Faction Ratings

Having played games for every faction, beta tested, and even worked with the command cards I have come with some ratings for each faction for their best and worst strength. Here are some categories that I have found important in the game.

Best Damage: Scourge
Hands down the best damage in the game. Low shot amount but every die is hell to deal with.

Most Resilient: Shaltari
Shaltari ships with shields up become more durable than any base 3+ ship. They can take more hits and crits than other factions and keep on moving.

Best attacks: Shaltari
Shaltari have the Disruptor. Hands down one of the best weapons in the game. Why? Well, while all it is, is a Heavy Mass Driver, the Shaltari have not only have the range but a Cruiser has the equivalent main weapons of a UCM Heavy Cruiser. Not the full damage potential BUT still the same normal damage of its two main weapons.

Best Bombardment: UCM
While the Shaltari have 2+ Bombardment as well on a cruiser that can actually hurt other ships with a CAW instead of bombarding sector's. The UCM have the cheapest Cruiser AND the Tokyo making them versatile in sector destruction.

Best Ground game: Shaltari
While the PHR can be considered for this category, the Shaltari simply have more tricks and ability to mess with their opponents. Voidgates can Max Thrust and drop (at the time of this post), Voidgates can Max Thrust and provide a Defense Battery fast than all other factions. The Shaltari can shift troops which in some games (Moonshot, Power Grab, etc) mean you can build forces for several turns in a cluster or station and suddenly overwhelm key areas while being more resilient to Defense Batteries than normal. (if you can't tell... I have an axe to grind against the Shaltnanigans of the faction)

Best threat Range: Shaltari
Once again the Shaltari. Shaltari have the best range. They are the only faction with a CAW cruiser that can touch your opponents table edge by T2.... Threat range is what I consider over movement.

Best Hull: PHR
Woo-hoo! They have one. The stories of survival that the PHR have on a single hull or those Medium sized Assault Troopships living on 1-3 hull where a UCM counterpart would of fallen is commonplace.

Best Launch: PHR AND Scourge
Ohhh this is hard... On one hand PHR have 2+ Lock but at max 24" and spread out between a lot of expensive hulls. While the Scourge only really have 2 hulls used but one is used more than the others. The Scourge top Shaltari here becuase of Scald. Scald makes the Scourge contend against the PHR.

Best Arcs: UCM
270° arcs with Heavy Mass Drivers are better than Disruptors.

What bests can you think of?


The worst of each faction... Remember, this just means they are the weakest of all the factions here.

Worst Durability: Shaltari
While they can take the hits they can survive the damage. Without shields this gets worse fast.

Worst Shooting: PHR
What more is there to say? Horrible arcs, weak attacks, horrible Quality of Firepower, worst CAW. The PHR fall under each faction here. Not necessarily horrible they are just weaker than other factions when it comes to shooting.

Worst Launch: UCM
24" Max Thrust, no special abilities

Worst Damage: PHR
Why PHR here? Well quality of firepower is a thing in this game. Being able to crit to bypass armor is very important and the PHR just don't have that capacity in the fleet currently.

Worst Hull: Shaltari
This is 50-50 to me. First off their cruisers can't distortion bubble, they still get crippled on 5 damage for cruisers but 9 hull means they go down fast.

Worst Bombardment: Scourge
Bombardment frigate... 'nuff said.

What other worst do you think there are?

Well:

Best Weapons: UCM BTLs

Best spike management: Scourge

Best Special Frigate: Calypso PHR (only with experimental rules)

Thats it for the moment

Well:

Best Weapons: UCM BTLs

Best spike management: Scourge

Best Special Frigate: Calypso PHR (only with experimental rules)

Thats it for the moment

Hmmmm Viper Super Heavy is the best damage sure but I don't know Scourge Phalanx is damn strong. So is the CAW

Worst balance: Shaltari

Worst balance: Shaltari

No argument there. It is not balanced against anything though it is sort of like off center where the rest of the factions are more centered

No argument there. It is not balanced against anything though it is sort of like off center where the rest of the factions are more centered

Quite disagree, there are a few issues but the hate against Shalatari is also often a thing simply carried over from DZC to DFC. They have a sub par internal Balance like PHR (in particular before the experimental rules).

Though like in DZC Shalatari benefit most from a tournament setting, in this case due to their flexible bombardment. Also the first (some time first few) times people play against them they appear stronger then they are as they require a different approach.

Overall I would rate Scourge and Shalatari equally on top regarding faction strength, with the Scourge having an edge against Shaltari in particular thanks to the FAQ that let´s Scald reduce shield saves.

Quite disagree, there are a few issues but the hate against Shalatari is also often a thing simply carried over from DZC to DFC.
Also the first (some time first few) times people play against them they appear stronger then they are as they require a different approach.

I have to agree, the Shaltari function differently enough that they are intimidating and your normal strategy may not work against them. The way Shaltari are built and play also comes with a lot of drawbacks that are not obvious from the other side of the table. You might look across the table and see 15 gates (to 10 landing capacity at 1500pts) and call it ridiculous, but if you try playing Shaltari in a meta with plenty of corvettes and you'll quickly realise that 15 gates isnt a comfortable number and you will want more.

IMO the nerf in the current experimental rules to the Amethysts needs to be undone, as does the Diamonds points increase. If the diamond is being targeted for nerfs because its compared to the under performing PHR Herc, then dont nerf the Diamond but fix the Herc.

To play the game of the thread tho.
The single best unit in the game is the Lima, hands down.

I'm not sure there is a strongest faction, all can be built to be competitive and its largely a matter of the local meta as to which faction shows strength. But in my experience Scourge are stronger than Shaltari (I play both) but the right lists of PHR and UCM have every chance to take home the gold as well.

No argument there. It is not balanced against anything though it is sort of like off center where the rest of the factions are more centered

Quite disagree, there are a few issues but the hate against Shalatari is also often a thing simply carried over from DZC to DFC. They have a sub par internal Balance like PHR (in particular before the experimental rules).

Though like in DZC Shalatari benefit most from a tournament setting, in this case due to their flexible bombardment. Also the first (some time first few) times people play against them they appear stronger then they are as they require a different approach.

Overall I would rate Scourge and Shalatari equally on top regarding faction strength, with the Scourge having an edge against Shaltari in particular thanks to the FAQ that let´s Scald reduce shield saves.

How to explain. I don't think I am a bad player, I like to think I am at least a decent player but every time I face the Shaltari, win or lose I always feel as it is an uphill battle. Against a player of less skill they are able to use the faction to make up for that. For players of equal skill, I am stuck against a wall that is hard to surmount and it is not player skill that makes the difference.

It is like playing against the Eldar in 40k or Necrons, that feeling of never having the ability to beat the tricks you are up against.

As it stands, I don't think my ratings are off.

No argument there. It is not balanced against anything though it is sort of like off center where the rest of the factions are more centered

Quite disagree, there are a few issues but the hate against Shalatari is also often a thing simply carried over from DZC to DFC. They have a sub par internal Balance like PHR (in particular before the experimental rules).

Though like in DZC Shalatari benefit most from a tournament setting, in this case due to their flexible bombardment. Also the first (some time first few) times people play against them they appear stronger then they are as they require a different approach.

Overall I would rate Scourge and Shalatari equally on top regarding faction strength, with the Scourge having an edge against Shaltari in particular thanks to the FAQ that let´s Scald reduce shield saves.

I haven't faced Shaltari in Dropfleet yet, but I play them in Dropzone. (So far, I've been using Scourge in Dropfleet)

I think a lot of the hate on Shaltari in both games stems from the fact that they're the "break the rules" faction, and play a very different game than any of the other choices. In my opinion, that kind of radical shift leads to a lot of frustration to players that are not used to them, or have trouble adapting.

I don't think it indicates the presence, or absence, of a balance issue in the game, but it can lead to a bad experience for newish players, if their early games are all massive one-sided losses vs. an opponent they can't figure out.

Of course, my most frequent opponent has chosen Shaltari for Dropfleet, so I'll be experiencing it for myself before long.

IMO the nerf in the current experimental rules to the Amethysts needs to be undone, as does the Diamonds points increase. If the diamond is being targeted for nerfs because its compared to the under performing PHR Herc, then dont nerf the Diamond but fix the Herc.

They were nerfed becuase they out preformed EVERYTHING ELSE. The Amethyst was the absolute bane of the battlefield. It still is but it can't quite destroy a Cruiser so easily. It is still the only CAW ship in the game that can hit the backboard by T2 with utter ease and if done right, a group can destroy strike carriers before they can get to Atmosphere.

The Diamond still out preforms the Heracles. The reason why is becuase it has 3 shots to do so. The Heracles is 2 shots that do 3 damage a pop. More dice favor a higher crit chance.

The reason why the Diamond took the hits it did was becuase they were needed to balance that ship. It was an auto include in every list. Now it is a strong choice with some drawback

To play the game of the thread tho.
The single best unit in the game is the Lima, hands down.

Ehhhhhh. I guess but at the same time they only provide a small boost and once you are in the heat of it they don't really matter.