Space Marine Topic

[Major Richard Sharpe]

for something completely irrelevant to the conversation about scout snipers, i would like to say that the Whirlwind is actually quite an useful unit to have. However, the hunter killer missile has too long a wind down period (its damage also seems a bit lack luster) and its overall missile spread is way too inaccurate, if the spread was reduced (with an optional overall damage buff) then the whirlwind would become a lot more potent

[Dark Riku]

This is the SM topic
Post away anything on your mind SM related ^^

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

I agree with pretty much of what riku said, the cost and the fire rate needs tweaking, but beside that, they offer nothing, and since i don't like homogenization of units, it would be nice if sniper scouts came with an ability but not the same as rangers, maybe it could be 'spot target' selects 1 model and for the next 10 seconds that model (works on commanders and subcommanders aswell as vehicles (op?)) and it would increase the damage that such unit takes by 15%.

More than a debuff, I would suggest that the "spoted" squad would give you his sight (you can see that the squad see but you can't control it) for x seconds.

[Helios]

Sniper scouts are fine. Used them before and they are perfect.

[Codex]

Could you elaborate on how they are good? In the end some people have made a case for cost-inefficiency, and your opinion hasn't done much to answer their concerns.

This is a balance thread after all.

[Ace of Swords]

I was thinking about the Libby today, and how underused (for good reasons) currently is, it received loads of nerfs without anythying in return:

Code: Select all

Build time increased from 25 to 35 seconds
Smite damage decreased from 25 to 18
Smite cooldown increased from 30 to 45 seconds
Veil of Time speed bonus decreased from 3 to 2
Veil of Time duration decreased from 30 to 20 seconds

And 3 tweaks to justify the upgrades

Code: Select all

Tome of Time cost decreased from 75/25 to 75/20
Force Staff ranged damage increased from 25 to 40
Force Staff cost increased from 75/30 to 90/30

Of course, it might have been abit too good in retail, especially against tics and maybe ig/nids, but that pretty much justified the libby's cost, for sure VoT was OP especially when combined with FC and termies with it's very long duration and high speed increase, but now it's fixed, so i was thinking in a slight buff to this ability which would actually synergize very well with sternguards, which would also give SM players a reason to get them, my idea was to make Veil of Time give 100% accuracy on the move on the affected unit, would it OP maybe with missile launcher or lascannon? No, because they need to stand still to fire and they already have 100% accuracy against vehicles and large targets, now, why it would synergize well with sterns? Because it would make their AV capabilities great, aswell as it would increase the retreat killing potential of which the SM races is really lacking of.

[Caeltos]

Smite damage decreased from 25 to 18

Retail damage is actually 20 damage, so it's more accurately to say it's from 20 to 18. 25 was the default release damage of smite.

[Ace of Swords]

Smite damage decreased from 25 to 18

Retail damage is actually 20 damage, so it's more accurately to say it's from 20 to 18. 25 was the default release damage of smite.

Im taking the changes from this link http://www.dawnofwar.info/index.php?pag ... gelog_full, lulgrim might want to fix it .

[DiesIrae]

*****I don't know if this is possible, I'm just a musician, so I appreciate you humoring me if this is a dumb idea*******

General comment about balance issues..........
There are so many variables in this game, it seems very difficult to determine balance fixes. If we could remove the biggest variable ----the player----- from the equation, we might get a better handle on the changes that need to be made. Is there any way to just set up 1v1s for the computer to play against itself? After 20 matches, if it's not close to 50/50, then maybe we could look into adjustments.

APO...........
I'm a dedicated apo player myself, and the first time I played as the FC, I was blown away at how EASY he was to play. I'm not talking about "this commander being BETTER than another" but if we want to have a commander simply more complicated than other commanders of that race, that's fine. Maybe we should add that to the tooltip when choosing the commander.
Anyway,
It seems like the APO is a support commander. Could we add more support functions to some of his wargear? Here's a brainstorm........
1 - Add a slight damage buff (~5%, something small) to his heal; combat stims also do HoT
2 - reduce cooldown and/or HP per model and/or energy for heal so that other abilities can still be used like stims;
3 - add abilities/attributes to his existing wargear at certain levels. painboy already has this, so it's not totally out of the blue.
4 - Purification Rites knockback aoe determined by armor type being healed. Maybe healing regular armor has more knockback and/or damage than HI, etc.
5 - adjust ability effects per level (ex. aoe of full auto increases at level 4)

Scouts............
I like all the ideas that were presented recently.
-taking away the sergeant upgrade if you get sniper
-quicker setup/teardown
-faster reload time

Libby..........
does anyone use the shield wall ability? I haven't seen it used and it's so slow that it seems impractical. I'd love to see a replay with effective use.
Could it be adjusted so that libby takes reduced damage during ability, or it doesn't knockback your own units.

Back to APO; two small things I would like to see are:
-heal ability doesn't interrupt movement, so that he can be running away and cast a heal without stopping. OR, at least have him resume his previous action after he stops to cast the heal.
-have full auto ability stop the WL's leap in mid-air


Love the game, love the work you guys have done.

[sk4zi]

@Snipers.

i higher frequency of shooting would really be good. DPS can remain the same.
usually you get 1 shot off before the opponent can react. (because of the ages, they dont soot)
overall should snipers be as good as rangers ofc.

My real sugestion for them
make them make courage damage (in TT snipers do the highest courage damage)
imho it should be like 2 snipers together can supress instantly.

thats would make snipers atractive, i promise

[Torpid]

@Snipers.

i higher frequency of shooting would really be good. DPS can remain the same.
usually you get 1 shot off before the opponent can react. (because of the ages, they dont soot)
overall should snipers be as good as rangers ofc.

My real sugestion for them
make them make courage damage (in TT snipers do the highest courage damage)
imho it should be like 2 snipers together can supress instantly.

thats would make snipers attractive, i promise

Make them attractive? It would make them bloody impossible to win kill. They already have amazing range and can bleed you like mad, and the only way to retaliate is to charge right at them (unless you get jump units, but if you did then they wouldn't have snipers now would they?), in which case you end up running straight into devastator fire.

[Nurland]

I just don't think sniper should be overall as good as rangers as they are an upgrade to a squad that can stay vanilla or get other upgrades. I just agree pretty much 100% with what Codex said earlier.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

apparently rangers used to be able to suppress. my understanding is that it disappeared pretty fast.

[EBA]

I would just like to say that five scouts with snipers is the best thing aver and more people should do it.

[Torpid]

Best thing ever, unlike a razorback/chimera moves into your gen farm.

[Toilailee]

Larraman's blessing is currently way too strong at 125 red. It allows apo player to potentially lose his hero 2, or even 3 times in a game and suffer no penalty from it apart from being unable to use that one drop pod/aod or call termies in t3. For any other race or hero in the game losing your hero multiple times in a game would murder you economy and severely hinder your play.

Larraman's was changed to 175 red before which I thought was good. And even if it was a bit too expensive at 175, reverting it back to 125 made it way too good again. At least make it 150 or something if 175 is too much.


Also a bug relating to larraman's: if you use it while apo is being sync killed he will revive in the field and not at base (I doubt there's much you can do about it tho).

[Torpid]

Yeah, I actually second this. If I lose my FC a few times to a flesh hook it's pretty much GG, I simply can't compete with my foes eco if I keep burning up all req on revives, but you can literally revive your apo for free about three times over the course of a match, and let's face it termies aren't the best use of red atm, so three free hero revives for a drop pod? I think 150 is a good medium, 175 as a bit much.

[Ace of Swords]

I actually second this. If I lose my FC a few times to a flesh hook it's pretty much GG,

That's because the FC actually contributes with something to the sm army, at the worst, if you lose the apo you lose a capper.

Also the apo is the melee hero with the lowest healt pool in the game (600 like commie lord but without the shield) with any other commander ranged or not having more hp than him but the mekboy.

[Torpid]

That's because the FC actually contributes with something to the sm army, at the worst, if you lose the apo you lose a capper.

Also the apo is the melee hero with the lowest healt pool in the game (600 like commie lord but without the shield) with any other commander ranged or not having more hp than him but the mekboy.

Yet the apothecary also doesn't have to lead the charge like the FC does into battle, the apothecary can stay at the back of his army providing support with his MCB. I have a feeling we would see far few melee apos without larra. The apo can lead with his ASM because he doesn't fear bleed as he has some knockback and a heal to accompany that initial jump.

[Major Richard Sharpe]

do people here even get whirlwinds? (i try to get at least one per game) maybe 'extra armour' upgrade for them (at a very low price) would be helpful?

[Kvek]

Whirlwind is useless, almost never hits the thing you want to hit.
Even one missile that would hit would be more useful than what it does now.

[FiSH]

whirlwind is only useful in team games in certain maps and locations only, for example at the bottom of typhon ashes, you can park it near the line of sight blockers on the bottom gen farm, and it will hit the contested vp - and that vp always gets a lot of action with crowded units. it will be buffed in the next patch.

i don't think extra armor will be helpful in making it perform better. taking away some of its health even will not affect how it performs, due to the nature of the unit.

[Kvek]

But we don't care if it's good in 3v3s, 1v1 is the main gamemod

[Major Richard Sharpe]

well, buffing its accuracy (reducing spread) would be ideal, but insanely good and probably overpowered in 3V3, which as Kvek has stated, is not meant to be the default (i think he said 1v1), so the only option would be to buff the secondary effects of the unit... which is probably is why the missiles are getting a damage buff (and the hunter killer), and why i recommended a borderline useless gimmicky upgrade for a very low price

[Codex]

I don't see how adding extra armour as an upgrade would improve the Whirlwind's utility. Explain your reasoning perhaps?

[Kvek]

well, buffing its accuracy (reducing spread) would be ideal, but insanely good and probably overpowered in 3V3,

As long as it would be useful in 1v1, i would like it
Balance doesn't care about 3v3s :p

[Codex]

You mean 3v3s don't care about balance

[Arbit]

What are people's thoughts on the TM power axe? Messing around with it, it seems like it does OK damage for a T2 weapon , the energy drain on it is great, and it's cheap. However, SO SLOW. Since he doesn't have a melee charge and the swing speed is so slow, he spends most of his time walking around wishing he could hit things. Parking him right next to some devestators and waiting for jump troops is a no go, since once your devs start pulling back (leaving them in melee will result in a squad wipe), the jump troops follow, and the TM trails behind doing nothing. He does ok providing melee backup to tacs, since unlike devs they will not die instantly to melee and the techy can get a chance to work his axe.

Also, you pretty much need to pair it with the shield, otherwise he gets killed by ranged fire and/or melee since he has ranged commander HP without a nifty support ability to make it work e.g. WSE can teleport into/out of melee, KNob can infiltrate and stun... PC at least gets a melee weapon in T1 that does crazy good damage, and he has a charge attack ofc.

It just feels like it needs a little extra omph to me. Maybe +.05 speed, or something else like improving his repair rate or even giving a minor regen to vehicles within a radius of 10. Maybe the plas pistol could apply a slow effect to non-commander infantry?

(from what I understand, either he has a charge attack for all weapons or none at all due to how the game is coded, right?)

[Kvek]

The Axe is perfect i love it, combined with bionics it just wrecks chaos melee, damage from bionics totally owns heretics, add a few melee hits and they are dead really quickly, Also it's very very cheap, just perfect.

[Orkfaeller]

I really had to play ALOT of games till I stoped hating the Poweraxe but now its my weapon of choice against all variants of Space Marines. ( Or really aggressive melee armys )

Yeah, the TM is slow, so its best deployed vs Enemys that try to come to you on their own.

If my Enemy goes for Shock troops ( ASM, Raptors etc ) the Axe is worth its weight in gold.
And with the refractor field you can even suprise enemy Commanders by standing up to them.


So yeah, wouldnt exactly pic it vs Guard or other Ranged armys that can focus you down, but otherwise I think the Axe is in a very good spot right now.