Land Raider Phobos

[Forestradio]

Hello folks, this is forestradio, longtime DOW2 player and fan of the whole DOW franchise. I got interested in elite mod when Indrid started only casting elite replays, so I tried it. Big thank you to everyone who contributed to this mod, which feels a lot more polished and balanced than retail.

Introductions aside, anyone else thinking that the Phobos needs a buff, either in health, another ability, or in some sort of support aura?
it's the most fragile land raider, and still vulnerable to manticore, tankbusta, and eldritch storms (most nukes actually). I understand it is supposed to be long ranged AV, but it doesn't really offer any options for the rest of the Chaos roster. Maybe you can hide your termies in it?

I would like to see an ability implemented to make it more survivable

Daemonic Possession: for 10-15 secs, the phobos cannot be stunned and takes 20% less damage from all attacks. The Phobos' weapons are 50% less accurate for the duration of the ability.

This makes sure you can't use the phobos to chase stuff while the ability is active.

Suggestions/comments?

[crazyman64335]

that seems like a get out of jail free card for it, i'd prefer just a health buff or perhaps a specific ability for each chaos commander?

Chaos Lord - Increased speed by 10 - 15 % for like 10 seconds maybe?
Plague Champ - Aura damage or perhaps aura healing for about 10 seconds
Chaos Sorcerer - Infiltrates the phobos (or nearby units) for 10 seconds.

I think it'd be cool to have more specific things for each chaos hero. But that's just me. I think a damage reduction just seems to render mantis more useless against them which doesn't really make sense considering they're giant transports lol.

[Dark Riku]

It has less health because it's pretty much an AV platform with a high health pool.
It's pretty much a beefed up laspred, but slower and bigger with all the pathing issues that comes with being so big :/

It already has that stun in a pretty far range around it.
You suggesting to swap it then?

Because it's just fine imo.

[Tex]

I haven't fully made up on my mind on the phobos, but I can't help but feel like its not what it should be. There are lots of factors involved in this feeling and I think I will type them when I am not drinking so heavily.

[dance commander]

The lascannons really need a faster turn rate, because of the way target priority works every time it moves it will change target to infantry and what not, the turrets are slow enough that by the time you're already in rage of that half dead vehicle again you won't have the time to shoot.

Anyway it really isn't worth purchasing in place of the guo, the guo fits so much better chaos, it allows you to be agressive, it is a great bullet sponge, he has great utility and can still be useful against vehicles and can be worshipped, you can spearhead the army with it, the LR on the other hand is so vulnerable that you need to play a reactionary game with it, always sitting behind, the damn thing won't even let you reinforce or heal, I would only get it over the guo if the opponent had a walker and t3 tank on the field already.

[Forestradio]

It has less health because it's pretty much an AV platform with a high health pool.
It's pretty much a beefed up laspred, but slower and bigger with all the pathing issues that comes with being so big :/

It already has that stun in a pretty far range around it.
You suggesting to swap it then?

Because it's just fine imo.

The problem with it is that it gets one positive (AV damage from long range) in return for two negatives(no support function AT ALL and lowest health of any superunit) The swarmlord can at least regen if he's near any infantry squad. The phobos is really vulnerable to long ranged stuff like manticores, and it doesn't have the capacity to just tank the shots like a LRR or a LRC do.

Every single superunit except for the GUO and BB offers some buffs to surrounding units and/or has a variety of abilities to use. Why should the Phobos be any different? It's nowhere near as effective as a baneblade with less health to boot.

[Torpid]

It's ranged dps is comparable to the baneblade's in my experience, and it kills vehicles even quicker, but it has less health, but it's cheaper and on a race which generally is much more likely to get a super unit out. The phobos is fine, it's a heavy weapons platform that should be behind the rest of your army doing massive amounts of damage. 2k hp of vehicle is a lot when nothing can stand up to it's firepower for a long time. Yes, that makes it vulnerable to artillery/nukes but if it's behind your entire army how are such things going to reach it? Needless to say the same goes for heavy melee squads and even if they do reach it you can stun them with it's ability. So long as you note that the phobos is nothing like the land raider redeemer it functions well and does it's job. Regarding the GUO vs the Phobos, it's simply a question of whether offensive or defensive play respectively, is the more suitable choice.

[Tex]

I am reading your last post Torpid, I can't help but feel like you haven't tried to use the phobos very often. The thing is a t4 unit. After it's stun goes off, it can barely even defend itself from melee units. No aura on a 800-200 unit that is meant to sit in the middle of your army is ok?

Just bleh on that man.

Then let us consider the repair mechanic. Heretics are hard enough to keep alive at this stage of the game, and heretics repairing, means heretics not worshiping. And worship just happens to be something chaos is so incredibly reliant on.

I could go on and on, but basically I just need to play more PC because at least then I have a repair unit that doesn't bleed me dry, and furthermore, the PC is designed perfectly to protect the phobos from the things it needs to be afraid of.

[Forestradio]

Torpid, a Baneblade is FAR superior to a phobos. More health, and demolisher cannon can ruin any blob or setup team's day. Not to mention repair bunkers. As Captain Diomedes says, "IT IS DEH BEIHNBLEIDE!!!!!!!"


I'm sure that most Chaos players would gladly pay an extra 100 req for more support, health, or another ability.

[Tex]

I think the better question is, why should I have to pay more to be on par?

[Torpid]

I am reading your last post Torpid, I can't help but feel like you haven't tried to use the phobos very often. The thing is a t4 unit. After it's stun goes off, it can barely even defend itself from melee units. No aura on a 800-200 unit that is meant to sit in the middle of your army is ok?

Just bleh on that man.

Then let us consider the repair mechanic. Heretics are hard enough to keep alive at this stage of the game, and heretics repairing, means heretics not worshiping. And worship just happens to be something chaos is so incredibly reliant on.

I could go on and on, but basically I just need to play more PC because at least then I have a repair unit that doesn't bleed me dry, and furthermore, the PC is designed perfectly to protect the phobos from the things it needs to be afraid of.

Wellnot being to defend itself against melee is the point. Like I said it's a long ranged weapons platform. Just see it as a giant D cannon. It has really good range, so the rest of your army should be in front of it and protecting it form all that stuff. So long as you have relatively good perception and your opponent lacks a bunch of vehicle snares, you should be easily able to pull it out of danger would your main army be forced off. The only time heavy melee squads should be able to reach it is with a flank or something and that's why you get the dirge caster stun.

Why should it have an ability when it soft counters every unit in the game, just like a fire prism does? It's raw dps and it's dps type are utterly superior to the LRR and the LRC in nearly all cases.

Honestly, my phobos' don't need that much repairing, it's more the khorne dreads in front of them, but seriously, what's hitting this thing? Also don't forget it still gets worship benefits.

Finally discussion about the baneblade is unavailing. The unit is absolutely mental, it costs 1k req and 200 power, it has to be ridiculous. No other race has something like that. As good as the avatar and the GUO are, at least you can kite them. With a few repair bunkers that thing is crazy, however in 1v1 you just never see a baneblade. If you do, then the game should have ended in t2 by all rights. IG has a very weak late t1 and early t2 but one of the strongest t2s when they invest in it. Shame on the IG player for not doing so and rushing a BB when all you had to do was get a few artillery units and a walker to easily wipe his farm and game superior map control.

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

I could go on and on, but basically I just need to play more PC because at least then I have a repair unit that doesn't bleed me dry, and furthermore, the PC is designed perfectly to protect the phobos from the things it needs to be afraid of.

Ironically, the Nurgle Workshipp is the only one which the Land Raider Phobos can't benefit from.

I don't like the Land Raider Phobos. The model it's awesome, his damage is good... but I feel he don't fit well with the rest of Chaos army. Of course, could benefit from the Khorne and Tzeentch Workshipp, or the Havocs/Plague Marines/Raptors melta bomb snare. But the Land Raider Phobos depends from a support that he don't return.

As I see it, it's only a fatty, tanky and slow Mark of Tzeentch Chaos Predator with a soft anti-melee ability.
- It have similar damage and range, but divided between two Lasscannons which very often they shoots to different targets, making his burst damage less potent.
- His ability is... meh. It's more valuable the damage reduction debuff than the 2 seconds stun.

In almost any matchup, I prefer the GUO over the LRP. Disruption with Cloud of Flies, can counter half of his own counters with Foul Snare, burst damage with Vomit, damage sponge/sperhead unit, benefit very well with Workshipp...

Seriously, the only situation I would prefer the LRP over the GUO it's if your enemy have spend too much resources in anti infantry weapons. And even on this situation, depending of the enemy unit type, a MoN/MoK Chaos Predator could do the work cheaper.

[Raffa]

After 5 or so years in the game as consistently one of its best players, known for experimenting with every unit and evolving the metagame, I'm sure Tex finds your tactical advice invaluable. That being said, there are a few slight flaws:

Honestly, my phobos' don't need that much repairing, it's more the khorne dreads in front of them, but seriously, what's hitting this thing? Also don't forget it still gets worship benefits.

In my humble experience with this game most people tend to buy multiple av weapons to deal with vehicle threats, and unless you have a perfect army there will always be ways to "hit this thing". In my time maining Chaos in Elite I rarely have a Phobos and Khorne Dread at the same time because of:
a) The cost
b) If your hugbot is still alive by the time you could buy a phobos, you will likely be faced with hard long-range av weapons. That means it is probably not a good time to buy a Phobos.
c)

Then let us consider the repair mechanic. Heretics are hard enough to keep alive at this stage of the game, and heretics repairing, means heretics not worshiping. And worship just happens to be something chaos is so incredibly reliant on.

I don't think anyone forgot "it still gets worship benefits". The Chaos late game is reliant on worship and tics cannot multitask very well

Shame on the IG player for not doing so and rushing a BB when all you had to do was get a few artillery units and a walker to easily wipe his farm and game superior map control.

Indeed. It's just so simple to "easily wipe his farm and gain superior map control". Why didn't I think of that before? Thanks for the tip ^^

It's ranged dps is comparable to the baneblade's in my experience

We can agree to disagree

And my personal favourite:

Just see it as a giant D cannon.

Please explain how? Because in my ignorance I only see differences. It has no singularity. It does not bleed. It is slow. It cannot retreat. It does not have great plasma cannon damage at very long range. It cannot get in webways. It is better at single target damage. It has no setup time. It is a fucking vehicle. etc

[Kvek]

It's ranged dps is comparable to the baneblade's in my experience

They both do high-av Damage.

Just see it as a giant D cannon.

Please explain how? Because in my ignorance I only see differences. It has no singularity. It does not bleed. It is slow. It cannot retreat. It does not have great plasma cannon damage at very long range. It cannot get in webways. It is better at single target damage. It has no setup time. It is a fucking vehicle. etc

They are different, but both the D cannon and LRP are long range support units.

[Torpid]

After 5 or so years in the game as consistently one of its best players, known for experimenting with every unit and evolving the metagame, I'm sure Tex finds your tactical advice invaluable. That being said, there are a few slight flaws:

Honestly, my phobos' don't need that much repairing, it's more the khorne dreads in front of them, but seriously, what's hitting this thing? Also don't forget it still gets worship benefits.

In my humble experience with this game most people tend to buy multiple av weapons to deal with vehicle threats, and unless you have a perfect army there will always be ways to "hit this thing". In my time maining Chaos in Elite I rarely have a Phobos and Khorne Dread at the same time because of:
a) The cost
b) If your hugbot is still alive by the time you could buy a phobos, you will likely be faced with hard long-range av weapons. That means it is probably not a good time to buy a Phobos.
c)

Then let us consider the repair mechanic. Heretics are hard enough to keep alive at this stage of the game, and heretics repairing, means heretics not worshiping. And worship just happens to be something chaos is so incredibly reliant on.

I don't think anyone forgot "it still gets worship benefits". The Chaos late game is reliant on worship and tics cannot multitask very well

Shame on the IG player for not doing so and rushing a BB when all you had to do was get a few artillery units and a walker to easily wipe his farm and game superior map control.

Indeed. It's just so simple to "easily wipe his farm and gain superior map control". Why didn't I think of that before? Thanks for the tip ^^

It's ranged dps is comparable to the baneblade's in my experience

We can agree to disagree

And my personal favourite:

Just see it as a giant D cannon.

Please explain how? Because in my ignorance I only see differences. It has no singularity. It does not bleed. It is slow. It cannot retreat. It does not have great plasma cannon damage at very long range. It cannot get in webways. It is better at single target damage. It has no setup time. It is a fucking vehicle. etc

Raffa, you get the phobos for defensive play. If your army consists of 2 khorne marines, a bloodletter squad, a plague marine squad and chaos lord obviously you don't want to get a phobos. You get the phobos in a late game situation where you want to lock down vps. Support with your own autocannons havocs, shrines, blastmasters and TCSM. Assuming you have the point already, it becomes very hard for the foe to push against you. No strategy is invincible, but that's you adapt the units that support the phobos to fit against whatever you're fighting. Typically I like khorne dreadnoughts + blastmaster, I don't use the dread offensively, I lure the foe out with artillery and just use the dread defensively, even if they get long ranged AV, the phobos and blastmaster out-range them. If I've been running a TCSM+BL+BC sort of t2 then in t3 I'll get the GUO because it just synergises with my army far better. It depends on what playstyle is needed.

Yes, it's easy to wipe an IG players farm and gain map dominance as chaos if they don't invest in their t2. Blastmaster+tdread+bloodletters as pc, or just the cl/cs requires a lascannon, ogryns, 2x missles on sents or a chim+2x PG GM to counter. If you skip one of those things you're going to lose map control and likely get your farm wiped considering how easy it is to wipe a farm with havocs+blastmaster+tdread. How on earth in a 1v1 does IG ever get a baneblade, ever, ever, please enlighten me because I've never done it? No competent player would let IG do that and so discussion about the baneblade and what it does is a waste of time.

Regarding the dps of the phobos, the things lascannons do about the same damage to infantry as the baneblade's main cannon, but more to vehicles. Of course, the baneblade has it's own lascannons and a bunch of bolters and the demolisher cannon, but the point being - both the phobos and the baneblade shred infantry.

The phobos is similar to a d cannon for the following reason:
It sits behind your army, protected by your army, as a heavy, versatile, weapons platform.
It doesn't bleed you (how do you lose d cannon models?)
It does large burst damage.
It does solid damage to all targets.
It can lock down VPs with this damage with ease.
Pushing it off requires a full frontal assault by your foe, or a well executed flank, it cannot simply be forced off by one unit.

Stop being so pedantic, as if I was trying to point out how the phobos has a set-up time and can gib armies with it's magic singularity while traversing webways -_-

[Caeltos]

I'll cut to the short and simple version;

Phobos was designed to be a very defensive-hard hitting super unit.

The Great Unclean offers more general utility & offensive/pressure potential

So if you're a very agressive player, and want to utilize the Phobos for agression purposes, you're doing it wrong. The Predator serves the purpose better for the agression play with better manuverability in general.

It's about finding a good mixed bag of army compositions

[Forestradio]

hmph.
The point of this thread was not to find out if the Phobos is comparable to a D-Cannon.
Comparisons to a BB are also meaningless. BB outperforms Phobos is pretty much every aspect of play, so let's not talk about that.

I still would like to see my Daemonic Possession ability implemented, for more survivability and defensive purposes. The accuracy debuff while Possession is activated ensures that the Phobos is still not an offensive unit.

As for supporting it with worship, one kind of worship doesn't affect it at all.

As for it not being able to support other units AT ALL (transport doesn't count since it is so slow), that is still unfair.
Low health already balances the high AV damage. The other two LR are better at supporting because of reinforcement, healing, etc. Why not the Phobos?

[Torpid]

Eh, we've already explained why the other transports LRs are better at support. They are shorter ranged, do less damage and are countered by tanks.

The phobos doesn't even have that low HP, 2k hp is the same as a swarmlord, the redeemer only has 2.5k. It's totally fine how it is, the thing hurts.

[Forestradio]

Eh, we've already explained why the other transports LRs are better at support. They are shorter ranged, do less damage and are countered by tanks.

The phobos doesn't even have that low HP, 2k hp is the same as a swarmlord, the redeemer only has 2.5k. It's totally fine how it is, the thing hurts.

You mean the really fast heavy melee swarmlord who can a) SUPPORT nearby allies and b) heal himself simply by being near any infantry blob?

The Phobos got a buff (long ranged AV) for a nerf (lower health). LRC is not short ranged by any stretch of the imagination.
What it didn't keep was health/energy regen of the other LRs, or the on the field reinforcement (something that Chaos already lack).

[Ace of Swords]

500 is alot of HP.

That said the SL is way more faster and way more manoeuvrable, with that much hp and the way it does it's damage the phobos can be taken down with a single laspred out manouvering it, but since that 1v1 situation between units will never happen there is an incredible easy way to simply make it waste shots on your inf units then move in with a pred, fire at it, pull back and repeat still it's dead.

It's too slow chase, the cannons in the 99,99% of the cases will never hit(and again it's very easy to create the circumstances to make it not happen), and it's very easy to make it miss everysingle shot on your vehicles aslong as they stand on the border of it's firing range.

[Tex]

Know what? I would totally settle for the LRP giving a reinforce aura and be done with this. It doesn't need to be a retreat beacon as well, I think that is something unique and cool about the LRR.

There are so many fights that certain chaos units cannot win because of the lack of reinforce. Having the LRP alter that would be very cool and ... you guessed it ... defensive!

Here is a great example of what the phobos could help with by having reinforce.

Khorne marines vs nobs. KCSM are excellent against nobs, except that they still lose to nobs. Having to retreat them pretty much means the phobos will be the next target and will be systematically crushed (assuming your KCSM were the bodyguard melee unit you are using). With the reinforce aura, I truly believe a squad of AC heretics and KCSM could seriously give nobs a run for their money, just like how sluggas with a trukk nearby can seriously threaten terminators.

So there it is, I will no longer ask for anything on the phobos other than a reinforce aura. Keep it exactly how it is save for that. Can we at least all agree upon this?

[Lulgrim]

The original design of the Phobos was to be seriously killy. So it had higher lascannon damage and the old school splash radius of 3 on those. We also had a storm bolter on top but it had some technical issues and the lascannons turned out pretty good so we put that aside.

Well, apparently the supercharged lascannons were too killy in the end and the damage & splash were lowered and now the general sentiment seems to be they don't justify the cost/drawbacks anymore. I'm not sure if it needs other utility or more damage again.

In case you didn't know, Phobos was made slightly faster than LRR and LRC. Maybe add another 0.5?

[Tex]

Pathing ultimately prevents the phobos from chasing and killing anything anyway, thus I don't think speed is going to help it. Torpid was pretty accurate when he said something to the effect of "this thing is a sit here and prevent anything from coming near without taking massive damage" kind of unit.

I really think utility is the buff required.

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

I like the Tex reinforce idea. It was my idea for ages, to kill two birds with a single shot: fix in T3 the need for a reinforce point which don't depends on the commander's choice and give some utility/synergy to the Land Raider Phobos with the rest of the army.

That said, I doubt Caeltos would like the idea.

Some questions about his design:
1. Was Land Raider Phobos so killy in the beginning?

2. The Side Overcharged Lasscannons have a 3 radius initially, and was too strong. But now with only 1 radius the lasscannons fails in a big % except against big targets. Have you tried a 2 radius?

3. Have you thought change his weapons, even if is un-flufy as fuck? The side lasscannons are good against vehicles and Terminators (for his damage type), but very ineffective against infantry for his damage type. The front? assault cannon is effective against infantry, but weak against HI and SHI, armour types which ussually are present in T2 and T3.

What about to change the lasscannons for autocannons (like the Chaos Dread/Havoc ones) with explosive damage type? With this change, the LRP is going to make a more constant damage instead a burst one, effective against all targets without depending of armour type, and since the autocannon have almost full accuracy against all targets, the damage would be more controlable to fix it if is too strong or too low.

Or change the front assault cannon for a inferno autocannon (with inferno damage type)? Keep the side lasscannons to big targets like tanks, Terminators, Dreads... and the inferno autocannon against all type of infantry.

[Indrid]

It's a twin-linked heavy bolter on the front, not an assault cannon.

I'm very much against going anti-fluff and changing the weapons for the sake of it. May as well discard the Phobos name and make up your own pattern if you wanted to do that, which would be preferable to what you're suggesting IMO.

I'd like to see the Storm Bolter working on top (maybe Thomas could figure out why it bugs out the sponson(s)?) and see how it goes. The Phobos seems fine to me as is in 2v2 and Team Games, but I've seen very little of it in 1v1; though to be fair you see very few super-units in 1v1 at all. Perhaps a buff to the DPS of the twin-linked heavy bolter on the front or give it some more courage damage.

[Asmon]

Reinforce aura would be too strong. I'm ok with an ability that allows reinforcements for 20s.

[Orkfaeller]

You know how LandRaider in the Background // TT were allways a bit more than "just" bigger tanks?

They had this whole "machine spirit" thing going on ( or its counter part on Chaos side ) which I loved.

Wished we had something representing this in ELITE too.

[Dark Riku]

You know how LandRaider in the Background // TT were allways a bit more than "just" bigger tanks?

They had this whole "machine spirit" thing going on ( or its counter part on Chaos side ) which I loved.

Wished we had something representing this in ELITE too.

Something like that would translate into Land Raiders
not being able to be locked in place, only slowed down.
And always having at least 1 gun firing no matter what disable hit them?

[Orkfaeller]

Well that would be the most direct conversion of the TT rules.


Not saying it should be this, you know, I'd just like to see... something.

[Tex]

Reinforce aura would be too strong. I'm ok with an ability that allows reinforcements for 20s.

Please, do explain why? Most races can buy a reinforce aura for less than half the price or even use some form of global to either reinforce or call in more units. Chaos are in the unique situation of having horrible reinforcement options and having no call-ins until terminators. And just for the record, I'm not saying that chaos globals are weak at all. I'm just saying that reinforcement is a unique weakness they possess.

Anyway about your idea for an ability to reinforce for 20s. What would be the cooldown on this ability? Would you call it something like "open wide the maw" ?