Eldar Howling Banshees - Chase Potential

[Pandemic]

EXAMPLE OF BANSHEE CHASE DISTANCE. http://youtu.be/Dr5sfjK09AE?t=10m41s&hd=1

I'm curious on how this could be considered balanced i can't remember which replay i watched most likely one of Indrid's, but Howling Banshees are capable (with some abilities and globals) of chasing units literally half way across the map, how could this possibly be considered balanced?

They are very good melee units and have that suppression howl just to help out with their anti-infantry combat style, but being able to chase a unit that has something like 400hp across the entire map and with the globals and abilities manage to take him out in retreat.

No other unit in the game can do this as far as i am aware, What is the thinking behind banshees being able to chase across the map? could someone enlighten me how this managed to slip under the radar of what needs to be balanced?.

[Torpid]

Because they bleed a lot and aren't particularly useful on 50% of the maps in the game, at all in 3v3 and even in 1v1 they generally underperform unless you're a warlock with your mad tankiness + swift movement + warp throw. Banshees are fine, the warlock isn't, he's the lictor of eldar.

[HandSome SoddiNg]

Wasn't this settled ages ago? lol. You can stop Shees from chasing your units if you Halt them in their tracks or your allies managed to save your squad

[MaxPower]

Because they bleed a lot and aren't particularly useful on 50% of the maps in the game, at all in 3v3 and even in 1v1 they generally underperform unless you're a warlock with your mad tankiness + swift movement + warp throw. Banshees are fine, the warlock isn't, he's the lictor of eldar.

Sure banshees + gates are fine, or banshees + the farseers healing thingy, also fine. *sarcasm*

Don't make me laugh banshees are so strong if u combine them with like any ability eldar has.

[HandSome SoddiNg]

[/quote]

i Say Towers are more ridiculous then Gates
Keep in mind ,Shees are fragile . U be surprise Ork Sluggaz are even more resilient & efficient killing machines then Shees , Stack em up with UYC/AB/BBH/Boss pole with Painboy heal & Weirdboy and they really Penetrate through Eldar defensive buffs like flies

[MaxPower]

i Say Towers are more ridiculous then Gates
Keep in mind ,Shees are fragile . U be surprise Ork Sluggaz are even more resilient & efficient killing machines then Shees , Stack em up with UYC/AB/BBH/Boss pole with Painboy heal & Weirdboy and they really Penetrate through Eldar defensive buffs like flies[/quote]

but sluggaz + boss pole + painboy + weirdboy are way more expensive, so yeah they better be more efficient than shees + gates

[Torpid]

Max you don't play 1v1 and you only play SM so really that does undermine the value of your opinion on shees. If you had played eldar at a decent skill level on 1v1 and come to the same conclusion then I guess that's fine. I don't think banshees are problematic at all, in fact I think they're perfectly fine, they are closer to UP than OP, innately, webways however cause more problems, as does warp throw, autarch synergy and kinetic pulse.

[MaxPower]

Max you don't play 1v1 and you only play SM so really that does undermine the value of your opinion on shees. If you had played eldar at a decent skill level on 1v1 and come to the same conclusion then I guess that's fine. I don't think banshees are problematic at all, in fact I think they're perfectly fine, they are closer to UP than OP, innately, webways however cause more problems, as does warp throw, autarch synergy and kinetic pulse.

Okay, I'll end the discussion right here. Because If someone tells me that Banshees are UP said person is either not that good with banshees or biased towards 'em.

[David-CZ]

Shees are fine. They are like a granade. Misplace it and it will blow up in your face. But if you place it correctly its effects will be devastating. Basically what Torpid said.

No other unit in the game can do this as far as i am aware

Hormagaunts perhaps, or Sluggas when under waaagh?

[Torpid]

Horms are the second best retreat killer in this game since they have a passive leap which does damage (unlike stormboys/asm) and they are speed 6.5, they though cannot even compare to banshees since with fleet they get 8speed is it? It's a lot though and their damage is just so high, especially in t2. Then there is doom/guide/swift movement. Still, my point stands, banshees are fine for all the other flaws they and eldar have, just like sentinels actually.

More and more I find myself never buying sentinels and more and more I find myself never buying banshees. Avengers counter melee just as well - they get fleet and nades and they do better vs heroes since they don't bleed as much and they capture the map matter since they can cap under shields/retaliate against other ranged enemies while capping AND they are repair support and cheaper and of course they counter ranged units without bleeding via shields.

The same argument applies to getting GM over sentinels except instead of x bleeds more than y so I prefer y, the argument goes - sentinels take too much time to repair and so the bleed they manage to incur often isn't worth it as you would have way better MC and better scaling with more guardsmen instead of the sentinel.

This is all 1v1 I'm talking about.

[Pandemic]

Other races aren't really relevant to this discussion, the focus is on howling banshees, you can't justify them being able to chase a unit across the map and wipe it, especially if it retreats with about half of its overall health, retreating should allow melee units to get a few hits in and possibly wipe the squad, but they should be allowed to get away if that doesn't happen within a couple of seconds, they shouldn't be able to chase for like 15 seconds, its incredibly OP to allow them to chase for so long and potentially wipe a squad that could have escaped had they been unable to chase for so long.

Howling Banshees might be fragile but they are very deadly once they get into melee, but how does being fragile justify being able to charge literally across the entire map to wipe a squad that you assumed would get away with 400hp? sure you can counter them with a shotgun or something, but what if you don't have that unit currently available? the fact that the unit can straight out wipe your squad while it retreats with near enough half health just because you didn't have a counter ready is stupid, sometimes it's okay to lose a unit because you didn't have a counter but that should NEVER apply to retreating from just infantry units i can understand from grenades or a d-cannon or something but not bloody banshees, howling banshees are already good in melee, they don't need to be able to wipe a squad that retreated with about half health.

How the hell can that be considered balanced?

[Torpid]

Becuase they're unique in that way. You have to treat them differently to all other melee units, as you treat a sentinel differently to all other t1 ranged units.

In other news it appears if Riku si correct that the nerf to banshee's retreat damage that they were suppose to get a while back now may have not been implemented properly and so that is something that should reduce their effectiveness further.

[Raffa]

In summary, this is the issue I believe exists with Banshees:

You cannot engage them unless you are 100% sure you will win. Or you need to have an escape mechanism (eg shotguns) which you will probably want to use to push them off in the first place.

Their chase potential means you simply cannot get forced off against them. If the Eldar player has any way to turn the tide (yes channeling runes, guide/doom, ranger knockback, entangling web, etc. he will have something) then you are relatively, well, fucked.

Fighting Banshees goes into the same bucket as using your terminator teleport offensively - once you've done it, you have to throw everything into winning that fight because if you lose you are risking GG. Except you face the banshee problem from T1.

My question is do Banshees really need such a large charge range with such a low (nonexistant?) cooldown? They already close with units so fast and chase so well. Their charge combined with FoF lets them take off like rockets across the map.

If someone disagrees with this, please say so and explain because on this occasion I think I'm speaking for most people I play with not just myself

[David-CZ]

My question is do Banshees really need such a large charge range with such a low (nonexistant?) cooldown? They already close with units so fast and chase so well. Their charge combined with FoF lets them take off like rockets across the map.

Reducing their charge might have a great potential to solve this issue. They would be forced to fleet into the battle instead of using the FoF as the means of chasing retreating units.

@Pandemic:
If you know how to make them not do what you stated above without actually nerfing their fighting abilities a suggestions would be nice.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

having to use fleet to open every engagement sucks on a lot of grounds. unless you're charging for 10 seconds you're spending time attacking at 60% damage until it wears off. not to mention that not having a charge means they get kited all over. if you're going to nerf the charge it has to be in the form of a charge cooldown.

[Ace of Swords]

not to mention that not having a charge means they get kited all over.

This is the exact reason why they have warshout.

But beside this the damage reduction on retreating units is bad design, shees are made for punishing bad positioning, good flanking etc, perhaps the melee charge could be removed altogether or nerfed alot, while giving FoF a way shorter CD but also warshout an energy cost to prevent shees just going all over the map with fleet of foot.

[Uncle Milty]

you do realize that the Banshee's FoF reduces their taken ranged damage by 50%?
If you reduce its cooldown for whatever reason this might make them impossible to shoot down.

[Kvek]

you do realize that the Banshee's FoF reduces their taken ranged damage by 50%?
If you reduce its cooldown for whatever reason this might make them impossible to shoot down.

If they have the Exarch.

[Ace of Swords]

you do realize that the Banshee's FoF reduces their taken ranged damage by 50%?
If you reduce its cooldown for whatever reason this might make them impossible to shoot down.

It also makes them do 40% less melee damage, making them way weaker to melee.

[Lulgrim]

I'd be interested to see how tweaks to charge range/cooldown affect the retreat chase potential. I don't like the damage reduction as it breaks the general consistency of how weapons work.

[Pandemic]

@Pandemic:
If you know how to make them not do what you stated above without actually nerfing their fighting abilities a suggestions would be nice.

Nerfing their charge speed or charge duration might be an idea, or possibly prevent the use of the global speed increase on a howling banshee squad for about 5 seconds after FOF has been used and prevent FOF from being used with the global by about 5 seconds, this would probably cut down on the chase potential which essentially allows them to wipe units after a chase across the map.

I think the general idea might be just to tweak their charge speed/cooldown/duration and such for future updates and see if the devs can bring it to a more reasonable charge distance, I can understand allowing them to charge longer than any other unit in the game, but not for 15 seconds/across half the map.

[Faultron]

@Pandemic:
If you know how to make them not do what you stated above without actually nerfing their fighting abilities a suggestions would be nice.

Nerfing their charge speed or charge duration might be an idea, or possibly prevent the use of the global speed increase on a howling banshee squad for about 5 seconds after FOF has been used and prevent FOF from being used with the global by about 5 seconds, this would probably cut down on the chase potential which essentially allows them to wipe units after a chase across the map.

I think the general idea might be just to tweak their charge speed/cooldown/duration and such for future updates and see if the devs can bring it to a more reasonable charge distance, I can understand allowing them to charge longer than any other unit in the game, but not for 15 seconds and not so they can wipe an entire squad from half health just because of their abilities + globals, bad positioning so they have to run through the entire squad, fair enough, but not chase them from right behind the entire squad and wipe them from about 400hp of HI armor.

well in this case then u should nerf the global but not banshees:)

[Pandemic]

@Pandemic:
If you know how to make them not do what you stated above without actually nerfing their fighting abilities a suggestions would be nice.

Nerfing their charge speed or charge duration might be an idea, or possibly prevent the use of the global speed increase on a howling banshee squad for about 5 seconds after FOF has been used and prevent FOF from being used with the global by about 5 seconds, this would probably cut down on the chase potential which essentially allows them to wipe units after a chase across the map.

I think the general idea might be just to tweak their charge speed/cooldown/duration and such for future updates and see if the devs can bring it to a more reasonable charge distance, I can understand allowing them to charge longer than any other unit in the game, but not for 15 seconds and not so they can wipe an entire squad from half health just because of their abilities + globals, bad positioning so they have to run through the entire squad, fair enough, but not chase them from right behind the entire squad and wipe them from about 400hp of HI armor.

well in this case then u should nerf the global but not banshees:)

I suppose you could make that restriction only apply to banshees but at the end of the day if it is even possible to make a cooldown like that so the global can't be used with FOF i think it's needed since i don't see many other ways off the top of my head to make the Banshees less OP at chasing units at least not without making them worse at doing things they are meant to do.

[Faultron]

u cant stack the global fof with normal fof anymore

[Nuclear Arbitor]

I'd be interested to see how tweaks to charge range/cooldown affect the retreat chase potential. I don't like the damage reduction as it breaks the general consistency of how weapons work.

a charge cool down long enough for a retreating unit to get out of charge range at normal speed (1-2 seconds) would do a lot to prevent retreat killing and have little affect on general performance. charge duration might need to be tweaked. i suggested this the last time we had this thread and it never really got discussed.

[Caeltos]

I find it alright as it is.

Feels more like a general eldar hate-type thread that pops up every once in a while.

[David-CZ]

I'm a hard core Eldar fan. But in this case I think an adjustment would be justified. Personally I'd like to see Shees doing extra damage on reteat as it's one of the game's principals and their charge reduced as the means of lowering the effectiveness of the superior retreat killing abilities.

[Faultron]

eldar needs retreat killing /chase potential , they cant out bleed their opponents.
this tactic is not a problem in general, only if too much and already got several nerfs.
Your suggestion is making retreat killing/squad wipe easier with adding more dmg and reducing charge duration if dat was your idea.

[Torpid]

I think it's complained about because you have to adjust your strategy vs banshees, hence they are sort of obnoxious to fight, just like sentinels are, because again, you have to treat them differently to all other ranged units. I'm surprised sentinels aren't complained about more often, that said catachans are and for no reason really other than that they die uniquely.

[David-CZ]

I'm not sure of the final effectiveness but the idea was that if you retreat from shees or run through them in reteat they'd have only a limited time to actually deal any damage. Right now they deal reduced damage but have relatively long time for it. So if a change was made it would demand the Eldar player had a better positioning and thus reduce the number of retreat wipes that aren't earned by a good play. Again, that is how I imagined it.