Thinking about terminator FC

[531st]

I recently started liking terminator FC and only used absolutely reasonable strats of rushing t3 to termie FC (yes, i did that just because how hipster i am.). But when i started to analyze what FC gets with terminator armor... And this became weird. Some things (that are "to make it balanced" things) imo are kind of illogical. Lets see what he gets:

*Obvious 2500 hp. Its almost like WB but much slower, much easier to hit and with worse armor type
*Awesome powerfist! It is quite awesome with 85 dps. Too bad its special attack isnt as good as its basic attack, so battlecry becomes much more situational
*Awesome stormbolter! Not overshadowing-all-awesome but definitely better than his pistol
*Heavy infantry armor. What? Why? Yea, he gets slightly less damage from piercing and suppression but a hell of a lot damage from all other sources including melee(and power melee), plasma, melta, inferno, venom cannon, autocannon etc that are everywhere in t3. This tremendously decreases the usefulness of giant health pool.
*Bigger size. He isnt the guy who u wanna focus with anti armor weapons but since u will probably have them in t3, then why not. Not like ur opponent just spent a couple of tanks worth of power on some questionable purchasas and is now starved for power... Or wait... He did
*Teleport! At least we have in-built 3rd slot item. Yet nerfed one. With lower range, twice the cooldown but at least no energy cost. That ok though, i dont want some weird fat fast-teleporting 85 heavy melee DPS unkillable thing to be running around the map with just 250 req to revive.
*Inability to level up. Except lower chance to get champion its not too bad. U get less energy regen that u dont need, lower melee skill that u kinda want since his specials sux, lower hp regen that wouldnt matter with that much hp, no damage scaling that is quite enough as it is and no 3900 hp commanders running around (though i highly doubt that terminator FC would be easy to level up if he could)
*Losing all your previous gear. Which is very strong. You either waste even more power on this extremely expensive thing by losing previous costly upgreades or dont upgreade ur FC untill t3 and 100power which wastes almost all of his ungodly potential through most of the game.
*Retreat. For such a slow fat heavy hitter its awesome

Wargear!
*Assault cannon - solid weapon with courage damage and piercing damage. It has a tremendous cost that will be lowered in next patch so its ok-ish (its still the most expensive wargear except armor itself )
*Heavy flaemer - Another potentialy good weapon that has for some reason almost as much damage as bolt pistol which is thrice less than terminator squad variant. Yea, op gen bashing potential, nightmare for inf armor etc but u can still use battlecry and cleansing flamer that is 30DPS, 45 sec cooldown and like 14 hours long. It has damage type that deals thrice less damage to light buildings but with given durability, ability AoE and length, its almost 100% full bash on click anyway. Why does HF have such a low base damage i have no idea. It costs 170 power to get, shouldnt it be as rewarding?
*Lightning claws - meh special with good damage that is about to get buffed. Also cheapest weapon u have. Good to have if u wanna be like slow, expensive, big, teleporting chaos lord with HI armor and without godlike abilities

What he does not have:
*SHI that all other terminators have or Commadner armor that all other fat commander have. Lowers survivability
*Cover that he breakes. Even less survivability since SM cant make craters except dying in a specific spot or calling a drop pod (i have no idea if one in the patch will make heavy cover too)
*Health regen that all other terminators have
*Speed that all other commanders (except BC) have
*Inspiration on kill that all other terminators have. He does inspire himself when he burns down gens for some reason though
*Terrific buffs for your entire team that he has without terminator armor
*Counter melee/buff potential of battlecry

I dunno about balance but as i see, no1 uses terminator FC. If u wanted to be in line with other heroes, u shouldnt have made it that power costly and maybe with more ability variants, maybe left him with his commander armor. If u wanted it to be worth its power cost, u could've given it SHI, inspiration on kill, regen, same heavy flamer that termie squad or smth.

I see that the idea was to turn him into a weapon platform like other terminators but for just the same cost u get MUCH less. Single model retreating, not durable, HI person with no inspiration, big size and beefy powerfist in t3 that replaces extremely powerfull good-at-everything tanky supporting commander with awesome abilities

[Swift]

I've always been a fan of this upgrade but rarely bought it because it seems like such a sink for removing my experience. And if your FC has had no wargear all game that's not great at all, but if you made it to tier 3 with a naked Force Commander might as well go for it!

Now how's the Daemon Prince upgrade for the Chaos Lord coming along...

[Ven]

it is a pretty meh wargear, and imo its the one wargear in the game that need a proper redesign. not only is it expensive but so is its weapon upgrades, sure you get a free teleport but a hero like the BC gets that in T2, for less power, with better wargear to complement it such as all of his weapons. the termie FC meanwhile has a AC for 80 power, by which point you should of just gotten a ranged termie squad anyway as they cost the same ammount of power as the termie FC.

and yea, HI armor seems like a massive downgrade and so the wargear only has a place if your hero hasnt leveled like at all throught the game, by which point you should probably just think about getting new units, or get the standard and make his inevitable death useful for you, rather than wasting 100 power on the lack luster termie FC.

like i said at the start of my post, i really think that the wargear needs a major redesign in some way or another, its pretty crap atm and is what i would call a super niche, if it was something like 80 power, still commander armor, or the upgrades wernt so expensive then it might be more viable.

[MaxPower]

This wargear basically screams with a thousand voices, saying: "Look at me my dear enemy, he who controls me could afford this mastercrafted piece of technology because you were just a nuisance, an enemy that got outsmarted, outplayed and crushed by the emperors finest. You never were a worthy adversay and I'm the ultimate testimony to your failure!"

[Sub_Zero]

*Heavy infantry armor. What? Why? Yea, he gets slightly less damage from piercing and suppression but a hell of a lot damage from all other sources including melee(and power melee), plasma, melta, inferno, venom cannon, autocannon etc that are everywhere in t3. This tremendously decreases the usefulness of giant health pool.

I double that. Heavy armor is really good in T1 and not so good in laters. But it can be good even for later tiers with one exception - if your race doesn't already consist of heavy armored units and the opponent didn't prepare any anti-HI tools. But what a surprise in case with SM... Your opponent invested in anti-HI tools in T2 to be able to deal with your ASM/Tacs/whatever else.

*Bigger size. He isnt the guy who u wanna focus with anti armor weapons but since u will probably have them in t3, then why not. Not like ur opponent just spent a couple of tanks worth of power on some questionable purchasas and is now starved for power... Or wait... He did

Does the CL is as big as him? If so then OK. If not then we may reconsider his (termie FC) size.

*Assault cannon - solid weapon with courage damage and piercing damage. It has a tremendous cost that will be lowered in next patch so its ok-ish (its still the most expensive wargear except armor itself )

Actually this weapon is complete bullshit. If you are against orks/eldar/IG/tyranids then you are 100% better off with a heavy flamer. If you are against SM/Chaos/GK then why the heck you need this pathetic damage type against terminatos? Even heavy armored units are resistant to that. The heavy flamer will damage them better. This weapon is such a garbage. If it suppressed INSTANTLY it would be worth buying. As it stands now it is just disgusting and doesn't fit FC at all since he is all about teleporting in and wrecking havoc and not firing from afar like vulnerable ranged terminators.

*Heavy flaemer - Another potentialy good weapon that has for some reason almost as much damage as bolt pistol which is thrice less than terminator squad variant. Yea, op gen bashing potential, nightmare for inf armor etc but u can still use battlecry and cleansing flamer that is 30DPS, 45 sec cooldown and like 14 hours long. It has damage type that deals thrice less damage to light buildings but with given durability, ability AoE and length, its almost 100% full bash on click anyway. Why does HF have such a low base damage i have no idea. It costs 170 power to get, shouldnt it be as rewarding?

The only reason I would ever want my FC to wear this armor.

*Lightning claws - meh special with good damage that is about to get buffed. Also cheapest weapon u have. Good to have if u wanna be like slow, expensive, big, teleporting chaos lord with HI armor and without godlike abilities

In a strange spot. But not as bas as the assault cannon. May prove useful in certain situations.

*Inspiration on kill that all other terminators have. He does inspire himself when he burns down gens for some reason though

I would actually love to see that. Would make him way desirable to purchase. Battle cry + buffs on kills. Sounds good for a T3 armor.

[531st]

Now how's the Daemon Prince upgrade for the Chaos Lord coming along...

Yea, make it another 2500hp heavy infantry model that gonna be teabagged by banshees to death just for approx 200 power

If srsly then if u wanna make every option viable, u probably wanna look at termie armor
Im not the balance guy but it definitely looks like the thing that should be adjusted so its usefulness will be equal to its cost.

Does the CL is as big as him? If so then OK. If not then we may reconsider his (termie FC) size.

Nope, only HT is as big. CL is smaller, faster, with better armor type, more abilities and khorne worship ofc

Actually this weapon is complete bullshit. If you are against orks/eldar/IG/tyranids then you are 100% better off with a heavy flamer. If you are against SM/Chaos/GK then why the heck you need this pathetic damage type against terminatos? Even heavy armored units are resistant to that. The heavy flamer will damage them better. This weapon is such a garbage. If it suppressed INSTANTLY it would be worth buying. As it stands now it is just disgusting and doesn't fit FC at all since he is all about teleporting in and wrecking havoc and not firing from afar like vulnerable ranged terminators.

With 18 DPS of heavy flamer, 60 piercing DPS with 100% moving accuracy and giant range could be good. Its terribly overpriced but good Heavy flamer is much worse than its terminator squad counterpart AND much more expensive. Yea, genbashing, retreating and stuff but other factions have that ability too. I dont think its good reason to nerf it that hard

In a strange spot. But not as bas as the assault cannon. May prove useful in certain situations.

It is. Thank god its not some 200/80 or smth

[Forestradio]

It's not a very useful upgrade, excluding the situations where the heavy flamer makes a difference when nothing else would.

The below picture sums it up pretty well imo.

[egewithin]

The Terminator Armor upgrade was very interesting in first DoW2 game. Wasn't expecing something like that so it was a good consept and I liked it very much.

But now, it has to be different from being a single Terminator unit. Armor type is a drawback in T3 since everyone counters everyone without looking at them. (This sciene is mad btw. WHOHOHA!!) Some real changes has to done IMO. Everyone can share their ideas to find our true path.

For example ; Assault Cannon should have a diffrent reason to buy insted of normal Termie Assault Cannon. I smell some inspration effect buff here. Flamer already perfect. Lightning Claws are fine with the next patch with their damage buff. But Assault Cannon needs more I think. Maybe a crazy suppression platform?

Armor type should be turned into commander and health should be turned down to 1800 or around here IMO.

[531st]

Well, if suggestions are welcome then it needs to either be as useful as it costs or be is as expensive as it is useful

Armor itself:
-For 200/100 it is the most expensive which means should be teh bestest armor eva. With even greater drawback of losing old weapons. And since he is as power costly as other termies while having only 1 model, he should have some benefits that make player think "do i want termie FC or terminators?" bigger single model health, retreat and beefier powerfist are good but still termies are kinda preferable. I'd say u can give him SHI and lower his HP a bit or give him commander armor and leave hp (or lower his HP to normal termie's 1500 and make him lvl up lol); Add him a bit more speed so he'll be like tyrant/CL; Buff his stormbolter a bit so even his default weapon would be awright FC should shoot better than terimes anyway (TT/Lore wise) Since he looses his former battlecry awesomeness with all of his new melee weapons changing/removing battlecry should be better idea than leaving it as it is. Maybe it could instead of making 100% specials give damage resist as BC one or just proc every 10 seconds or so so he'll be like shooty-inspiration guy that makes things sometimes

-For 2nd option u could reduce the price to some 100/50 and move it to t2 so it would be like early-access terminator with no squad. And still i think he'll need commander armor cuz HI is just crap on that guy

Assault cannon:
-For its cost and adding unique flavour to the weapon and not making it fat stormbolter u could give it inpiration on ranged kill and maybe give some ability aka overcharge plasma/heavy gauge filament. So its gonna by not just the shootiest commander with piercing damage but also a buffing guy and some single target burst damage dealer. AC tends to stop shooting after killing a targeted model anyway so he aint gonna be unstoppable-horde-killer-9000

-For what it weapon gives atm I'd say that 35-40 power would be awright. Its aint the deadliest weapon, its piercing damage, it cant dispatch blobs, definitely aint as useful as some CL's claws/BC stuff that cost a lot

Heavy Flamer:
-For 70 power it should at least do as much damage as terminator variant and a bit more. Maybe some suppression like inferno dread flamer?

-For what it does it should cost either less than terminator flamer or if u think that such beefy retreating weapon platform is better, probably as much.

Lightning Claws:
-Kind of awright-ish but losing that much heavy melee and shootiness for beefier power melee should feel a bit more rewarding IMO. Maybe make its specials buff more like powersword? Or make them tracking for lulz and making battlecry useful again so ppl gonna chose between damage and buff/disruption

-It is the cheapest weapon around but since his default weapons are still awesome, swapping them isnt as rewarding as if he got them in place of his normal starting chainsword. Maybe a little price drop could help. To 30 power maybe

[Bahamut]

2500 commander armor is alright IMO. have in mind that a lvl 10 FC with iron halo has 2500 effective hp as well.

Another thing to consider is that FC termie has no level so his weapons dps are listed as it is. Lvl 10 commanders got 33% increased melee dps so for instance a lvl 10 chaos lord with lighting claws has 133 dps, not 100 where as FC termie will have 85 with his power fist or meager 70 with lighting claws

I'd say that only with the armor type swap FC termie should be fine. Something else i'd like to see on FC termie would be the ability to level WITH NO STAT GAIN OTHER THAN MELEE SKILL just for the hero score thingie, always thought you can judge hero effectiveness by looking at his level, and with FC termie you can't rly do that

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

The problem is make the FC Terminator's armour not overshadow the rest of the wargear/make it a no brainer upgrade. You lose a lot when you buy this armour (and more if you already invested in other wargear) but also you gain a lot.

It needs some buffs, TBH. The easy way is increase slightly the damage/stadistics of his weapons/upgrades and maybe decrease a bit more their cost. Or make him have a inspire buff when he kill a model. More complicated options could be make him level up (with a change on his default hp/damage values).

[Bahamut]

Sometimes thunder hammer it's completely better than all FC termie options for example, or storm shield + banner and even at 2500 commander hp it wouldn't overshadow all other wargear simply because of the price cost. Plus you need to think how much you have spent on your normal FC already.

[Jes]

Well it really comes down to FC Termie suffering from a myriad of small but compounding factors;

Doesn't get levels.
Assault cannon is outperformed and made redundant because of piercing and competing flamer.
Claws not performing. (fixed next version)
Health regen is subpar considering his high health/term armor status.
Has no accessories, only 2 piercing and power melee aoe weapons.

Naturally letting him level to 10 would make him mad OP.
As for assault cannon; it overlaps too much with flamer as piercing, but plasma would be too powerful. Maybe create a new middle ground?
Claws are getting fixed.
Up his base regen from 0.5 to 1.
Naturally these would only be relevant in high resource or floating battles, but there are model parts to recreate iron halo and sacred standard for Term. Could give more utility (and reason) for it, though ofc nerfs to base could be necessary.

[egewithin]

Why don't we give him Cyclone Missile Launchers. Yeah, you get Termies to deal with Baneblade and get this armor for more missiles? That sounds good I think.

[531st]

The problem is make the FC Terminator's armour not overshadow the rest of the wargear/make it a no brainer upgrade. You lose a lot when you buy this armour (and more if you already invested in other wargear) but also you gain a lot.

I'd say its gonna be extremely hard to overshadow rest of the wargear. How powerful should it be potential buff so it will overshadow thunderhammer? Or powerfist with FoS+Teleport? Or shield in team games? It may be possible to overshadow powersword but if ur super buffing FC then its still hard to overshadow PowerSword+Banner+maybe Alacrity to run around in the fight quickly and make use of 100% special time u have. If ur making FC not too ability intensive, overshadowing iron halo could also be a problem.
IMO even if terminator armor was free with all of its weapons, it wouldnt overshadow the rest of his gear. Cuz rest of his gear is tremendously powerful in right situations

[Codex]

I feel like it's a decent wargear, if you haven't spent a crapton on wargear prior to this: after all it's generally a pretty significant upgrade from vanilla no-wargear FC (unless he's somehow level 10 already or something). That doesn't make it fine as is necessarily, just perhaps more viable than people give it credit for.

I've also seen it do quite a bit of work: the flamer is still pretty decent (although I remember the days when rushing T3 for termie armor and flamer=> BASH ALL ZE GENS being super viable), and the assault cannon is like dude, assault cannon bro. Plus the fact he cannot level is double-edged: his rez cost drops quickly to 250 because he's got a fixed level. While this is not an insignificant cost lategame, bear in mind leveled heroes are cost-prohibitive to buyback when it costs 800ish req when they drop.

[egewithin]

Now I'm bringing something very hard.

Lets change this wargear complitely. If it can not overshadow the normal wargears, then maybe we cam make it something very different. EG : Decrease the prize into very very little. Then we have 3 weapons, 3 armors, 3 accesorizeeeee* just like the normal FC without Termie armor upgrade. Then he will became something very very different. Weapons are still, new Termie armor variants, some accesorizeses. (Why do you have such a hard word to write down England?) Lets remove fist and teleporter or nerf the fist only, but allow us the only way to get a good Termie FC is to buy some wargears. Maybe we can even talk about bringing it ti T2 if we nerf it enough. Ahahahaaa!.. That sounds funny. NERF HARDER SLAVE! I SAID NERF HARDER!!!

[531st]

Thats gonna be a lot of work on balancing, modelling, coding etc. If he is to be changed why dont we take small steps instead of making entirely new hero that replaces another hero that u take just to replace him. As for now its very expensive, not flexible brute force option that replaces durable, fast, mobile, buffing, damaging, disrupting, disabling commander. And i heard that its also bugged atm

[egewithin]

I don't think the modelling will be too hard because, he already has his weapons, no armor causes change on heroes and I don't think putting some goldish stuff on him when he gets acceseriyzzz hate that word is a very hard thing for the moddelers. You know, a men who designed Deat Guard Termies and Dreadnought shouldn't struggle agains putting a flag on a Terminator armor or some blue light when equips teleorter.

[531st]

Terminator FC is a separate unit from FC himself if wut.
Not hard work is still work. I dont think that guy that makes nugle termies so much would like to add gold do loyalist terminators for free just because a few ppl think that it will be better that way.
All the extra bits and stuff need to be checked for collision with other stuff. If FC will put his hands inside his torso it will look not too good
All the not solid things will need animation. Flag gonna be flailed around along with his torso during some melee animations, running animations and even standing still cuz terminators do have very hunched idle animations. Otherwise it will look like some crooked plywood plate
Terminator models (that is not CL or BC) themselves have very weird hand placement btw. Just look at that stuff: http://s017.radikal.ru/i429/1507/a7/8ad83cda0569.jpg And i dunno about others but i think it makes that capapharcti-ish armor with pre-heresy scheme look terrible.
Things also need to be textured and polished to look not off the place on rerik models etc etc.

Making smth new is always harder than changing smth. Not talking about coding and balancing. I suppose no matter what kael will do, ppl will most probably drown him in tears

[egewithin]

In that case, lets sit down here and do nothing. Because if we do want to do something, we have to do something. In that case, we musn't do anything.

[531st]

There is kinda an entire thread up there with what can be done without making some global changes, ya know?

[egewithin]

Hmm, yeah... This should satisfy me.