Transitioning from Company of Heroes to Dawn of War II Elite Mod

[Jerry]

Ok. I've played ALOT of Company of Heroes and thought THAT was the pro game from Relic.

Played alot of Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. Dawn of War II....all campaigns, some Last Stand, like 10 botmatches and 3(!) MP games whereas TWO of them were today....


Then today I got into MP with somebody that calls himself a newbie and I lose quite hard....forgetting squads, retreatwiped....

I see two main problems:

1. Wargear amount. It's SO much text so having to read everything is just nono in a hectic battle! Makes me have to stick to a few heroes.
2. Retreat button in DoW II is "X". In CoH it is "T"! WHAT THE FUCK!! So I play the Warlock and are gonna use Destructor vs enemies hormagaunts = Retreat!....
3. No minimap (which there is in CoH)....

To add insult to injury, In my MP matches today I never used a single "red resource" ability cause I'm already overloaded with wargear and playing the RTS itself....

So....any ideas people?

[Philippus12]

1) Get into the Dow 2 Elite Mod Beginners Club viewtopic.php?t=1927
2) Have a look at the Beginners 1v1 Tournament viewtopic.php?f=14&p=57702#p57702

That should give you enough people to play with.

Now about the real gameplay:

1) Play the race that you find the most enjoyable.
2) Usually starting with more tanky and less micro intensive Heroes is the best approach.
3) After finding a Hero to start with get into a custom 1v1 or bot game and make sure you understand how each piece of wargear works, what it does and what it doesnt do.
4) Same thing as 3) but for units.

Thats just my approach but it helped me getting to now some very nice people and by know I should be able to memorize atleast 80% of the Space Marine Heroes, Squads, Wargear, Abilities etc.

About spending red: I often dont get that done properly either

[Torpid]

There is a minimap and you should get into a habit of using that to move around...

[Oddnerd]

To start, I would read the codex and become familiar with the wargear and globals of the commander you want to play. You don't need to memorize everything right away, just get a general idea of what each spell/item does so you don't have to figure it out in the middle of a game.

Also, something you should become familiar with when playing DOW2 is the types of damage and their effectiveness against different types of armour. Here is a chart I use for my own reference, it does not have every type, just the most common ones. In the codex, you will be able to see each unit's armour and the damage type of their weapons. Again, don't feel that you need to memorize this, but a good understanding of this will make it easier for you determine what is effective against what in combat.

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At the bottom of the codex front page there is also a codex tutorial that gives a basic rundown of all the game dynamics in DOW2, and some glossaries of weapons/damage types that are worth looking over as well (https://dawnofwar.info/codex.php).

As for getting used to the gameplay, you just have to practice until it becomes muscle memory. Consider looking up Indrid or BbBos's youtube channels and watching some multiplayer game casts.

[Jerry]

There is a minimap and you should get into a habit of using that to move around...

Yeah but it doesn't work like in Company of Heroes where you press a button so it covers the whole screen! In DoW II you have to go down and click more precisely.
Another one of those things that I just can't understand what Relic were thinking....

A pros instructionvideo where he shows how to use the minimap.

Philippus12,

Yeah, I'm kinda doing that. Trying every hero vs A.I (what's the different difficulties do btw?) to get a general idea of what they can and cannot do.


Oddnerd,

Reading up on things is good but it should only be as an addition as it doesn't stick as well as practice does


Thanks people. I'll play more and try to improve

[Soberson]

Judging from my experience, the sooner you stop comparing and dive in - the better. You can expect to lose a lot at first while learning the game, that's why you'd be better if stuck with lore/playstyle/visually appealing faction. This way you'll have a bit of fun even if you lose

[Torpid]

Yeah but it doesn't work like in Company of Heroes where you press a button so it covers the whole screen! In DoW II you have to go down and click more precisely.
Another one of those things that I just can't understand what Relic were thinking....

A pros instructionvideo where he shows how to use the minimap.

Philippus12,

Yeah, I'm kinda doing that. Trying every hero vs A.I (what's the different difficulties do btw?) to get a general idea of what they can and cannot do.


Oddnerd,

Reading up on things is good but it should only be as an addition as it doesn't stick as well as practice does


Thanks people. I'll play more and try to improve

Well I can tbh, I don't see the need at all really for being able to shift-key commands via an expanded mini-map because DOW 1v1 maps are waaaay smaller than COH 1v1 maps. To compensate though the artillery isn't as strong, nor are the tanks and you get less squads in general.

AI difficulty just makes them get more resources really - doesn't affect their intelligence much if at all. Expert comp is extremely easy though - I can beat three pretty easily with numerous races.

[Lichtbringer]

Copyed from another post:

Make sure to also read this from the Codex https://dawnofwar.info/codex.php?page=e ... t_glossary ^^. It explains mechanics.


Here are some general CoH --> DoW tipps:

Melee.
-Melee does BONUS damage to retreating units.
-You can force your rangedunits to enter melee by d-clicking, this is usefull for tying up enemy rangedsquads, especially weaponsteams who get desetup.
-Also use it with Ranged units like Tactical Spacemarines against other ranged units, they are better in melee than most ranged units.
-A unit that gets meleed, can't shoot. (It still can kinda shoot if it runs towards another target). Especially good against setupteams.
-Supression doesn't affect Meleedamage and Speed, but it slows the movement. So it is still beneficial, but way less than against ranged.
-No Pinned.
-All Melee units (and some cheaters like Tactical Marines/Scouts/Havoks) and Heroes have a meleeresistance buff. This means they get 40% less melee damage. So a meleeunit shreds a ranged one, but 2 Meleeunits fighting each other take longer.
-Also, every unit that is in meleecombat, takes 40% less ranged damage (to represent friendlyfire considerations and such.) So, it is important to get fragile melee units into melee as fast as possible, without getting shot at much while walking there.
-Most meleeunits (and Heroes) have a Meleecharge. When you rightclick an enemy squad, and they get in a certain range they get a speedbuff. This way they can't be kited ONCE they ARE in the meleecharge range. You should see the animation if you look. This also allows them to even keep up with retreating squads for a bit. Meleeunits are deadly for retreating enemys.

-Meleeunits have a Meleeskill and MeleeSpecialattacks. (Best to read it up in the codex page I linked) Basically, specials knock enemys around so that they lay on the ground without fighting for a moment. Specials are also mostly AOE. Different units have different Specials. Bascially if you have more meleeskill then the enemy, you will never get specialed. For every point you have over your enemy, you have a 1% higher chance per swing to special your enemy with a base of 5%. When both units have the same Meleeskill, both units have a 5% base chance to special each other. Try to not move through the enemys meleeunits with yours, because when they have the same Skill, they loose 3 or so through moving which makes it way more likely for them to get knocked around.

-Melee does almost nothing against units in Buildings (btw, most buildings have only one exit, so always grenade it). And meleeunits in Buildings can only shoot out with their weak pistols.
-There are 3 notable Melee types, normal melee, power melee and heavy Melee. You can look up the exact modifiers in the Codex, but basically:
Normal melee is the worst, powermelee does increased damage against Heavy Infatry (HI) and a tiny bit agaisnt vehicles, it does the same damage as normal melee agaisnt lightly armored infantry. Heavy Melee does huge damage to Vehicles and still normal against Infantry (but less against HI than Powermelee).
-I think thats all I got for melee


Vehicles:
- Vehicles have Reararmor. AV Weapons always penetrate anywhere, but Reararmor hits have multiplied damage. So its even more important not to expose reararmor.


Economy:
-Units like in CoH, have upkeep and Population.
-Requisition is basically Manpower and Energy fuel. But more early units and upgrades need energy.
-You get Requisition by cappin Req points, the longer you hold them the more they give per minue (max after 1-2 minutes or smth.).
-Energy you get through capturing powernodes, but mainly you need to upgrade those powernodes with Generators (up to 3 per node). You mostly have a natural Power, close to your base, hard to reach for the enemy. At some point you always should have one Node fully build out. Sometimes you build more than that. Depending on the Race, you wait with building them in your buildorder.
-Teching You just have 3 Tiers. The first one is unlocked in the beginning, the second costs 300/125, the third one costs 300/150. Some units get unlock passives when you go to the next Tier, some can buy other upgrades. Same as CoH.

Leveling:
- Your units can reach 4 Levels (except for Terminators, they don't). Everylevel give bonus HP, damage regeneration and most importantly meleeskill. A melee unit that is one level above the same unit of the enemy will destroy that unit totally, because it has then 1 meleeskill more. This means the enemy doesn't special you at all. The specific levelbuffs you can see in the Codex.

The Hero:
-Every Race can choose between 3 Heroes. They are powerfull singlemodel commanders. Depending on the Hero, you have different Globals. You can revive a Hero for 250Req, or in Teamgames Heroes can revive each other. They have 3 Slots, Weapon, Armor and Accesoir. Their Wargears are powerfull. The Base has regeneration for all units, btw you can active autoreinforce by rightclicking the reinforce button. You can also Autobuild units by rightclicking the build button, its usefull for building something as soon as you have the resources, but you have to be carefull not to end up with 2 of the same unit that you didn't want.


-Munitions:
Don't exist in DoW. Instead of throwing a nade for 30 Ammo, you purchase one time the ability to throw nades and then use the units regenerating energy to throw them. Maybe the closest thing is The Red from Orks.

Puh, thats all I got right now

[Swift]

People really need to stop trying to make one game into another because they don't want to change. DoW II is different to Coh, so you need to be prepared to change with it, or you'll have a horrible time.

Also, T for retreat is silly :]