Dude-reveals everything. No teasing please.

Here's the thing: most capitalships can deal 40-50 DPS with planetary bombing(that's before upgrades).  Against a 6000 HP planet Provoke hysteria deals 60 DPS.  Against planets with smaller HP it can actually deal less DPS then planetary bombing then unupgrade captialships bombing.  Add in the bombing upgrades and Provoke hysteria often deals damage to planets more slowly then basic planetary bombardment by the Revelation.  The revelation it's self deals 65 bombing damage/sec with it's weapon systems with planetary bombardment research(more damage per sec then provoke hysteria deals to a 6000 HP planet). 

The Icing on the cake: The vasari level 6 siege ability "drain planet" in addition to producing resources deals damage as fast as Provoke Hysteria against 4500 health planets and actually deals damage faster the Provoke hysteria against any planets with less health and can do so from a farther distance away.

Honestly I just feel that having ana llegiance drain would be far more broadly useful and interesting then the current effect.  it would synergize with advent strong culture, and even when there's no time/advantage to take a planet it could provide a nasty economic hit to the enemy before your fleet flees.

People assume that it's the best bombardment ability because it is % based(people like scaling effects), but in reality it's pretty medciore.  Honestly I think most of the non-level 6 planetary siege abilities are actually better as they can be used while bombing the planet normally(rather then being a channel).

Aye, though base stats alone aren't the solution methinks.  No advent capitalship can really take a bunch of punishment.  Part of the problem isn't just hat it's squishy but rather that it's only useful combat ability ends prematurely if the Revelation is forced to flee(can't think of other ships for which this is the case).  Frankly it needs enough survivability that the enemy thinks twice about focusing it to negate Reveries rather then choosign a softer target.  I think this would be difficult to achieve vai base stats alone

Meh, just seemed to me that very few advent ships really benefit from a cooldown redux, resulting in the general fleet synergy of this ship being lower then other possible choices.  It would be much easier to make the ship useful if it had a skill with broad usefulness rather then one that gives a stats bonus which is only really useful for a couple ships in the advent arsenal.

Doesn't Provoke Hysteria ignore bombing damage reductions, since it's not tachnically bombing, thus why it's better than regular bombing against fully upgraded planets, because no matter what it will deal that static 1% damage per second.

Exactly.

...unless you just love hearing the people screaming and suffering, then you use it on anything, hehehehe...

It's back by the time you're in position around the next world anyways.

Honestly I'm not sure.  But in the end that's just piling on another conditional. it seems to oniche to me for a ultimate that does nothing but siege planets deal more damage then it's basic bombing weapon systems only if the planet  has 600 HP AND the opponent has researched planetary bombardment damage reductions.

In all honesty a level 6 capital ship ability that does nothing but siege should IMO always deal more damage then the ship's basic weapon systems- the ability shouldn't require multiple conditionals just to beat basic planet bombing damage by a small margin.

This is true.  But it only highlights the problem more IMO.  IfRevelation is ever going to gain more general usefulness it needs mroe consistency in it's ult.  Having a niche level 6 ability which is stupid strong ina  single niche scenario(in this case a specific game-type) but kind of bad in all others isn't going to give the Revelation the general usefulness it needs.

The current design for the skill doesn't leave room for giving the skill general usefulness without utterly breaking the niche use you've highlighted.

My proposition however would make room for giving Provoke hysteria general usefulness, a bit of flexility, a more unique & thematic mechanic, and at the same time wouldn't break  the ability in this example(as the % planet health damage is replaced with allegiance damage per second).

Honestly if you have 40 seconds(current provoke hysteria channel length) and a few capitalships handy you're going to be able to bombard down the target world with weapon damage alone pretty easy regardless.  My proposition allows the Revelation to destroy low allegiance worlds substantially quicker, or if a world can be taken at least deal some significant economic damage before it retreats.

That said if people really wanted to keep the current mechanics, I could see it also working increasing the planet damage/population damage rate, but decreasing the channel duration accordingly(so the same amount of damage/pop damage is dealt over a shorter time period). While I like my proposition better, the key issue with the current implementation is just that the damage rate is rather meager even against high health planets.

Yeah, this is incorrect.  Most cap ships do 4-5 dps (even tho the info card says 40-50)!  Ten seconds for every shot or something.  Provoke Hysteria kills 1% per second, for a total 40% (so yeah 60dps for a 6000 health planet).

Provoke Hysteria IS the best seigeing ability against high population planets.  But it does have a fairly long cooldown.  And now Guidance will reduce the cooldown.  (Please see my old post regarding best seige at the link).

Please take note of Pbhead's earlier post.  Apparently Guidance has been improved over older versions.

Well then disregard most of what I said on provoke hysteria.  I was working under the assumption that the planetary-bombing stat on the infocard worked like every other weapon type...apparently I was mistaken.

I still find it annoying that Provoke hysteria only deals more damage then drain planet against 6000 health planets(equal or lower against all other planet healths), but this bit of information on planetary bombardment certainly makes provoke hysteria seem a great deal more worthwhile.

It would be nice to change the default auto-cast settings for provoke hysteria and clairvoyance.

I always turn off auto-cast for clairvoyance as it you don't know what system it was cast on.

I always turn on auto-cast for provoke hysteria - like stein220 i use PH on all planets; the long cooldown period isn't a problem as it's usually expired by the time you've moved onto the next system.

Or you could use your own scouts...

Something I posted elsewhere and I thought would be interesting was what if it could increase the range of abilities.  That might be a better buff.

I agree that it is the weirdest siege ship, but it's still part of the Advent, so it needs some synergy and since Clairvoyance and Provoke Hysteria clearly aren't going to supply this, that leaves Reverie and Guidance.  What I did in Rebalanced Races with Reverie was cause it to regen shield and hull at a moderate rate when used on an ally, assisting with Animosity+Vengeance.  Guidance I think could be great for synergies by amplifying the abilities of other ships, but how to amplify is what I'm curious about...  Range?  Target Count?

Umm..  The Radiance is a battleship..  Of course it's squishier...

Why would you ever use Reverie on your own ships though?  POH for instance heals/damages the ship in question depending on alliance.  Sure, Reverie takes the ship out of the picture longer which would be good for critical things (I forget, can it target starbases or titans?), but that doesn't explain why it can target allies.