Ork balance depending on time

[GuruSkippy]

If you look at the statistics, you can see that orks reeaaaaally struggle for the first 5 minutes.
Then it starts to be okay-ish for the next 5 minutes.
And then Ork power explodes from 10 to 30 minutes.

What's fun though, is that total winning ratio balance seems fine at ~50%.

So, what are the problems, and how to resolve them.


early T1 : no power, no upgrades, no T1.5 units involved : orks are on the backfoot.

IMO, early T1 needs a buff on unupgraded sluggaz and shootaz.
But not just a simple buff, also a nerf to their upgrades to compensate for a buff, and keep them exactly the same as they are when fully upgraded. (upgrades in T1, I'll talk about slugga nob later)

What about buffing HP of sluggaz from 100 to 110, and nerfing burna upgrade from +20% hp to +10%. (so it stays the same : 120hp sluggas when upgraded)
And buffing shootas damage from 12 to 14 (still lower than dire avengers), and nerfing big shootas damage from 28 to 25. So full squad stays @92 damage when upgraded with BS, and losing a simple shoota model will have more impact than before on overall squad damage.
Not sure about the shoota nob though. This thing is a beast. Way too good, leaders dying last is a cancer in this game imo, but that's a totally different topic.
Maybe decreasing his damage from 40 to 30, so shoota squad with nob and without big shootas keep the same total damage as now, and then with BS upgraded, damage comes back to 40, same damage as now. Not sure if it can be done though.

So, buff to early T1, then T1.5 and upgraded T1 squads stays exactly the same as now. I know it can be dangerous to buff early T1, it can have a snowballing effect. But with nerf to upgrades, I hope it won't affect the game too much.



Then comes T2 => orks start leading the fight. Why ?
T2 units have low power costs compared to other races. What does it mean ? weaker T2 units, but coming sooner. Mainly wartrukk and deffdread.
They can't compete with equivalent in other races on paper, falcon/razorback/rhino/chimera vs wartrukk, or wraithlord/dreadnoughts vs deffdread.
The only reason they are good is the timing. When the opponent has not yet a counter, or has not yet the equivalent unit fielded.
If you nerf deffdread and trukk, power wise, they lose all their main interest. Sure, they still are good, but if a trukk comes at the same time as a razorback, what's the point...
The ork player has to exploit the small time window deffdread or wartrukk gives to him, keep in mind that it's important for Orks to be faster in T3 than others, because their T2 can't compete with others T2 on the long run.
So if you keep wanting to nerf them power wise, then ork T2 MUST be buffed in other ways.

Orks have been designed to be cheaper in T2, and weaker if T2 game last too long, when the opponent has all his own T2 units fielded, and I'd like to keep that.
Something else than a blind nerf to power costs has to be found.

What about increasing reinforce time around wartrukk, when not upgraded with the armor thing. (if it can be done...)
Something like reinforce time x 1.1 : first slugga to be reinforced comes 2.2sec later instead of 2sec, then 2d slugga comes 4.4sec instead of 4, etc.
Or maybe more if not enough (x1.2), but we have to be really carefull with this.
And then wartrukk armor upgrade returns reinforce time back to normal => that's a 30 power upgrade. delay tech.
I buy this upgrade only when when I want to use tankbustas in the trukk, rarely when I'm using sluggas in the trukk. But maybe that's just me ?

Add to that a blind nerf to slugga nob, hp wise. Dunno how much to be honest. But he feels a little bit too good right now, way too tanky and too strong. It has to be one or the other, not both.
If you reduce hp, he will be more prone to die, and to be repurchased => delays tech again, OR to not be repurchased => sluggas not that scary anymore, even with a trukk.

And for the deff dread, I wouldn't touch him, it's not that scary. If you want to keep him alive, the upgrade is a must, and it delays tech. So no change for deffdread imo.





Then T3 comes => ork still lead
I'd say T3 is kinda fine honestly. What's strong in orks T3 is not the units in T3, they ARE strong obviously. But as other races T3 units (well, maybe not IG according to the statistics ?). What's strong in ork T3 is the timing imo.
If you do the change I wrote previously, I think ork T3 will come at the very very very best as fast as right now. Not faster. Only as fast if you play better, or later if you play equally to your opponent.
But that's only theorycraft...



Last point. Late T3 in really long games. Orks are again on the backfoot.
I'd change only one thing in T3 to deal with long games : add a T3 upgrade to shootaz : repair kit, for something like 60/20. Only gives repairing ability. Nothing more. Well maybe add the possibility to build banners ? don't know, haven't tried banners yet.
Maintaining sluggaz alive in late T3 is generally not a good idea (if you haven't lost them already). They are only good to repair and cap behind the ork army.
And if they died, tanks start to be a bad idea => impossible to repair if you are not in a team game, or with the mekboy. Buying back a slugga squad for repair when you're in T3 is a real pain : req wise, and pop wise.
All other races have ranged repairing squads, and will generally have at least one repair squad alive. Keeping a ranged squad alive is easier than a melee squad in this game.





So, what do you guys think ?

[Rataxas]

I would leave Orc race as they are at the moment. Also dont rly agree with you about T1 T2 or T3 of orcish army. Compare SM T2 to Orc T2 , orc does not stand a chance. And that you are talking about some facts going on the field and SM is fucked with his power few times does not mean Orc T2 is better.

Also would not give any buffs , we got 4 orcs in TOP 10 ... at this moment. 3 Chaos , 1 Eldar and 2 SM.

Dont get me wrong but lets do not try to change something that is act. alright.

[GuruSkippy]

I can't take you seriously, because it's orks, not orcs

You can disagree with me about ork state, but statistics don't lie.
I do agree that ork T2 can't compete with SM T2, when all T2 units and upgrades are purchased in both sides, that's what I wrote. Ork T2 is better during a small time window, giving ork player time to delay opponent tech to better T2 units or T3, while he is going T3 himself.

I think I'm more nerfing orks than buffing them.
The only buffs are to unupgraded slugga and shoota squad, immediately compensated with nerfs on all their upgrades. The small buffs to sluggas and shootas will hardly make them beasts, upgrades will still be necessary, returning to their previous state, before the changes I proposed.
Who fears an unupgraded shootas or sluggas squad anyway ? Sure you can win with unupgraded sluggas and shootas right now in the first 5 minutes, but only with real superior play.
Sluggas die to a sneeze in range when they have 100hp. Shootas are not a big deal damage wise. And they both are slow as fuck.

[Forestradio]

statistics don't lie.

No, but they are not always the most accurate thing either ^^

Ork stats were HEAVILY skewed for a time on the ladder, mainly due to this guy: https://www.dawnofwar.info/esl/player/11424891
He was quite a new player who played a lot of games, against some very experienced players, and thus lost a lot of them in the early game.

Now the ladder is more active now than it used to be, so maybe that outlier doesn't impact the stats as much (Lulgrim or Myrdal or Windu or someone recalculate plz?) but it's still there.

To me orks are one of the two best balanced races, the other being SM, only thing I find really imbalanced would be some wargear choices (spiky armor way better than big stomp in most cases, battery pack way better than electric armor in most cases, supa tuff beam just flat-out overperforms).

So no need for any huge reworks, although the reinforcement idea for the trukk would be interesting to try out across all on the field reinforcement...

[saltychipmunk]

ork t2 isnt bad , it is just harder to use. but they have a ton of options when it comes to stuns , disruptions and buffs that races like sm simply do not have . the only glaring weakness to ork t2 is the obvious lack of ranged anti heavy infantry options

[Tex]

ork t2 isnt bad , it is just harder to use. but they have a ton of options when it comes to stuns , disruptions and buffs that races like sm simply do not have . the only glaring weakness to work t2 is the obviously lack of ranged anti heavy infantry options

Ugh!

No!

Do not re-work that. What do you think gives this game flare? What do you think gives each faction specific motivations? (in the case of orks, the motivation is to GET THE FUCK OUT OF TIER 2 AS FAST AS POSSIBLE). This mod has done a lot of homogenization, some of it was necessary, some of it I didn't like very much (example would be that I was super pissed about the chaos vs eldar matchup where the GWT could upgrade into a brightlance, plus they got firedragons, completely changed the fucking matchup) but I have now come to accept and get used to.

The point is, every faction needs to have strengths and weaknesses with different timings. Otherwise, we might as well all play SM and just call the game warhammer40k: horus heresy.

[saltychipmunk]

ork t2 isnt bad , it is just harder to use. but they have a ton of options when it comes to stuns , disruptions and buffs that races like sm simply do not have . the only glaring weakness to work t2 is the obviously lack of ranged anti heavy infantry options

Ugh!

No!

Do not re-work that. What do you think gives this game flare? What do you think gives each faction specific motivations? (in the case of orks, the motivation is to GET THE FUCK OUT OF TIER 2 AS FAST AS POSSIBLE). This mod has done a lot of homogenization, some of it was necessary, some of it I didn't like very much (example would be that I was super pissed about the chaos vs eldar matchup where the GWT could upgrade into a brightlance, plus they got firedragons, completely changed the fucking matchup) but I have now come to accept and get used to.

The point is, every faction needs to have strengths and weaknesses with different timings. Otherwise, we might as well all play SM and just call the game warhammer40k: horus heresy.

Woah there Woah, not saying their lack of anti heavy infantry ranged weaponry is bad, just that it is a glaring flaw that could be perceived as a weakness in their t2 to be exploited .

just like how ig t1 is really vulnerable to aoe , or sm early game is really easy to overwhelm with sheer squad count.

[GuruSkippy]

arg, if stats are wrong, then my bad ^^

[Lichtbringer]

arg, if stats are wrong, then my bad ^^

Yeah you really can't count on the stats, especially the Ork stats
For example, look at the Faction popularity. At first there was only one pie chart, the total picks. But as you can see if you compare it with the Main Factions, it was highly missrepresenting, because some Ork mains played aloooot of games.

Looking only at the Totalpicks you would think we have 20% Ork players. Looking at the Main Factions it's 10%.