Is Wraithlord balanced wrt to other walkers?

[krimson]

1. When upgraded with weapon, they do not have melee damage halved. Is their default damage lower than other walkers melee damage?
2. Why do they not lose melee resistance when they gain a LONG RANGE AV weapon?
3, Coupled with warp spider haywire grenade, there is no walker in the game that can win against wraithlord?

I do not understand the rationale behind this. Maybe perhaps make shield (melee resistance a purchase for wraithlord) or go ranged weapons...

[Ar-Aamon]

Me neither. The Wraithlord is ridiculous. Relative cheap, good health and damage and awesome upgrades.

[Torpid]

1). No, however their weapon upgrades are weaker than other dedicated ranged walkers. I think the shuriken cannon wraithlord however is actually quite fundamental to a lot of eldar MUs and I don't really think it warrants a nerf. On the hand...

2) You have a point here. The anti-walker potential in both melee AND ranged from the BL WL is not necessary for eldar at all. the whole melee resistance change has made the meta even more focused on walkers in T2. The absolute dominance that the BL WL has with its great ranged damage/range and superb melee simultaneously is unfair and ought to be nerfed. Remove the melee resist when it gets a brightlance.

3) Coupled with a force commander power fist there is no walker in the game who can beat a fully upgraded warboss?

To take point 3 more seriously... Wraithlords get slaughtered by grey knight dreadnoughts with interceptor melta bomb support. It just makes no sense that you add in warp spiders here though. Warp spiders are a costly, disproportionately resource heavy, niche unit completely separate from the WL. Melta dreadnoughts + veil of time lascannons beat fire prisms, what's your point??? If you think the synergy between WS and WL is too good then offer an argument as to why. Simply saying to (even though you didn't) is not adequate.

[Phoenix]

I think the Wraithlord is fine overall, only the 100% fotm of the BL might get lowered a bit (75%?), its chasing potential is really strong.

[saltychipmunk]

seems to die easy to me, its less the wraith lord is awesome and more select walkers for other races arent.

god i hate the gk dreads starting set up .

[Forestradio]

Wraithlords get slaughtered by grey knight dreadnoughts with interceptor melta bomb support.

Melee dreads don't counter other melee walkers anymore with melee resist.

I think the Wraithlord is fine overall, only the 100% fotm of the BL might get lowered a bit (75%?), its chasing potential is really strong.

Pretty much this.

Also bear in mind that the wl does less damage in melee than other dedicated melee walkers (as it should) and that it attacks a bit slower(I think?), reducing the splash output.

[Nurland]

WL does 85dps compared to the 100dps of dedicated melee walkers and attacks every 2 seconds compared to 1,5 seconds of Dreadnoughts. Fexes and DDs attack every 2 seconds also. TG adds once per second (TG has 16dmg splash and other melee walkers have 40dmg splash).

[Nurland]

BL WL also seems to fire while in melee making it pretty insane since BL does as much dps to a melee walker as 67dps heavy melee weapon if I did the math correctly.

[Ace of Swords]

brightlance shouldn't have fotm at all, the wl doesn't lose any melee dps or splash from it which translates that it doesn't lose performance against neither infatry or vehicles, that upgrade should be aimed to make the wl a stationary walker that can counter vehicles and to some extent tanks, but it defo shouldn't be able to chase tanks with it, eldar has plenty of options to do that or to shut them down.

[krimson]

1). No, however their weapon upgrades are weaker than other dedicated ranged walkers. I think the shuriken cannon wraithlord however is actually quite fundamental to a lot of eldar MUs and I don't really think it warrants a nerf. On the hand...

2) You have a point here. The anti-walker potential in both melee AND ranged from the BL WL is not necessary for eldar at all. the whole melee resistance change has made the meta even more focused on walkers in T2. The absolute dominance that the BL WL has with its great ranged damage/range and superb melee simultaneously is unfair and ought to be nerfed. Remove the melee resist when it gets a brightlance.

3) Coupled with a force commander power fist there is no walker in the game who can beat a fully upgraded warboss?

To take point 3 more seriously... Wraithlords get slaughtered by grey knight dreadnoughts with interceptor melta bomb support. It just makes no sense that you add in warp spiders here though. Warp spiders are a costly, disproportionately resource heavy, niche unit completely separate from the WL. Melta dreadnoughts + veil of time lascannons beat fire prisms, what's your point??? If you think the synergy between WS and WL is too good then offer an argument as to why. Simply saying to (even though you didn't) is not adequate.

The reason the other race walker is dead is because it has hundred percent FOTM BL which is long range, the dread cannot retreat after getting melee hits. The Wraithlords melee resistance is still intact and its melee damage is not reduced when it gets a ranged upgrade. taht is not the case with any other walker in the game. . If that is the case then a two handed melee dread should ahve double (85*2) 170 melee damage..otherwise the Wraithlord is very OP.

[lolzarz]

I agree with what Ace of Swords said about the brightlance. The only reason the Space Marine Dreadnought can fire its AV weapon on the move is because it's a multi-melta with the puny range associated with melta weapons. The brightlance has enough range to do so while stationary. But the Wraithlord is, in a way, designed to be not as specialized as the other walkers. For instance, the shuriken cannon, while serviceable, is far inferior to, say, the Space Marine Dreadnought assault cannon. I have no complaints about the melee resistance due to this. The brightlance also should not fire in melee because it's a ranged weapon.

[Dark Riku]

Just food for thought:

eld_dual_shuriken_catapults
piercing damage
14 damage per hit
12.17 damage per second

eld_shuriken_cannon_wraithlord
piercing damage
70 damage per hit
46.67 damage per second

TOTAL: 58.84 damage per second


sm_assault_cannon_dreadnought
piercing damage
100 damage per hit
55.26 damage per second


Noteworthy that the catapult doesn't grant an ability and has 5 less range.
But it keeps the melee resistance and does slightly more dps from ranged.
I wouldn't claim that the catapult upgrade is inferior at all, let stand be far more inferior.

[Forestradio]

BL WL also seems to fire while in melee making it pretty insane since BL does as much dps to a melee walker as 67dps heavy melee weapon if I did the math correctly.

This isn't exclusive to the BL WL tho, I know for certain that melta dreads do it and I'm pretty sure that almost every ranged walker will occasionally fire its ranged weapon while in melee (not entire sure on assault cannon dread, tzeentch dread, or plasma cannon here).

[Dark Riku]

Might this be fixed by setting the ranged to like 1-X instead of 0-X? Or something bigger than 0 at least?
Think this deserves a spot on the bug list.

[Ar-Aamon]

It occurs only if melta dreads are involved AFAIK.

[Arbit]

Just food for thought:

[snipped for length]

Noteworthy that the catapult doesn't grant an ability and has 5 less range.
But it keeps the melee resistance and does slightly more dps from ranged.
I wouldn't claim that the catapult upgrade is inferior at all, let stand be far more inferior.

The shuri cannon has 50% FotM though, which I think is significant (the shuri catapults have 100% FWIW). The 100% FotM on the asscannon makes it really good at picking off last models and chasing around AV squads.

@krimson
I'm poking around a bit in the code, and it looks like the splash damage doesn't trigger unless it's hitting an infantry squad. If that's the case, the SM dread's melee output vs vehicles drops from 100 to 73.3 dps i.e. it doesn't get halved. Even if splash damage applies, then it's dropping from 126 to 73.3 i.e. still not 50%, "only" ~58%. /pedantry

e: fixed a few numbers

[Torpid]

DPS calculations are largely irrelevant though considering the AC dread either fires in shorter bursts (meaning more damage in the first few seconds of firing and thus bleed) or has reduced scatter and the retining of the melee abilities is precisely what we're debating - if you nerfed its melee capabilities (removed melee resistance/splash) when it got the upgrade, or just one rather both, would it still be a good upgrade? I don't think it would, it would be too large a nerf.

I don't think the same can be said about the BL because I think the BL is the inherently more valuable weapon. To get such a long-ranged AV weapon on a walker that is so tough and strong in melee is unique to eldar. There are two obvious solutions to the BL WL - either make it lose melee resistance when it gets the BL (not negating its effectiveness vs infantry much as it will still have splash, but nerfing it in walker vs walker battles), or reduce the range/FOTM accuracy of the BL itself.

[krimson]

@torpid
I think we both are saying the same thing.
Bl needs to remove melee resistance and not have fotm...rest is ok..it has a long range...so it isbgood...right now it is the best vehicle in the game..whom neither infantry nor vehicle can touch...its a walker tank hybrid..

[saltychipmunk]

yes to the fotm going away , no to everything else . its still a walker , it is still one of the easiest unit types in the game to trap and kill

[krimson]

yes to the fotm going away , no to everything else . its still a walker , it is still one of the easiest unit types in the game to trap and kill

The comparison is made with other walkers...all walkers lose melee resistance when the ranged upgrade is taken.i thinknWL shoukd also lose that.

[Lichtbringer]

But the other Walkers also loose Melee damage when the Rangedupgrade is taken.
So it is only logical that the WL doesn't loose its melee resistance aura when the ranged upgrade is taken, because the intended design is that he doesn't loose melee power.

I'd rather have the Brightlance nerfed, instead of changing the design.

[Ace of Swords]

And that's because:

A) When relic made it like that it was because the brightlance was still a moderately expensive upgrade (and still is) but was nowhere as powerful as it is now.

B) In exchange for keeping his splash the WL has the lowest single target damage between all the 100+ power walkers, which means it straight up loses 1v1 fights vs other melee walkers, this is not the case anymore with the brightlance as it can damage when approaching and sometimes it fires in melee (but still with a 100% accuracy) so that changes the outcomes greatly.

[[TLV]Soul_Drinkers]

A khorne dread will still make a wl its bitch so i dont see ur point. it has light dps blance thats does light av

[34fsd]

It does light AV?

[Vapor]

Melee resist should stay, the upgrades are not supposed to affect the WL's melee prowess. A brightlance nerf is warranted though.

[Nurland]

BL firing in melee does a lot. Esp now with melee resistance. Not sure if it fires normally in melee or only sometimes sbut since the 20dps BL ignores melee resistance and has no penalties against vehicle armor. Every BL shot means extra 80 damage (standard WL hit is 51 damage to melee resistance walkers) it almost doubles (80% increase) WL's melee AV capabilities. This is assuming it fires normally.

Dif not factor the solash damage in. I think it affects the target that gets hit too. Not sure though.

[lolzarz]

Yeah, hence the statement that walker ranged weapons should be modified so as to make them unable to fire while the walker is engaging in close combat. I think it is working the way it is because the walker models are so big their backside is considered to be not in melee range or something.

[Tex]

I have never seen a brightlance fire while in melee. I have definitely seen melta weapons fire in melee though.

[Zato]

I have never seen a brightlance fire while in melee. I have definitely seen melta weapons fire in melee though.

You mean a brightlance weapons team or a brightlance weapon on a WraithLord or both?

[Nurland]

I see WL BLs fire in melee all the time (the same with melta dreads)