Who?
I am sorry but with you and Sel as company I would fear for your lives in any game with a remotly intelligent human enemy.
I also think you misjudge the amount of damage done to structures by wail. A wail powerful enough to destroy the important structures is more than enough to effortlessly wipe anything below caps. Now I dont know about how you "skilled" people calculate, but I would trade a few logistics for your carrier fleet any day. Especially at this stage of the game.
Yup 'Who?', I'm intrigued now... so who are you on ICO? If you have played much 5s at all since vanilla then its highly likely Ill know your tag(s), and you should know me. Always been BagsX and all the regulars can testify to my longevity and in-game play on ICO... I dont think insulting Sel is going to help you here either. 'Remotely intelligent humans' is the only opposition I play against, period, and while not amongst Aquias, JJs and HTs of the game, I'm not far down the list of player people want on their team.
But besides this you make my point for me. in essence..
" I would trade a few logistics for your carrier fleet any day. Especially at this stage of the game."
This is precisely why Wail was regarded OP on the first place, and why it has in recent months, been ruled out of the majority of skilled 5s (though we have been playing a few of late when there's been gentlemans agreement not to trigger wail if you pick AR, and a few games Slackah and others hosted for "everything goes fun").
The reason to play AR without Wail? A leveled up Eradica is one of the best fleet clearing titans in the game, but you actually have to take it to a fight unlike Wail.
Are AL better than AR without Wail? Maybe but the eradica is much more aggressive and fleet wiping titan, and that can make the real difference in tight games - though making vettes immune to Chaotic burst (I assume this happened?) takes that away from from AR, which is partly my other point in my original comment about vettes....
I am liking and playing AL more and more though because the culture buffs and allegiance change rates make offensive culture viable and fun to play in some situations. The Corona's titan and sb busting with that focused damage ability, and then the planet taking at level 6 is good value too. But fast fleeting with light frigs and vettes, backed up soon after by and Eradica to cookie cut you opponents frigs, still make AR completely viable and fun without wail.
I thought of another condition to Wail that may help convince me that its can be a balanced ability, if AR had to 'earn' their Wail damage by it it being only effective in opposition gravwells where they had dominant culture had reduced the allegiance to >30% or some such. Being that the ability is housed by the communion temples, the 'culture' race, should have to do better than just 'click' 'pop'.
There are two comments you made which scream troll or asshat...
Unless your ally has a fleet in range but then you shouldt use Wail in the first place under normal circumstances.
LoLWut? If wail is allowed in a skilled game, its the first thing an AR player goes for - every time essentially. It became so prolific it has been banned in skilled 5s most games, regardless of what you say.
If Wail is a unsolvable problem for you, than you are not skilled.
Eh? its not unsolvable. If you are scouting and see whats going on, then yeah you don't go into gravwells where it can be triggered on you. The solution to advance on an entrenched AR player then needs to be to contain them as best you can, hope they dont bring a leveled up up eradica to spoil your day before you have the gear to take it out, and then you pretty much have to have you or your team Nova the planets as you advance so the population cant be used to wipe you.
This scenario causes games to grind to a halt. It got to a point where many of us consider it plain OP both as a deterrent and a fleetwiping one clicker. Final Judgment will of course be reserved for the game play in the coming week, so make yourself known and join us... should be interesting.