2.4 Balance Feedback

[Corrie]

Devastator/Havoc melee resistance is here to stay. As is the paladin/terminator retreat function.

Am curious, why did devs and havocs get this buff but lootas, hwt, and gwt dont? If you retreat even a millisecond too late when being jumped on with any of the above they get wiped but devs and havocks can get engaged in run around for a bit and re setup despite these factions having good counter engage with doomblast and shotguns

[Vapor]

Like I said earlier, retreat on termies isn't an intrinsically bad idea but something else needs to give, and nerfing shockwave won't be enough imo. My suggestion was to disable all abilities including teleport during the retreat cooldown as a penalty (and possibly increase the retreat cd) but I'm sure there are other ways to do it like lowering hp.

At least gk terminators don't drain the energy of entire armies in 2 seconds anymore, that was just silly

Also I still don't understand the rationale behind havoc melee resist in t1, it would make more sense in t2

[Cyris]

FWIW, I'd like to see:

GK termies with lower req cost and stats (damage, health), but lose teleport (or have to buy it as an upgrade) and gain the ability to level.

Pallies with higher cost and stats, but lose retreat.

I think this will emphasis Pallies more as a true super unit, and GK termies as the bread-and-butter T3 unit, but require leveling to reach full power. Basccally, differentiate them more. Right now they often feel like the same unit with a pre-baked melee weapon upgrade. Steps have been made to make them more different (speed, cost, abilities) but they still are quite similar.

[Caeltos]

Well I suppose you will make adjustments here and there to solve the blatant OPness of this, right? Like making retreat cost 100 energy so they can't teleport in, shockwave everything and then blissfully run away. Or just removing teleport. I am interested in the steps you are going to make. And these steps must be radical to justify the function to retreat on a unit that is so ucking godlike even without that.

The abilities will mostly remain as they are in their function, but the utility-package and frequency will most likely dimnish abit.

Am curious, why did devs and havocs get this buff but lootas, hwt, and gwt dont? If you retreat even a millisecond too late when being jumped on with any of the above they get wiped but devs and havocks can get engaged in run around for a bit and re setup despite these factions having good counter engage with doomblast and shotguns

Mostly because it's more healthy for newcomers to not be so severely punished due to how certain jump troops can quickly vaporize the havoc/devs. It gives more counterplay element. Lootas, GWT etc are fairly fine in my books, due to how damage modifiers work agains them, since there are none/few damage modifiers that are amped towards regular-infantry models.

[xXKageAsashinXx]

That'd go under "numbers are tweaked". Personally the retreat itself isn't that much of a problem for a super-unit stand-in, it's the bonuses that come with it. A speed buff that slowly increases movement speed to unit's max, 80% ranged damage resist, and 30% melee damage vulnerability increase. Since grey knight terminators in particular have so much health, just drastically shrink the ranged damage resist or get rid of it altogether for them specifically, or drastically increase their melee vulnerability. If say paladins are suck in melee with a power or heavy melee squad, once the retreat is given they could take more damage in the initial few seconds of movement than the entire engagement if they take like double melee damage on retreat, especially if there are lightning claws involved. Another example is with the other idea. Say normal terminators are getting melted by focus fire of AV/inferno/plasma. If you take away the ranged resist, all the terminators really get is a speed buff on a one-way trip to base.

A third idea I just thought up while typing this, is to make the terminator variants give surrounding allied units a huge demoralization debuff and a huge inspiration buff for enemies whenever they retreat in a large area, which would basically swing the tide in the enemies' favor.

No, they were fine before. I say remove the changes altogether.

Well then, I'll stop wasting my posts since you're not budging from that.

As for anyone else, since Caeltos came on to say that retreating termies are here to stay, what do you guys think about my proposed changes to the gk termies' retreat?

[Cheekie Monkie]

If the utility/frequency of teleport/retreat is being looked at, one small solution could be that both abilities start on cooldown like slaughter.

[Atlas]

D:

Can nothing stop this train?

I take back a previous statement I made; I don't think every tank in the game got a speed increase. At least it isn't directly mentioned in the notes. Can someone explain to me why certain tanks (Pred, CPred and Prism as far as I can tell) got speed buffs but the others didn't?

That Ogryn buff has proven to be super huge so far. Pretty satisfied with what I say.

[531st]

Oops, looks like i've created the wall of text but havent clicked on submit b4 closing the tab lol. Well, in short what i as a GK/SM player think:

I have no idea why ppl think that GK are op. I havnt been able to turn the tide of games as GK neither i saw any GK player that made significant impact on game with terminator retreat (and I did played with who I'd call top GK players). GK now struggles in t1, hurts vs snipers and fast melee units

Rhino is now meh, Acolyte is awesome, purgations are now just insta psycannon purchase (also bugged. For some reason clear vision does increase autofire range but does not increase targeted fire range), operatives are not bad but I usualy end up covering enemy melee with smoke and/or lose a few engagements trying to make them stop falling back for about 10 seconds. Also as are IST, operatives are in super tight cohesion, so are getting punished by AoE

Exploding gen farms with satchel is kinda unsportsmanlike. I dont do that and I havent seen ppl do that.

Terminator retreat is great cuz i love to not get roflstomped by any player that have the slightest idea what GK can have in t3. I can even hold vs tank spam. Maybe cooldown on retreat is a bit low since termies can fall back from half the map, instantly turn around at base and are ready to fall back again when they get back in the middle.

In the end i've come to thinking that SM is generaly much easier to play than GK atm.

[Paradise Lost]

Well I suppose you will make adjustments here and there to solve the blatant OPness of this, right? Like making retreat cost 100 energy so they can't teleport in, shockwave everything and then blissfully run away. Or just removing teleport. I am interested in the steps you are going to make. And these steps must be radical to justify the function to retreat on a unit that is so ucking godlike even without that.

The abilities will mostly remain as they are in their function, but the utility-package and frequency will most likely dimnish abit.

Am curious, why did devs and havocs get this buff but lootas, hwt, and gwt dont? If you retreat even a millisecond too late when being jumped on with any of the above they get wiped but devs and havocks can get engaged in run around for a bit and re setup despite these factions having good counter engage with doomblast and shotguns

Mostly because it's more healthy for newcomers to not be so severely punished due to how certain jump troops can quickly vaporize the havoc/devs. It gives more counterplay element. Lootas, GWT etc are fairly fine in my books, due to how damage modifiers work agains them, since there are none/few damage modifiers that are amped towards regular-infantry models.

Come on man. Did you see that cast where a Chaos player had to resort to quadruple MoT CSM to be able to even force them off? And with only a single model loss? They can teleport, do extreme damage with all their weapons, have ridiculous HP AND can retreat. The also cost no red.


Don't you think it's too much, considering they already got a superunit (LRC)?

[Wise Windu]

He said that the abilities' functions would stay the same. That doesn't imply that other aspects of the unit or abilities (like cooldown, HP, etcetera) won't change.

[Forestradio]

Seems to me like a lot of this argument could be avoided if replays were provided showing paladins flat out winning a game in which both sides were even or the GK was behind. And also assuming the opponent attempted to deal with it in a way that makes sense. If proof is needed, just provide it with actual replays instead of theorycrafting.

there is a replay earlier in the thread of 2.3.1 paladins doing their job perfectly well np

should I go make more replays?

[ytimk]

He said that the abilities' functions would stay the same. That doesn't imply that other aspects of the unit or abilities (like cooldown, HP, etcetera) won't change.

Sounds like a good way to go, come on everyone baby steps, wait till 2.4.2.

[Flash]

Well I suppose you will make adjustments here and there to solve the blatant OPness of this, right? Like making retreat cost 100 energy so they can't teleport in, shockwave everything and then blissfully run away. Or just removing teleport. I am interested in the steps you are going to make. And these steps must be radical to justify the function to retreat on a unit that is so ucking godlike even without that.

The abilities will mostly remain as they are in their function, but the utility-package and frequency will most likely dimnish abit.

Am curious, why did devs and havocs get this buff but lootas, hwt, and gwt dont? If you retreat even a millisecond too late when being jumped on with any of the above they get wiped but devs and havocks can get engaged in run around for a bit and re setup despite these factions having good counter engage with doomblast and shotguns

Mostly because it's more healthy for newcomers to not be so severely punished due to how certain jump troops can quickly vaporize the havoc/devs. It gives more counterplay element. Lootas, GWT etc are fairly fine in my books, due to how damage modifiers work agains them, since there are none/few damage modifiers that are amped towards regular-infantry models.

Come on man. Did you see that cast where a Chaos player had to resort to quadruple MoT CSM to be able to even force them off? And with only a single model loss? They can teleport, do extreme damage with all their weapons, have ridiculous HP AND can retreat. The also cost no red.


Don't you think it's too much, considering they already got a superunit (LRC)?

That was the game that zeetorq Tinibombini and I played in. Zee was the one with mot csm, and he didn't need to get them to deal with gk heavies. They were just one effective way of dealing with them. And Zee is good which is why that build worked, if the skill level had been more equal, that lack of a diverse build most likely would have been punished hard. To say nothing of the game being a team game where your allies can cover for you.

The ability to retreat doesn't need to be removed just toned down which Caeltos has said is going to happen

[Paradise Lost]

That was the game that zeetorq Tinibombini and I played in. Zee was the one with mot csm, and he didn't need to get them to deal with gk heavies. They were just one effective way of dealing with them. And Zee is good which is why that build worked, if the skill level had been more equal, that lack of a diverse build most likely would have been punished hard. To say nothing of the game being a team game where your allies can cover for you.

The ability to retreat doesn't need to be removed just toned down which Caeltos has said is going to happen

You miss the point. He could BARELY force them off the field with just one model loss when he let his guard down... It's ridiculous. Not so much their retreat, but their insane HP. Retreat is just the icing on the cake. 4 MoT CSM are more than a thousand requisition and lot of freaking power.

[Hellstar]

Don't you think it's too much, considering they already got a superunit (LRC)?

First off, I think people throw the word "superunit" around far too much. It's a unit. Nothing more, nothing less. Well... I guess since it's a "can only have one of" unit, that's why people want to call it a "superunit." Which is one of many reasons why I am against "one ofs" (not the unit itself - the constraint of "can only build one").

Either way, people tend to think that access to more "superunits" somehow creates a balance problem. Well, let's say GK has access to 10 "superunits" instead of 2. Why is that OP? If they can field all 10 at once, did you lose because of the "superunits" or did you lose because your opponent was so far ahead of you that he could afford to field 10 different "superunits?"

In such a situation, I think there could be issues of CHOICE and VARIETY (meaning someone might complain that they don't have as many choices and variety of top tier units that GK has), but not one of OP-ness.

I remember playing the original starcraft years ago. People screamed on the forums that because Protoss could steal your worker and then build a whole new tech tree alongside his own (YOUR tech tree) and then field your own units alongside his own - even your top tier units - that this was somehow obviously and monstrously "OP." I remember posting "Lolwut?!? If he can afford to do that... didn't you *already* lose the game anyway?" Fortunately, a dev posted and said he agreed with me, and nothing was changed.

[Atlas]

Vods of 13 1v1 games played as GK.
As a general note, I apologize for the awful quality of the stream this time. I'm not sure what caused the static as I haven't changed my settings at all from the last time I streamed. It sounds like it may have been an audio setup issue but will have to check to see.

Preamble:
-I'm not a GK expert. Pretty much everything I know comes from Forest-senpai :3
-I got all these games off of Matchmaking. It's pretty cool and I had games come my way pretty quickly all the way throughout!
-I played a variety of skill levels.
-Of the 13 games I played, 1 was vs Eldar, 2 was vs Orks, 3 was vs SM, 7 was vs Chaos to my recollection.
-This wasn't really a normal "stream". I was planning on just having obs record the whole affair and then upload it, but then I figured "w/e" and put it up.
-The games are entirely uncut, so you get to see the warts and all

My General Impressions from them:

1)SM vs GK is an almost impossible matchup for SM.
You'll see my three games vs Forestradio in pts 4 and 5 of the vods, with three gaves vs sm and one vs orks. I easily won all three of the vs sm's and got trounced in the vs orks.

Granted, I think Forest made early gg's in the first two games, but the third one was played till the end. I remember making comments like "this is way too easy" mid-game. I also distinctly remember basically brainfarting in the middle of combat and just losing squads for no reason vs him and still feeling like it didn't matter.

Strikes beat tacs so hard and ists can go on even footing with scouts. With the new ops in play, I can put a serious amount of hurt on almost everything he fields. I didn't make good use of stunbombs and I didn't even purchase the Fallback plan or use satchels this game.

I don't have any particular suggestions, but I think this entire matchup needs to get put underneath a scope and looked at.

2)I had a hard time justifying going to t3 as GK.
I played thirteen games to my knowledge, and of those only two of them had me research t3. Of those, only one got to the point where I fielded paladins and that game was already lost by then. In the 1v1 setting, the terminator changes aren't really that significant since GK T2 seems a bit expensive as is.

3)Mantle of Terra.... yeah
Blessed Aegis is still the "go-to" armor for the Bro-Cap imo even with the cost increases. I think if there was some more t1 synergy with the wargear it would work better. It used to go well with ints, but they are t3 now.

4)Noise Marines are OP
It's been a nagging feeling but since I was IG usually figured it was just the matchup. These guys are amazing in almost every matchup. It's not so much that they can do so much damage and shut down ranged weapons, but that they can shut down abilities too. I think we might need to let abilities be used when under noise marine fire would be the way to go.

[egewithin]

I think we might need to let abilities be used when under noise marine fire would be the way to go.

I can only say it should disable to throw grenades with ranged weapons but does it really stop all abilitys? Can't I use Battle Cry eg?

[appiah4]

I think we might need to let abilities be used when under noise marine fire would be the way to go.

I can only say it should disable to throw grenades with ranged weapons but does it really stop all abilitys? Can't I use Battle Cry eg?

Battle Cry isn't relevant here; the SM FC can simply charge and tie up the Noise marines and then activate battle cry, become immune to knockback and ruin their day.

It really totally and royally fucks up Low HP High modelcount units that rely on ranged DPS. The problem here is that they can do that with almost no risk to themselves. My personal belief is that the current Noise Marine range is ridiculously long. (I feel the same kind of applies to SM flamers as well.)

[egewithin]

Battle Cry isn't relevant here; the SM FC can simply charge and tie up the Noise marines and

No, just asking that do they disable usege of Battleccry or any abilitys. You know like Guide, Channeling Runes, etc...

[Adeptus Noobus]

First of all, very nice job on getting actual 1v1 experience with the new GKs as all the chatter has revolved around team games so far.

4)Noise Marines are OP
It's been a nagging feeling but since I was IG usually figured it was just the matchup. These guys are amazing in almost every matchup. It's not so much that they can do so much damage and shut down ranged weapons, but that they can shut down abilities too. I think we might need to let abilities be used when under noise marine fire would be the way to go.

Now why would you claim that they have almost no bad matchup? In my experience NMs work very well, when teamed up with Raptors as, ironically, you'll need something to tie up all that ranged fire first. NMs may be heavy infantry but they always get focused down first so they take a lot of damage before they are even in range, which is 26 btw. Most of the ranged T1 units have range 38, so they'll be able to kite back one squad at a time and focus fire them down. I admit though, that IG suffers from NMs very much still. What other matchups are unfavorable and more importantly why?

P.S.: Do the NMs disable ability usage in an aoe or just from the unit it targets directly? I have to admit I never really paid attention to that.

[Adeptus Noobus]

On a more serious note though: This is the first time I understood why Havocs and Devs need melee resist. Lots of firsts this week. Maybe soon I'll get to be Adeptus Mediocre.

[Forestradio]

just to touch on what Atlas said...

i don't really think those first two games can be used for any kind of balancing decision or w/e, i was having massive lag and input delays everywhere and wasn't even sure if my units were responding to the orders i gave them, gg'd by relic...

the third one, the FC game on green tooth gorge, also wasn't the greatest from either of us in terms of micro or overall play, nonetheless i think the SM vs GK matchup was in favor of GK last patch, and went even more in favor of GK this patch.

2.3.1 matchup:

only time SM ever has the advantage against GK is in late t.15 when they've spent a lot of power: asms, at least one hero gear, fully upgraded scouts, etc. GK responds to this by stalling the game (mostly with blessed aegis and using ist smartly to deny scouts map control), maybe getting an interceptor out, and going straight into t2. First t2 purchase is a lasrhino to do burst damage with ists and snipe scouts all over the place, follow up with halberd/teleporter, a gk libby or purifiers, and the GK should seal the game by mid t2 np, even if they got bashed in t1 (got reps of the old patch to prove it)

2.4.1 matchup:

sm don't have an advantage against gk even with a lot of power spent? Harder to get map control with scouts even more so now, blessed aegis nerf helped a little bit but not really, operatives do more work in this matchup for 225/30 than interceptors did at 500/50. T2 of sm was buffed a little and the lasrhino is no longer rofl vs scouts, but neither of those factors was enough to change gk t2 domination of sm with teleporting BC purifiers and libby all doing a lot of work, same as before

And in t3, i don't think i need to comment on what happens in t3 in this matchup, even if the game shouldn't drag on that long...

just some initial impressions from both sides of the matchup :/

[Torpid]

On a more serious note though: This is the first time I understood why Havocs and Devs need melee resist. Lots of firsts this week. Maybe soon I'll get to be Adeptus Mediocre.

Why?

[MaxPower]

On a more serious note though: This is the first time I understood why Havocs and Devs need melee resist. Lots of firsts this week. Maybe soon I'll get to be Adeptus Mediocre.

9

[Aetherion]

On a more serious note though: This is the first time I understood why Havocs and Devs need melee resist. Lots of firsts this week. Maybe soon I'll get to be Adeptus Mediocre.

9

Am I the only who's going to get the German joke?

[Adeptus Noobus]

@Torpid:

Mostly because it's more healthy for newcomers to not be so severely punished due to how certain jump troops can quickly vaporize the havoc/devs. It gives more counterplay element. Lootas, GWT etc are fairly fine in my books, due to how damage modifiers work agains them, since there are none/few damage modifiers that are amped towards regular-infantry models.

I get the reasoning behind Caeltos thinking here. That is what I wanted to convey. Since every Jump unit has access to power melee weaponry, Havocs and Devs suffer more than GWTs or HWTs do since they recieve 30% extra damage while the others do not. Now I understand that especially Chaos has easy access to a counter unit (Heretics) but it seems that is where Caeltos' second reason comes into play: make the usage of havocs more beginner friendly. I am only speculating here though.

@Max:
"No" you don't want the melee resist havocs or "No" I may never ascend out of my pool of noobishness? (You may choose only one)

@Aetherion:
9, ich habe es auch verstanden. ^^

[MaxPower]

See Adeptus, that's why you won't become Adeptus Mediocre in the foreseeable future because you can't even tell the difference between normal and bold.

[Adeptus Noobus]

See Adeptus, that's why you won't become Adeptus Mediocre in the foreseeable future because you can't even tell the difference between normal and bold.

The quotation marks, in this instance, are correct as I was quoting you. I did not want to put more emphasis on that word. Know your typography, mate.

[Hellstar]

Vods of 13 1v1 games played as GK.

So I watched a bunch of your games - all the way through part 3 (haven't gotten to forestradio games yet). You won every one so far, and (please correct me if I am wrong) I am assuming that you are attributing this to your playing gk?

If so, you haven't made it into T3 in any of these games, so terminators/paladins aren't the reason you are winning. So the only remaining factor is operatives. But the thing is, I've only seen you use 1 operative/game thus far, and it isn't doing *that* much. I mean sure, it might be paying for itself. But in most games (I've been keeping track of when you click on it) it doesn't make it past level 1. If the thing was OP and winning games for you, you'd expect it to be leveling pretty high with all the destruction it would be causing. It did make it to level 3 one game, but that's the only game where I saw it level past 1. The most spectacular use you got out of it was taking out a tank with a satchel charge, which is good and all, but you were winning that game pretty handily anyway. Beyond that it's just been standard stuff - sneak up on something while cloaked, get a few shotgun blasts off and maybe a stun grenade, then retreat.

My question is, what do you attribute your wins to? You lost suppression in tier 1 and haven't built any in any game, you lost jump squads in tier 1 and haven't built any in any game, you got a new operative unit in tier 1 and I've seen you build 1/game, but it doesn't look like it is making up for the stuff you lost. In my opinion it just looks like you are better than the opponents you are playing. What's your take?

As for me, GK is now harder to play and I can't win any games with them at all. I'm not saying that applies to everyone, naturally. It's just my own experience.

Anyway, thanks for posting games. At least we have something to look at, vs. just theorycrafting.

[Torpid]

@Torpid:

Mostly because it's more healthy for newcomers to not be so severely punished due to how certain jump troops can quickly vaporize the havoc/devs. It gives more counterplay element. Lootas, GWT etc are fairly fine in my books, due to how damage modifiers work agains them, since there are none/few damage modifiers that are amped towards regular-infantry models.

I get the reasoning behind Caeltos thinking here. That is what I wanted to convey. Since every Jump unit has access to power melee weaponry, Havocs and Devs suffer more than GWTs or HWTs do since they recieve 30% extra damage while the others do not. Now I understand that especially Chaos has easy access to a counter unit (Heretics) but it seems that is where Caeltos' second reason comes into play: make the usage of havocs more beginner friendly. I am only speculating here though.

I'm not of the opinion that bottom-up balance is particularly healthy in the first place for the game. Especially considering most of those newcomers don't even want to play 1v1 anyway so it doesn't matter - in teams the melee resist is even stronger since SUTs are just stronger there and layering of them is more common. So this alone is not a justification at all; as there is no reason to believe that bottom-up balance is preferable or should be pursued for particular units but not others - this certainly doesn't seem like an a priori truth.

Devs/havocs are in no way innately inferior as SUTs because of their HI which makes them much more resistant to piercing damage which ultimately is a very common answer to SUTs - split ranged forces shooting them down in them down in the open. I know that's the way I counter SUTs as orks/nids/IG the most. Happens quite a lot with CSM too, and sometimes with SM, very rarely with eldar. And of course havocs has better versatility than the other t1 SUTs due to that autocannon whereas SM devs get the synergy with the libby and vengeance rounds (which btw, are absolutely amazing). I don't believe they'de be inferior even if they lacked melee resist.

If there was not enough time for a player to react before the squads got wiped then just make it so that melee resist only is in effect during retreat and not otherwise - that way you solve the issue of fast-gibbing-of-those-squads if someone positions them poorly or fails to micro well (if that's a problem in the first place, which I don't think it is) but you don't create the new problem of quite clearly making the squad's OP when it comes to being countered by melee heroes especially since melee heroes hardly have the highest dps in the game (compared to melee squads; heroes are their for their strong specials more than anything else) or things like raptors/asm.

Am I the only who's going to get the German joke?

I got it too. You don't have to be that cultured to know how to say 'no' in one of the world's most influential languages