Autarch upgrades

[ChokoBambus]

No, people have not argumented at all. They have said, "omg hhur hur, Eldar super strong hur hur, no buff hyur hur" which is neither an argument nor is it true.

[Cyris]

Opinions seem pretty mixed to me. The shield upgrade value and skyleap energy cost are the two issues that seem to draw the most focused discussions.

[Dark Riku]

No, people have not argumented at all. They have said, "omg hhur hur, Eldar super strong hur hur, no buff hyur hur" which is neither an argument nor is it true.

LOL. I suggest a re-read

[Lesten]

The grenade drop of the autarch call-in is easily as good as other mini-nukes, like dark flames or hellfury, but those nukes don't require you to temporarily lose a strong unit that would be very helpful to keep in the field.
You could argue that "well, you get a new unit with the call-in"... sure, but only the first time (and for 350/50). With following "re-call-ins" you just get back the unit that you have temporarily sacrificed. Not only that, the unit has to have 80 energy to begin with. And it's an extremely energy intensive unit that almost never have 80 energy to spare. Thus, the Autarch grenade drop turns into a once-per-game mini-nuke (unless you lose the Autarch, which is a big loss in itself).

If the Skyleap cost say 65 energy, then she still couldn't use it immediately after a jump (which is fair), but she wouldn't have to wait THAT long and you might actually be able to use it once in a while (remember that you still lose the Autarch until you pay 150 red, because that really matters).

Edit: not sure what the cooldown is for using the Autarch drop again if she has Skyleaped. If there is no cooldown at all I think it would be fair to give it a short cooldown to compensate for a reduced energy cost of the Skyleap.

Unless the Autarch is level 3 or 4, there is really no reason to get the shield upgrade. It also makes her even more micro intensive (because you have to keep track of her energy so you can jump and use the shield, because sacrificing the jump for the shield is not even remotely a good trade for 25 power), and I'd say that actually reduces her survivability, or at least not increases it like the shield upgrade should do. If I pay 75/25 for an upgrade I expect her to actually become better.

Someone suggested an energy or energy regen bonus with the shield. That would make it a reasonable upgrade. Doesn't even have to be a big bonus (something like +25 energy or +25% energy regen).

[Kvn]

No, people have not argumented at all. They have said, "omg hhur hur, Eldar super strong hur hur, no buff hyur hur" which is neither an argument nor is it true.

That's not really what's been said though. People have been making counterarguments about whether the Autarch functions well or not.

Just to add a bit of my own input, I don't personally feel the Autarch needs a buff. As much as I'd love to see her get a slight bit more survivability, she has a pretty serious impact as she is right now. For starters, she provides durability bonuses and a modest heal to the rest of your army, which is a pretty big deal in T2 where you've got so much fragile, high-damage stuff to control but haven't hit the wall of fire that comes from the later stages yet.

Her spear is a great weapon for use in peeling off models, especially against power armor races. With it, she functions a lot like ASM in that she's a massive pain that jumps your setup teams, ranged squads, etc. and can be difficult to dislodge just because of how quick she is. Aside from that, she makes an incredible capping unit since she can solo most other capping squads without too much trouble, and has an awesome starting speed which is only aided by fleet and her jump.

The shield, in my opinion, is a pretty useful piece of wargear that allows for a more aggressive Autarch play. The trick comes from knowing when to retreat her instead of just jumping out. Since her base speed is so high, she can often outrun any chasing melee squads that would otherwise kill her on retreat. The shield adds a fair bit of tankiness, forcing your opponent to either focus her down and devote less to your Banshees, or to try and play around her, which is difficult given her knockdown leap and surprisingly painful damage output. Her strength goes up as she levels and gets more energy, which makes her more frightening than she looks at first glance. Plus, it makes for a potent solo-fighting tool which can let her threaten other commanders in a one-on-one fight whereas she'd otherwise have to run away.

The Fusion Gun, in my eyes, is a lot like Raptor Melta Guns. Not stellar by any means, but they'll do a job for you if used correctly. Instead of getting a Melta Bomb snare, you've got super high speed and mobility on a no-bleed single entity. It's pretty often outshone by the spear given it's a T3 pretty one-dimensional weapon, but it's not terrible. I'll say that it makes her great for hunting down Manticores, Whirlwinds and Fire Prisms.

As far as her force-multiplication-via-wargear goes, it's not a bad thing that she doesn't gain a bunch of stat ups from each purchase. If everyone's sub-commanders used the same basic formula, it wouldn't make for a very interesting unit. Given her base uses, I personally don't feel that she's lacking to the point where she'd really need those extra perks.

[Asmon]

I'm surprised to hear about slyleap energy cost. The issue are the 150 red, which should be decreased to 125 at least, 100 would be better. Or the grenades should have a bigger AoE and perhaps longer stun.

Autarch's weapons have always been good but overpriced. Spear is fine now, Fusion gun is still too expensive for a T3 weapon, it should be cheaper, with less damage and in T2, or better and remain in T3.

Shield is mostly unreliable since you need the jump. It should either give more energy or have a higher absorption rate. To give energy and regen is too much, a lot of wargears do this and it's OP to me.

The main difference between the Autarch and other subcommanders is that her abilities aren't big ranged damage spikes nor super-high bonus. She's much more subtle to play, just like a Painboy. And guess which sub-c isn't much played... but ofc she's fine if you are dedicated to your micro.

[Ace of Swords]

- she does not act as a force multiplier the way other UPGRADED mini commanders do

You are right, remove the aura and put it back as a 35 power upgrade, autarch fixed and now acts as a force multiplier with upgrades

[Thibix Magnus]

The normal leap plays a big role in itself but is very weird, you can either initiate with it or buff with it, but not both, so she's not really a jump troop equivalent (which in itself is fun). So I actually found it's energy cost increase very severe when added to speed and hp and nades straight nerfs (I remember a melee heavy executionner too but maybe only a decorator bug). She might be overall fine, on that I can't tell, but the leap feels excessively penalized and hard to use while it's a core constituent. Unless you are a top5 player who will naturally make use of the 1 second window where your army is buffable while in the same gracious move your autarch initiates the assault

[Tex]

The normal leap plays a big role in itself but is very weird, you can either initiate with it or buff with it, but not both, so she's not really a jump troop equivalent (which in itself is fun). So I actually found it's energy cost increase very severe when added to speed and hp and nades straight nerfs (I remember a melee heavy executionner too but maybe only a decorator bug). She might be overall fine, on that I can't tell, but the leap feels excessively penalized and hard to use while it's a core constituent. Unless you are a top5 player who will naturally make use of the 1 second window where your army is buffable while in the same gracious move your autarch initiates the assault

Good point here. On an energy starved sub-com, the leap penalty was never removed even after many other nerfs and her bugged "damage-halving" was removed.

[Forestradio]

If it doesn't provide kb immunity, it should.

It doesn't

higher absorption rate

Currently it's 4:1, I don't think the game would cease to function if it got moved up to a 5:1 ratio.

[HARRYY]

autarch is a big distuptor to setups and ranged and also a precious VP decapper in end-games. I think shes fine esp due to eldar overall flexibility to win games VP-wise (1v1 perspective).

[saltychipmunk]

Honestly the only thing i would really change about her is: remove the singing spear upgrade and make it her base weapon. She costs far to much power on buy in to justify having to spend so much more on her upgrades.


her grenades havent been dangerous to anything other than the lowest hp models for a very long time. to the point where it is debatable if you really need to even dodge one or two of them with some of the other units. You would need to nail some one with all of them to really be a threat.

her movement speed is largely balanced by the fact that her hp pool pretty small for such an aggressive melee hero. hell if she starts getting ff'ed for even a second .. you usually need to retreat her ass or risk losing her entirely.

she is not worth 100 power. usable as disruption at 50, but she is clearly overpriced for the 100ish power her upgrades bloat her cost too.

[Dark Riku]

That suggestion is just insane! Let's make all the mini commanders start with their upgrades then...
The grenades not doing anything is total bullshit I have no other words for it. You can still wipe setupteams on full HP if you target all the grenades at their location. And if they manage to survive with a bit of HP the autarch will surely finish them of. Can also still be used to wipe retreating units. Just not at ridiculously high HP like in retail.

[saltychipmunk]

That suggestion is just insane! Let's make all the mini commanders start with their upgrades then...
The grenades not doing anything is total bullshit I have no other words for it. You can still wipe setupteams on full HP if you target all the grenades at their location. And if they manage to survive with a bit of HP the autarch will surely finish them of. Can also still be used to wipe retreating units. Just not at ridiculously high HP like in retail.

well i did say in my previous post that if you were to hit with every single one you would be a threat. i did technically say that. now consider this. is the ability to wipe a setup team any more impressive than say a plague cloud wiping out an army?

single grenades dont do anything, i stand by that. if your squad gets hit by a single one of her plasma grenades then the worst part of that event is the disruption it would cause.

also btw i actually like your idea of making all mini commanders start with at-least their weapon upgrade. if i recall correctly the librarian has often been called overpriced too. mostly because of his upgrades.

the big thing here is that she is too expensive when both upgrades are purchased. now you dont like the idea of starting with the spear... despite the fact that she is a t2 melee focused attack unit with probably the most hilariously pathetic starting melee dps in the game. seriously her little sword is laughable. then fine i can accept the disruption she provides as an acceptable starting point. my main issue is that she is not worth it when both upgrades are purchased.

then how about this idea. So right now the energy bubble thing she gets is rather.. well its shit. it is not energy efficient, it is extremely expensive but more importantly it conflicts with one of the primary unique features of the autarch.... her disruption. you dont want to buy an energy based shield if the unit you put it on is only there because of an energy based ability you want to spam. If i get an auti , then i want her jumping on shit giving her 400 increased hp at the cost of less jumping is simply dreadful.

so how about this. instead of the upgrade giving her an energy bubble... why not give her a passive ranged damage resistance. like an always on holo field that gives her say a 35% ranged damage reduction heck maybe move it to t3 and make it a 50% range damage resistance. realistically this would only afford her 200 - 300 more hp depending on levels ( maybe more if the t3 option is entertained) but it would help with her durability issues vs focus fire but it is balanced by the fact that a sufficient source of melee or ability damage could grind her down to a pulp this would also provide her with an upgrade that compliments her rather than conflicts with her. I think this meshes better with her role as disruption than a bubble that actively discourages it.

thoughts?

[Atlas]

This forum started to have too much stupid posts nowadays. I don't know how to fix it.

Alright, I think we've tried being good cop. Time for bad cop.

*Imperial March*

Once more the Mods will rule the galaxy. And..... we shall have peace.

[Dark Riku]

@saltychipmunk

A plague cloud doesn't simply wipe out any army, nor is it as fast as the autarch drop.
I don't want the commanders to start with their upgrades. That was to show why it's a bad idea.

The rest has already been discussed before. In short:
Her price, impact and wargear are definitely not under performing.
When buying the shield you are going to use the autarch differently than when not buying the shield.
The shield ratio is 1energy/4HP while standard shields are 1energy/5HP. Only thing that it could need, if the codex is correct, is immune to weapon knockback.

Reminder: the autarch also inspires exactly the same like terminators do. Has a passive 15% ranged damage reduction bubble (range 22).

[egewithin]

I think we should stop discussing about this lady and move on. We came to nowhere and and no need to try to ruin her balance.

[Lesten]

Of course it's easy to just say that there's nothing to discuss and that we should stop talking about it, but if everyone agreed on that we wouldn't have this thread. And it's not like the thread hasn't led anywhere, even if most of the ideas in the original post have been rejected (and rightfully so), it has at least showed us that many people think the shield upgrade could use a change.

Shield upgrade should cost less or be more effective (different design, 5:1 shield ratio, energy regen, knockback immunity, let her jump restore her own energy... take your pick), that's my two cents. And that's coming from someone who often uses (and really loves using) the Autarch but almost never purchases the shield upgrade because it's just not worth 25 power (I'm not paying 25 power to make her marginally more durable at the expense of her awesome jump).

And make Skyleap 60 energy... Seriously. No need to restrict a rarely used ability with such a high energy cost.
Okay, I'll be going now...

[Dark Riku]

We wouldn't have this thread if Choco hadn't decide to go all Eldar fanboi, only playing WSE, playing the game for 1 day, not knowing facts, spamming the forum on us...

[Lesten]

Fair enough
But regardless who started the thread and why, people have made valid points about the upgrades.

[Tex]

So bottom line here,

After all the mud slinging and etc, autarch shield should stay same price, but go up to 5:1 ratio and provide weapon_knockback immunity.

Ok great, lets close the thread.

[Atlas]

So bottom line here,

After all the mud slinging and etc, autarch shield should stay same price, but go up to 5:1 ratio and provide weapon_knockback immunity.

Ok great, lets close the thread.

I think the real lesson learned out of this is that, for some reason (and I'm not a racist, I ain't about that), Eldar threads tend to bring out the worst posts in people.

The explanation?

[Thibix Magnus]

I think the real lesson learned out of this is that, for some reason (and I'm not a racist, I ain't about that), Eldar threads tend to bring out the worst posts in people.

They are also going though the most ambitious redesign since a few elite versions, so there might be moar threadz

(Well ofc OM changes are way bigger, but that means either w.i.p. forgiveness or no gk games)

[saltychipmunk]

a better reason would be that they are composed of units that need more effort to actually be good. higher floor and ceiling means a greater variety of opinions since they would require more skill to actually nail down.