Tech 1 Land Units | ||||
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Land Scout | ||||
Light Assault Bot | ||||
Light/Medium Tank | ||||
Mobile Anti-Air Gun | ||||
Mobile Light Artillery | ||||
Engineer |
Mobile artillery units | ||||
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Tech 1 Mobile Light Artillery | ||||
Tech 3 Mobile Heavy Artillery | ||||
Experimental |
Seraphim T1 Mobile Light Artillery: Zthuee | |
Amphibious mobile light artillery. Provides indirect fire support.[ e ] | |
Build costs | -180 -54 180 |
---|---|
Max health | 170 |
Speed | 2.7 (Hover) |
Veterancy | 3 (+1/s) |
Intel (radius) | Vision: 18 |
Weapon: Thuntho Artillery Cannon Artillery - Projectile |
|
Damage per second | 77 |
Projectile damage | 45 |
Damage radius | 1.5 |
Salvo size | 1(5) Projectiles |
Reload time | 2.9 seconds |
Range (min–max) | 6 – 30 |
The Seraphim T1 Mobile Light Artillery, nicknamed the Zthuee, is a Seraphim unit. It is an indirect fire unit. It is sometimes referred to by players as a "Fobo" due to perceived comparisons to other T1 arty.
The Zthuee does high area-effect damage at range, indeed the most damage for an T1 artillery piece, unit for unit. This makes an excellent tool in Seraphim arsenal and generally useful to produce throughout the course of most matches.
Tactics[]
- For more info, see T1 mobile light artillery.
If the enemy is unable to spare the attention to manage their units, a Zthuee can very cost-effectively take out T1 tanks and PD, as well as T2 tanks and bots. It is also effective at confronting T3/T4 direct fire land units, although due to complications with range this is more circumstantial. Finally, it is least effective at confronting anything that outranges it, such as T2 PD and T3 mobile arty. When engaging T2 PD, Mobile Missile Launchers will become more useful.
As an amphibious unit, it can be used to reach and harass most mass deposits on a map, negating the defensive advantage of islands and other areas protected by water. However, it is vulnerable to any Frigate when on water, as well as being vulnerable to other amphibious units, such as Aeon T1 Auroras.
Factional comparison[]
The Zthuee combines the best elements of the Aeon Fervor and the UEF Lobo, causing some players to nickname it the "Fobo" (an alternative explanation is that it is a "floating lobo"—there is no clear consensus which originated first). The Zthuee possesses the Lobo's fragmentation shell effect as well as the Fervor's high DPS, much higher than the Lobo or the Cybran Medusa. These traits, combined with the fact that it is one of the few T1 hover units, make it arguably the most powerful T1 artillery piece. However, it is a more expensive unit.
Being a hovering artillery unit, rather than a hovering tank, Zthuees can easily fire safely at high points and outrange point defense without having to directly face retaliation, compared to Aeon Auroras which can have difficulty in those situations. This gives the Seraphim an advantage of firing over terrain and hills on certain maps, such as on Haven Reef and The Dark Heart.
Trivia[]
The shell of the Zthuee can occasionally penetrate shields without having to take them down. If the point where the shell bursts into submunitions happens to be close to the surface of the shield, the submunitions materialize inside the shield and continue their trajectory unaffected by the shield (tested in version 3606).