Balance Patch June 2021

The long awaited patch has hit and we are facing some of the most drastic changes in Rivals balance history that are surely to shake up the meta like never before.
From a nerf to the tiberium ramp-up (that marks the most significant change to the way tech comes out since Rivals was still at Redwood) to a complete Banshee re-work that finally gives nod another answer to light air, this patch is packed with interesting changes. A full list of changes is available at the bottom this article.

Banshee is back, baby! For too long NOD has had a hard time coping with light air, both vs itself and GDI. This new re-work expands NOD’s capabilities of fighting said struggle, offering a cheap, light & versatile solution to fight other air units. It is worth noting however that infantry damage on the Banshee was nerfed, meaning it will be primarily used to focus on air-to-air and air-to-vehicle combat, unlike it’s GDI counterpart, the Talon, which is primarily an anti-infantry air unit. Banshee now has the same HP as the Talon, but less aircraft damage. It can turn faster, but also flies slower, so in general this unit will feel very different.

Tiberium ramp-up has been reduced, meaning tech will come out later and in lesser numbers. The most notorious challenge when fighting tech was that even if you could manage to defeat a tech unit without tech of your own, the second one was right around the corner. This is due to the ramp-up of tiberium harvested per second, especially with two harvesters. While the exact values are not yet known, this marks a change that has been requested by many in the community for a very long time. 

The above table shows the previous and new tiberium harvesting values.

Speed! Or should I say lack thereof! Talon, Shade, Catship, Banshee and Jumpjets have all had their speed reduced. These units were all popular for flipping pads at the last second and should have a harder time doing so from now on. This should also reduce the intensity of battle a little, with less units available that have the “Faster” speed, and less money in the late game to keep them going.

Community Spotlight: we have reached out to some of the top players in the community to hear from them about their thoughts on the patch!

Maximus:

“They killed my deck! 😳”

“I am afraid raider units will be the new meta”

“shade nerf seems decent, but I think stank becomes unplayable. 100 cost unit which cannot kill vehicles”

13lade:

“jjts and talons will still be decent but you won't be able to endlessly spam them”

“Catship will be utterly unplayable, stealth tanks also seems like it will be terrible so overall I predict chuggy/mutant will be a huge winner and potentially we will see a return to the tank meta but with phantom as the primary anti air unit”

AliciaDestiny: 

“I will still play with jumpjets even after this change”

"mid-range decks that should be able to counter deck should and WILL DESTROY tech decks like the mid-range Kane deck that I frequently use in tournaments”

"Base killing will be a lot harder but I don't this will change anybody's playstyles as nobody creates a deck with the sole intent to blow up someone's base”

"I can guarantee you that I won't use fanatics after this patch and their losing matchup against riflemen/militants will not even warrant them a spot in anyone's deck”

Omeleet:

“Tech may be very difficult to field outside of flame tank and artillery”

“I expect most beefy units and snipers can re-enter the meta now that both”

“Meta seems prime for significant changes, may be enough reason to use the war factory again”

NaturalSky:

“With this patch we will hopefully see an end to Nod's struggle vs air. With heavy infantry such as chemical warriors and mutant marauders being the focal point for most decks”

“On GDI we will see less reliance on the current apc decks as they were mostly designed to combat air heavy decks. I suspect we will see a switch up into other anti infantry options such as snipers and razorback”

Some final thoughts on the patches notes:

Stank

• Things Stank can't one shot anymore: Pitbull, Rhino, Shatterer, Tick Tank unborrowed, MSV, Chuggy, Bikes!
• Chuggy is really close, if the stank has a level or maybe even a training advantage it can probably one shot (1528 vs 1550)
• Giga can be barely one-shot, maybe not with levels. (1528 vs 1455)
• Need to test new stank vs bikes. Bikes have 435 hp per squad member, thus stank needs more than one shot to kill it now, thus you leave one bike alive after every volley.

Catship

• Catship now needs 2 shots to kill these infantry models: flame trooper, laser trooper (200 vs 220 might change based on levels), snipers!, MG while moving
• 4 shots to kill chem warrior, mutant models (200 vs 620) maybe levels make it 3
• 3 to kill grenadier models (200 vs 550)

 Base

• Almost an entire Jade missile worth of hp increase (2250 hp increase for half a base vs 2500)
• You now need 6,9 Jade explosions to kill half a base

Full list of Balance Changes:

GDI changes:

Tech lab – Tiberium cost increased to 180 (from 150)

GDI MCV – Base health increased by 15% (from 30000 to 34500)

Strongarm – Tiberium cost increased from 40 to 50

APC

• Tiberium cost increased from 80 to 90
• Vehicle damage reduced from 65 to 45

Talon – Speed reduced from fastest to faster

Jump Jet Troopers – Speed reduced from fastest to faster

NOD changes:

Temple of Nod – Tiberium cost increased to 180 (from 150)

NOD MCV – Base health increased by 15% (from 30000 to 34500)

Banshee:

• Tiberium cost reduced from 60 to 30
• Health reduced from 1210 to 909
• Default weapon damage reduced from 382 to 211
• Infantry damage reduced from 55 to 42
• Aircraft damage reduced from 382 to 270
• Speed reduced from fastest to faster
• Turn speed increased from 300 to 450
• Attack speed reduced from 1.4 to 1.3

Catalyst Gunship:

• Tiberium cost increased from 50 to 60
• Tiberium cloud canister launch-time duration increased from 3.6 to 4.5 seconds
• Weapon damage reduced from 510 to 200
• Speed reduced from fastest to faster

Shade:

• Tiberium cost increased from 60 to 70
• Speed reduced from fastest to faster

Fanatics: Weapon damage reduced from 57 to 49

Stealth Tank: Vehicle damage reduced from 510 to 382

Misc

• Tiberium Harvest rate reduced during late game to balance usage of all units
• Disabling challenge battles in Tiberium League by increasing Unit Level Cap from 15 to 19. Units will not be able to level beyond 15.

Written by: Entsorger, Kennyemmy
Special thanks: Viper

 

Rivals Community Survey November 2020 – analysis of results

 🇭🇺 Kennyemmy conducted a survey that will be used by 🇮🇳 Avinash as input for further steps in maintaining the game. More than 700 players participated in the survey, making this the biggest Rivals survey, ever. Here’s what we learn from it: 

Respondent groups

• 241 Tiberium players (33%) 
• 380 Masters players (54%) 
• 63 Diamond players (9%) 
• 40 players from Platinum or lower (6%) 

It’s safe to say that this survey over-represents Masters/Tiberium league compared to the total player pool who might not have learned about the survey, as they are not that active on Discords on average, which have been the primary tool to distribute the survey. 

Making money for EA 

Of the respondents, … 

• >90% said they would spend Diamonds on vanity items (skins, emotes, explojis) 
• >70% said they would spend real money on vanity items 
• Within the vanity items, unit skins (41%) were the most popular, followed by Commander emotes (31%), Commander skins (15%) and Explojis (13%)

It seems to be a very good idea to bring back esp skins and emotes to the score. If I personally were to make a recommendation (not part of the survey!): 

• Bring back 2 skins and one commander emote set back to the store 
• Rotate weekly 
• Price point 1000 Diamonds or $5 

Custom Matches & Tournaments 

• More than half of the respondents play Custom Matches at least once a week 
• Especially lower-league players don’t play much Customs – which is a shame, as they are often playing underlevelled decks in their league, so playing Custom Matches could improve their experience playing Rivals immensely

percentages sum up to 100% in each row 

Unsurprisingly, there is a strong correlation between interest in tournaments and custom matches: 

• 38% of all respondents already participated in a tournament 
• 65% of the most active custom match players played in a tournament 

But still, even 26% of those who never played customs would love to play a tournament, and 47% would at least consider it, depending on the event. 

Overall, 166 of the respondents would love to participate in a tournament, but didn’t do it so far.  And a further 206 would consider it.  Maybe that’s partly just lip service, but it shows that there’s still a big player audience to be reached for tournament organizers by advertising their tournament in the same way that made this survey reach these, i.e. primarily through all the Rivals discords and Reddit. 

Personally, I want to highlight the Rivals Team League (RTL discord), which is one of the smoothest-run Rivals events, and it’s one where you have some flexibility to arrange the time when you play your match with your opponent.  The current season just started, but you might want to follow it & plan your alliances’ team for the next season that should start early in 2021. 

Important Fixes 

One question asked was: “Which of these issues affects you the most?” 

• 28% say Android crashes 
• 33% say iOS flickering 
• 39% say Scavengers in the Showdown events I find that this question and it’s result is a bit misleading. 

Obviously, it’s a bigger deal if your game crashes than that for 2 days a month, you’re annoyed by some units in one of the events. Hence, I’d vote to clearly prioritize the Android crashes and the graphics bug on iOS over Scavengers/Showdown. 

Balance perception 

The question was: “on a scale of 1-5,how good do you think the balance of the game is”? Overall, the feedback is quite good: 

• 58% positive (8% “5”, 49% “4”) 
• 31% neutral (“3”) 
• 12% negative (8% “2”, 4% “1”) 

Interestingly, this doesn’t change that much between the leagues, except that Tiberium players have a bit more negative perception of the balance.

balance perception by league

Playing customs also doesn’t have a radical impact on balance perception: 

• The average score overall is 3.5 
• Respondents who play customs the most give a 3.4 
• Respondents who play customs weekly or monthly give a 4.6 
• Respondents who never played customs give a 3.5 – but are more likely to give the extreme scores 1 or 5 

What should be changed about balance? 

If we rank the options by the share of respondents who voted “very important” or “important”: 

• 53% - nerf the most used / overpowered units 
• 48% - revamp the Tiberium economy 
• 46% - buff weak / less used units 
• 45% - rework Tech units 
• 18% - increase base health 

Interesting deviations by player type: 

• Unsurprisingly, players less satisfied with balance (voted 1 or 2 of 5) generally find more changes important. 
• But if we correct for that, they put relatively more emphasis especially on ...
• Tech rework 60% importance vs 45% for the average 
• Nerf overpowered units 68% importance vs 53% average
• Players who play customs most often have the following perception 
• Higher importance (+5 ppt) on buffing weak / less used units 
• Lower importance (-6 ppt) on reworking Tech units 

How do respondents stay up-to-date about Rivals? 

• 60% said Discords are their primary source of information. The official Rivals discord is always a great starting point, but there’s plenty of other cool discords to join. Important to note here that the Discords have been a key tool to distribute the survey. 
• 14% said ingame mail – which shows how important this channel still continues to be, especially for all the newer players who would not have responded to this survey 
• 11% said the Rivals Reddit 
• 6% said YouTube, likely especially 13lade’s YouTube channel 
• 5% said Twitch streams, here’s the Rivals Twitch category
• 3% said Facebook, where we have a surprisingly active Rivals group

You can find the full responses here, as I didn’t bring all data points into this post.

Balance Patch August 2020 -- Liang nerfed to death

 Yes! After some months of waiting, the new Rivals balance patch is out.

Buffs:

• Catalyst Gunship has faster attack speed and the gas grenade also comes faster
• Kane Obelisk damage increased by +50%, making it much better against the biggest tech units (Avatar, Titan, Mammoth)

Nerf and Buff:

• Grenadier now costs 80 (+10) Tiberium, but moves faster
• Mammoths are now slower, but a bit cheaper again (250 to 230 Tiberium)
• Shatterer +85% attack speed vs -50% damage reduction, speed increase vs stun duration reduction from 0.95s to 0.2s

Nerfs:

• Liang cannot move after being deployed. This is a heavy-handed approach. Maybe it was "necessary" as better changes were too difficult to implement. But that the cost stays at 50 is actually a joke. Without movement, a cost decrease to 30 would have been the least necessary change to prevent Liang usage to drop to zero (which cannot be the goal)
• Razorback attack speed reduced, damage -5% and health -5%. This seems like a very strong nerf, esp. as it becomes one-shottable by Phantom
• Fanatic boosts have been reduced in duration (from 8s to 5s) and impact (25% to 10% reload speed boost, 65% to 45% attack speed boost, 40% to 25% attack speed boost. This is also a big nerf.
• Phantom reload time increased from 6.5s to 8s
• Titan, Rockworm, Centurion and Kodiak see their infantry damage nerfed. This is relevant esp for Titan and Rockworm and indirectly buffs heavy infantry a bit.
• Zone Troopers see a significant -12% health nerf, and nerf to Infantry damage. 
• Laser Drones move slower and get a reduced harvester/structure damage. This will make it easier for Nod, as attacking into bikes will be harder, dodging laster troopers will be harder, and chasing Stealth Tanks as well. Good players will take them out because of this, less good players because of the harv damage nerf. 
• Orca Bomber damage was reduced at the outer parts of the bombing radius. Needs to be tested how significant that change is.
• MSV attack speed buff down from +75% to +50%, reload speed buff reduced and health reduced by -22%. In my view, over-nerfed, and it would have needed at least a cost reduction to stay somewhat playable.

Some first Predictions:

1. With Liang and RB nerfs, it seems likely that many GDI players move towards Dog/Sniper or Rifle/Drones, both combinations come with established deck options working well with them (Suzaku APC deck anyone?)
2. Fanatic players might switch to Rifle/Wheel (more money for earlier Shade/Stealth/Scorpion) or Militant/Chem or Militant/Buggy. With Oxanna, ability to boost key units stays intact.
3. Laser Drones will mostly disappear from the meta. As Shade is strong and was not nerfed, I expect it to see a lot of increase in popularity
4. Inferno decks seem very attractive, as they are not impacted by the buffed units -- and Borca will be a less attractive alternative for bomber aficionados
5. Nod tech is untouched, so Confessor/Basilisk or Flame Tank decks could gain in popularity
6. Marauder/Chuggy is untouched, and heavily benefits from the nerfs to Fanatics and RBs
7. Chuggy + Shade will be the new hate units in the Nod arsenal

Razorback and Shade nerfed -- Balance Patch Feb/Mar 2020

EA thankfully, and finally, released a Balance patch. It's just changing two units, but it's the most important changes right now, and another patch seems to be coming in April.

Let's look at the changes:

Razorback Nerf

• Vehicle damage reduced by 40%
• Speed reduced by 14% from "Faster (8)" to "Fast (6.9)"

Razorback has been dominant in recent months, as it dominates infantry so much that many games can be won basically with nothing else than a wall of Missile Troopers plus a well-controlled Razorback. 

The speed reduction helps to catch it, esp. with units sich as Stealth Tank and Phantom. And other units like Pitbull will put more chip damage on it. Plus, the vehicle damage nerf is important: Before, it was beating a Buggy. 

Still, strong players all agree that Razorback is still a very strong unit after the changes. We'll likely continue to see it a lot in ladder and tournaments.

Shade Nerf

• Cost increased from 40 to 60 Tiberium.
• Health decreased by 7.5%
• Reload speed increased by 25% from 6s to 8s
• Stealth Mode refresh increased by +36% from 5.5s to 7.5s
• Structure Damage reduced by -35%

Great changes. The nerfs seem hard, but if you compare it to Orca (80 Tiberium, no fancy things like Cloak and EMP), you'll figure that it's still a strong unit. But it's now possible to play Nod against Shade decks again. Which is great!

Thanks to EA and especially Avinash!

Watch top player 13lade's thoughts on the patch:

Balance changes — great suggestions by Omeleet

In early November, Omeleet had already made a list of great suggestions for balance changes. Most of the suggestions were executed by EA in the most recent balance patch. Possibly, they did listen to Omeleet — which we all should!

Here's the video, and below there's a list of the changes Omeleet suggests:

• Mammoth Tank: Reduce Speed by 0.5 Speed and limit to 1 Mammoth at a time
• Zone Trooper, Cyborgs: Increase delay for the first attack
• Laser Drones: Reduce hitpoints by -12.5%
• Sandstorm: Reduce hitpoints by -16%
• Liang: Reduce speed to average and reduce heal per second from 3.33% to 1%
• Comment: I think might be a bit too much. I love the speed decrease, but would be more cautious with the % heal nerf, and go to 2.5%
• Razorback: Vehicle damange -50% and reduce speed to fast
• Mohawk: Reduce attack speed from 1.15 to 1.4
• Comment: I'd go a bit more middle-of-the road here and reduce to just 1.25 or 1.3. I'm more of a fan of smaller changes rather than fully reverting the previous buff.
• Solomon Ion Cannon: Reduce structure damage
• Shade: Increase price from 40 to 60 Tiberium and reduce structure damage by -50%

— Join the Reddit discussion here

Community Survey Results

First, I want to say thanks to this awesome community. In just two days, 181 Rivals players responded to my survey. Of them, ...

• 9% have more fun than ever with Rivals
• 45% have just as much fun with Rivals as ever
• 41% still play, but have a bit less fun than before
• 5% stopped playing

Who participated in the survey?

Unsurprisingly, this survey reached the active parts of the community that frequent our Rirevals subreddit and/or popular Rivals discords. That's why it's not surprising that 94% of the respondents are Masters / Tiberium league players. 15% of the respondents come from the Terminus Shores alliance group, 5% each from Ascendance and French-speaking Baguette.

As you can see in the bar chart above, most respondents are in full and active alliances. Notably, it seems that a lot of the Top 100 alliances don't play customs or play in / organize tournaments. If you're in such an alliance, please encourage your team mates to play custom games. This is a big part of what makes the game competitive, as custom games can be played at equal level.

Community tools that the respondents use are:

• 71% use their own alliance discord
• 64% frequent the Rivals subreddit
• 54% use the official Rivals discord
• 38% read this blog
• 35% use another larger English-speaking Rivals discord
• 17% use another "local" discord such as the Spanish-speaking community discord, Czech/Slovak community discord etc. (I listed some of them at the bottom of this post. Let me know on Reddit or on Discord (user name "shuukit") if I missed some.)

Community View of Balance

We just had a big balance patch. Nearly all respondents commented on the before-the-patch state of the game. Here's the verdict of the people:

Beyond looking at what the community thinks, it's interesting to compare this with the actual patch:

• Commanders: Here, devs and players are aligned. Nice!
• Units: A mixed bag, with players agreeing to the Fanatics nerf, but not agreeing to the Bike nerf. Actually, Bikes got the highest share of respondents that voted "Balanced" with 71%
• Tech: The Elephant in the room. Mammoth and Tech in general are seen as nearly as imbalanced as Jade & Liang pre-patch. Yet, the devs didn't do anything about this. Instead, they even nerfed a key aggro unit that helps prevent Tech deck air delay the game: Bikes.

I also had a look at what the Terminus Shores crowd specifically thought about Bikes: 52% of Terminus Shores players said that Bikes are too strong / a bit too strong -- versus just 22% of the other respondents. In my view, we can learn two things from that:

1. Influencers are powerful. Because my interpretation is that 13lade often bringing up how powerful Bikes were (on his stream) influenced his viewers, and in his viewers, his alliance Terminus Shores is over-represented.
2. Bike nerf is 13lade's fault, confirmed! :) Of course, you can also turn it around and say that I'm wrong and Terminus Shores are just better players and that at their level, Bikes were actually too strong.

Speaking about 13lade and Terminus Shores ...

A majority of respondents expects Terminus Shores to win the December season unchallenged, just like in November.  A quarter expects Ascendance to mount a challenge, but fail. And a whopping 7 respondents expect Ascendance to win. Hopefully, this is motivating for the Ascendance leadership!

37 respondents agree that Praetor Pyro / CrazyPsychopath should apologize to 13lade for being rude repeatedly. Only 17 voted against this. 70% of the community didn't know about it, which tells us they watch both their streams too rarely! Here's a collection of the key Rivals Twitch & YT channels I recommend you to follow.

YouTube & Twitch Channel Popularity

The by far most beloved channels are 13lade's YouTube and Twitch channel. The distance to the runners up is large enough that I feel obliged to link a great recent video from 13lade, where he plays only Lasers and Wheels.

Twitch popularity ranking:

1. 13lade
2. Bikerush
3. Nukin
4. AliciaDestiny
5. Victor Bansemer
6. Crazy Psychopath / Praetor Pyro
7. Lord Buzz Killington

My recommendation would be that you follow all the Rivals streams (there's some that I didn't include in the survey for brevity). Because only rarely are there two or more, and by following all of them, you ensure that you see which Rivals stream is online when you visit Twitch.

YouTube popularity ranking:

Here, we have two "secret tipps" that most respondents didn't know, but where those who know it give good ratings: AwDaSea who uploads commneted videos from the Rivals Team League, and Omeboi / Omeleet, who uploads thoughtful commentary on units and balance. Here's the overall ranking:

1. 13lade
2. Captain Benzie
3. Bikerush
4. Omeleet / Omeboi
5. AliciaDestiny
6. AwDaSea

What can other streamers / YouTubers learn from 13lade?

• Interact with the community. Most streamers do that, but 13lade goes the extra mile to do that, answering all questions and having betting events that are interactive for the audience.
• Mix it up. 13lade often does special things, such as running his own tournaments, or playing a wide range of different decks.
• Talk. There's some active streamers and YouTubers who don't talk much. They might still have cool gameplay, but it's so much better to also hear thoughtful and/or emotional commentary.
• Be a Regular. 13lade very reliably streams 5-6 days a week, mostly at the same time for 3-5 hours. This helps him connect to his audience, but also makes it worthwhile to check if he's online just right now. 
• Upload good content to YouTube. A 3h stream recording isn't the best for YouTube. A 20 minute tournament final, or a 30-60 minute "special event or deck" video is great YouTube content. Especially with good commentary.

On Rivals Tournaments

• 24% watch every tournament stream they can
• 56% watch occasionally
• 20% don't watch Rivals tournaments. If you belong to this group, please tell us why on Reddit!

And:

• 38% usually know about the big tournaments in advance
• 25% sometimes know in advance, but then get wind of it as soon as the stream starts. 
• 17% sometimes know in advance, and then usually also miss the tournament stream
• 6% don't know about them in advance, but often manage to catch the stream, still
• 14% miss the tournaments completely!

This shows how important it is to (a) follow the big Twitch channels that run tournaments and (b) spread the word to your alliance/discord once a tournament stream started. 

And for tournament organizers, it shows how important it is to get the word out, ideally on Reddit in advance and on Reddit and in key discords when the stream starts. You can also contact the discord admin Bryan on the offcial discord in advance, he might be able to help with a well-timed announcement of your tournament stream going live!

On priorities for the Developers

The community sees priorities for the developers in the following order:

1. Balance patches. 
2. Bug fixes.
   Improvements for new players, including but not limited to changing challenge matches and win streaks in a way that new players don't climb as fast. About two thirds see this as important or very important.
3. Advertising tournament streams through in-app messages and on Twitter. 41 respondents think this is very important, another 57 think it's important. And it should be easy for EA to execute. Of course, it also needs the tournament organizers supplying the information about the tournament and when the stream starts in advance.
4. New units. 

You can find all the data here if you responded, with some charts for all the answers.

And please share your thoughts on Reddit!

Thoughts on Balance Changes -- Shade OP & new Air meta for both factions

The good news: The Rivals developers are back in action. A new unit, and a new balance patch have been released. Yesterday, I already wrote about the new Nod unit, the Shade. Today, I'm commenting on the balance patch, and some testing I did with the newly released Shade in Custom Games.

Buffs

• GDI Solomon: Reduced Ion Cannon cost from 150 to 130 Tiberium
• Justifiable change. The interesting thing is that just recently, some good players have been successfully experimenting with Solomon base kill. I expect this to become even more popular and viable now.
• GDI Jumpjet Troopers: Increased hitpoints by +10%
• Justifiable change, even though I thought Jumpjets were not that bad even before. They were just a very specific role player, but decent at that. Their trades against Dogs and Wheels should now become more favorable.
• GDI Shockwave Troopers & Nod Flame Troopers: Increased speed to Fast (6.9)
• Justifiable change, as Flames & Shocks had fallen out of the meta nearly completely. It's going to be interesting to see how much of a comeback they actually make. Due to the popularity of "tier 2" anti-infantry Razorback, Chem Buggy and Snipers, they might still not be the best choice. But speed is certainly an interesting way to buff them, not just against Rifles, but also to allow them to quickly close in to Snipers, and evade Razorback, Venom, Chuggy a bit better.
• Nod Kane: Reduced Obelisk of Light cost from 130 to 110 Tiberium
• Justifiable change. I would have preferred to see some of the suggestions realized that Omeboi suggested, but I can appreciate that a cost change was simple for the devs

Nerfs

• Dr. Liang: Reduced Repair Drone cost to 40, and reduced hitpoints from 650 to 430
• I'm sure this is not what most players wanted to see. It might make it a bit easier to kill the Repair drone for e.g. Laser Troopers. But the overall mechanic stays intact, and it's even cheaper now. For people who have problem against Liang pad steals, I highly recommend to focus more on securing your back pad with Bike/Laser/Pitbull/Missile when possible, and not e.g. a surviving Rifle. (I know this doesn't solve the issue, but a part of the strength of Liang is players not adapting to it.)
• Nod Jade: Reduced Catalyst Missile damage to buildings (i.e. the base) by -29%, in turn increased the base damage of clouds by +11%
• Great change! This is exactly what many good players suggested: Keep up the overall viability of base kills, but only when clouds are present. Now it will be much harder to kill the opponent without actually getting a Chem Trooper / Chem Buggy next to the base.
• Nod Fanatics: Reduced vehicle damage by -44%
• Good decision. Fanatics have been very strong and a standard choice for a wide range of Nod decks. This now will make esp. Dogs and Wheels much more viable against them, and will make them less threatening against e.g. Bikes.
• Nod Chem Warriors: Reduced vehicle damage by -33%
• Ok change. In my view, this was not really necessary, as the problem was the base kills and not so much the Chem Warriors themselves. 
• Nod Bikes: Anti-air damage reduced by -9%, Anti-vehicle damage reduced by -14%
• This is a horrible change in my view. The developers' argument is that "Bikes traded too favorably against most vehicles and air". In my view, this is a narrow view on situations where the Bikes have the room to maneuver well and either do 2v1 easily, or do hit and run easily. In practice, more complex situations are the norm due to terrain and other units being present, and this usually makes it worse for Bikes. Let's look against the "enemies" of Bikes and how they fared before the patch:
• Laser Drones: Here, people rather complain that LD are too strong against Bikes.
• Pitbulls: Early game, when there's few units out and Tiberium is scarce, Bikes might have the edge. But as soon as there's two Pitbulls out (that can be stacked), ideally with some blocker such as a Dog, Rifle or Missile Trooper, the favor turns. I recently asked Agent Shadow whether he'd want to play Bike/Wheel or Pitbull/Dog in a 1v1 on a random map, and his answer was a quick and expected "Pitbull of course"
• Tanks: If the Bikes can 2v1, they handily beat Tanks for cost. But they should, as 2 units is a big downside in many other aspects due to the pop cap mechanic and Tiberium become more available in the later stages of the game. In practice, as soon as there is e.g. some blocker (Wheels, Dogs or even Missile/Laser), Tanks crush bikes due to their Raider ability and Bikes not being able to engage 2v1 easily.
• Orca: Perfectly balanced relationship in my view. Orca one-shots bikes, but can be killed in two volleys. One of the really good and interesting unit interactions in the game. I hope that Bikes still two-shot Orcas.
• Banshee: For cost, Bikes should beat Banshees, as air brings other advantages that should push up the price. Also, Banshees already traded decently vs Bikes, especially in the later stages of the game where Tiberium is less of an issue, or when Bikes couldn't engage as easily (so that the Banshee might get off a shot more in defence before the Bikes fire).
• Mohawk: Currently, many GDI players are already happy to bring out their Mohawk against Bikes on the field. Yes, 2v1 they can beat Mohawks. But again: They should beat Mohawks 2v1 if they can engage right. The GDI player can make the Bikes' life much harder with Missiles or Liang in the play, or by cleverly using terrain and defenders's advantage.
• Razorback / Shade: The two new OP units of both factions (see more on Shade below) now get indirectly even stronger. Bikes now need 8! rockets against a Razorback.
• The community by the way largely agrees with me on Bikes having been pretty balanced before this change. I did a community survey (full results), and in it, 71% thought bikes were balanced, only 9% thought they were too strong, and 17% felt they were "a bit too strong" and 3% "a bit too weak".
• People made the case "Bikes must be OP if more than 90% of decks contain them". But Bikes weren't that popular because you could decide games with them. They were popular because you needed them against a wide range of threats.
• Tech decks will benefit from the Bike nerf as well, as many of them reply on infantry plus light/medium air (e.g. Laser Drones, Orca, Mohawk) to delay pad charging.

So most changes in this balance patch are okay, with the big exception of the Bike nerf. The problem is rather what wasn't changed: The Razorback even increases in strength due to the Bike nerf. Also, Tech wasn't nerfed (not even the Mammoth), even though there's many good arguments for nerfing Tech. And the newly introduced Shade also seems crazy good:

Shade confirmed overpowered

I did some testing in Custom Games, and came to the conclusion that the Shade is crazy overpowered.

• It one-shots Slingshots. And often doesn't even take damage if it can maintain it's cloak.
• It nearly one-shots Bikes. If cloaked, Bikes can barely return fire. 
• It nearly one-shots Pitbulls. Thanks to cloak, it often just takes very few counter-shots from the Pitbull, if it can escape thanks to being air and having high speed.
• It two-shots tanks, just as the Orca does.

So, it's basically a cloaked, fast Orca for 40 Tiberium. Not even talking about EMP. Omeleet made a great short video where you can see it in action:

What might happen in the meta?

• Razorback wasn't nerfed, so will stay strong. Even a bit stronger with the nerf on Bikes, possibly.
• Shades are hard to level (Epic unit), so it might some time to see them on ladder. But in tournaments, I see them being used a lot. Most obviously in decks that used Laser Drones, but I bet there'll a a wide range of Shade decks being tested.
• Jade / Chem / Laser Drone deck is probably still viable. But Jade, Chem Warriors and Bikes all have been nerfed. And indirectly, Laser Drones might be nerfed, if players employ more early answers against air units like Laser Drones in their decks (due to Razorback and Shade). I expect some reduced usage of this meta deck. 
• War factory will be played less, with the exception of anti-air specialists like Slingshot and Pitbull. The Stealth Tank might also see more play, as it offers an answer against Shade and Razorback that can be cost-efficient.
• Missile Troopers, already the best friend of Razorbacks, will be built even more, along with their Nod counterpart Laser Troopers. They do chip damage against Razorback and are one of the few early game counters of the Shade.
• More Phantom. Even before these changes, people always asked themselves: "Should I play a Phantom in this deck? Do I have the space for it?" Now, Phantoms might be borderline necessary. "Stealth Tank or Phantom?" might be the only optionality.
• More Talon. Talon is versatile and can help vs Razorback and Shade. And their arch enemy Bikes get worse.
• Even more Tech, as Tech wasn't nerfed at all. Other decks are less viable. We'll see even more Tech in Masters and Tiberium League. Razorback and Shade fit into quite some Tech decks. Besides the obvious Mammoth, I expect to see some more Zone Troopers/Cyborgs (decent against Razorback, good against Shade) and possibly Sandstorm (in an infantry/air meta, it fits as being a tech splash with a different armor type. And Suzaku and some others already successfully play Razorback-Sandstorm decks on ladder.)

Also see:

• Reddit discussion on this balance patch
• EA news on the balance patch
• Blog category with previous Rivals balance patches and new units

Captain Benzie also released a video with his thoughts on the balance patch and the Shade:

"Shade" - New Rivals Unit for Nod

EA has announced a new unit for the Nod faction in Command & Conquer: Rivals. The Shade. You can read this directly on the EA page, but the link currently seems to work only on Mobile.

What are the key facts about this unit?

• Type: Air
• Cost: 40 Tiberium
• Speed: Fastest
• Attack: Burst attack on ground only (i.e. a bit like the GDI Orca)
• Special ability 1: Stealth (detected by Infantry, like the Stealth Tank) 
• Special ability 2: EMP discharge that is triggered by nearby units and seems to stun all air and vehicle units adjacent to the Shade

If you follow the link above, you can also see it in action in a short video. You can see there that it one-shots a GDI Slingshot, which means that it's damage isn't that far off an Orca. With higher speed compared to an Orca, and the EMP stun effect, it seems strangely strong for a unit that costs only 40 Tiberium.

We might not see it that much on ladder initially, as it's an Epic unit that is harder to get for most players. And of course, we didn't really see it in action at all, so far. But it certainly has the potential to become a strong unit in the meta game. To read what other players think, check out the discussion on Reddit.

Why Tech and Razorback should be nerfed

Recently, I wrote a guide on how to beat Tech by which I believe most Tech players can be beat relatively comfortably. And in my beginner deck guide, I strongly recommended non-Tech decks.

Yet, today I'm going to make the case on nerfing Tech, and also on nerfing the newest Rivals unit, the Razorback.

Why Tech should be nerfed

My key arguments to nerf Tech are:

1. Tech is too widespread in lower leagues, reducing the diversity of play there massively. The reason is that Tech is actually hard to beat with non-Tech if you are not already a pretty experienced player.  If all you do is play Tech vs Tech, you won't even discover a huge part of Rivals as a new player. This is bad for the new player experience, and bad for the experience of 90% of Rivals players who are in lower leagues. Some data to corroborate my claim: I had a look into C&C TV and counted how many decks contain Tech units:
• Tiberium League: 24 of 60 decks
• Master League: 44 of 60 decks 
• Diamond League: 56 of 60 decks
• Platinum League: 56 of 60 decks
• Gold League: 59 of 60 decks
2. The argument that "you can easily beat tech" is flawed. Good players can beat many Tech players because they are better than the opponent and make fewer mistakes. But good Tech players like NaturalSky are hard to beat. And even tournaments see more Tech play nowadays, as you know the map in advance and can chose Tech decks for fitting maps. As you can see below in the video, the best players in the world chose Mammoth, Avatar and Artillery decks High Tiberium league the only part of Rivals that is mostly tech-free because Tech is bad on some maps, so not ideal for mixed map pools on ladder. That's why many top players, playing in High Tiberium league, might underestimate the problem that Tech is for the vast majority of players.
3. Playing against Tech isn't much fun. It too polarized. Your first job is to prevent the opponent from delaying the game. Your second job is to prepare for the first tech unit to come out. If you don't do your job well, you have often lost the game.
4. Tech play isn't "just another playstyle", it's a worse playstyle. Real-time strategy games live from the interaction between players (micro and decision making under pressure) and good real-time strategy games have the option of counterplay at any stage of the game. Tech often takes this away, as esp units like Mammoth allow little counterplay. In "aggro vs aggro" games, there's nearly always a way to fight yourself back from a disadvantage. Against many Tech decks, there isn't. This is not a good experience for players.

Tech. Tech everywhere!

How to nerf tech? Two options that are often suggested are:

1. Roll back the Tech buff from the July balance patch that made the Tech Lab / Temple of Nod cheaper.
2. Nerf the strongest Tech units that allow the least counterplay. This would be especially Mammoth Tank, Artillery, and to a lesser degree Zone Troopers, Sandstorm and Avatar. 

The issue is that both even might not be nearly enough to tackle the amount of tech that is played in lower leagues. That's why I'm for one of the three following, more radical options:

1. Nerf more Tech units beyond the ones that are also very strong in tournament play. Yes, this makes them even less viable for tournaments or the top of the ladder, but I would prioritize the needs of the lower leagues here. Tech is not needed in high Tiberium.
2. Major rework of Tech, where the Tech Lab / Temple of Nod are possibly even cheaper (e.g. 60-70 cost), but all the Tech units are "scaled down" significantly, e.g. with -40% hitpoint / damage reductions and -25% cost reductions (numbers possibly should be very different, these are just illustrative).
3. My secret favorite: Rework the Tiberium economy. Currently, the Tiberium income significantly accelerates throughout the game. This could e.g. be capped, so that there is no further acceleration after 90 seconds. This leaves the ability untouched to bring out your first tech unit, but makes it harder to "spam" tech units afterwards.

For as long as Tech isn't nerfed, we all have to deal with it.

Why Razorback should be nerfed

The Razorback is a stronger version of the Chem Buggy in that it's more survivable, more maneuvarable and is better at holding/capturing decks. It dominated the recent Smackdown Tournament. The winner, srpss, certainly is one of the best players in the game. But if you watch the games, you see the Razorback's strength. For this, Omeleet did a great video where he combined and commented the Razorback videos from this tournament:

Omeleet's video on the Razorback in the Smackdown tournament

Razorback is often compared to the Chem Buggy, as both are 60-cost anti-infantry specialists with the raider ability (i.e. moving while shooting). Why is the Razorback much stronger than the Chem Buggy?

• Razorback about the same hitpoints, surviving two full bike volleys. Yet, air hitpoints are much more valuable compared to vehicle hitpoints, as ground units can be engaged by a wider range of units (and if just for chip damage), and ground units can be blocked easier
• Chem Buggy can move through your own units with Raider, but Razorback can do that also with opponent units. Thus, it's much more manveuverable at engaging and escaping. This makes it e.g. much better against snipers, as can be seen in the third game in Omeleet's video.
• Being air also, it allows the Razorback to better capture/contest pads, as can be seen in the first game in Omeleet's video.
• Factory anti-air units usually carry a lighter punch compared to factory anti-factory. As Nod, you e.g. need Bikes, and they are weaker against Razorback than Scorpion Tank is against Chem Buggy.
• Speaking about Scorpion Tank: Knowing that your opponent plays Chem Buggy gives you the option to deliberately put in Scorpions and/or Laser Drones as effective counters. The Razorback does not have such an effective counter. Phantom doesn't even one-shot it, and has trouble engaging the Razorback often, as the latter is sorrounded by other units (e.g. Missile Squads) that damage the Phantom and prevent it from finding a free hex quick enough to fire it's volley on the Razorback
• Lastly, it's synergy with GDI commanders is higher than Chem Buggy's synergy with Nod commanders. Jackson is better than Oxanna, as the latter makes the already vulnerable Chem Buggy even more squishy. Liang is very good with Razorback, as Razorback being fast air can often escape with low hitpoints and heal back up behind the lines
• Razorback works better with Mammoth as a superunit, by flipping out Droneswarm in the classic "Air Mammoth" deck. Mammoth already is stronger than Avatar, and Avatar / Factory play doesn't have a comparable synergy to the Air Mammoth deck (as it's better to combine air with a ground-based super unit). You can see this Razorback-Mammoth deck being shown in the above video at timestamp 11:30.

How to nerf Razorback? I think the issue is that it's beefy, fast, air and high damage at the same time. I'm not sure what the best nerf would be, but I would start with either a damage nerf, or a hitpoint nerf. Rather small nerfs in the order of magnitude of -10% on either hitpoints or infantry damage. In addition, a vehicle damage nerf seems a good way to at least reduce it's versatility a bit.

What's your view? Discuss on Reddit.

Omeleet's balance suggestions

Omeleet made a number of sensible balance change suggestions in a video he just released. If you have the 7 minutes, I recommend to watch it:

Omeleet's suggestions:

1. Reduce Jade Catalyst base damage
2. Reduce Liang HP (and reduce their % health but increase base health)
3. Reduce Fanatic vehicle damage
4. Increase speed of Shock Troopers and Flame Troopers (or reduce their cost to 30)
5. Increase Shatterer speed, and in turn reduce the stun duration

I do like all of these suggestions. 

#1 is pretty unanimously shared by most players right now, as it's too easy to win with Jade even without actually getting Chem clouds onto the opponent's base. Jade decks like this can make it quite possible to win first missile, and then the Jade player has plenty of time to kill the base -- either with one big cloud attack, or with some catalyst missiles and some additional damage from other units. Nerfing the base catalyst damage still leaves the "get Chem Troopers or Buggies to base" a strong threat, but makes it less viable to just spam catalyst missiles and phantoms on dual harvester.

#2 is a fair suggestion. Key criticism of Liang is it's ability to steal pads too easy. A big change to the mechanic is unlikely, so a hitpoint reduction at least makes it easier to kill Liang quickly in these "missile flip" scenarios. Also, I like the change to make the base heal stronger (good for low-HP units) but reduce the % heal (bad for high-HP units like Sandstorm, Mammoth Tank). 

#3 is probably fair, but I don't have that much experience playing Fanatics myself. But the sentiment seems to be shared by a number of top players.

#4 is supposed to make Shocks & Flames generally more viable, as they have pretty much disappeared from both the Nod meta and GDI meta. I'd prefer the speed change over the cost change personally. The meta repercussions of more shocks would be interesting to see. E.g. I'm curious whether it would be good or bad for Tech. On the one hand, it makes Rifle/Militant pad stalling potentially less viable (as Shocks would usually be accompanied by Dogs / Wheels as openers), on the other hand, e.g. competent Infantry/Air stalling might even benefit from opponent's shocks as they cost more. And Tech players who opt for some more expensive units to stall might get a more powerful tool with Shocks. 

#5 makes a ton of sense to me. Shatterers need to get in position quickly enough to have a role to play in protecting e.g. MLRS or generally fighting Marauder/Grenadier. And balancing a speed buff with reducing the stun effect sounds wise.

Thanks, Omeleet for sharing your thoughts with us!

Balance Patch September 2019

Hooray, EA is talking to us again, both on Reddit and in the App! And the came up with another Rivals Balance Patch.

Buffs:

• Drone Swarm speed increased from 6.9 to 8 (nearly as fast as it was some time ago)
• Grenadier projectile speed increased by 25%. This means that the first shot hits quicker (and so does the EMP slowdown effect), so that it's harder for vehicles to disengage and move away/escape.
• Kane Obelisk health increased by +25%. Good change.

Nerfs:

• Scavenger speed significantly decreased frm 6.9 to 5.4, which is now slower than Missiles and Lasers, which was their key advantage at least in Aggro decks that didn't need the Tiberium as much. I predict they will now just stick around in decks that want to get Tiberium, e.g. Artillery.
• Liang cost increaseI d from 40 to 50. Justified.
• Venom speed decreased from 9.2 to 8. I would have preferred a slight damage nerf.
• Banshee cost increased from 50 to 60, reverting a recent buff.
• Slingshot health decreased by 17%. This might be quite significant, as especially Mohawks might now have an easier time engaging with it. So blocking for your Slingshot (Liang drone anyone?) and having it in position in time becomes more important. Also might change the dynamics against Orca Bomber a bit.
• Chem Buggy damage reduced by 10%. As the chem clouds stay, this nerf is relatively small.
• Mammoth Tank decreased by 8%. I like this change. Mammoth might not have been technically overpowered, but Mammoth is just not a fun unit to play against, and lower level players struggled immensely against it.

Overall a reasonable patch, and I agree to 13lade that this might bring back the Suzaku APC deck built around strong Droneswarms, and make the Nod 2-2-2 around Venom-Banshee much less attractive. Recommend to watch 13lade's video on the balance patch as well:

August Balance Patch #2

Not even two weeks after the last balance patch, there's another one. Again without any in-app message to inform the normal casual players that don't read Reddit, follow Captain Benzie, or read my blog.

So, let me put this straight first: Dear Devs, it's not just highly unprofessional not to communicate your balance changes to the players. It's also highly disrespectful. You don't seem to care whether someone painfully learns about a nerf or buff whilst playing, costing her or him a frustrating loss. This is absolutely inexcusable, as it's a very low effort to post the existing patch notes into your in-app messaging system.

Now, to the balance changes:

Nerfs:

• Cyborg & Zone Trooper attack speed halved, damage doubled. This is a revert of a previous change from July. It's a nerf in practice despite nominal DPS staying constant, as especially against infantry (and GDI Drone Swarms), the higher attack speed is really useful.
• MLRS Infantry damage decreased by 34%. This is a significant nerf and surprises me, because even before this change, a single Missile or Laser Squad could walk up to an MLRS and easily kill it.
• MSV Reload boost time reduced by 50%. This is another MLRS nerf (there is no other vehicle with reload time). I am confident that it would have been better to just do this nerf. Without the MSV, I never heard anyone ever complain about the infantry damage of the MLRS.
• Shatterer speed reduced from fast to average. Significant nerf, as the key matchups against Grenadiers and Marauders are heavily dependent on defender's advantage, so getting into posiiton quickly is crucial for the shatterer
• Chem Buggy vehicle damage reduced by -25%.

If you read my blog, you know that I'm a big fan of Rivals and generally very positive about Rivals and the devs. But the non-communication around the recent patches really lets you doubt about the seriousness with which the development team approaches this game.

Balance Changes August 2019 – patch notes

These changes are live since a week. As I was on holidays, this blog post is a bit late. Apologies.

Buffs

• Banshee cost reduced from 60 to 50
• Stealth Tank speed increased from fast to fastest, hitpoints increased by +9% and cost increased from 90 to 100 Tiberium
• Orca reload time decreased to 9 seconds from 10 seconds
• Tick Tank cost reduced from 80 to 70 Tiberium and attack speed increased by +7%
• Jade Catalyst Missile cost reduced from 90 to 80 Tiberium
• Widow Maker air attack speed increased by +7%
• Flame Tank speed increased from average to fast, cost decreased from 110 to 90 Tiberium and structure damage decreased by -29%
• Basilisk turn speed increased by +66%
• Rock Worm speed increased from slow to average
• Avatar damage against vehicles +9%, damage against infantry +7%

Nerfs

• Nod Laser Drones attack speed reduced by 25%, vehicle damage reduced by 13% and harvester damage increased by 
• Artillery firing frequency reduced by -8% and damage to vehicles reduced by -20%
• Liang healing drone cooldown increased from 30 to 35 seconds
• Slingshot cost increased from 40 to 50 Tiberium
• Zone Trooper infantry damage reduced by -16%
• Scarab cost increased from 30 to 40

Nerf/Buff combined

• Solomon Ion Cannon damage now gradually decreases with distance from the center tile. This is a buff when you want to snipe a specific unit, but it is a nerf with regards to the damage to outer-tile units which try to dodge the strike

Thoughts on the patch

• Mostly, a sensible patch in my view. Especially the buffs seem all okay. Interesting to see how viable e.g. the Tick Tank might become.
• The Artillery changes makes it e.g. a bit easier to try to flank an artillery position with multiple tanks.
• Nod Laser Drone nerf seems too much. It's an anti-vehicle specialist and their vehicle DPS was nerfed by a whopping 41%! Yes, they were strong, but this is an unnecessary harsh nrf.
• The Scarab nerf is of course a bit ridiculous, as (at high-level play) they are one of the weakest units in the game. Yes, they might have been frustrating for newer players, but I'm in the camp that they are a good learning experience for newer players to teach them why it's good to scout and have some cheap unit in your deck. On the other hand, as they saw little play anyways, it's not really a relevant nerf.
• The biggest issue is that the patch was not communicated to players! Yes, Captain Benzie was sent the notes so he could make a video out of it, but that was it. There's tens of thousands of Rivals players, and Captain Benzie reached 2,700 views with his video. Yes, probably most active Tiberium league players got note of the patch through Reddit and Discord. But it's especially the newer players who were grossly neglected. For these newer players, Rivals can anyways already feel frustrating (as they usually play against higher levels). If then suddenly their units behave differently and they have no idea why, this is a big f***-up.  In my view, there is no excuse for this. The patch notes existed, and posting them through an in-app message would have been a (max) 30-minute job for the developers or product manager(s).

Video of the day

13lade is not just one of the best Rivals players, but also creates hilarious videos that showcase unusual strategies. I very much enjoyed this video:

Balance Patch July 2019 -- The Rise of "Tech Splash" and Nod Drones?

Just a couple of days after the last patch we get more balance changes.

If you prefer video, and some additional analysis, I highly recommend 13lade's video on the patch:

Buffs:

• Tech Lab cost reduced depending on the number of other buildings you have. It now costs 150 Tiberium, which is up from 120 Tib. But the cost is reduced by 30 Tib for each other building you already have. Means Barracks into Tech lab, the effective Tech lab cost is identical. But now 4 buildings might be viable, and then the Tech lab would only cost 60 effectively!
• Hammerhead attack speed +6%
• Wolverine vehicle damage +27%, air damage +11% -- might mean that it now beats Pitbulls again?
• Zone Troopers & Cyborgs double attack speed and halve damage to air and vehicles. If this is not a typo, their DPS against air doubles. If it is a typo and air damage is also halved, it's just relevant against GDI drones. Which seems questionable as drones were nerfed independently already.
• Centurion 
• attack speed doubled
• vehicle damage halved -- this means it's better against squad units like Wheels & Dogs
• infantry damage reduced by a third -- this means it's DPS vs infantry is now effectively up 50%, considering the attack speed
• Confessors +12.5% air damage
• Nod Laser Drones +25% attack speed, +15% vehicle damage -- so compound +44% DPS! This is gigantic. Harvester damage was reduced by 6%, but even that is still higher due to the attack speed buff.
• Phantom now has 4 rockets with roughly the same DPS, which is a buff mostly against GDI drones (now also vs Laser Drones, which might become more commonplace)

Nerfs:

• Pitbull is nerfed in a bit of a "hard to understand" way:
• "Charge delay increased from 0.1 to 0.75"-- if this is the delay to the first shot, this seems very significant
• "Attack Lock on Timer" increased from 0 to 0.75" -- this might mean the Pitbull will lose it's acquired target (seen with the red beam quicker if it doesn't stay in range
• Without testing, it seems hard to foresee how much it changes the typical situations, e.g. standard Bíke vs Pitbull fights, or Banshee vs Pitbull fights, or Orca vs Pitbull fights
• Scavengers attack speed -15%, hitpoints -13%

Both nerf and buff:

• Liang drone 
• Duration down from 30 to 26 seconds 
• Hitpoints +30%
• Healing to infantry reduced by 10%

Personal thoughts:

• Tech changes are interesting, and especially Tech units that are used as the single Tech unit (aka "Tech splash") will benefit, i.e. Sandstorm, Artillery, Mammoth, Avatar, maybe Kodiak/Basilisk. Interesting to see whether 4-building decks will be seen a bit more commonly now
• Yet, I do not agree with Captain Benzie that it's great that we'll see more Tech. I do like "Aggro metas", as the units are balanced better against each other than many Tech units are. So if you like micro battles, you like a diverse Aggro meta more than a "Tech Splash" meta
• Scavenger nerf is very justified. Hard to judge whether it's enough, but it seems reasonable.
• Pitbull nerf is hard to foresee just from the theory. Need to test.
• Nod Laser Drones buff seems very hefty, I'm a bit worried it might be a tad too much. Certainly enough that we might now see more Nod air decks!
• Inferno / Phantom already was very strong again after the hitpoint buff for Inferno. One weekness were GDI drones, which are now easier to kill for the Phantom. 
• The direct nerfs to GDI drones from the last patch, and now the indirect ones from this patch (Phantom, Zone Trooper, Cyborg) seem too much

Captain Benzie on the patch:

Mid-Season Balance Patch June 2019 -- GDI now needs to play War Factory?

A surprising Balance Patch was already rolled out to the Rivals app. CaptainBenzie already made a video on it, I embedded it at the bottom of the article. This is a quick summary of the changes. My source is the video, where the doc with patch notes is visible.

Nerfs:

• Drone Swarm: -27% HP, and speed decreased from Fastest to Fast
• Orca: Reload time increased from 8 to 10 seconds
• Orca Bomber: -12% HP
• Artillery cost up from 90 to 110

Buffs:

• Shatterer:  
• +58% damage (so kills beefier units with a single shot)
• -30% attack speed
• Infantry stun duration increased from 0.45 to 0.95 seconds
• Speed increased from Average to Fast
• Slingshot: Cost reduced from 50 to 40
• Inferno:+9% HP

Personal thoughts:

• Orca Bomber and Inferno changes seem very reasonable
• The GDI meta deck "Suzaku APC" was nerfed a ton by nerfing the two key Air units it leverages;  in my personal view, both nerfs might be over the top, as people over time especially got much better at dealing with drones. And I think most "Suzaku APC" deck users had lower win rates with it compared to their Nod decks
• Shatterer might now be very viable
• I personally will now test a War Factory heavy deck, but will use Snipers instead of Shatterer. Partly because of levels, partly because I think using Predator, Slingshot and Shatterer in the same deck will have weaknesses because each unit is strong against only one type of unit, and all have the same "armor type". So I will try Missile / Sniper - Dogs / Predator - Pitbull - Slingshot. Possibly with Jackson, just for the Predators. Liang is certainly also a strong option for Tank decks
• Pushing GDI out of air might be a strong indirect buff to Artillery; I feel the Borca prevalence was a key reason that not more players played a lot of Artillery deck. This is also what makes me feel the deck I described above might not be as great in practice. But let's see.

13lade's video on the patch:

Captain Benzie's video on the patch: