Balance Concerns from Critical32

[FiSH]

Hello all,
I've been talking with some members in the Korean community, and so has Critical32 (who's a Korean). He has compiled some balance concerns regarding the current patch (not the new one that's about to come out). Some of the issues may have already been addressed in the new patch notes, but nonetheless, he feels quite strongly about these balance concerns and has asked me to translate them so that they may be posted on the forums. Here they are.





Opening
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I believe that this mod is balanced around heavy infantry with not enough regard for horde armies.


Overall Balance Concern
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Originally, horde armies have fought shoulder to shoulder against expensive units with low upkeep and cheap units. However, now in the ELITE mod, the armies that have expensive units have been buffed significantly. Because of this, in the very early stages of games, it is quite common to see non-horde armies have various unit combinations and have more units, which helps them takes away more resources and more generators.
The way it was in the past has been the power-armor armies would have had fewer but stronger units playing defensively, benefiting the most from those units and gaining experience by killing horde armies and thus having a more even fighting ground in T2 by getting upgrades and having some levels. Instead, now in the ELITE mod, power armor armies can just go heavy T1 and simply overrun the horde armies. (Take Chaos for example, which are good at anti-infantry. Fielding 2 tics (melee), 1 CSM (defense), 1 Havoc (suppression), 1 NM (gen bash and slaughtering hordes).)


Space Marine Balance Concerns
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Apothecary - Purification Vials
It is good to think about these concerns alongside the PC's nade.
45 grenade damage (where most horde army units have less than 100hp) means half of HP are gone, and then DOT stacks up. This can easily wipe horde army units. On top of that, this only costs 100/20 and 25 mana (whereas Mek's electric armor is 110/30 and performs worse). This one needs to be nerfed. If the idea is that you can dodge this, simply using the vial in a map with narrow corridors means horde armies cannot even fight and have to retreat (because it acts as area-denial and tacs can deal good damage). Nerfs in dmg or grenade timer alongside cooldown are needed.

Tactical Marines
It's good that their health went up to 1050, but having their price remain the same at 450. This makes some melee units such as hormagaunts not be a cost-efficient choice at all. Moreover, the fact that another squad of tacs can be called down through drop pod for a cheap price simply ignores and overperforms the cheap price and low upkeep characteristics of horde armies. At least higher upkeep is needed to not overshadow the racial characteristics of horde armies.



Chaos Space Marine Balance Concerns
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Chaos SMs now have multiple units that overlap in function, have units with more firepower where they already had plenty, and have new units that have complimented their weaknesses from retribution.

Heretic
Heretic's main role is to doomblast and deal an explosive and short burst of damage. Lowering their price to 210 is to completely block off melee approaches of horde armies and leads to a no-brainder-automatic 2 heretic build, which is not a good balance decision. Moreover, the lowering of price in heretics in conjuction with lowering of their HP is meaningless because the role of heretics is to deal explosive damage with doomblast and run away anyways. In this regard, a nerf of 5 HP is meaningless.

Noise Marines
350/30 is unbelievably cheap for a unit that has the health of tacs, takes away half of HP on many horde army sqauds, and can threaten generators. They are far more efficient than jump troops (for example, Raveners at 350/40), and alongside the buff in flamer damage type in ELITE, perform ridiculously well against infantry. They are essentially balance breakers, and their health and damage should go down.
In the current meta, a combination of Havocs and Noise mariens happen almost every time and work far too strongly against horde armies. Even though the damage on the flamer is justified since 3 flamers have been combined into one, they do damage comparable to tactical marines with flamers (515/20), block ranged attacks and ranged abilities, and the two bolter models do about 10 dps, which is higher than other weapons team side models. Even though the health is high because noise marines do not have melee resistance and have to be somewhat upfront to use their weapon, another way to think about this is that other races, who had to take heavy damage to deal with noise marines, now struggle against them even more, and because noise marines are heavy infantry, it's almost impossible to approach them when they are in heavy cover.

Chaos Khorne Dreadnought
Alongside the melee resist of walkers and the speed bonus that bloodrage grants, it's impossible to kill a Khorne dreadnought with melee and killing it is only possible by going all-in in anti-vehicle weapons. However, the problem with killing a Khorne Dreadnought in this way is that the Chaos player can simply push the advantages both in time and map with it, and by the time it goes down, the Chaos player can easily be in a position to win the game.

Chaos Space Marines
The price decrease in eternal war is unjustified, seeing that its performance is the same. Moreover, with slaughter, the Aspring champion does more melee damage than Khorne marines. This reduces the role that K-marines would have performed.

Bloodletters
With the change in damage type to power-melee, the role of K-marines is even more reduced.

Havoc Autocannon
The damage lowering through range is not low enough, and with splash and long range, this unit does too much damage. After playing with the opponent in T1 with 2 Havoc and then upgrading to 2x autocannon is devastating for horde armies.



Eldar Balance Concerns
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Banshees
Charging distance/cooldown needs to be lowered or if a unit retreats with half-health it will still be killed. Leaving 50% damage reduction on FoF in T2 alongside Farseer/WL's damage reductions on the top of long charging means ranged units cannot kill them. Moreover, warshout aids in their getting special attacks because the opponent's melee units cannot get in appropriate fighting positions.


D-Cannons
Please nerf singularity. In the late-game, the ability knockback of singularity is far too strong, as it still affects retreats.

Warp Spider Exarch's Heavy Gauge Death Spinner
Infinity knockback + bug. This one does not need any further explanation.

[Swift]

Per chance, does he play Zerg in SC 2? Or happen to be a really avid Tyranid player?

If Heretic doomblast is countering an entire horde, I think he's playing it wrong, unless they were infiltrated in which case I understand.

Well Guardsmen upkeep or reinforcement, I forget which, is being lowered in the upcoming patch and Tyranids have without number which now spawns useful units.

[Caeltos]

Thanks for input & the translation.

Melee Walkers are generaly intended to beat other melee units, that's what they're aimed for. However, I do feel the general gameplay is shifted less so in melee favorable matters, but hopefully the next patch can make some adjustments to that in some areas & matchups, or at least elevate some of the issues.

I do want to improve the general melee-aspects of certain units, but the change can be made indirectly by adressing other issues instead of looking into specifical unit & their improvements. I think generally Autocannons are in a pretty perfect spot, other units such as Chaos Space Marines + Slaughter is an issue that's being looked into abit, and hopefully, it won't be as big of a deal in the next update, since it'll have an initial cooldown, so it cannot be used in a 2-minute window from the moment he is purchased. (So from 8 minuteish or so useage is bumped up to 10-11 minute), and it's effects lowered abit.

But overall yes, I can see some of the balance arguements brought forward. Again, thanks for the feedback.

[Torpid]

Bear in mind now, that he plays mostly team games and is pretty terrible at 1v1. Something that likely fuels the HI domination perspective he has as I think it's bloody obvious that SM are very strong in team games compared to 1v1 and chaos likewise. Orks, eldar and nids are all much weaker in teams than they are in 1v1. In 1v1 I find eldar and orks the weakest races, clearly nids are an exception as they're still the strongest but they probably always will be it's just the way they were designed by relic in the first place...

But such insight is nevertheless good in an effort to try and balance the so called 'balance' of 3v3 with that of 1v1...

I agree that vials and blight grenades are just too good now. Too little energy cost, too low cooldown and just do too much damage. Khorne havocs do do too much damage at long range as well. All the other concerns I think have some legitimacy with regards to team games, or 3v3, but are just flat out nonsense with regards to 1v1. I'm not sure how to solve that issue...

[FiSH]

Thanks for input & the translation.

Anything for you, Caeltos

Bear in mind now, that he plays mostly team games and is pretty terrible at 1v1.

Do you even know him? Because you're completely wrong. I'd not call a player with Steam true ELO of over 1700 in 1v1 "pretty terrible." Besides, he prefers 1v1s over team games.

[[EL] The Emperor]

OPINION BASED POST PLEASE BE CIVIL, AND THIS ALSO BASED UPON WHETHER OR NOT THE IMPERIAL GUARD IS CONSIDERED BY THE OP TO BE APART OF THE DISCUSSION!:

Hello I just wanted to put some of my own input on this seeings how I find some of it a little skewed, feel free to disregard some information as I will be coming from the position of a 3v3 player.

As a full time professional Imperial Guard player in 3v3 I have to say that some of this stuff isn't justified. As much as I really would love to see the nerfing of armies that give the Imperial Guard a headache I know that it wouldn't be fair.

I won't make any statistical references because I am not as mathematically astute, nor read the codex on a constant regular basis like some of my peers. However even with that being said I still can make a firm judgement that the current meta is balanced, or at least in relation to the Imperial Guard when versus other factions ESPECIALLY power armor armies.

The reason I say that Elite mod is currently BALANCED is because of the fact that the following factions of Chaos, Ork, and Tyranids (Yes I said TYRANIDS) are actually a even match for Imperial Guard players now. The factions I mentioned no longer steam roll, nor commit massive AoE atrocities as they easily did in Retail. The games I have played in Elite mod are some of the best, and most balanced match-ups I have ever witnessed.

No Space Marines, and Chaos can not overrun a Imperial Guard player in tier 1, now I could see that being different in 1v1 but in 3v3 nerfing any of the current things mentioned above would turn it into a nightmare for the armies mentioned above (Except Eldar they deserve whats coming to them!). Now here is another thing don't even get me STARTED on what happens to those poor power armor armies come tier 2-3. The amount of weapons that can be employed to simply melt the poor bastards is extreme.

I will say however that I could agree with nerfing terminators perhaps due to the fact they have the highest survivability rate of any super-unit (In my opinion). But I am getting off topic, the only true threats in my experience to swarm/horde armies are Assault Marines, Raptors, AoE, and Terminators. The things mentioned above are avoidable in my opinion, and the only thing I would want to see nerfed if anything are the purification vials, and the Plague Champion's grenade. But in regards to the jump squads those are counter-able now to the recent update of the Catachans (thanks for fixing them they were useless, but have gotten better).

I guess what I am trying to say is that *most* of the complaints above are counter-able, and not as extreme as they are made out to be. Trust me when I say that I am one of the first to whistle blow about other factions other then the Imperial Guard, but even I think that these concerns aren't as bad at least from a 3v3 standpoint.

Please feel to correct me if my views are skewed but be nice about it! I can take criticism when its civilized!

- [EL] The Emperor of Mankind

[Torpid]

Thanks for input & the translation.

Anything for you, Caeltos

Bear in mind now, that he plays mostly team games and is pretty terrible at 1v1.

Do you even know him? Because you're completely wrong. I'd not call a player with Steam true ELO of over 1700 in 1v1 "pretty terrible." Besides, he prefers 1v1s over team games.

Of course I know him... He was one of the last people to transition to elite and so I met him on retail quite a lot over the years.

I have played with him on elite many times too. 1700 elo is nothing because he got it by playing orks on retail. My dog could get 1700 elo with retail orks. Do it with warlock and I'de be far more impressed. Whatever his skill at retail is it clearly doesn't transition into elite.

Granted, my definition of "terrible in 1v1" is quite extreme because it is relative... But yeah, he's certainly not a 1v1 expert by any means whatsoever.

[Cyris]

I personally think nids and IG are the two strongest races in 1v1, and they are both swarmy. Fish brings up a few points that I agree on, but his stated thesis is "I believe that this mod is balanced around heavy infantry with not enough regard for horde armies." I fundamentally disagree with this statement.

Well, I mean, he said he believes it, so I guess I agree that he believes it... I just disagree that, um... Can I start over?

How's this: From a 1v1 perspective, I think that "swarmy races" are as strong as, if not stronger, then "heavy infantry armor" races.

I do agree with some of the specific bullet points brought up though (NM need nerfing, overlapping Chaos units, melee is a bit weak now, singularity is a bit much still) but certainly not the general thrust of the argument, nor it's tone.

[Atlas]

Well in late T1, SM/Chaos can really put the IG player behind if he's not on top of the ball so I can see the complaints there. In that sense, I can relate to the issues the guy's talking about.

[DandyFrontline]

Totally agreed with all the points. Looks like Eldar banshees is gonna be fixed in next patch, so they wont be so deadly against retreating units but chaos - i think chaos got waaaaay too much love in Elite and really need those changes

[saltychipmunk]

i think the tac gaunt issue is less the tacs and more the gaunts , hormagunts as a melee unit are too damn squishy and are essentially unusable without synapse . well unless you over pay and have like 3 of them but even then some aoe will curb stomp them hard since their model hp is so damn low.

[Sub_Zero]

I think that hormagaunts' T1 upgrade is one of the worst upgrades in the game, just in line with eternal war for CSM. It doesn't give an ability and boosts stats very slightly. I would rather save these resources to tech faster or to get a new unit. Termagaunts become godlike with their upgrade. And 25 req is the only cost difference. I would love if hormagaunts' T1 upgrade gave +1 speed. If they are all about fighting ranged units then this is the thing they could use. Still you counter them so easily because their models die fast and the amount of them also makes them vulnerable to AOE attacks. But with an increased speed they will have way more chances to perform their task, it is especially hard for them to counter heavy ranged units, the thing is that once they reach them the fight won't be over, they can fight them back in melee and most of the time force them off. And this is all because of hormagaunts' inferior melee skill. You almost never hope to win against strike squads. And if hormagaunts can't win in a 1 v 1 engagement against any T1 ranged unit then it doesn't feel right. +1 speed will help solve this issue. As it stands now I never bother to purchase EW (it needs no changes because marks give great damage and EW helps to increase it, I just don't buy it in T1) or this upgrade.

[FiSH]

I think that hormagaunts' T1 upgrade is one of the worst upgrades in the game, just in line with eternal war for CSM....
I would love if hormagaunts' T1 upgrade gave +1 speed. If they are all about fighting ranged units then this is the thing they could use.

I actually disagree here. The leap is quite good, especially because they do damage on leap. And at the risk of getting side-tracked, eternal war for CSM is quite good for both increasing focus fire at a low cost and getting CSMs to level up (I mainly play PC when I play Chaos, btw, who already has good focus fire already, so even that slight extra increase in focus fire comes in quite handy).
Finally, nid units are pretty fast. Giving +1 speed will be a map control disaster...

[Dark Riku]

It doesn't give an ability and boosts stats very slightly.

"Adrenal Glands increase health and damage by 10% and allow Hormagaunts to leap into melee. Increases charge range from 8 to 12." Also consider synapse...

I would love if hormagaunts' T1 upgrade gave +1 speed.

There is a reason it got removed. Tyranids are already not lacking in map control and this made it just ridiculous.

You almost never hope to win against strike squads. And if hormagaunts can't win in a 1 v 1 engagement against any T1 ranged unit then it doesn't feel right.

That's just the design of Strike squads. Hormas can easily win in 1v1 versus T1 ranged units.

[saltychipmunk]

it would be better to say they counter ranged light infantry units . most heavy infantry units assuming they were shooting at the gaunts will still beat the gaunts.

but then i suppose that is exactly what players are paying that extra 200 ish req for.

[Torpid]

it would be better to say they counter ranged light infantry units . most heavy infantry units assuming they were shooting at the gaunts will still beat the gaunts.

but then i suppose that is exactly what players are paying that extra 200 ish req for.

Exactly... Not to mention horms get buffed by synapse unlike shees/sluggas. Not to mention horms are faster than sluggas and shees passively, in fact horms have the highest dps per pop of any unit in the game at over 20dps for one pop. That's mad. Combine that with the KB of the warriors and you have great retreat killing potential from them.