space guns like the perimeter? oh wait, yes they can

the dominion dont have to be fast.

for any race if u wanna play a fast strategy, like harassment then speed helps. with breens u can cloak them, have your faster ships run in, kill a miner then run out being chased. then the breens decloak and finish off some more lol. or approach slow and uncloaked and attack, then the fast ships run fast, and the slow breens just cloak and run slow.

the war frigate is only 10 units of speed faster than the breen cruiser. so make a mix of b8 and breens, the b8 pulses murder destroyers and maybe capture some, the breens murder large ships. sounds like a lovely mixed fleet if u throw in a few s2 to increase damage. and only the s2 is fast, but is doing its common role of "encouraging" the jemhadar to work faster.

posted on August 20th, 2010, 3:35 pm

i think the main problem is that they don't turn on it's axis when on green movement alert  so they can not fire... (this problem also affects romulans and klingons, and dominion bombers, and everything else who has restricted firring arc)

posted on August 20th, 2010, 3:37 pm

Recloak with breens?    Thats something new! Try it!

posted on August 20th, 2010, 3:40 pm

Recloak with breens?    Thats something new! Try it!

reread my post. you will realise i know quite well u have not enough energy to recloak.

the two options were:

1) breens stay cloaked and everything moves in, fast ships run away and enemy fleet chases. breens decloak and kill then have plenty of time to get away at low speed.

2) breens stay visible like everything and attack all together, then when running is necessary the breens simply cloak.