Naked Fanatics are not naked anymore

[Seleucids]

After the nerf of champion cavs, Naked Fanatics will become the next brokenly OP unit. This unit is already highly OP in non-champ-cav TGs; it deals insane damage in P2 and is hard to defend against, then in P3 it can be spammed en mass as a melee + meatshield. Most importantly, they counter the cavs to well. There are already very few infantry units which can beat it in a direct frontal 1v1, then if you factor in the cavalry-matching speed, it makes Gauls too OP. 

The cause of this situation is that the unit has double the health of a spearman and the same armour. It is also affected by all upgrades, including armour ones, which means it's not naked at all:

Suggestion: in order to live up to their name, they should have no armour at all and be unaffected by the armour upgrades. Also the cost might need to be reconsidered. 

You can't have 200 health and full melee armour and near-cav speed and no weakness against spearman. 

[Deicide4u]

15 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

Suggestion: in order to live up to their name, they should have no armour at all and be unaffected by the armour upgrades. Also the cost might need to be reconsidered. 

How would this be balanced? You'd just have an useless unit that is somewhat good against cavalry, but takes full damage from everything. 

How about you try and counter them with anything other than cavalry and CS spearmen? Why would they have weakness against spearmen, anyway? 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

5 hours ago, Seleucids said:

the cavalry-matching speed

They are quite a lot slower than cav.

[Seleucids]

8 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

They are quite a lot slower than cav.

But their turn rate and acceleration are much better. Also factor in the length of their spears.

[chrstgtr]

23 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

They are quite a lot slower than cav.

They are. I should they should match speed. The counter doesn't really work otherwise--when enemy has a speed hero fana are basically useless since they lose against inf spam and can't engage cav. Anyways, the easiest way to counter fana is with inf spear becauce fana are too expensive to match spam. 

I'm pretty sure @Seleucidsmade this post while watching me play fana earlier today. 

I've been playing fana a lot lately. I've found that they're actually strongest in champ cav games provided that enemy doesn't have speed hero. Fana easily beat enemy champ cav and make that player effectively useless while still being able to do raiding damage. 

 

[Atrik]

3 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Anyways, the easiest way to counter fana is with inf spear becauce fana are too expensive to match spam. 

No, they will survive fighting 3 spears sequentially, and still have around 50hp. They have a resource to power efficiency ratio 1.7 time that of CS spears. That's way below other champs, however ratio this doesn't account for movements, and as well other champs cost metal and fanas doesn't, which allow to specialize production toward just wood/food. They are also available to gauls whom have very strong economy, units and hero.

Another consideration is that with the additional movement, the classic ways to dealing with melee champ infantry (often, outmicro with ranged units, delaying fights for an ally to come help etc..) are considerably harder. So once again the main problem is ... Lack of cheap options to counter them. You can efficently counter them with other infantry champions but they might come up late.

Until balancing is done with a better framework then gut feelings, agreeing on issues and outcomes of tweaks are unlikely to be satisfying.