You're dramatically underestimating the impact of that armor reduction.
Possibly. But if the current trend holds up even a massive nerf to armour is not going to keep them from doing their job to the point of near invulnerability.
If you kite the enemy you can easily keep the attrition rate to an absurdly low amount once you string them all out in a long line and then 'roll' them up by suddenly changing direction and running along the line popping ships like orvill redenbacker pops corn. Seriously, I totally steamrolled a mk V post border world to the ai core with a thousand ships. And I was just a hair away from killing off the core command station using the same force. But ok we will see when the next patch hits and I try it again off the save.
What difficulty was that on?
Sound more like teh Core worlds got less defence then it sould rather then the unit being too powerful (mind, I have not tested the next iteration of FF beares yet). But the armor reduction should go quite some ways to lower thir effectiveness.
Difficulty 7 with an entrenched homeworlder and the tank. I'm only doubting the effectiveness of the nerf because the outcome is so hilariously one sided atm. And as far as the effectiveness of the core defences welp those several thousand cockroaches that spawned kinda put the defence into overdrive and was the only reason I didn't kill the station. Without the latest expansion enabled I would probably have toasted it in seconds. ;p
Simply put ff bearers are the current god unit of the game. So if you play a game without them then all is well but if you play with them or unlock them its pretty much a win by default. But I will install the newest patch and load it up to see how it goes.