Heavy Weapon Team Balance

[Torpid]

The IG Heavy Weapon Team (HWT) has two contentious points of balance at the moment.

Firstly, is its on field vitality granted by its high hp - 900hp, which is supported by med-kits rather well, and its very fast and cheap reinforcement time (2seconds) aided by chimeras and bunkers. This then synergises very well defensively with green cover which stops them from being counter-suppressed, making their tankiness even harder to deal with - and since they are light infantry they don't suffer much from power melee in T1 either and can back-pedal for a long time from melee squads far more than the shuriken cannon platform, devs or havocs can do.

Secondly, the shield upgrade in T2. In principle this thing has been a pet peeve of mine since it came about. I hate that it negates the vast amount of ways you can deal with suppression. Let's look at them. You can deal with a suppression team by:

Chucking grenades at it to wipe it - countered by shield
Using abilities to knock it over like warp throw, kinetic pulse etc - totally made useless by shield
Splitting up with ranged units and focus firing it down - countered by shield
Using snipers - countered by shield
Counter-suppression - totally made useless by shield
Artillery - totally made useless in the case of weirdboy, stikks and whirlwind practically, p-devs/blastmaster slightly negated.
Flanking melee - still effective
Jump squads - still effective
Vehicles - still effective

So that which remains effective vs a shielded HWT all are things that are weak against IG. Lots of melee is pretty unwise, especially now IG has functional catachans! Jump squads even more so, entirely useless in T1, especially against the now very common 3x GM, sent, 2x HWT builds. Vehicles of course IG has never had much trouble with, it having one of the best lascannon weapons itself, also on one of the best set-up teams. And it having sentinel missle launchers and the tankiest T2 heavy melee squad. Executed lascannon is a thing too.

So what are the proposed solutions?
Lower models and hp (something I have suggested before but I suspect Caeltos is not keen on going with)
Reduced damage or suppression rate? (seems silly given the HB HWT is already the poorest performing HB SUT in terms of weapon stats)
Even higher cost?
Other options?

For the shield -
Do we remove knockback immunity?
Remove suppression immunity?
Lower the damage resistance on the lead model (do note only the lead model with the heavy weapon gets the damage resistance, which is partially justified by them being a die last model, is it truly justified though when the squad is tankier than devs/havocs anyway?)
Implement some sort of mechanical change such as making it an ability that you can toggle on or off like an iron halo? Or an active ability that lasts a period of time with a cooldown?


The autocannon performance is still a looming issue. But definitely not "OP" atm. We just need to establish if it needs a tad more damage or if it is fine so feedback here on that would be great

[Oddnerd]

Cost - It now has a cost that resembles other SUTs and I think that seems appropriate. I think that cost adjustments only work when a unit has a well-balanced design but just doesn't have a cost that matches its power. In the case of HWTs, I think that they are imbalanced in a way that won't really be addressed by further cost increases.

Damage and Suppression - I agree with your assessment, the IG HWT is already the least impressive in terms of overall weapon stats/suppression/ movement speed/abilities. I think that is fine, since it fits with the quantity-over-quality design of IG, but lowering it any further would likely make people avoid buying HWTs until T2 when other weapons and the refractor upgrade become available.

Models/HP - I agree that in T1, having a unit with a whopping 900hp inf armour is excessive. Perhaps 5 models with 135hp? This would give them the same HP pool as other SUTs but without the protection of HI armour or melee resistance. I know you said Caeltos was not keen on doing this, but it seems like the one change consistent with the design principles of IG - higher numbers, low HP per model, cheap reinforce. If the squad had lowered HP then it would be more difficult for them to just keep reinforcing while eating up fairly cheap losses. Either that or increase the reinforce time for each model, which wouldn't really fit with the IG theme much.

As for the refractor field - I agree that it negates too many of the HWTs weaknesses. Have you considered making it an active duration ability like that on the LG retinue, or like the standard iron halo wargears where you drain energy based on damage taken?

EDIT

Implement some sort of mechanical change such as making it an ability that you can toggle on or off like an iron halo? Or an active ability that lasts a period of time with a cooldown?

Derp, I need to read posts before replying to them.

EDIT 2 - I think maybe removing either the DR or knockback immunity might be necessary. One or the other could be justified, particularly the DR since IG units are very susceptible to being effortlessly wiped by point-and-click aoe abilities... however, maybe the 2 of them together on a single cheap upgrade is excessive.

EDIT 3 -

The autocannon performance is still a looming issue. But definitely not "OP" atm. We just need to establish if it needs a tad more damage or if it is fine so feedback here on that would be great

I think that the problem with the autocannon has to do with the durability of the HWT and the power of the refractor field. The HWT autocannon only does 66% of the damage of chaos havoc autocannons, but somehow I hear more bitching about IG autocannons than havocs - likely because having that damage output on a crowd control-resistant unit with a massive inf armour HP pool is often worse than having it on HI armour havocs.

(I still think havoc autocannons are bullshit - you have an anti-all weapon that does more AV damage than the lascannon upgrade)

[Myrdal]

...
Chucking grenades at it to wipe it - countered by shield
Using abilities to knock it over like warp throw, kinetic pulse etc - totally made useless by shield

No, grenades are a weak spot. The shield or damage reduction on the leader is a must-purchase or it's nade wipes galore.
They have it much worse than other suts here due to 6 models and damage sharing leader. Still effective.

I'm not sure why all models should receive kb immunity, even the codex states it's just for the leader. Anyway, that'd help the case of warp throw in that you could tie them up in melee easier.

So what are the proposed solutions?
Lower models and hp (something I have suggested before but I suspect Caeltos is not keen on going with)

He wasn't keen on going back to 4 but 5 might do. We could then push hp down to 700-750 perhaps. DR on leader has to stay though.

[Atlas]

I think between the 4 before and the 6 after, we can cut it down the middle at 5 and split the hp value as well to get something.

The reinforce time should be looked at. However, I don't think heavily nerfing the shield is warranted after all those changes. Maybe a tweak, but I would be concerned with overnerfing at that point.

[Torpid]

-

How about 5 models and 750hp then, combined with the shield no longer granting suppression immunity? That seems a bit more consistent than the change to merely make the lead model kb immune and the rest not. And is definitely the weakest of the three traits that the shield grants, but still allows for a little more counter-play.

I agree with previous sentiment that making it more expensive, making the actual heay bolter itself any weaker or increasing reinforce time are all bad ideas.

[karnakkardak]

Delete dmg resistence.
5 model squad/each model have 160 hp=800hp for squad.

I dont understand why people complain about kb&supression immune. Hwt have that at the begining of dow series (dow1 winter assult. In there, they have kb immune, dmg reduction, and immune to melee attack)

Yeah dmg reduction is annoying and overpowered after hwt member increased. But delete shield itself is only to kill characters

[Adeptus Noobus]

-

How about 5 models and 750hp then, combined with the shield no longer granting suppression immunity? That seems a bit more consistent than the change to merely make the lead model kb immune and the rest not. And is definitely the weakest of the three traits that the shield grants, but still allows for a little more counter-play.

This sounds like the right direction to me as well. In their current state the biggest gripe people have with them is their tankiness combined with their fast reinforcing. Reducing their model count and hp would go a long way if their other traits are to stay the same. We should also talk about the suppression-resistance/immunity. If I remember correctly, the courage damage change from last patch was implemented precisely to allow suppression teams to be countered by other suppression units that make better use of cover. Wouldn't it just be conseqeuent to include the HWt here?