Balance Issues for 2.1 *UPDATED*

[Indrid]

If they didn't stack they'd be pointless.

Not sure why ~4 towers are seemingly giving damage immunity (bug?), but why didn't you destroy them with the Manticore? Or something else? They go down very easily. Unless the damage mitigation also applies to the towers themselves, which would be another issue. It's hard to comment properly without a replay... these are screens from the replay, so where is it?

Either way, this is a beta and issues are expected. It's not polite to demand things from volunteers like that ("I want this addressed NOW"), you are welcome to go back to 2.0.10 and be free from beta issues. You can just run over them there.

[Helios]

Here it is. It's only the first game where the screenshots came from.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Byov7bY ... pnSjA/edit
I didn't get a chance to save the second game (It was played on Medean Cliff Mines) And who cares why I didn't (or my teammate, it was him who was squaring off against the nid player) didn't destroy the towers.
1. This is a serious bug that has to be looked into regardless of how to deal with it game-wise because of the sheer fact it's BROKEN
2. The player isn't simply going to let some one walk to towers and destroy them. He massed Terma's and Venom broods for the synapse with brood nests backing up his army. And they can't be pushed off because, once again, they take zero damage.
3. Yeah i'm going to waste a whole manticore volley on a single tower that, thanks to the stacking red generation, will probably be back up by the time my volley is ready again (It takes a whole volley because it is light_building armor) At some point I WILL be forced off to heal and reinforce back at my base for some unknown period of time. In this time he can finally get several towers up and abuse the bug.

And no, I can't go back to 2.0.10 since no one plays that anymore. Every time a new beta build is out, everyone gets it for the new set of changes.

[Indrid]

I can't access the replay unfortunately, no permissions.

1) Yes obviously.
2) You combat the towers by taking them down whenever you see them, perhaps the cooldown is too short and it makes it too easy to get many up quickly if you've stockpiled the red. I think they should reward a player for dominating an area, not winning a single engagement and pushing off your opponent. Not sure what the cooldown is off-hand.
3) Well according to the screens you were at 95/100 pop, you should have had plenty to go in and wipe out the towers very quickly. Yes you would have taken attrition and maybe have had to retreat (hard to tell without the replay) but you'd have destroyed them all.

You seem to have more against the towers than just this apparent damage resistance bug, or you would have simply reported the issue and moved on instead of ranting about red generation. The generation is 18 per minute iirc, so you'd need four towers up to generate enough red for a single tower in just over a minute. They are not very efficient for that, it is also assuming that you are not using red for anything else.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

tower cooldown is between 30 seconds to a minute from what i observed.

[Helios]

Try downloading the replay now. Unfortunately, as I already mentioned, the severity of the issue isn't really seen in this replay. The second game I played, where my teammate used an orbital bombardment and all the nid units didn't even suffer a scratch would have been a better display of how broken this is.

[Lulgrim]

That just sounds like the normal OB effect in retail...


EDIT by the way - the forum allows uploading attachments so you can put replays straight here. Nothing wrong with Google Drive either, of course.

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

More things in Beta 2.1.1 Beta 5

GK
- (not sure if intended)GK Dreadnought with Inferno cannon melts base turrets in 4 hits. Not mention the genfarms.
- The GK Dreadnought don't have unit indicator, IIRC, and also don't have any additional mark with the inferno cannon, plasma cannon... upgrades.

Chaos
- GUO death explosion don't do any damage to vehicles, or at least, against GK Dreads.
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About infestation, according the ELITE wiki, infestation gives 25% suppression resistance, 5% damage mitigation and 0.3 Biomass per second (18 per minute)

If with 4 you have damage inmunity, it seems like there is a bug with the numbers and actually gives 25% damage mitigation instead 25% suppression resistance.

[Caeltos]

The Infestation Pillars got changed with the supression effect iirc. It won't stack and make them immune anymore.

[Indrid]

Just tested the Infestation towers with Floid, they are indeed borked bizarrely. Termagants seem to get damage immunity with two towers.... but not every time? Other units seemed to get little or no damage resistance. It also seemed to give some kind of HP regen buff, more than Nurgle worship.

Weird. I suggest that you agree before your games that they are not used atm.

Tyranoformation could do with some buffs/fixes. The 20 second speed buff didn't seem to work, and the damage is small for something that is so pinpoint and easy to spot. 175 per tower...

In T3 the towers are just not survivable enough to be worth it for the buff, since you can just walk over them. I don't think it's terrible (unlike Floid!), just nowhere near as scary as the other nukes. Players will rarely panic and retreat out of a Tyrano, and will often just try to dodge the towers.

[Lulgrim]

What if Tyrano capillaries were uncrushable as well? It does cost 500 GR, seems a bit weak that you can just walk them down (especially as the actual nuke effect is not that great).

[Eerie]

Just tested the Infestation towers with Floid, they are indeed borked bizarrely. Termagants seem to get damage immunity with two towers.... but not every time? Other units seemed to get little or no damage resistance. It also seemed to give some kind of HP regen buff, more than Nurgle worship.

Weird. I suggest that you agree before your games that they are not used atm.

Tyranoformation could do with some buffs/fixes. The 20 second speed buff didn't seem to work, and the damage is small for something that is so pinpoint and easy to spot. 175 per tower...

In T3 the towers are just not survivable enough to be worth it for the buff, since you can just walk over them. I don't think it's terrible (unlike Floid!), just nowhere near as scary as the other nukes. Players will rarely panic and retreat out of a Tyrano, and will often just try to dodge the towers.

In my opinion increasing the damage output is the best option. It's easy to spot, dodgeable and doesn't really do much damage on hit anyway, so even being hit doesn't necessarily trigger retreat. Make it deal something between 200-250 per tower.

[Caeltos]

After a 4 second delay, 7 Capillary Towers begin to erupt from the ground. The center tower emerges first, doing 300 explosive damage in radius 7. The three towers in the right and lower quadrants do 300 explosive damage in radius 10, while the three towers in the left and upper quadrants do 50 explosive damage in radius 7. All towers do ability knockback on emerging and emit a synapse in radius 45, affecting non-Warrior and non-hero allied Tyranids (increasing ranged damage by 15% and reducing received damage by 15%). 120 second cooldown.

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

IIRC also the Capillary Towers do insane damage against structures (instantkillling they and of course all the squads that were in) and turrets/bunkers....

[Indrid]

After a 4 second delay, 7 Capillary Towers begin to erupt from the ground. The center tower emerges first, doing 300 explosive damage in radius 7. The three towers in the right and lower quadrants do 300 explosive damage in radius 10, while the three towers in the left and upper quadrants do 50 explosive damage in radius 7. All towers do ability knockback on emerging and emit a synapse in radius 45, affecting non-Warrior and non-hero allied Tyranids (increasing ranged damage by 15% and reducing received damage by 15%). 120 second cooldown.

The big changelist from retail says it was changed:

Tyranoform delay decreased by 1 second (yay)
Tyranoform main towers’ damage decreased from 300 to 175 (big nerf!)
Tyranoform now increases the speed of allied Tyranid infantry by 1 for 20 seconds in a radius of 40 from the targeting point (didn't seem to work)
Tyranoform capillary tower synapse ranged damage bonus increased from 15% to 25% (yay!)

Or were all of these changes reverted?

EDIT: Derp.

[Lulgrim]

Tyranoform delay decreased by 1 second (nerf)

Wut that's a buff... It hits 1 second sooner

[Indrid]

Oh right, derp.

[Indrid]

So current bugs/issues: (not balance)

- Kasrkin only give 3 red on kill, should be 12-15 imo (I assume this is not intended)
- Kasrkin need grenade icon
- Lictor Alpha does not drain energy on infiltrate
- Infestation towers are not working as intended
- Paladin/GK Term Incinerator is orange flame and not blue (intended?)
- Baneblade gives 90 red on kill, all other super units give 120 I think. (intended?)
- Aura of Discipline visual effect remains after you equip a new accessory, not sure if the healing/buff effect also remains (was noticed when the CL equipped Emperor's Wrath)

Are there any more?

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

Two quick visual bugs. from beta 6

- Chaos Terminators are still using the chaos_powerfist instead the chaos_terminator_powerfist.

- Paladins still aren't visible in the Army Painter.

[dance commander]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Tdread fotm nerf, was this really necessary for such a slow vehicle and chaos only decent av? The Tdread did not change at all from retail, it actually got a price increase, and even then suddenly since the mod all chaos players started using it, doesn't that tell you something?

With the change to bloodletters and plague marines you are forced to get this vehicle out now, since havocs are underperferoming in that regard (any reason they still have the upgrade animation? they used to upgrade faster than other lascannons once but now that everyone upgrades just as fast what's the point?)

[Caeltos]

You're wrong on alot of points.

The Mark of Tzeentch receieved actually abit of a improvement on it's ability useage, whilst still remaining the ordinary cost prior to the price cut in retail. So in an essence it's cost performance and performance is different from one another.

The problem with MoT-Dread is that it's extremely strong both mid-late game against all vehicles in the game. It's chasing potential with it's 100% fotm is one of the most lethal chasing-anti vehicle walker in the game. It needed a retuning.

The Havocs Lascannon, which I'm surprised nobody caught on, for some oddball reason. Is that they have a faster fire ratio now. It was made in compensation for some of the AV-Changes. They're actually quite lethal, just ... well, never utilized. You can make them fit into a army comp fairly easily ontop of the roster-changes.

Their upgrade time has remained unchanged, and so has every other race Lascannon counterpart as well. So I'm abit confused over that incorrect statement.

[dance commander]

It doesn't really change anything I said about chaos AV being uneffective caeltos...

The improvement you mention is nice...I guess, doesn't change the fact that no one is going to get the Tdread for its anti infantry abilities, they take it for the av.

It's strong against all vehicles? Of course it is it's a damn anti vehicle upgrade, is it no supposed to be? Also how is a dreadnought able to chase vehicles? Come on now...
You do realize the tdreadnought now is pretty much a wraithlord with a brightlance? Just with shitty melee and less health, also costing more, but that's fine I guess, it has an ability.

They may have a better fire rate, but as it is now it's not effective, I'll elaborate on this in a bit, first I would like to mention that the upgrade time thing I mentioned is not incorrect as you say, it was something that was changed in retail, I was just asking why it's still like this, since all lascannons have a 10 second upgrade, the havoc one being stuck in its silly animation that doesn't let room for surprise, or reaction to a vehicle, or mobility for that matter, when other set up teams av can just stand there being a continuous threat because of the sudden upgrade, same applies to the predator, used to upgrade fast, now everything upgrades just as fast, predator still stuck being obvious of what you're going for.

Now the havoc lascannon is not effective not because the unit itself is bad but because of how chaos av is now, set up team av just work as a deterrent to be used with other soft av, but when your faction doesn't have soft av, except for dedicated units it doesn't really work, once the vehicle is dead you'll be stuck with two units being basically useless, like havocs and plague marines, since pm cant fulfill their role as meat shields anymore, or even be effective av on their own, their av damage is negligible and don't have the staying power to get it through like they used to be, couple it with one less av unit on the roster (bloodletters) no av on heroes (except for the plague champion, wich is effective only against walkers at best) or other units, you're stuck with the only choice that can actually be a real threat to vehicles (tdread) without having to get multiple dedicated units that will become useless if the vehicle is dead, and more importantly, that will set you back greatly in terms of tech.

I don't think there's another faction other than grey knights forced to backtrack to their t1 units if they want effective av in t2 if they went for anything other than their set up team, going for raptors or even noise marine (because of how unreliable their blastmaster is) is like begging for a walker in t2.

tldr, chaos lacks versatility on some of their standard units like other factions, asm are still useful with their melta, so are stormtroopers or warp spiders, brightlance, venombrood, catachans and all the heroes that have effective av upgrades, the list of units fulfilling multiple roles goes on, ironically chaos from having what was considered the best av in retail is now tied up for worst along with gk, this faction has more dedicated units than eldar, hell even raptors have to become a dedicated av unit (in t3 lol) to get the meltas bombs.

[Caeltos]

Where to begin...

The improvement you mention is nice...I guess, doesn't change the fact that no one is going to get the Tdread for its anti infantry abilities, they take it for the av.

That sounds like an extremely narrow perspective on it's overall utility. It's main attractive-point is certainly it's AV-potential, but making it a comparison to the Brightlance Wraithlord made me almost stop reading. It's not like the Wraithlord has a splash on it's projectile.

The unit itself (TDread) is meant to be an overall-blob punishment with anti-vehicle potential. It's cost is meant to reflect it's performance as well. With the barrage being slightly improved furthermore gives players the accessability to diminish and punish blobs. This works in particular very well with Khorne Havocs if synergized propertly. Just because it can't chase and kill vehicles as good doesn't make it "useless", it's a performance decrease, which I'm standing behind as it was to good.

It's strong against all vehicles? Of course it is it's a damn anti vehicle upgrade, is it no supposed to be? Also how is a dreadnought able to chase vehicles? Come on now...

Again, simplistic and narrow/tunnelvision perspective on the matter. On actual games, you could back up the Tzeentch Dread fairly exceptionally well. Vehicles would get caught off-position, and have little to no means of any escape. Whilst punishing for off-positioning is certainly an aspect of the game. The punishment and reward coming from the TDread was the highlight value of it.

Coming even in team-games, where lascannons and slows are commonground, you would have little problem dealing with any vehicles, regardless of almost how many are fielded with just the synergy between slows, and the chase+damage potency of the TDread. Always why the Plague Marine duration was slowed, because with those two together, they would have extremely strong potency together and more or less diminish the useage of any vehicles completely, making certain strategies completely obselete. It was utterly ridicilous and way to strong. I just don't think people genuially tried to find the neccasary combination of the two roster, but coupled with the rest of a fairly standard Chaos t1/t2 composition, you would have a field day.

But no, it's not a Wraithlord Brightlance comparison even to begin with. They're two distinguishable and different units, and just reading the comparison makes my head hurt, just because they share a trait of chase-AV potential doesn't make them an identical unit.

They may have a better fire rate, but as it is now it's not effective, I'll elaborate on this in a bit, first I would like to mention that the upgrade time thing I mentioned is not incorrect as you say, it was something that was changed in retail, I was just asking why it's still like this, since all lascannons have a 10 second upgrade, the havoc one being stuck in its silly animation that doesn't let room for surprise, or reaction to a vehicle, or mobility for that matter, when other set up teams av can just stand there being a continuous threat because of the sudden upgrade, same applies to the predator, used to upgrade fast, now everything upgrades just as fast, predator still stuck being obvious of what you're going for.

This seems more like an issue with people not branching out. The MoT Havoc is actually one of the strongest AV-unit. If the unit isn't good, that can also translate to people not really incorporating them into their builds really well, or their strategies. If vehicles are an issue, then how does not one of the fastest-hard hitting no-windup lascannons NOT deal with the issue? The issue is mindboggling, esp since Chaos has such good turtle-and cover-up for Infantry/Heavy Infantry come into T2. Turtle-strategies for Chaos T2 is one of their strongest aspects.

Again, I don't understand the lascannon change with build. HWT Lascannon upgrade was unchanged in it's upgrade time, so was the Mark of Tzeentch Havocs, so was the Devastators. The only lascannon change was in T3 for vehicles. But I don't even see why they should be mentioned. You bring up both unit correlations, setup teams, predators and misc. stuff. However initially only the HWT team was the one of the concern that you brought up. Altho I don't see what predator lascannons with their build has anything to do with Mark of Tzeentch Havocs underperforming?

I don't think there's a faction other than grey knights forced to backtrack to their t1 units if they want effective av in t2 if they went for anything other than their set up team, going for raptors or even noise marine (because of how unreliable their blastmaster is) is like begging for a walker in t2.

I dont' see how backtracking is even a bad thing? Several races backtrack to deal with vehicle threats at times. SM, IG, Eldar(Brightlance) and sometimes orks with Beamy Lootas. You could pitch in and throw Havocs in there for good measure, but again- this seems abit bias on the perspective on AV-utility. Grey Knights AV-options are far greater now, taken into consideration that Purifier Justicar has heavy_melee, and that with good support, they're quite lethal against tanks/transports, but should still reconsider engaging walkers, which is a intended counter-product unit.

tldr, chaos lacks av on their standard units like other factions, asm are still useful with their melta, so are stormtroopers or warp spiders, brightlance, venombrood, catachans and all the heroes that have effective av upgrades, the list of units fulfilling multiple roles goes on, ironically chaos from having what was considered the best av in retail is now tied up for worst along with gk.

Well, again. You would have to look into the development and resource-pooling that is essential for these races to deal with a specific target. Chaos goes for an economical more advantage t2 to ensure the field of AV-production unit, whereas some other races can field the neccasary AV-productive from their earlier-stages, but requires more economical funding to ensure that straight-line of counter-production wargear requirement. For an example, Missile Lanchers would be a specialized wargear, making them significantly less versatile in their performance, compared to Mark of Khorne/MoT CSMs which enhances their utility aspect more then a mere-wargear cost.

This is even something that was set-in stone by Relic as Chaos-race fundementalist ground-up design. Chaos is more specialized, whereas Space Marines are more generalist-type of an army counterpart. If you don't specialize your army to synergize with each other, it will fall apart very easily. But once you've filled every shoehole of weakness, they gradually become stronger. However, this also makes unit losses for Chaos in particular quite nasty, and can cause quite a penalty of you lose a key-unit that is designated to counter a specific target. Whereas once the SM army snowballs, they've genuially got some means to deal with multi-targets, just not as strong as a specialized one.

I do however find it quite funny how you compare "standard units" and bring up Warp Spiders, Venombroods, and various T2 units. It's not like Chaos has any of those? Bloodcrusher//Plague Marines sprungs to mind.

I seriously would reconsider the "worst AV" thing tho, it's SERIOUSLY not THAT bad. Espicially not in the later-stages of the game, where I would even give Chaos AV-options almost the crown-jewel. Hell, I'd say it's far better off as it is now then the retail-version where going vehicle against Chaos would be a complete death sentence for yourself.

[dance commander]

That sounds like an extremely narrow perspective on it's overall utility. It's main attractive-point is certainly it's AV-potential, but making it a comparison to the Brightlance Wraithlord made me almost stop reading. It's not like the Wraithlord has a splash on it's projectile.

You're right, it has splash on its melee weapon, also doesn't suffer melee unit like the tdread does, how is their av different from each other because the tdread has splash on its missiles? does the ability affect vehicles?
When I compare it to a wraithlord I don't obviously mean how they deal with infantry, but how they deal with vehicles, wich the wraithlord is not exactly known for.

Just because it can't chase and kill vehicles as good doesn't make it "useless", it's a performance decrease, which I'm standing behind as it was to good.

I never said it's useless, please don't put words in my mouth.

Again, simplistic and narrow/tunnelvision perspective on the matter. On actual games, you could back up the Tzeentch Dread fairly exceptionally well. Vehicles would get caught off-position, and have little to no means of any escape. Whilst punishing for off-positioning is certainly an aspect of the game. The punishment and reward coming from the TDread was the highlight value of it.

So the reasoning behind this was that people shouldn't be punished if they actually play badly?
Please explain.

If vehicles are an issue, then how does not one of the fastest-hard hitting no-windup lascannons NOT deal with the issue? The issue is mindboggling, esp since Chaos has such good turtle-and cover-up for Infantry/Heavy Infantry come into T2. Turtle-strategies for Chaos T2 is one of their strongest aspects.

Did you actually read what I said here:

Now the havoc lascannon is not effective not because the unit itself is bad but because of how chaos av is now, set up team av just work as a deterrent to be used with other soft av, but when your faction doesn't have soft av, except for dedicated units it doesn't really work, once the vehicle is dead you'll be stuck with two units being basically useless, like havocs and plague marines.

As I said the unit alone only works as a deterrent, unless your opponent is braindead you're not going to kill even a transport with Thavocs alone and as I said you need other av to actually destroy the vehicle, av that chaos has in the form of dedicated av units wich become useless afterwards, except for being a deterrent against other vehicles, wich doesn't justify their cost and upkeep, also severely slowing the tech.

Again, I don't understand the lascannon change with build. HWT Lascannon upgrade was unchanged in it's upgrade time, so was the Mark of Tzeentch Havocs, so was the Devastators.

See:

It was something that was changed in retail, I was just asking why it's still like this, since all lascannons have a 10 second upgrade

Now, about:

However initially only the HWT team was the one of the concern that you brought up. Altho I don't see what predator lascannons with their build has anything to do with Mark of Tzeentch Havocs underperforming?

See

same applies to the predator, used to upgrade fast, now everything upgrades just as fast, predator still stuck being obvious of what you're going for.

When I say Same applies to the predator, I'm obviously talking of the predator on a sidenote, not about havocs.

I dont' see how backtracking is even a bad thing? Several races backtrack to deal with vehicle threats at times. SM, IG, Eldar(Brightlance) and sometimes orks with Beamy Lootas. You could pitch in and throw Havocs in there for good measure, but again- this seems abit bias on the perspective on AV-utility.

I don't know, considering the current meta revolving around reaching t3 as fast as possible backtracking to t1 units when other factions can do fine without the need to do that and going instead t3 seems like a disadvantage regardless of bias.

I do however find it quite funny how you compare "standard units" and bring up Warp Spiders, Venombroods, and various T2 units. It's not like Chaos has any of those? Bloodcrusher//Plague Marines sprungs to mind.

I don't understand this, aren't these standard units that can fulfill multiple roles? Warpspiders are great ranged anti infantry units, venombroods offer great support to a ranged army, or did you think I meant t1 units?

Also If you actually read my post you'll see where I mentioned that plague marines stopped being useful as meat shields, or being used as a method of obstructing other melee units, they are just good for slowing down vehicles now, since they can't even stay in there anymore to be a serious threat, I guess the increased bolter damage is nice? It changed it from being shit against non termi infantry to slightly less shit.

Also a bloodcrusher? really? you know better than me that the best they can do is scare off transports for a bit before being forced in a defensive behavior by pretty much even the most basic form of av, BC are almost as hard to keep alive as sentinels, let alone use them as av.

I seriously would reconsider the "worst AV" thing tho, it's SERIOUSLY not THAT bad. Espicially not in the later-stages of the game, where I would even give Chaos AV-options almost the crown-jewel. Hell, I'd say it's far better off as it is now then the retail-version where going vehicle against Chaos would be a complete death sentence for yourself.

Chaos doesn't have the worst av in terms of effectiveness, it's just that its av either forces them in predictable patterns, like eldar with plats, punishing you to backtrack if you go for anything other than havocs, or forces you to invest a lot in units that lose their purpose if the vehicle is dealt with, there's no middle ground and considering the current meta of tech rushing makes me say it's the worst av. The only unit that left you with some room for teching despite its cost, while also being a threat itself not to just have your vehicle damaged but to actually have to care about your vehicle to not be destroyed was the tdread, and that's not the case anymore, it now falls in the same category as other dedicated av used on its own, works fine by making your opponent be careful about his vehicles, but don't count on it to actually destroy anything.

Also I'm glad I'm entertaining you, at least I know there's someone here that cares.