The Gryphon vs Dragon debate

I've had a few discussions lately on wether Terrans should use Gryphons or Dragons. I'll list some pros and cons for the unenlightened:


Gryphons:

Pros:
- Universe ETA 7 (Biggest pro right there)
- Slightly more efficient vs CR
- Targets DE, which makes them useful for Terran/Zik defense

Cons:
- Targeted by more than half the ships in the game (27 out of 45)
- Armor and agility are average at best
- Do not target BS, leaving you defenseless vs them.
- Completely and utterly useless on attack.


Dragons:

Pros:
- Targeted by only 12 out of 45 ships, and several of those never see action.
- Insanely cheap and plentiful armor (although a 5 year old could hit it blindfolded)
- Targets BS, as the only ship in your fleet (Chimeras do target BS, but relying on random fire to get BS is just ridiculous)

Cons:
- Universe ETA 9
- Useless against 75% of all attacks since pretty much only Cathaar attack with CR/BS (Terrans attack with Wyverns, but their ETA is too low for you to get there tick 1)


Now, the question is, which of these Pros/Cons should count more? Without a doubt, the ETA one is huge. ETA 7 means you can defend against a Cath fleet in universe as late as _3_ hours after their launch. On the other hand, the Dragon will still get there for tick 1 if the def call gets out fast enough, which it should. (NOTE: Assuming overburn on Gryphs and Dragons)

The targeting... this is a double edged sword. The Gryphon without a doubt has more useful targeting most of the time, since DEs are quite a bit more plentiful than BS. And even fewer of those BS are a threat to Terrans. The problem is though, that if you do not build Dragons, you don't have a SINGLE SHIP that actually targets BS. That could prove to be a problem, depending on what fleet compositions will be the most popular. You also should have lots of Wyverns to target DE already, as those are far more efficient than Gryphs at that job. I'd say the Gryph has a small advantage here at the moment though, since BS rarely are sent on attacks vs Terrans. (I see Guardian as the biggest candidate here, to make it harder to get def for the CR. However, if you can make a big enough dent in the CRs before the Guardian shoots, the attacker will never land. Scorps are worse though, since they shoot first. EMP never scared anyone away from defending though)

Survival skills... this is where the Dragon makes a really really strong entrance. Dragons hardly ever die. Lets look at the popular kill ships that actually _target_ Dragons (I'll ignore random fire, since the low BS:"other classes" ratio makes it pretty much irrelevant): Dragons, Buccaneers and Broadsword. That's it. The other ships with BS as T1/2 are hardly ever used. Your dragons are never used against Xan anyway, and rarely against Zik fleets with Buccs in, which pretty much means there is ONE threat in the game ... other Dragons. Gryphons on the other hand are targeted by everyone and their mother, including many ships they are sent to defend against (Pegs, Cath fleets w/Guardians, Zik DE fleets). Thus, your Dragon fleet will be a lot cheaper to maintain than your Gryph fleet, resulting in a bigger and healthier fleet overall.

I could make a big point out of the fact that Gryphs are slightly more efficient vs CR too, but since they die/get freezed a lot more, they end up killing the same or less than dragons in an average battle. (Once again, Tarantulas and other T3=all ships do not fire at Dragons. Ever. Almost.)


In the end, I'm very unsure of what to make. Gryphons are useful in more situations, but require a very high upkeep. Dragons are amazing at what they do once they get there, and "Dragons are for ever" Perhaps my alliance will prefer me having more versatile and faster Gryphons ... but eventually the Dragon fleet will end up with a lot more "oomph" unless I neglect other parts of my fleet to keep the Gryphons online. For now, I think I am making Dragons. I think. They are safer for someone that might end up oversleeping and losing his entire FI/CO fleet to a Peg attack. But my mind is not made up.

What are your opinions?

[Al_zz]

Against DE you use wyverns. So against BS you use Dragons. No need to build a single gryphon then.

[MAdnRisKy]

ziks don't use buccs?

ZIKS DON'T USE BUCCS??!?!?!?!

let me rephrase, you don't attack with gryphons, because they'd open up a class to get wacked, and you don't attack with dragons, because the eta would be more than just a pain in the arse, it'd be the difference between a successful attack and a failed attacked.

so dragons are only going to be for your own defence, gryphons in contrast might be for others too.

next point.

gryphons can be used for an fr attack on cathaar (laugh now, but actually cat over do de protection and don't get enough fr on average) dragons can't.

dragons are ONLY for defending yourself against cat cr attacks, I honestly can't see another reason for them. and tbh with the ammount of harpies in a terran fleet they'll get hit not the gryphons, plus gryphons are about as hard to hit for a cat cr fleet as dragons are, hence in that useage they're just as useful as each other. Now add to that, the fact that any cat cr attack will have bs in it, so the dragons will never hit the pods, and we see a small problem here.

the honest answer is, against cr, gryphon > dragon.
that's on paper of course, and you'd have to be prepared to spend on gryphons which most people aren't, to make them useful, most people might build say 2k gryphons against 100 - 200 dragons, and in their head think that that's the same, when it isn't.

gryphons are good against zik de fleets (they don't get hit by them much) they're good against cat cr fleets they're good against terran de fleets. dragons are useless against all of these (other than that they flak your wyvern from the bucc, which btw does mash them up nicely)

IMO - Dragons will hardly every leave your planet, let alone the Gal, as for Overburning a Dragon fleets.... you had better init a whole heap more E roids
You need enough to discourage other Terrans using Wyverns, but thats about all....

Gryphons on the other hand, WILL be used over and over again, they have the speed to get where they are needed and target ships that you need to target......

If I were your alliance, which would I prefer, 80% effecient Gryps arriving in time to fight or 100% effecient Dragons chugging across the universe and missing that critical first tick.....

Harpie is the only usefull ship (low eta) terran really has that can help allies. Gryphons get raped before they can fire. I dont know how can someone defend himself against peg hordes with gyphons. Against cruisers, specially cath ones gryphon is very good, but terrans dont that often get hit by caths. Dragon all the way, build harpies, they'll help ur allies more than gryphons.

Good responses, mostly

Al: That makes no sense. Might as well say "Against FI you use Pegs, so no need to make Harpies". More is better.

Mad: Where did I say Zik don't use Buccs? I know Buccs are awesome. I just said you won't see them in the same attack fleet as something Dragons can target very often.

I agree with most your points though. Remember that Dragons CAN be used for defending against CR fleets in universe, because of overburn. Your "conclusion" is absolutely correct. Gryphons are better on paper, but they require a lot more dedication and upkeep to keep going. I didn't see you address the issue of BS if you have no Dragons though. I'd like to see a full conclusion from you, on what you would actually do.

Hardrada: No, Dragons are not more expensive to ship around than Gryphons. Remember you have to send 28,67 Gryphons for each 1 dragon, making the Gryphons actually slightly more expensive to send. You won't have to overburn Gryph fleets so often though, so they will be a bit cheaper to ship around anyway. Eonium doesn't seem to be a huge problem this round though. Btw, who attacks Terrans with Wyverns? What's the point? You'll just be chugging away at their harmless Pegs.


I still feel the dilemma hasn't been solved. Gryphons are more efficient and versatile, but require more upkeep, and leave you without BS defense. Dragons are slow and far less versatile, but they hardly ever die.

Still not made up my mind, so keep the posts coming

Originally posted by Bad Society
Harpie is the only usefull ship (low eta) terran really has that can help allies. Gryphons get raped before they can fire. I dont know how can someone defend himself against peg hordes with gyphons. Against cruisers, specially cath ones gryphon is very good, but terrans dont that often get hit by caths. Dragon all the way, build harpies, they'll help ur allies more than gryphons.

Hm, doesn't make much sense. First of all, Gryphons get flak'ed by fighters, which is why they are moderately useful against Pegs. That is just a bonus though, we really want them for the CR defense.

The part where you make no sense is where you tell us "Harpies will help our allies more than gryphons". Indulge me. When my allies are under attack by a Cath, Terran or Zik(DE), how will my harpies help them more than gryphs? Of course you make Harpies, I always said you should. But you'll soon be found lacking if all you can defend against are FI/CO/FR fleets.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally posted by Elerion

But you'll soon be found lacking if all you can defend against are FI/CO/FR fleets.

I disagree. With the very large number of Xans this round, i think there will be a very large demand for anti-FI/CO ships. Just idling in my alliance's defence channel proves that. Harpies also happen to target FR, which means that they are useful against Cathaar FR fleets (which many are this round). With their higher EMP resisitance than most(all?) other Fighters, Harpies can stand up against Beetles, and are of course not targed by BW.

If you use Wyvern as your personal DE/FR defence, and/or send it to help allies defend as well, then there is no need to build Gryphons (apart from the obvious anti-CR). With the option of overburning (and cheaper/more plentiful E roids), Wyvern are actually very effective defensive units - rarely will attacking fleets target BA, and even fewer people will expect to get defended by BA.

Borrowing Broadswords from alliance / galaxy mates is extremely more efficient at killing than using anything the Terrans have, thus i wouldnt waste resources into it. In addition, Cath CR fleets are quite rare, thus Broadswords (or bombers, heh) will be easy to comandeer.

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie


Smart stuff

Hm, point taken. I guess it's just a personal pet peeve of mine to try and be able to always help. And tbh, I've seen the Cath CR defense calls having trouble amassing enough defenders lately.

However, on the plentiful Cath FR fleets, I think that is mainly an issue of many Caths not getting their CRs up and running yet. On our target scans lately, I see 80% of all planets being extremely vulnerable to the CCR fleet. I certainly would be using it if I was Cath. This will all be fluctutating with the trends in the universe all round though. If FR fleets become the norm, then CCR will rock. If every Cath uses CCR again, then FR fleets will slip through the defenses. This is slightly off topic though

So if I understand you correctly, you are saying you would not bother with CR defense at all!? Or would you build Dragons to have the cheapest and most durable defense?

This is confusing me, cause I seem to remember reading your posts praising Gryphs lately, or was that atomic?

[MAdnRisKy]

he was saying he wouldn't bother with any of it and rely on swapping ships with his gal / alliance mates.


Btw my conclusion to the terran problem was to go zik but I doubt that's of any help to you

the general conclusion has been harpies > phx, but I agree with what you said to Bad society, I have no idea why that's relevant to stoppng cr de fleets

What Ultimate newbie missed was the effect of overburn fleets. If you go offline, people will have a pop, they have done at me, and they do thatbecause they see a HUGE gap in your own defences.

Whilst an eta 9 fleet will usually find you coming online whith time to spare, there will be a day when you don't and you can BET that'l be the day someone tried their luck (it was with me grrrr), so you need SOMETHING.

I tell ya, when I get pms from people saying "only thing I have against cr is dragon" I tend to shoot them, because that's just ZERO use to me when I'm trying to arrange cover for the latest casualty in my alliance.......

As I said the only race to use BS would be terran or cat, terran using wyvern (I ca assume only to make you run) and cat to hold down masses of FI and CO (and slaughter your fr) whilst their CR roid you. Dragoons are better against the terran, but worse on the cat, and the cat will be more frequent, so i'd go gryphons and borrow bs def from elsewhere.

[mikay]

What about chimera as an option?

I ment you shouldnt rely on small terran ships to stop capital ships. Caths have their roaches/defenders
Xan have their bombers and sents/pulsars
Ziks have their fighter swarms and sabres
Terrans have... nothing really

I doubt caths want to attack u if u have lots of dragons, but they dont mind freezing/killing ur pathetic gryphons with scropions/BW/WM/guardians. Ziks with DE(pegs) and cutters eat them too.

Dragon might not be the best against CR, but it sure hell do waste cath BS and wyverns without trouble or huge chance of getting shot down.

As I said before, harpie is the only good small ship althought that wasnt the point, sorry.

mikay, Chimeras are not a good option because they are rather inefficient, and because focusing on them leaves you wide open to BW roid fleets or Guardian heavy CCR fleets. I much prefer using specialized ships to handle assignments instead of using inferior T3=all ships.


Bad Society: Gryphs are very efficient vs CCR attacks. Scorps will be wasted on your harpies, BWs really shouldnt be in a CCR fleet, Widowmakers will also be wasting their ammunition on the same harpies the Scorps have already frozen. Guardians are a problem, I'll admit to that, but if you can make a large enough dent in their CRs before the Guardians shoot, the Cath should never even land.


I have decided to go Gryphs for now. If I end up having to put too many resources into them, I'll switch to Dragons and have my Gryph fleet go down in flames. Although I am convinced Dragons are better for self-defense, the versatility and ally friendliness of Gryphs make them more useful in my book. Time will tell though.

[Parthos]

Simple. Build both.

Gryphons for alliance defense—token defense against DE and decent defense against CR.

Dragons for home/ingal defense. Nothing keeps cath CR and terran wyverns away from your planet like a few dragons.

I did this last round and don't think I ever had mantis or bs incoming. Throw in a bunch of wyverns for DE/FR and harpies for FI/CO/FR, and your bases are basically covered. When you limit what your enemies will want to attack you with, the battle is half won.

yup
Harpies-pegs-wyvern-dragon is all u need. U dont have to build gryphons for ur allies. Just build masses of harpies and they already cover two pod classes and with all these xans flying around harpies r more usefull.

[black-eyed boy]

Originally posted by Elerion
mikay, Chimeras are not a good option because they are rather inefficient, and because focusing on them leaves you wide open to BW roid fleets or Guardian heavy CCR fleets. I much prefer using specialized ships to handle assignments instead of using inferior T3=all ships.

The best solution to your problem are chimeras, mikay is right indeed.

Rather inefficient? Only just a bit more inefficient than gryphons and dragons. Leave you wide open for BW attacks? Hehe build dragons then to protect yourself from those nasty BWs

If you build dragons / gryphons in reasonable numbers (like 20-25% of your fleetscore) you'll just make yourself an easy target to Co and Fr fleets. And if you don't, you just won't be killing enough to stop the classes you're aiming at.

Just spend all resources you save for anti-cr/de defence on chimeras and you'll have a lot of them. Having a lot of them gives you a good Fr roiding fleet in addition to your peg fleet too. Why deny this option?

If I was terran, I'd go for harpies / chims / pegs fleet..

Originally posted by black-eyed boy

If I was terran, I'd go for harpies / chims / pegs fleet..

I would add Wyverns to add anti De/Fr punch to your Peg roiding fleet...
Personally I would build a few Dragons too, but I'm Xan this round so for me Frigates are a "Capital Ships"

must dash..... more Fi to build...

[MrPubes]

i would leave out gryphons of my fleet.
they would be the only co in your fleet, and heavily targeted.
ofc you cannot send dragons to your mates very often, but this would be the only reason to take gryphons.

dragons are always flaked by wyvern, have a great armor, and are relatively cheap.

[Eddie_V]

harpy/pegs/demeters/wyvern/dragon

coveres all classes.. all done

I only have 1 def fleet so getting gryphs and harpies would mean that one of em would always have to stay home. I think my alliance would be better of with the double ammount of harps.

if someone gets CR/DE incomming go bother a xan or a cathaar, ir it is FI/CO/FR come to me

[MAdnRisKy]

Originally posted by Eddie_V
harpy/pegs/demeters/wyvern/dragon

coveres all classes.. all done

I only have 1 def fleet so getting gryphs and harpies would mean that one of em would always have to stay home. I think my alliance would be better of with the double ammount of harps.

if someone gets CR/DE incomming go bother a xan or a cathaar, ir it is FI/CO/FR come to me

you may well be right, that the end solution is neither, or actually the answer is chims, but never mind that because the "correct" answer is accademic in this case, the thread was about gryphons versus dragons, and if you were going to use one, which one?

I notice you say you'll build dragoons, since you won't ever attack with them, and you won't defend with them,why are you building them? seems like wasted score to me...

[Parthos]

You guys are right. I take back my gryphons comments; I was stuck in r7. This round there are so many pulsars and sentinels flying around that defending against DE is a snap. I should know, I haven't landed a raid in over a week heh. And with so much fi/co being sent on attack, putting those resources into harpies is indeed so much more useful.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally posted by Parthos
I haven't landed a raid in over a week heh.

just a week? that all? heh :/

I landed one fleet in the last coupla weeks, and that was becasue i didnt get on to recall it. Needless to say it died tick 1, the defender getting 10x the number of ships that i had (no corsairs too :/).

i'm now finding out what people mean when they say that CO are overtargeted ... When i am looking at caths i see endless Spiders and BW (along with beetles), when looking at Ziks i see htousands of Marauders and Thieves and Cutters (all bad). With Terrans, waaay too many of them have Chimera, shielding their Pegs from fire and thus slaughtering my FI :/. Do i need to mention Xan vs Xan?

sigh.

[Benneh]

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie


). With Terrans, waaay too many of them have Chimera, shielding their Pegs from fire and thus slaughtering my FI :/.
sigh.

Yep, I love Chimera.

Not only good with the Target all, they shield my pegs to at least badly hurt the attacker.....

[Eddie_V]

Originally posted by MAdnRisKy

you may well be right, that the end solution is neither, or actually the answer is chims, but never mind that because the "correct" answer is accademic in this case, the thread was about gryphons versus dragons, and if you were going to use one, which one?

I notice you say you'll build dragoons, since you won't ever attack with them, and you won't defend with them,why are you building them? seems like wasted score to me...

well I am not building to many dragons, most of my resources go to wyvern/pegs and harpy

I just like having a couple dragons to keep wyverns away from my place and in a lesser degree tara/mantis. also I use em ingal if needed, but yer right never defend with em outside of my gal and I have not yet attacked with em, and I do not think I ever will..

just consider them as my own private "movable" PDS :P

[Silva baby]

Gryphons are pathetic
end of story i despise them i rather build roaches or ue pulsras from my alliance quite simply pathetic Gryphons.
Dragons are worth building for a cath gal m8, quite simply as aCAth myself i will never build defenders cause they are utterly crap and dragons are the best ingal defence there is for a cath

Originally posted by Silva baby
Gryphons are pathetic
end of story i despise them i rather build roaches or ue pulsras from my alliance quite simply pathetic Gryphons.
Dragons are worth building for a cath gal m8, quite simply as aCAth myself i will never build defenders cause they are utterly crap and dragons are the best ingal defence there is for a cath

again a guy that cant read the stats and think of them :-)

defenders have more use then dragons, much more. and any defence for a cath is great, any1 who is one knows that, coz most of the time we freeze the biggest parts of our enemyfleets only need some ships to make him loose more then ourselfes. even if you are attacked by much bigger planets, you often dont need very much (coz they have to look at their own cap, for a decend cath fleet most of the planets need more ships then they would need for other races), so any kill and exspecially steal ships are great helping the best defenders (dont mean the ship this time ) in the universe, they dont need dragons to scare a attacker, any ship that targets the enemy are great, no matter what type.

and plz, look at the defender stats again, we had several threads in here about them, you will see that beside the eta they are one of the best out there targetting all capital ships, more or less effectively but still, if you freeze 80% of the pegs with some roaches a terrans wont be happy if there are some defenders as well in the fleets, both having the eta you need to be there in time without wasting eon for overburns). defender are underrated very often, but you dont have to build them, but its no waste doing it. if you have to much metal, the best thing to do in my opinion.

[Kileman]

The whole point of building Dragons/Gryphons is to stop Cathaar attackers. So why bother building something they can easily freeze?

As for Chimeras... they can also be easily frozen by a cath, but have a tendency to be owned by wyverns But id definetly build them over gryphs.

As for defenders.... theres no point comparing 2 ships between
different races, each to there own etc. But for BS def, defenders are the only option for cath.
________
Ge honda hf120 specifications

[Silva baby]

Originally posted by Hurz


again a guy that cant read the stats and think of them :-)

defenders have more use then dragons, much more. and any defence for a cath is great, any1 who is one knows that, coz most of the time we freeze the biggest parts of our enemyfleets only need some ships to make him loose more then ourselfes. even if you are attacked by much bigger planets, you often dont need very much (coz they have to look at their own cap, for a decend cath fleet most of the planets need more ships then they would need for other races), so any kill and exspecially steal ships are great helping the best defenders (dont mean the ship this time ) in the universe, they dont need dragons to scare a attacker, any ship that targets the enemy are great, no matter what type.

and plz, look at the defender stats again, we had several threads in here about them, you will see that beside the eta they are one of the best out there targetting all capital ships, more or less effectively but still, if you freeze 80% of the pegs with some roaches a terrans wont be happy if there are some defenders as well in the fleets, both having the eta you need to be there in time without wasting eon for overburns). defender are underrated very often, but you dont have to build them, but its no waste doing it. if you have to much metal, the best thing to do in my opinion.

the entire point of being Cathaar is to freeze things and not lose your cap. Unless you are using defenders as a complete defence ship with no use during attacks its completly useless. I am not saying that defender is a bad ship, its a useless ship in context of a cathaar fleet. Sure its the only anti bs class ship in the cathaar fleet but when a terran attacks you more or less likely its going to be pegasus and wyverns etc.. the only ships that can do anything about them is roaches properly. you say freeze the enemy fleet for 80%. 80% of say 2k pegasus which if my mind is awake should be about 1600 pegasus, thats still 400 pegasus which um kill quite alot of figthers plus the dementers are still caping your roid sat the same time. Unless you are a huge huge huge Cathaar i fail to see the point of Defenders~ i rather build alot of scorpians and Tulas which can also flak mantis or pods
works both way much better

[thomas4]

Originally posted by Elerion

Dragons:

Pros:
- Targeted by only 12 out of 45 ships, and several of those never see action.
- Insanely cheap and plentiful armor (although a 5 year old could hit it blindfolded)
- Targets BS, as the only ship in your fleet (Chimeras do target BS, but relying on random fire to get BS is just ridiculous)

Cons:
- Universe ETA 9
- Useless against 75% of all attacks since pretty much only Cathaar attack with CR/BS (Terrans attack with Wyverns, but their ETA is too low for you to get there tick 1)

heh first of all i think u would b 2 ticks l8, eta 8 sent -> tick goes, eta 7 and then u send ure dragons eta 9. But seriously, were u planning on using them as defence other than ure own planet?

thats like...... insane imo.

As stationary def they're good yeah, cuz they also protect u from most BS threat ( the races that send BS in attackfleets have no good Bs defence themselves ). U can use em on ingal def ofc.

But certainly if u are planning on building phx too, build gryphons.

Dragons r essential tho, the discussion is just the ratio in which to build them towards gryphons.