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Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 24 May 2022, 18:29
by ShinkuroYukinari
Recently i picked up Ottomans for a straightforward civ to climb with, and I've noticed a lot of people commenting how Abus guns are really bad, like utter dogshit, even with me seeing genuine success with them, sick KDs and such.

From the games I've used them in, even after their ROF was nerfed, they seem to be still quite good at their job in team games so long as allies can protect them from cavalry(and don't let jungle bowmen poke them, ahem). Otherwise they're really frail. In age 2, so rush strats, they seem to be really good thanks to siege dmg, and in age3 are still solid so long as stagger formation is used, or with a few culverins in the rear.

Am I missing something?

For reference, attached is the deck I use for Abus strats in Team Games. Aiming for a TP + Mosque ASAP and spamming out shipments as needed, especially coin.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 24 May 2022, 18:41
by Kaiserklein
Abus are good and people suck

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 24 May 2022, 19:35
by Garja
They are not dogshit but they're not as good as in the past. Not only they got nerfed but the whole jan/abus thing is less effective on EP maps.
The builds that used to hold that with perfect play now they should beat it with perfectly and still hold even with few mistakes. Some builds that didn't use to cut it now they probably hold.
Jan/abus semi FF strats are possibly better now tho.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 25 May 2022, 07:55
by admiraljsmith
Abus become bad in team if you let enemy skirm mass grow enough so that you trade 1:1.

Later when you can have abus + cannon, I think abus become good again.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 25 May 2022, 09:20
by Kaiserklein
Well you can't autowin anymore by massing jan / abus and sitting on their next hunt, but at the same time otto has been given more eco options (silk road, 5v, cheaper mosque upgrades etc) which actually allows them to get a decent abus mass in mid game. And once you get a big mass of them they're really strong

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 25 May 2022, 09:33
by fei123456
Abus performs bad against ranged cavalry units. They may trade well with skirmisher, but it's over when mass cavalry come.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 25 May 2022, 11:30
by Kaiserklein
They don't

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 25 May 2022, 18:44
by Le Hussard sur le toit
fei123456 wrote:
25 May 2022, 09:33
Abus performs bad against ranged cavalry units. They may trade well with skirmisher, but it's over when mass cavalry come.
They do siege damage don't they ? That should help a lot vs cav.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 25 May 2022, 18:50
by ShinkuroYukinari
Le Hussard sur le toit wrote:
25 May 2022, 18:44
fei123456 wrote:
25 May 2022, 09:33
Abus performs bad against ranged cavalry units. They may trade well with skirmisher, but it's over when mass cavalry come.
They do siege damage don't they ? That should help a lot vs cav.
And half damage to *all* Cav. Ottomans have very few options vs ranged cav beyond bruteforce.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 25 May 2022, 19:07
by Garja
I think abus have x0.5 vs cav and x2 vs ranged cav, so just slightly worse than skirms. That combined with the fact one abus is more expensive than one skirms, it makes for a less effective unit against ranged cav.
However, Otto weakness to cav is more complex than just that. Jans aren't great either at sniping cav from range, and in melee they don't dps cav as fast as pikes (as well as being slower). Also Otto age2 setup is super exposed to raids because they don't have a tower or any extra building to create some shelter for vills (which you can't afford to lose or the whole build is screwed). And on top of that you constantly have to babysit abus because they're weak to anything that meele them.
In age3 Otto don't have goons, so you don't have a unit that you z move and afk but again you have to babysit.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 25 May 2022, 21:30
by helln00
Garja wrote:
25 May 2022, 19:07
I think abus have x0.5 vs cav and x2 vs ranged cav, so just slightly worse than skirms. That combined with the fact one abus is more expensive than one skirms, it makes for a less effective unit against ranged cav.
However, Otto weakness to cav is more complex than just that. Jans aren't great either at sniping cav from range, and in melee they don't dps cav as fast pikes (as well as being slower). Also Otto age2 setup is super exposed to raids because they don't have a tower or any extra building to create some shelter for vills (which you can't afford to lose or the whole build is screwed). And on top of that you constantly have to babysit abus because they're weak to anything that meele them.
In age3 Otto don't have goons, so you don't have a unit that you z move and afk but again you have to babysit.
its 1.75 against ranged cav actually so its pretty bad

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 25 May 2022, 22:00
by duckzilla
What's so bad about it?
Abus still have a much higher base attack than skirms and ranged cav doesn't have siege resistance. A skirm doing 15 * 1.5 * 0.8 = 18 dmg vs ranged cav is not really better than an abus doing 40 * 0.875 = 35 dmg per shot. Or do I miss something?

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 25 May 2022, 22:22
by callentournies
Rates of fire

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 25 May 2022, 23:24
by Garja
I mean it's not just the damage against, that's fine I guess. It's just that abus are not as spammable as skirms and if you lose of them it's harder to replace so Otto don't have a direct counter to goons anymore. That applies to other unit types too, it's just the problem of having big expensive units without the trash unit option.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 26 May 2022, 08:22
by fei123456
Abus costs too much gold, and has a quite low HP compared to its cost. Considering that Ottoman generally has worse eco than normal civ (not considering 4TC boom), they can't afford abus to be just "slightly better" than normal skirm units.

Abus do 0.75* to ranged cavalry units, and janissary has a low ranged attack. They struggle a lot against howdah, war wagons, javelins etc.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 26 May 2022, 17:00
by Kaiserklein
helln00 wrote:
25 May 2022, 21:30
Garja wrote:
25 May 2022, 19:07
I think abus have x0.5 vs cav and x2 vs ranged cav, so just slightly worse than skirms. That combined with the fact one abus is more expensive than one skirms, it makes for a less effective unit against ranged cav.
However, Otto weakness to cav is more complex than just that. Jans aren't great either at sniping cav from range, and in melee they don't dps cav as fast pikes (as well as being slower). Also Otto age2 setup is super exposed to raids because they don't have a tower or any extra building to create some shelter for vills (which you can't afford to lose or the whole build is screwed). And on top of that you constantly have to babysit abus because they're weak to anything that meele them.
In age3 Otto don't have goons, so you don't have a unit that you z move and afk but again you have to babysit.
its 1.75 against ranged cav actually so its pretty bad
It's 0.75 actually. But their base damage is so high and they also bypass range resist, so they do just fine anyway. In fact they easily deal more damage to goons and even to hand cav than skirms do, their weakness if anything is their low hp, if goons can come close enough to snipe them. But that's why you have jans in front.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 26 May 2022, 17:22
by somp
its not that they are bad cost-wise but otto kinda needs OP units cause their eco sux. and its hard to get a great age 3 mass cause you have to up both jan and abus

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 26 May 2022, 18:16
by Garja
Low hp and 20% rr only is admittedly bad for such an expensive unit. In fact if musks get in range they trade quite well with abus despite being the countered unit.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 26 May 2022, 19:30
by duckzilla
I mean... that's the spirit of Ottoman units. Either tanky and low dmg or fragile and high dmg.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 30 May 2022, 13:18
by Adribird
I wouldn't mind if they took away the bonus against heavy infantry and gave that extra *0.5 to ranged cavalry.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 30 May 2022, 13:25
by Kaiserklein
Garja wrote:
26 May 2022, 18:16
Low hp and 20% rr only is admittedly bad for such an expensive unit. In fact if musks get in range they trade quite well with abus despite being the countered unit.
But 18 range, instant shooting animation, 40 attack, siege damage, and being available in colonial. They're not bad, they're great.
Also musks trade well with basically any RI when they get in range. You're supposed to micro abus extra hard anyway

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 30 May 2022, 14:34
by Garja
Well, you just don't go aggro vs dutch skirms with brit musks hoping it works. But you can do that vs otto abus. Of course lot of the reason is because of fb vs in base play but it's also because abus are not replaceable and they have only 20% rr so you can bully them with replaceable units.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 30 May 2022, 15:08
by somp
I mean, musks should not reach abus easily with god micro. But... At the same time with new ROF I think 99% of players can't anticipate it perfectly and previously it was synced with Jan but no more.

Thats why no more abus for somali

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 30 May 2022, 15:37
by Garja
And btw it is not just musks, it's anything that combines replaceability and early tempo. For example one of the ways you can deal with abus play with Aztecs is to just mass slingers and go aggro to keep abus count small. There is no way in a real game that abus don't take shots back even with instant shooting and +2 range. You can afford to trade "bad" because abus cannot easily be replaced and that's all what otto is about.

Re: Are Abus shit nowadays?

Posted: 30 May 2022, 23:12
by Kaiserklein
Nah, abus can trade almost forever vs maces cmon. The threat is with coyotes mixed in, but mass maces won't do shit