Risner needs fixing up: MEDIC!!
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posted on May 6th, 2009, 7:15 pm
The Poor Neglected Avatar: Risner
After several weeks of testing, Mal, Mark, and I have agreed that the Federation Risner Avatar is broken.
Early game: she has no effective counters. Although you can survive for a time using Sabers and Canaverals (just like Mayson), the Sabers have a much weaker defense (by 3) and are essentially worse than Dominion Bugs. Despite their long range, they have absolutely no staying power because of the weak offense and defense combined with the relatively long build time for such a weak unit. As Monsoons also have only baseline defense stats, they are likewise impossible to field because their short range (and long build time) already means they will get hammered until they reach the more numerous destroyers of your foe. The lower defense thus means that they are quite easily destroyed and really only manage to get off one special weapon volley before being shamed. Although the Intrepid and Akira have increased offensive stats for Risner (by 3), these units are too expensive to immediately tech up to despite the decreased research costs (and the Intrepid is short range, meaning you can’t use it as a mainline unit against enemy destroyers). The Akira is nice, but it is still a mid-game unit and without the early game there is no mid-game to get to.
Late game: you get the Avalon and the Phalanx, while having no ACS and a reduced offense and defense for the backbone ship of the Federation mid-late game which is the Excelsior II. Although system values are increased for all Eraudi Yard vessels (thus making shield regeneration and special energy reserves larger), this does not cover for the decrease in Excelsior II stats. Likewise the problem is that both of these Avatar unique vessels are too high up in the tech tree. The Phalanx should excel at killing destroyer as it has the Magnan Array (area of effect) and is armed with pulse phasars (which do 100% damage to destroyers) and phasars, but no torpedoes. However, by the time you can get this ship (the highest chassis level) destroyers and cruisers are being substituted for battleships. Consequently the Phalanx cannot compete, as it does not have effective anti-battleship weapons. In actuality, the Phalanx’s weapons are great, but only in the early game. Thus, the Phalanx would actually have a good battlefield role if it came at chassis level 2, when destroyers are still plentiful. Although you might think that the Sovereign would be your main battleship in this case, without the backing of the Excelsior’s you can’t form a proper fleet.
Likewise, the Avalon is very expensive for what it does, as it also comes at the highest chassis level. The fighter system for the Avalon is quite problematic at the moment: fighters circle the area where you released them, instead of moving with the Avalon like they would with a normal fighter-carrier. As these fighters are attacked only when enemy ships are not in weapons range, short range ships will immediately target them as they fly by. Accordingly, a war cannot be won by placing turrets. As the Avalon’s fighters will not move with it, if you leave an area that you recently conquered (after having placed many fighters), your fighters will remain behind… and will become the first things shot down when a few enemy ships fly by. This means that essentially you are spending a large amount of resources to place easily shot down immovable turrets, or, if the enemy never goes by that area again, you have just wasted a large amount of resources on turrets that will never fire again. This obviously become unfeasible in a match as it is always better to have more ships (even if they are Risner’s Sabers) that can move and occupy territory than turrets. If you want to keep the use of these fighters, you always have to leave ships behind in these territories to allow the fighters to attack, which obviously weakens your attacking force even more. (as a suggestion, it might be better to have the fighters circle the Avalon, or failing that, have the ability be a timed one where the fighters come back and you regain a large portion of your resources).
However, if anybody has strategies that actually work with Risner, please let me know
After several weeks of testing, Mal, Mark, and I have agreed that the Federation Risner Avatar is broken.
Early game: she has no effective counters. Although you can survive for a time using Sabers and Canaverals (just like Mayson), the Sabers have a much weaker defense (by 3) and are essentially worse than Dominion Bugs. Despite their long range, they have absolutely no staying power because of the weak offense and defense combined with the relatively long build time for such a weak unit. As Monsoons also have only baseline defense stats, they are likewise impossible to field because their short range (and long build time) already means they will get hammered until they reach the more numerous destroyers of your foe. The lower defense thus means that they are quite easily destroyed and really only manage to get off one special weapon volley before being shamed. Although the Intrepid and Akira have increased offensive stats for Risner (by 3), these units are too expensive to immediately tech up to despite the decreased research costs (and the Intrepid is short range, meaning you can’t use it as a mainline unit against enemy destroyers). The Akira is nice, but it is still a mid-game unit and without the early game there is no mid-game to get to.
Late game: you get the Avalon and the Phalanx, while having no ACS and a reduced offense and defense for the backbone ship of the Federation mid-late game which is the Excelsior II. Although system values are increased for all Eraudi Yard vessels (thus making shield regeneration and special energy reserves larger), this does not cover for the decrease in Excelsior II stats. Likewise the problem is that both of these Avatar unique vessels are too high up in the tech tree. The Phalanx should excel at killing destroyer as it has the Magnan Array (area of effect) and is armed with pulse phasars (which do 100% damage to destroyers) and phasars, but no torpedoes. However, by the time you can get this ship (the highest chassis level) destroyers and cruisers are being substituted for battleships. Consequently the Phalanx cannot compete, as it does not have effective anti-battleship weapons. In actuality, the Phalanx’s weapons are great, but only in the early game. Thus, the Phalanx would actually have a good battlefield role if it came at chassis level 2, when destroyers are still plentiful. Although you might think that the Sovereign would be your main battleship in this case, without the backing of the Excelsior’s you can’t form a proper fleet.
Likewise, the Avalon is very expensive for what it does, as it also comes at the highest chassis level. The fighter system for the Avalon is quite problematic at the moment: fighters circle the area where you released them, instead of moving with the Avalon like they would with a normal fighter-carrier. As these fighters are attacked only when enemy ships are not in weapons range, short range ships will immediately target them as they fly by. Accordingly, a war cannot be won by placing turrets. As the Avalon’s fighters will not move with it, if you leave an area that you recently conquered (after having placed many fighters), your fighters will remain behind… and will become the first things shot down when a few enemy ships fly by. This means that essentially you are spending a large amount of resources to place easily shot down immovable turrets, or, if the enemy never goes by that area again, you have just wasted a large amount of resources on turrets that will never fire again. This obviously become unfeasible in a match as it is always better to have more ships (even if they are Risner’s Sabers) that can move and occupy territory than turrets. If you want to keep the use of these fighters, you always have to leave ships behind in these territories to allow the fighters to attack, which obviously weakens your attacking force even more. (as a suggestion, it might be better to have the fighters circle the Avalon, or failing that, have the ability be a timed one where the fighters come back and you regain a large portion of your resources).
However, if anybody has strategies that actually work with Risner, please let me know
posted on May 6th, 2009, 8:04 pm
Actium
posted on May 6th, 2009, 8:16 pm
posted on May 6th, 2009, 8:37 pm
Risner is definitely broken. The only way to stay alive( if you can get that far) is Fighter spam, but she has no offense so she is basically dead.
Anther tactic is to spam fighters soo much the game lagges and your opponent quits
Anther tactic is to spam fighters soo much the game lagges and your opponent quits
posted on May 6th, 2009, 8:53 pm
posted on May 6th, 2009, 8:57 pm
posted on May 7th, 2009, 12:23 am
I didn't think you would post so early! >:( I actually found a build order I like with her, but I need to test it in Multiplayer. Since Dominus covered a lot of points already, I'll just add some quick things and go into what I've got. Obviously in a 1v1 if you're Risner and the other player has an early game avatar, you're at a huge disadvantage. The same usually goes for all the late game avatars. So let me focus on team play, where the early saber game may not count as much.
Her mid-game doesn't worry me as much, becuase I'm thinking that Remores can take the place of Excelsior IIs. With 2 yards pumping out higher offensive Akiras, and one yard mass producing low dilithium Remores, it seems easier to produce a strong fleet of ships, against the AI anyway. The Remores help both offensively and defensively by boosting firing rates and dropping the shields of stations/larger vessels, while ECM reduces damage taken by about 25% fleet-wide.
Eventually, you could switch over to Sovereigns, switching one antares yard back to Canaverals/Monsoons to adjust for resource flow. All of this is nice and fine, but it doesn't address what Dominus, Mark, and I (and others of course, it's just we 3 have been doing some pretty rigourous testing and compared notes) feel are the core issues to why she is rarely seriously selected. Let's look at what she has to offer. She does decrease the chassis cost by 25%. Chassis costs are where most of the money is spent for Federation tech-up. Mayson's total chassis cost is 2400/1200, a king's ransom. Good thing you don’t have to purchase any of them unless you want Remores. Risner’s total cost is 1800/900. Her savings breakdown is chassis 1: 100/50, chassis 2: 200/100, chassis 3: 300/150. So, she saves you a negligible amount of money in the beginning, and a very nice amount to reach chassis cost 3. But what’s waiting for you at chassis 3?
It does allow you Defiants and Sovereigns a little faster, but the added system value doesn’t help them as much as I feel an avatar bonus should. You can only manage critical shots for a few defiants as it is. If critical shot did damage as well, this wouldn’t be as much as an issue, as I would welcome having that ability boosted, but it doesn’t, so the special is often wasted for most of the ships. It’s a great ability, but hard to manage. The Sovereign’s current special is nice if you use it as an aoe attack and not specifically as an engine shutdown. Multiple Sovereigns can fly into a fleet of destroyers and use Distortion field to obliterate them, and heavily damage cruisers, so that’s good. But isn’t taking out destroyers the Phalanx’s job?
Dominus has already posted on the Avalon and Phalanx. Maybe if this post gets longer I’ll add more. Martok’s Negh’Var gets +8 to defensive value, Mijurial gives +4 to both offense and Defense, plus a speed boost. I would like to see values closer to these for risner, perhaps +4 to system value and +4 of something else. I know everyone will be like “omgputitinoffense!”, but I would be happy with anything, really. Maybe increasing the speed of the chassis upgrades by 25% as well would help her. Something else to think of is maybe replacing the Avalon with another ship. I don’t know how much the team is married to having the Avalon around, but if they aren’t crazy about it, maybe it could be replaced with another, more powerful vessel.
I certainly don’t want to insult the developers by just simply saying “Derp! Risner iz the suxxorz!” I’m hoping that this thread can instead come up with realistic ideas that deal primarily with her late game strength that they could consider when they start the Federation Redo.
Her mid-game doesn't worry me as much, becuase I'm thinking that Remores can take the place of Excelsior IIs. With 2 yards pumping out higher offensive Akiras, and one yard mass producing low dilithium Remores, it seems easier to produce a strong fleet of ships, against the AI anyway. The Remores help both offensively and defensively by boosting firing rates and dropping the shields of stations/larger vessels, while ECM reduces damage taken by about 25% fleet-wide.
Eventually, you could switch over to Sovereigns, switching one antares yard back to Canaverals/Monsoons to adjust for resource flow. All of this is nice and fine, but it doesn't address what Dominus, Mark, and I (and others of course, it's just we 3 have been doing some pretty rigourous testing and compared notes) feel are the core issues to why she is rarely seriously selected. Let's look at what she has to offer. She does decrease the chassis cost by 25%. Chassis costs are where most of the money is spent for Federation tech-up. Mayson's total chassis cost is 2400/1200, a king's ransom. Good thing you don’t have to purchase any of them unless you want Remores. Risner’s total cost is 1800/900. Her savings breakdown is chassis 1: 100/50, chassis 2: 200/100, chassis 3: 300/150. So, she saves you a negligible amount of money in the beginning, and a very nice amount to reach chassis cost 3. But what’s waiting for you at chassis 3?
It does allow you Defiants and Sovereigns a little faster, but the added system value doesn’t help them as much as I feel an avatar bonus should. You can only manage critical shots for a few defiants as it is. If critical shot did damage as well, this wouldn’t be as much as an issue, as I would welcome having that ability boosted, but it doesn’t, so the special is often wasted for most of the ships. It’s a great ability, but hard to manage. The Sovereign’s current special is nice if you use it as an aoe attack and not specifically as an engine shutdown. Multiple Sovereigns can fly into a fleet of destroyers and use Distortion field to obliterate them, and heavily damage cruisers, so that’s good. But isn’t taking out destroyers the Phalanx’s job?
Dominus has already posted on the Avalon and Phalanx. Maybe if this post gets longer I’ll add more. Martok’s Negh’Var gets +8 to defensive value, Mijurial gives +4 to both offense and Defense, plus a speed boost. I would like to see values closer to these for risner, perhaps +4 to system value and +4 of something else. I know everyone will be like “omgputitinoffense!”, but I would be happy with anything, really. Maybe increasing the speed of the chassis upgrades by 25% as well would help her. Something else to think of is maybe replacing the Avalon with another ship. I don’t know how much the team is married to having the Avalon around, but if they aren’t crazy about it, maybe it could be replaced with another, more powerful vessel.
I certainly don’t want to insult the developers by just simply saying “Derp! Risner iz the suxxorz!” I’m hoping that this thread can instead come up with realistic ideas that deal primarily with her late game strength that they could consider when they start the Federation Redo.
posted on May 7th, 2009, 2:46 am
posted on May 7th, 2009, 4:18 am
I'm going to give my build order for what might help Risner out a bit.
Construction ship 1- Antares yard->Starfleet Science->Starfleet Command.
Construction ship 2- Tritanium Mine->Dilithium mine->Dilithium Mine expansion->Tritanium Mine expansion
Not long after, you will build a 2nd Antares yard, followed by Starfleet Engineering, then an Euradi yard.
You'll build sabers first, supported by warp in. Then, once canaverals are teched all the way, you'll build a few of those, maybe 4-6, switching between those and sabers. Once you've built SF engineering, tech up to lvl 2 to get akiras. Once you start pumping out akiras, build the Euradi yard and start pumping out Remores. Tech them up first, of course.
This combination of Offensive Akiras, High special energy Remores, and a few canaverals is pretty killer, and gives Risner a solid edge in the middle game phase that is at least as powerful as Mayson's. I was taking out Dreadnoughts and stations like nobody's business with Precise Volley, while my fleets stayed safe under constant ECM. Every now and then I'd refresh Vector Calculation on most of my units, the major ones, anyway. I have tested this build out on "The Very First Map" against 2 Hard Dominion AIs who were on the same team, and have been able to defeat them several times, which is why I am now testing it in Multiplayer.
Admittedly, I've only played 2 multiplayer games with Risner on this build, but it's working out okay so far. So she's got middle game, folks! And lots of it! This doesn't help her in th the early stages, which is little more than saber spam, and I haven't gotten to chassis level 3 to see how effective Sovereigns will be. Obviously the issues we have discussed haven't gone away, but there is a silver lining to this nebula. 
Construction ship 1- Antares yard->Starfleet Science->Starfleet Command.
Construction ship 2- Tritanium Mine->Dilithium mine->Dilithium Mine expansion->Tritanium Mine expansion
Not long after, you will build a 2nd Antares yard, followed by Starfleet Engineering, then an Euradi yard.
You'll build sabers first, supported by warp in. Then, once canaverals are teched all the way, you'll build a few of those, maybe 4-6, switching between those and sabers. Once you've built SF engineering, tech up to lvl 2 to get akiras. Once you start pumping out akiras, build the Euradi yard and start pumping out Remores. Tech them up first, of course.
This combination of Offensive Akiras, High special energy Remores, and a few canaverals is pretty killer, and gives Risner a solid edge in the middle game phase that is at least as powerful as Mayson's. I was taking out Dreadnoughts and stations like nobody's business with Precise Volley, while my fleets stayed safe under constant ECM. Every now and then I'd refresh Vector Calculation on most of my units, the major ones, anyway. I have tested this build out on "The Very First Map" against 2 Hard Dominion AIs who were on the same team, and have been able to defeat them several times, which is why I am now testing it in Multiplayer.
Admittedly, I've only played 2 multiplayer games with Risner on this build, but it's working out okay so far. So she's got middle game, folks! And lots of it!
This doesn't help her in th the early stages, which is little more than saber spam, and I haven't gotten to chassis level 3 to see how effective Sovereigns will be. Obviously the issues we have discussed haven't gone away, but there is a silver lining to this nebula. 
posted on May 7th, 2009, 4:46 am
posted on May 7th, 2009, 5:02 am
posted on May 7th, 2009, 5:56 am
posted on May 7th, 2009, 7:25 am
Risner shouldn't be too weak, she just plays much different from Mayson, perhaps the largest gap between avatars we have so far. However, the next patch will introduce some slight changes that should move gameplay to an area more fitting for Admiral Risner. In addition she will get some changes in the Fed Redo, but we do not speak of a new vessel here
posted on May 7th, 2009, 9:00 am
posted on May 7th, 2009, 5:51 pm
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