Scrin balance changes
General
- Reverted Ion storm weapon category back to neutral. The targeting of vehicles was too aggressive.
- Shard upgrade price $3500 (was $3000), research time 75s (was 60s).
- Blue shard upgrade price $3000 (was $2000), research time 60s (was 45s).
- Disintegrator weapon range increased to 170 (was 100), squad range finder increased to 100 (was 55). Kane's Wrath change.
- Devourer Tiberium beam damage 800 (was 750). Normalised with Tripod tiberium beam.
- Plasma disc upgrade cost increased to $1500 (was $1000). Kane's Wrath change, research time increased to 45s (was 30s).
- Corrupter healing strength reduced by 50%. Hexapod related.
Scrin Harvester
- Ion storm death now requires an upgrade. Upgrade available at Nerve centre. The Ion storm made early harassment of the Scrin harvester too difficult.
Scrin Ship
- Scrin ship large destruction debris will cause damage upon hitting the ground, and additional damage for a few seconds after. This is designed to introduce a downside to Scrin ship users who either use the Scrin ship defensively (typically at the perimeter of their base above a Storm column), or who use it to siege protected by a number of ground units.
This is neutral because if a player is aggressive, then the debris damage will probably assist the Scrin player by doing extra damage to the enemy!
Nod balance changes
General
- Vertigo warhead damage increased to 3750 (was 3000). The Vertigo was massively overshadowed by the Banshee. This change now means that 2 Vertigos can destroy a small group of harvesters!
- Nod Commando suppression time decreased to 0.5s (was 1.5s). Less downtime after C4 usage.
- Nod Saboteur booby trap cost reduced to $100 (was $200). A Kane's Wrath change.
Flame tank
- Damage from 'CANNON' reduced to 150% (was 200%). A Kane's Wrath change, numbers is percentage of damage taken.
SSM
- SSM will now explode and do damage to nearby units when destroyed. The explosion and damage type matches the current warhead, which means that if it is a Heroic SSM, it will die with a tactical nuclear explosion!
This is designed to minimise the impact of SSMs camping behind base defences, especially if they manage to reach 'HEROIC' rank.
Banshee
- Health reduced to 2625 (was 3000). Now matches Warhawk.
- Weapon damage to 'STRUCTURE' reduced to 75% (was 100%). The Banshees in even small groups did far too much damage to base defences and other structures. This meant that massing Banshees was a reliable alternative to building artillery, to make a break through on a well defended enemy base.
GDI balance changes
General
- Power plant cost decreased to $700 (was $800), time to build 7s (was 8s). A Kane's Wrath change.
- Power plant upgrade now provides 20 units of power (was 10). A Kane's Wrath change.
- Sniper no longer un-stealths when spotting a target for a Juggernaut. A Kane's Wrath change.
Hover MLRS
- Clip reload time decreased to 4s (was 5s). Slightly less painful reload time.
- Damage reduced to 600 (was 750). To make up for the reduced reload time.
- Damage scalar vs 'AIRCRAFT' to 125% (was 100%). So the damage vs aircraft remains the same as in release 6.
Mammoth Tank
- Mammoth rockets can now miss Commando class units. Was too effective vs Commandos.
- Mammoth rocket damage vs 'STRUCTURE' reduced to 75% (was 100%). Was too effective vs buildings, which meant that there was less reason to build other anti-structural units.
- Mammoth heal delay reverted to 0.3s (was 0.2s).
- Delay before Mammoth will start healing increased to 1s (was 0.5s).
- Mammoth can now heal while attacking. When it came to the auto heal, 'ATTACKING' included Mammoths that were given an attack command, and were en route to their target. So if a Mammoth was one end of a map, and the target was at another, the Mammoth tank in release 6 would not self heal, because it was 'ATTACKING'.
So I have simply reverted the speed it heals back to release 5 values, and allowed the Mammoth to heal while attacking, but not while taking damage.
Disruptor
- Crystal crush beam will now only do extra damage to Tripods and devourers that have tiberium ammo. It will no longer do extra damage based on the units having the Conversion reserve upgrade.
Battle base
- Increased turrets weapon range to 350 (was 300). Makes more sense to me (matches low tier anti-vehicle base defences).
Component Tower
- Reduced cost of SAM and SAM upgrade to $600 (was $700).
- RPG warhead damage increased to 400 (was 350).
Titan
- Health increased to 5500 (was 5000).
Zone infantry
- Increased jump jet speed to 260 (was 160). A Kane's Wrath change.
Crystal Crush
- Tiberium growth multiplier set at 4x (was 3x).
Legend
Green = Buff
Red = Nerf
Blue = Neutral
Black = My comments.
"Ion storm death now requires an upgrade. Upgrade available at Nerve centre. The Ion storm made early harassment of the Scrin harvester too difficult."
That's a good change. BTW what's a good way for GDI to harass harvesters in the early game? Nod has Attack Bikes and Scrin has Seekers, but GDI will either have to get something a lot more expensive (APC + Missile Squad) or wait until Tier 2 (Hover MLRS). It'd be neat if each Humvee could be individually upgraded with a TOW missile to damage vehicles.
In vanilla C&C3;, GDI's best harassment has always been @ T2 with their air power, particularly with ST's. The Orca's speed and damage is very unmatched and difficult to deal with as Nod or Scrin in the early-mid game, and you can even take it another step forward with Firehawks that can teleport around the map which can potentially save you a lot of resources because you can entirely by-pass air defenses.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were to keep this set up, keeping GDI a a side that heavily relies on T2 units as their main bulk (Like Predator Tanks and Zone Troopers) that take some AA and/or siege support (Like Pitbulls or Juggernauts), with the capability to transition into a T3 unit if necessary.
We will discuss this on the forums!