Slaughter is way overperforming

[Caeltos]

It's only passive when it's during melee, it's not meant to be in effect while in ranged stance.

Originally, the ability was meant to be tied to damage-done, but it was abit of an jiffy mechanics. So, we decided to take the easy way out as well. Needless to say, also more sustain would benefit from damage-done mechanics, which means it's far more suitable towards Nurgle due to it's worship mechanics. This way around, it's abit more welcome for all worship kinds in the way it's activated.

[Dark Riku]

It's to give people some sort of an incentive to spend the extra power and fully commit to KCSM. Outside of a small amount of melee damage and a melta pistol, it's nearly always more ideal to just get the AC and call it a day instead of a mark. I know it's been working out for me that way so far. 1.5hp/s passive health regen vs 1hp/s regen that only occurs in battle for a squad that cost 5 more power to get out on the field is a bit ridiculous

You're just saying the same thing again. In your example slaughter should get toned down to make KCSM "more attractive".
It makes absolutely no sense to suddenly buff KCSM or TCSM now. If the marks became less attractive because of the new slaughter ability you need to look at slaughter, not at the marks!

[Torpid]

It's to give people some sort of an incentive to spend the extra power and fully commit to KCSM. Outside of a small amount of melee damage and a melta pistol, it's nearly always more ideal to just get the AC and call it a day instead of a mark. I know it's been working out for me that way so far. 1.5hp/s passive health regen vs 1hp/s regen that only occurs in battle for a squad that cost 5 more power to get out on the field is a bit ridiculous

In team games maybe, but not in 1v1 where the extra speed, melee charge and high FOTM damage of KCSM is extra important.

Oh, you mean now that CSM have slaughter? That's because slaughter is utterly broken. It should either increase dps or increase melee skill. Not both. CSM have enough health to handle melee squads fine . Right now it's utterly pointless to use banshees/stormboyz vs 2 CSM. The 60 second cooldown is too small. Every engagement it is reset. Very little can beat them 2csm at ranged as it is, nevermind with with the 20% damage boost of slaughter. Especially when they are aided by havocs/blastmasters as they often are. So you jump them. Then you get absolutely butt-fucked by AC tics, bloodletters or a dreadnought and now 2 KCSM who just appear briefly to deal with the jump squad then go back to being the best generalist T2 ranged units in the game outside of tacs. It's beyond silly.

[Cheekie Monkie]

It's to give people some sort of an incentive to spend the extra power and fully commit to KCSM. Outside of a small amount of melee damage and a melta pistol, it's nearly always more ideal to just get the AC and call it a day instead of a mark. I know it's been working out for me that way so far. 1.5hp/s passive health regen vs 1hp/s regen that only occurs in battle for a squad that cost 5 more power to get out on the field is a bit ridiculous

In team games maybe, but not in 1v1 where the extra speed, melee charge and high FOTM damage of KCSM is extra important.

Oh, you mean now that CSM have slaughter? That's because slaughter is utterly broken. It should either increase dps or increase melee skill. Not both. CSM have enough health to handle melee squads fine . Right now it's utterly pointless to use banshees/stormboyz vs 2 CSM. The 60 second cooldown is too small. Every engagement it is reset. Very little can beat them 2csm at ranged as it is, nevermind with with the 20% damage boost of slaughter. Especially when they are aided by havocs/blastmasters as they often are. So you jump them. Then you get absolutely butt-fucked by AC tics, bloodletters or a dreadnought and now 2 KCSM who just appear briefly to deal with the jump squad then go back to being the best generalist T2 ranged units in the game outside of tacs. It's beyond silly.

Don't forget the havoc's melee resist! Along with the slaughter change, are ASM's still a good T1 choice vs chaos, I wonder? It'll be interesting to see how a few changes can or will shake up the meta.

[Ven]

It's to give people some sort of an incentive to spend the extra power and fully commit to KCSM. Outside of a small amount of melee damage and a melta pistol, it's nearly always more ideal to just get the AC and call it a day instead of a mark. I know it's been working out for me that way so far. 1.5hp/s passive health regen vs 1hp/s regen that only occurs in battle for a squad that cost 5 more power to get out on the field is a bit ridiculous

In team games maybe, but not in 1v1 where the extra speed, melee charge and high FOTM damage of KCSM is extra important.

Oh, you mean now that CSM have slaughter? That's because slaughter is utterly broken. It should either increase dps or increase melee skill. Not both. CSM have enough health to handle melee squads fine . Right now it's utterly pointless to use banshees/stormboyz vs 2 CSM. The 60 second cooldown is too small. Every engagement it is reset. Very little can beat them 2csm at ranged as it is, nevermind with with the 20% damage boost of slaughter. Especially when they are aided by havocs/blastmasters as they often are. So you jump them. Then you get absolutely butt-fucked by AC tics, bloodletters or a dreadnought and now 2 KCSM who just appear briefly to deal with the jump squad then go back to being the best generalist T2 ranged units in the game outside of tacs. It's beyond silly.

Don't forget the havoc's melee resist! Along with the slaughter change, are ASM's still a good T1 choice vs chaos, I wonder? It'll be interesting to see how a few changes can or will shake up the meta.

considering chaos have the following to deal with setup teams

Raptors themselves

Melignant blindness

sorcerer himself

Chaos lord himself

plague champion to a degree

---

thats a lot to deal with setup teams, so i guess ASM is still the smart choice. i mean how else does SM deal with havocs without ASM? especially without the FC stormshield. and a chaos player expecting ASM to deal with the hacovs he bought will likely get a AC tic, so infiltration would not be an option either. in all honesty SM havent had very good tools for dealing with chaos with a lack of T1 squads in comparison to chaos. so no, i dont think the meta will change.

[Cheekie Monkie]

I was thinking more along the line of snipers, since they now bleed tics nicely and even double snipers represent roughly a similar investment to a single ASM squad.

[Caeltos]

The best Space Marine player back in retail (Aki) bought snipers to deal with chaos, specifically even when 2x havocs was a standard Bo after csm, tic, tic died off. It was quite literally, the most frustrating and most potent build you can go against chaos.

I still think it's the most valuable, and has retained alot of potency and increased potency against heretics, and dealing with commanders due to the sniper rework.

[Torpid]

That's not true ven. SM has always had the upper hand vs chaos, especially in T1 because:

Scouts counter havocs. Sniper scouts, or sarge scouts, add infiltration to either to make them far more effective. Also, flanking tactical marines can do the job with their kraken rounds they burn through havocs quicktime. Techy can use his master crafted bolter to suppress them and do loads of damage to the lead model. FC had stormshield and alacrity (not together ofc). Apo always had his ASM and the best ways to slaughter tics in t1 - purity rites or vials.

Orks are brutally screwed over by these changes though both in T1 with the havoc melee resist and T2 with the OP CSM, it makes stormboys pretty useless, but now spiky armour is 30 power and the painboy's heal is not so OP so orks can't just get away with not getting stormboys vs havoc plays.

ASM was NEVER the correct choice as your first power purchase vs a CL/PC unless you were an apo.

[Ven]

That's not true ven. SM has always had the upper hand vs chaos, especially in T1 because:

Scouts counter havocs. Sniper scouts, or sarge scouts, add infiltration to either to make them far more effective. Also, flanking tactical marines can do the job with their kraken rounds they burn through havocs quicktime. Techy can use his master crafted bolter to suppress them and do loads of damage to the lead model. FC had stormshield and alacrity (not together ofc). Apo always had his ASM and the best ways to slaughter tics in t1 - purity rites or vials.

Orks are brutally screwed over by these changes though both in T1 with the havoc melee resist and T2 with the OP CSM, it makes stormboys pretty useless, but now spiky armour is 30 power and the painboy's heal is not so OP so orks can't just get away with not getting stormboys vs havoc plays.

ASM was NEVER the correct choice as your first power purchase vs a CL/PC unless you were an apo.

that's very wargear-centric though, some of that wargear being traded out later on such as the storm shield. and infiltration on scouts, especially in teamgames is usually quickly countered. tic AC is a purchase i always make in T1 vs SM in combination with raptors to supress and allow my tics to get in to combat with little health lost. ASM seems to be a blind purchase in teamgames for apo and TM so hacovs will get countered. but now with the melee resist, as long as i can be bothered to micro correctly it'll be just as good as raptors due to the new havoc melee resist.

also, i'd like to say that purification rites barely does anything to AC tics. perhaps its because i haven't fought a good apo, but most of the time the rites knockback is used defensively rather than offensively in my experience, which leads to my tics falling over, going in to a melee charge and catching up to the unit, making that rites heal useless.

[Torpid]

Not saying I disagree with you about havoc melee resist being unnecessary, it sure is, but I think any blind ASM purchase is a bad thing with the exception of the Apo who really should get ASM 90% of the time in team games.

Snipers are great vs the PC especially, but they work well enough vs the CL too.

[Ven]

Not saying I disagree with you about havoc melee resist being unnecessary, it sure is, but I think any blind ASM purchase is a bad thing with the exception of the Apo who really should get ASM 90% of the time in team games.

Snipers are great vs the PC especially, but they work well enough vs the CL too.

well usually double scouts is rare in teamgames, and usually vs chaos scouts will get shotguns to try and control the tics; unless you're good with grenades.

[Sneery_Thug]

Isn't it a good solution to give slaughter the same charge system as ATSKNF has? And if not. then why?

[Crewfinity]

charging the ability with damage done to the unit gives a huge advantage to the plague champion. he can just heal them as they take damage, charging the ability with no downsides relative to the other two heroes.

[Cheekie Monkie]

charging the ability with damage done to the unit gives a huge advantage to the plague champion. he can just heal them as they take damage, charging the ability with no downsides relative to the other two heroes.

Can't the same be said for the Apo though?

[Cheah18]

@Cheekie I think the point is its unbalanced due to the worsip of the PC, not the PC himself. Worship being integral to the play of all 3 chaos heroes. Apo on the other hand is uniquely a designated healer, something which can't be said about the PC.

[Myrdal]

This ability was originally designed to be charged based, obviously we didn't make the correct adjustments with the short cooldown instead.

I personally would prefer if it was charged through killing models. Preferably associated with their red cost. that would be cool

I like this but I think it would need more than model kills, perhaps include buildings such as gens and losses on the particular squad.

[appiah4]

I haven't played it but from a viewer's perspective Slaughter looks pretty broken damagewise, not to mention it pretty much makes KCSM even more worthless than they were.

[appiah4]

charging the ability with damage done to the unit gives a huge advantage to the plague champion. he can just heal them as they take damage, charging the ability with no downsides relative to the other two heroes.

Can't the same be said for the Apo though?

Yeah but the Apo's ability is a targeted heal with recharge, the PC has Heretic worship, which is constant, in addition to targeted and AoE heals.. The Apo does have some edge, but the PC has much easier to abuse amounts of it.

[Nurland]

PC has no target heals. Only AoE ones.

[Ven]

charging the ability with damage done to the unit gives a huge advantage to the plague champion. he can just heal them as they take damage, charging the ability with no downsides relative to the other two heroes.

Can't the same be said for the Apo though?

Yeah but the Apo's ability is a targeted heal with recharge, the PC has Heretic worship, which is constant, in addition to targeted and AoE heals.. The Apo does have some edge, but the PC has much easier to abuse amounts of it.

Heretic worship is a hp/s heal. the apo already has a hp/s healing aura around him. so they're very similar. both commanders also have some kind of healing ability on the commander itself, more than one aswell on the apo, the apo has more healing than the plague champion. i think cheekie has a point here, i think perhaps its something that might need to be looked at with ATSKNF.

[Nurland]

Apo aura is not hp/s aura in the same way nurgle worship is. Apo aura is a 200% buff to the health regen of the unit. Nurgle worship is a flat few hp/s on top of the normal regen.

[appiah4]

Playing the devil's advocate here:

Apo is the source of all targeted and AoE heals in the SM army while also being the Hero unit. As a result, by forcing him off you cut him off of his Hero and all sources of healing.

As for the PC, He can AoE heal with discharge, he can AoE heal with Plague Marines, he can AoE heal with Heretic Worship.. You could force him off, but he would still have healing going on.

[Nurland]

I don't think Cheekie's point was to say that Apo + Tac synergy is too good. It was more to point out that a synergy like that already exists.

Apo is a support commander that relies heavily on his synergy with tacs and ASM in the first place (and has generally better heal support than PC)

[Nurland]

One question regarding slaughter. Does EW damage bonus affect it?

[Ven]

One question regarding slaughter. Does EW damage bonus affect it?

i would assume so.

[TheHolyDarkness]

I found it odd that is outperforms Raptors. I could understand if it did equal damage to them, but full on outperformance seemed a bit much.

Based on the DPS charts, I figured the only time getting KCSM would be if you were dealing with Terminators or Orgyn. But considering how that matchup has fared, not even that situation proved to be a decent niche for them.

To make KCSM more alluring, perhaps the AC should have a Heavy Melee Option going for them in that form. It frustrates me that no upscale heavy melee options exist outside of Raptors and the Bloodcrusher at the moment. Meanwhile, Space Marine Tacs, Eldar Banshees, Tryanid Warriors and Grey Knight Strike Squads can all choose some kind of soft AV counter at the tradeoff of not being more proficient at another role.

Personally, I like the slaughter ability for the AC in general, and I think its worth considering the granting of variants to all forms of AC. That way, whether you get a mark or not, there's SOME kind of incentive to invest in an AC.

Slaughter (CSM)
(Ranged) Does something equivalent to the Kraken Bolt ability of the Tactical, say, at 5% for 25 seconds? Either that or get rid of it entirely.

(Melee) Switches to chainswords for 20 secs (DPS matched with Chaos Raptors). 1 HP regen per second in combat.

Slaughter (KCSM) -> (Rename to Berserk Slaughter?)
Boosts melee DPS and/or switches their damage chart to heavy melee for the duration in addition to other survival buffs.

Alternatively,

Boosts DPS to the point where they can hold their own against Terminators or Nobs (which in that case, Beserk Slaughter is unlocked only in T3)?

Slaughter (TCSM) -> (Rename to Changing Inferno?)
Randomly have inferno bolts do light AoE, a fire DoT, and/or Knockback/Suppression. (Roughly match this with Sternguard's capabilities essentially).

Change is Tzeetch's theme afterall. Being that this is Tzeetch we're talking about, perhaps it can come at a cost of somekind as well. Alternatively, the Tzeentch AC can simply grant some kind of Energy Restorative passive or something.

Concluding
Anyway, I'm just throwing out some ideas for now. In short, I'd like an incentive to pick up an AC to be present regardless, be it passive or active.

[Surprise Attack!]

Based on the DPS charts, I figured the only time getting KCSM would be if you were dealing with Terminators or Orgyn. But considering how that matchup has fared, not even that situation proved to be a decent niche for them.

This is not true... KCSM are better vs ranged blobs with no melee counter. KCSM get thrown around by Ogryns and tenderized by lightning claw Termies. They do power melee damage, but Termies have a lot more health to soak up the hits, health that KCSM do not have(even after the recent buff).

Inferno bolts are a waaaaaaay better counter to Ogryns/Termies.

[Torpid]

Again; the absurd performance of slaughter at the moment is certainly no reason to buff raptors, KCSM or any other melee unit that chaos has.

[Dark Riku]

Again; the absurd performance of slaughter at the moment is certainly no reason to buff raptors, KCSM or any other melee unit that chaos has.

^

[Nurland]

Yup. All of the Chaos melee units seem to perform quite nice atm. Slaughter is just waaayyy too strong.

On a sidenote: KCSM perform quite nicely against Ogryns and non-power melee Terminator variants.