[K-W]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

This is quite where you go wrong. Longer in to the round, there's spectres available, and xandathrii fleets will be more focused than cathaar fleets. Cathaar that "thrive" are forced to spread their fleet more (as we expect a fairly fluid round, more than last one), and really, this is where EMP bites. Cruisers aren't really worth it against xandathrii. Corvettes can cut it, if you have enough beetles, but that means you need to invest a lot into them, as vsharrak and phantom just cover so much more roles then beetles do. Cathaars would obviously prefer attacking terrans with cruisers - not xandathrii, who will eventually have the hard (and first) hitting spectre (in compared to the terran gryphon).

Indeed Spectres change the equation on cruisers, regardless of course you are right that xans should be able to outbuild caths with fighters, but this might take a bit longer than it might have if xans were less vulnerable. Thats all im saying. Also, you point out that caths have to spread thier value around, so do xans for the same reasons. Caths who invest in co for attacks will be able to roid many xans for some time.

[quote]Cathaars tend to suffer from fluid, warmongry rounds. And the statistics for them aren't (even comparatively) as good as they were last round; and last round it was very hard for caths outside top10/huge galaxies.[.quote]

Certainly if cath have a horrible round it would mitigate any possible change in the xan advantage due to the new stats.

Possibly. Even so, terrans can just theoretically roidswap with xandathrii. Plus, a lot of terrans also means a lot of zero-loss antidestroyer. I agree with the fact that terrans pose a fairly large threat, but it works both ways. There is absolutely no way for a terran to deal with fighters, and fighters are generally a lot harder to defend against than destroyers.

We certainly agree on that.

Holes? I see just on real hole. I do not believe there will be cathaars able to attack medium-large xandathrii on the long run. Cathaars will probably just get roided quite hard, as they have holes against fighters, corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, and battleships. In compared to the fact that terrans are mostly weak against cruisers, and xandathrii against destroyers. Zikonian is a different story.

Sorry hole... but that really isnt important to my point.

Yes in the long run caths will not be able to hit xans, but theres going to be lots of ticks before then where they will be.

We both agree that xan is a solid race with good attack options and good defence options. Its just a change in how the race is going to be played to have a vulnerability to terran de coded in.