Glaives (Hunter class ships) are overpowered and...

[DemiserofD]

Trying to repair while in the instance simply doesn't work, the weapons stay at 0% while the AMFU ammo is consumed. Possibly having multiple AMFUs would work but that's hardly practical.

(It also triggers a bug where the HUD notification about the weapon malfunctioning starts spamming multiple times a second, continuing even after jumping out.)

I've been seeing differing reports on how much damage Guardian modules take. I wonder if there is something going on where each one has their own field and the effects stack. That would explain why players are able to fairly easily take out solitary ones, but groups become much more challenging.

 

[tolm]

Wait, why can't you use the guardian weapons on the glaive? From what I've read, they work just fine, they just get slowly damaged over the course of the fight.

Okay, went back and reread what you said, voice dictating so it's kind of hard to edit, what I meant to suggest is, when your Shard cannons starts becoming damaged, and malfunctioning, you would start repairing one of them then. That way, it would be fully repaired and ready to go again by the time the others are getting more damaged, you start repairing a second one, keep fighting, and then when the third one is completely damaged you repair it. You should be able to keep two of your three Shard cannons functional at all times.

I am a little bit confused as to why you are using a single multi cannon, though. They are best at killing hearts, and Shard cannons are also extremely good at killing hearts.

Ah - I see, yes, I could use an AFMU to try and “out repair” the Glaive damage to my Guardian weapons. They will, of course, go offline whilst that is happening so unless I can repair it faster than the field causes damage, it will never come back online. I have no idea as to the efficacy of that approach but it does sound like a heck of a faff … doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work, though.

As for the loadout, I like to do AX CZs and have tried various loadouts. The AX MC is primarily for Scouts and the shards for Interceptors but, obviously, the shards do work against Scouts too.

Ideally I’d have two AX MCs so the Scouts drop quicker but that reduces firepower against the Interceptors and, also, the HP positions on the FAS don’t really lend themselves well to two pairs of weapons, rather to a single MC up top and then three fixed weapons below.

Also, I don’t use a Xeno Scanner so that I can fit more heatsinks in order to minimise dock/rearm/repair cycles. For that, I can eyeball heart shots (or I could, pre-15 glow-gate …) with shards.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

I disagree OP. While I agree Glaives can be a bit of a pain in the ol backside, they are not impossible to evade.
I've been pulled multiple times in both of my ships by Glaives and can give you a brief rundown of what happened.

I fly a Cobra MK III and an Asp Scout. Both ships are fully engineered. The cobra is much faster (Roughly 620 boost) while the Asp only boosts to about 450.
The Glaive was able to easily catch me and begin it's attack in the Asp Scout, but it almost never caught me in my Cobra.
The trick I found that worked the most in my Cobra was to immediately turn on silent running and pop a heatsink upon being hyperdicted by a Glaive. Boost away from it as much as you can. This should prevent the Glaive from seeing you and you don't have to worry about the FSD reboot missile. However if you are in a slower ship like my Asp Scout, then you can only evade for a few seconds before the Glaive catches up and fires it's FSD reboot missile.

Once the Glaive fires it's missile you will have to wait around 60 seconds before you can charge your FSD again. During this time your main objective should be to boost away and fly erratically, trying to avoid being hit by the lightning attack. Once your FSD has rebooted then you can High wake to the next system. The second missile the Glaive shot at me never rebooted the FSD again.

One other thing I noted was that the Glaive's attacks are rather low in dps. They damage modules more than Hull. It shouldn't be a problem if you run 2 MRPs.

Thank you for sharing your opinion, as well as your experiences and tips.

Nice to see a skilled CMDR adapting fast to a troublesome situation.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

For me to adjust my FAS build would require compromising its ability to do what it was designed for. And it’s already a bit of a compromise since it has only 4 hard points, 4 utility slots and limited internals.

And even then, if I do encounter a Glaive I will take damage to and/or lose entirely those Guardian weapons I have left equipped - along with considerable hull damage. That’s fine if your intent was precisely to go engage a Glaive and take it on but it’s just irritating if you were trying to do something else.

To look at it another way … the only way I was able to get a foothold in the AX combat content was when surface AX CZ zones were added. This further improved when I was able to get the modded Guardian weapons which made possible the transition from “background Scout killer / occasional Interceptor assister” to “can occasionally solo a CZ, including taking out multiple Cyclops’ enemies” and I view this as a good thing: having different levels of challenge that different players can enjoy. I will never be good enough to be soloing Hydra’s and I’m okay with that!

But if I were back there - as a player about to first step into AX combat now - an enemy has just been introduced that could prevent me from even arriving at that entry level AX combat content. How many players will that demoralise / put-off from joining in? Don’t we want to be encouraging more CMDRs to get involved instead of putting barriers in their way?

Exactly. FDev just created a gated content with the current implementation of the Glaive.

 

[DemiserofD]

Next time I have the opportunity, I will try to see how well an afmu can out repair the damage field. Unfortunately, it might be a little while, because by the time I get done working 14 hours I usually don't have much energy to log in.

I know that you cannot efficiently outrepair within the Maelstrom system or against an orthrus, but if glaves have a weaker version, it might be possible.

And if that is going to become a regular thing, it might be reasonable for the devs to make the process of repairing a bit more streamlined. It has always been a fairly awkward thing to do in the middle of combat.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

A few? That’s 3/4 of my hardpoints gone …

This might sound harsh but, if the situation does not change, you are going to have to think about a ship with a few more hardpoints...

 

[DemiserofD]

Alternatively, perhaps swapping out just one for a enhanced missile rack, and then trading the multi Cannon for another one. Enhance missile racks do a remarkable amount of damage, and could work well in pretty much any build. You would reduce your heart damage a little bit, but should be relatively effective against everything.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

Previously speed was the #1 defence. I always thought that was good game design for a open world game where there are no difficulty settings: anyway who didn’t want to participate in the combat parts had the option to simply ensure they were fast enough to run away, allowing them to carry on doing non-combat stuff.

As well as allowing for multiple types of gameplay to be beneficial to the war effort and the enjoyment of players that do not want to be forced in to AX Combat.

I am very much not sure that removing that option is a good idea.

I would agree that taking on a Thargoid in combat in a “paper plane” should not be viable (though I’m sure some extremely good CMDRs will argue that it is!) but I fail to see how removing the option to run away is beneficial to the game as a whole.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

Take EVAC missions as an example. They are very much high reward (with my Python, I can easily earn 40 G5 mats per run, 50 if I get good RNG with the passenger count for the missions), and before the Glaives, they were very much low risk. Preparing for the war I built my rather tanky Python for EVAC missions, and the more I flew, the more I got tempted to dismantle protection for performance - higher passenger count, higher jump range - because they were so low risk that even flying through a battle field to dock at a station I really didn't need any of the protection I fitted whatsoever. It is a good thing that this has changed. Low risk high reward sounds wrong.

So, did you just lucked out or do you have a FDev contact ?


EDIT: Typos...

 

[tolm]

This might sound harsh but, if the situation does not change, you are going to have to think about a ship with a few more hardpoints...

Oh - for sure, I have an AX Cutter as well which I don’t hate so so could potentially rework that:

2x C2 Mod Plasmas for Interceptor Hull
3x C3 EAX MCs for Scouts / Hearts / Glaives

Would need a Xeno Scanner for targeting the hearts but it has 8 utility slots so that’d be no issue.

Currently running an 8C BiWeave but tempted to go shieldless.

But the problem is I MUCH prefer flying the FAS. Or pretty much ANY medium ship

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

Unfortunately, I simply don’t have room for an ECM on my AX FAS.

Then you will have to fight / avoid for as long as the FSD Reboot effect is active.

 

[Shadowsnog]

@tolm i have an ax fas too (a fax ) and i would never dare to expect it to be a good allrounder. it just doesnt have the capacity for it. its a great ax ship but dont expect from it more that it can do...
times changed, war got harder, small fish have to find more shallow waters.
ive got a feeling if some cmdrs fought as vigilantnly ingame as on the forums this topic wouldnt have 13 pages
im a noob and i can deal with glaives just fine. cmon man.
end of 6shard condas? good! god forbid you would have to swap one/two of those for mcs. the horrors...

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Adapt to survive, humans.
Expect no favours from a species you tried to exterminate twice.
This is the price that must be paid until you solve the problems.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

Have people tried using more enhanced missile racks? Given that they don't have any hearts, it seems as if missile racks should do extremely well against them.

I have read that some trials were made with AX Missiles and that they work pretty well against Glaives. I haven't tried them myself. On my to do list.

Missile racks also have very little distributor draw, so pretty much any ship should be able to fit at least a few. That should allow anyone to fight off a solo interdiction, and if they get a multiple interdiction, they could always just high wake away.

Good suggestion .

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

I'd also mention that it's perfectly feasible that the thargoids had a defence against guardian tech as why did the guardians rely on their AI controlled war machines...
Your guardian schematics are compromised and now you know...
But now that you do know, that's not to say it may be useless forever.
Just thoughts.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

The Glaive is mid-sized but that's not necessarily the same as mid-range - in human ship terms, a combat-built FDL will massively outclass a multirole-built Anaconda in a fight, for example. I don't recall seeing anything either in-game or from Frontier implying it was supposed to be between a Scout and an Interceptor in anything other than size, though I could have missed something.

What about a combat-built FDL against a combat-built Anaconda ?

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

Maybe scouts and interceptors are just automated ships, while the thargoids themselves prefer flying something faster, nimbler, and more offensive?

Nah!!

I think the Scouts are single pilot, the Hunters have two crew and the interceptors half a dozen...

*Just joking...

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

This shows that you have made up your mind and are willing to die on that hill. This is either hyperbole or just plain plain wrong.

It is what the CMs meant when they said we need to adjust our builds: Just insisting on previous build schemes and then calling "it is too hard! It is impossible! Frontier ruined it!" is not the way. Adapting is the way. There are already two known counters: ECM and shields (if they are dimensioned correctly).

Ok, I guess I might be jumping to conclusions.

I will do some more tests against Glaives.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

The issue is that adapting to this requires either “throwing away” hard earned weapons, moving up a ship class to have more weapons in total because only half of them will be useful and/or having to stop and repair more often. All whilst trying to carry on doing things you previously were able to do rather than as a new, separate challenge.

I don’t see it as “too hard” per se but it is hella irritating and it restricts the diversity of both builds and approach: now you have to stay and fight and you have to use these weapons and you can’t use these ones as well unless you use a bigger ship.

That’s not fun and it doesn’t allow me to play the game how I want to - and how I have been able to thus far!

This ship existing and potentially engaging players via interdiction and CZs creates an unnecessary gate to getting into the lower tiers of AX combat scenarios. And, yes, I’m biased because those are the only ones I am capable of. I fully acknowledge that.

Moving goalposts that are already in place is an objectionable move on the part of a developer.

New goalposts (on a new pitch) I have no issue with.

Like changing the rules of the game of chess in the middle of a championship chess match...

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

So, you did you just lucked out or do you have a FDev contact ?

Nah, I am just an idiot incapable of counting and multiplying properly (I'll edit my post for future clarity). The true figures are: With good RNG, I can get six evac missions done, with five mats per mission that's 30, not 50. Four are pretty much guaranteed, that would be twenty. But I stand by my point: I still consider it high reward.

Ok, I guess I might be jumping to conclusions.

I will do some more tests against Glaives.

Not trying to attack you, sorry if it came across like that. Just saying: This is a new enemy, and we need to give us some time to find strategies, weak points and working countermeasures before calling "no fair!" and demanding for nerfing them. I wasn't around yet at that time, but I imagine when Thargoids first became attackable and the cold orbit meta wasn't around yet, Frontier had nerfed them at the first "too hard" reaction.