Warp-Spider shield vses artillery, global and grenades

[Kim Jong Skill]

I'm butt-mad. Not going to hide it. I came across a scenario that just doesn't seem fair to me, and I felt that I had no counter play to it.

So I main IG, and I came across an Eldar using triple banshees and he would teleport in with Warp-Spider, and just decimate particular squads or targets. That's fine for me. If I can spread my army, and make sure he gets tied up, if I can catch him in AOE, I should be able to break his banshees right? He's put himself in a position that is high-risk, and if he succeeds, the reward is huge.

It's a strong strategy that makes sense vses Imperial Guard, because we only have 2 melee dedicated squads, and they are rather slow moving compared to a teleporting triple banshee. But I should be able to, with good positioning make sure my army takes minimal losses right?

I have every unit available. My rocket run is ready. I have a manitcore. Catachan grenade launcher. Kasrkin grenade. A artillery spotter squad. Basically, all the AOE I can afford, and I've put my baneblade far up to bait him itno teleporting onto it, and I'kll unleash everything now that he;s out of position. Right? Wrong. He uses the war spider shield, and he kills my baneblade without any losses. No grenade. No grenade launcher. No manitcore strike. Nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Can go through this shield. There's s GIGANTIC HOLE AT THE TOP OF THIS DOME, AND EVEN IF I THROW ABILITIES IN THE ANGLE TO GET INSIDE, THERE IS NO DAMAGE WHATSOEVER. Not even rocket run. HOW DO I SAVE MY BANEBLADE??!! Do I really go triple sentinel vses an eldar? Do I go triple ogryns? What do I build to save my baneblade?

He has d-cannon and his teammate has quadruple set-up teams, so I can't push in an interrupt.

[Protagonist]

Just a few thoughts:

I wouldn't recommend getting a baneblade against Eldar as it is generally a really bad proposition. They have way too many ways to severely damage it in a short time, and its low speed means any trap is going to make it difficult to save it from death. I'd recommend getting a russ so you could more easily get out of the shimmer orb and back into the supporting fire from your army. Like, the idea with the bait is good, but the baneblades mobility is too low to really make use of it in that capacity.

That being said, I would recommend trying to time your manticore strikes onto the location of the Mass Warp. Now granted, that requires line of sight and some timing but it could wreck that combo before it really does anything meaningful. Getting a sentinel or two for the stomp couldn't hurt, though you obviously have to be careful with the micro as a missed stomp will mean the triple banshees will shred it to pieces. you could of course use their missile launchers in a similar manner to the manticore if you see the location for the mass warp.

Maybe the Catachan IED's could help by 1) providing more LoS and 2)detonating on approaching squads or used with a successful bait of the shimmer orb.

[Atlas]

I'm grinning ear to ear reading that OP because I was on the other team seeing it happen. Sorry, but I have no real suggestions for that specific scenario since it was just a bunch of mistakes that got punished hard. Could have asked for a warp from a teammate I guess.

[Vapor]

have you tried moving your baneblade out of the shimmer orb? or was it stunned by a haywire? in any case just drop grenades or whatever on top of the mass warp rune

[Torpid]

You don't counter banshees with melee. Shimmer orbs only protect a small area at a time and are therefore best used for capping/vs immobile squads/protecting your melee from enemy ranged squads while it fights enemy melee. Therefore the solution to your dilemma is to get two catachans. They provide lots of anti-melee disruption and good dps as well as IEDs which you can lure the banshees into. If they drop a shimmer orb just move out of it you get plenty of time to respond due to how long it takes for the mass warp to come into affect.

Also, what Protagonist said about getting baneblades vs Eldar is true. Avoid it. It tends to fare poorly but mainly due to eldritch storms/wraithguard not banshee spams.

[Nurland]

My main qualm with shimmer orb is the kb immunity so you can't knock units off VPs. Even with ability kb (or melee attacks) I think.

[Superhooper01]

Its to good needs to be like demon shield or simply allow the hero to be knocked off the cap as it seems a auto cap function atm

[Tsototar]

(a) Haywire no longer does 100% snare so even if Haywired the BB should be able to move out of the Shimmer Orb. The key point here is that the BB driver needs to know he needs to do it...

(b) agree BaneBlade is not a great weapon against Eldar (though as far as super units fighting 1v1 go, it can actually kite and kill an Avatar... sigh). See this for example - Baneblade lasts exactly 31 seconds: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =332101669

(that's actually not the shortest, I've seen one go down against massed WG in about 20-25 seconds)

(c) this strikes me as more of a "have never seen a shimmer orb before so don't know how to deal with it" thing? There's plenty of abilities out there that, if you've never seen it before, will really ruin your day (the very first time I saw an Apo use Angels of Death, for example, I lost my entire army; at that point I hadn't known the game had any "invulnerability" powers. Yes, I know it's been nerfed in Elite).

(d) the counter is to drive out of the shimmer orb. It can't move unlike a Plague Champ cloud, for example.

(e) ... OP is really gonna hate Phase Shift.

[Tsototar]

Therefore the solution to your dilemma is to get two catachans.

Do Catachans still win 1v1 melee fights against Banshees? (and ASM, KCSM, Sluggas, etc.)

[Torpid]

Therefore the solution to your dilemma is to get two catachans.

Do Catachans still win 1v1 melee fights against Banshees? (and ASM, KCSM, Sluggas, etc.)

Not tried it in a while and its hard to do since catachans have those shotguns and the rest of IG put out so much dps. I'm pretty sure they lose vs sluggas/shees in T2, but win pretty easily in T1. Not sure how they fare if they shoot the sluggas/shees in T2 first and ol' reliable them and shotgun blast them, I think then it would depend on specials. KCSM specials absolutely wreck catachans, merciless strike does the same, but catachans can't even explosive shot/ol'reliable the ASM because of their jump.

(e) ... OP is really gonna hate Phase Shift.

Lol.

[Tsototar]

Do Catachans still win 1v1 melee fights against Banshees? (and ASM, KCSM, Sluggas, etc.)

Not tried it in a while and its hard to do since catachans have those shotguns and the rest of IG put out so much dps. I'm pretty sure they lose vs sluggas/shees in T2, but win pretty easily in T1. Not sure how they fare if they shoot the sluggas/shees in T2 first and ol' reliable them and shotgun blast them, I think then it would depend on specials. KCSM specials absolutely wreck catachans, merciless strike does the same, but catachans can't even explosive shot/ol'reliable the ASM because of their jump.

pre-2.3.0, I labbed Catachans 1v1 (standard caveat about how 1v1 engagements are pretty rare in real fights etc., but still it's useful info) against shees and ASM...

They won EVERY engagement as long as they had energy for the shotgun blast. This was the case even in T2 and the shees had Exarch (for parity we also added demo man etc.), much less T1.5 with howl. Same for ASM. The ASM can jump on the catachans, but once the cats get up and shotgun the ASM, it's over. Merciless strike, depends on how many units get caught in the blast. I suspect this has a lot to do with the damage sharing and lack of bleed of the previous cats, so I don't know how well they do now.

(main thing for us was the sheer outrage/ridiculousness of it, guys with no shirts and knives being able to outfight genetically engineered superhumans in POWER ARMOUR WITH CHAINSWORDS, not to mention alien chicks with power blades...).

There are complaints about the "flexibility" of Eldar guardians, how they can do so much stuff etc., but if you're gonna talk about that, what about Catas? Useful throughout the game. Great melee. Disruption to knock back setup. Ambush mine. Ranged protection with smoke. Infiltration. Detection. Melta weapon upgrade for AV.

Someone needs to lab Cata engagements for 2.3.1H2...

[Nurland]

This is not an IG/Cata/general Eldar thread so try to stick to the WSE orb and refrain from speaking of other matters.

[Broodwich]

generally..
If your opponent is spamming something, spam the counter to it. This means you need to know what that would be. get a cata or two squad backed up by either a hwt or a chim. Catas are cheap and with hero support will own shees

[dark heretic]

regarding the orb, i think it is way too effective in 3s, especially v guard and on meat grinder maps with lots of shooty armies.
Too balance, increasing the energy cost and cooldown would be good as it only has a 25 energy cost! Cooldown is more reasonable at 60 seconds but still is a bit too OP, the radius of the orb is also huge, you can fit like 2 squads of 12 GM in there, nerfing the radius would make it more of a wse capping tool, instead of a defensive ability v nukes and art (which he already has in his PS)
maybe do this:
increase the energy cost to 40
increase the cooldown to 75 seconds
decrease the radius of the orb to 8

what do plp think?

[Lichtbringer]

This is not an IG/Cata/general Eldar thread so try to stick to the WSE orb and refrain from speaking of other matters.

Is it only me, or does it feel weird to anyone else to "discourage" disscusion, even if offtopic. There is not really that much going on in this forum...

Edit: Or is this because this is the balance forum. Actually I understand why its better to keep it focused here. Sorry!

[Torpid]

Yeah, it's not discouraging conversation, rather it is encouraging ordered conversation. Swapping topics non-stop is very rarely productive.

[Nurland]

Not discouraging conversation. By all means talk about whatever you want but just do it in the appropriate threads

Just trying to keep the thread free of useless off topic posts that only hinder the discussion of the actual issue.