Fixing the Gimmick of spore mines

[Torpid]

I know from consultation with many folk in this community that spore mines piss them off.

Just think about it - the unit exists so that nids don't need to get a BSWB to deal with garrisons. Yet when do people get them for that reason????? People get them to win first engagements or to get a cheeky squad wipe. This is against the design of spore mines and a gimmick that is too high reward for too little risk. Nids don't really need it. You know what they do need though? Better anti-garrison!!!

Due to the nature of how spore mines work they will only work as anti garrison for smaall buildings - they only hurt units that are visually nearby to them and thus within explosion range. Hence, If you take the building on argus desert gate at the top contested VP spore mines do very little there since the building is so wide - the units in the squad inside spread out across the various windows and the spores will be lucky to hit one with their explosion. Yet spore mines do good damage to squads in the towers by the power farm in those maps since it is a vertical building that holds all the units together in close proximity, same with bunkers (if there are not enough windows in a garrison for the entire squad to be visible they seem to default to being in the centre of the garrison - as you can see with the battlewagon where all the models are on top of each other at the bottom centre).

What's do we need then?

Spore mines should still kill stuff if an enemy has a capping squad near them and forgets entirely about them - that's a fair punishment for such poor awareness.
Spore mines need to perform better vs garrisons.
Spore mines should not so easily be able to wipe squads on retreat.
Spore mines shouldn't change the tide of engagements by being able to suppress entire blobs of enemy ranged units and thus demanding so much focus fire.

I haven't considered the specific numbers but what does the community think about having spore mines create an effect on the ground upon explosion that does damage over time and has a viral affect akin to blight grenades as well as producing a small snare such as 20%? The snare only affects infantry of course. The idea being if an enemy is stood still you can still kill them with mines while capping. It will do pretty much nothing to retreating units however. It also won't win you ranged engagements instantly by suppressing the whole blob but it will force them out of cover so help a bit. The snare deters melee slightly, but of course isn't as strong as before - do nids really need to rely on mines to beat melee? And finally the DOT hurts buildings more and the viral affect is key to spreading the DOT across different models in those buildings that spread the models out really wide so the explosion radius won't affect them.

The viral effect could do friendly fire too. So you don't just plant the DOT on top of your own melee squads to make you sure you win fights akin to the LA toxic burst.

[boss]

yea this sounds more fair and better no more free wipes poor tics and orks with gay mines out the gate and friendly fire sounds fair to

[Oddnerd]

It would be hard to say for sure without testing it, but I like it in theory. Anything to make spore mines less of an opening gimmick would be nice. The added utility as opposed to raw damage might make them more appealing later in the game as well.

[Atlas]

I think you can probably get away with changing their damage type from spore_pvp to anti_vehicle_pvp for anti garrison damage, and then adjusting the actual amount of flat damage.

[Assuming I am reading the damage vs cover and damage vs armor numbers correctly]

I know that sounds like a weird damage type, and in my own mind I was thinking about doing flame_pvp damage, but flame_pvp damage still has a x1 multiplier vs infantry (and .75 vs pretty much everything else) which still leaves it able to wtf-wipe bunched up infantry squads. In contrast, anti_vehicle_pvp only does x.15 damage to infantry, .3 to HI, .5 to commanders and 1 to SHI and vehicles while still being x1 damage to garrisons.


This way, you can do good damage towards garrisons without still being able to just wreck infantry, and you can add whatever type of effect you want the detonation to do to units in the field (suppress, slow w/e) to compensate for the huge loss of on-the-field detonation damage.

Is that the sort of vibe you're going for?

[Torpid]

-

Re-read the third paragraph Atlas

That is the main issue as to why a damage type won't really solve the issue.

[Myrdal]

"spores mines changed from spore_pvp to anti_vehicle_pvp damage"

Hmm, according to the Manual of elite Caeltosian Elite balance this fits the bill nicely. We'll add it, gj!

No but nice proposal and easy enough to add with blight nades being the template.

-

Re-read the third paragraph Atlas

That is the main issue as to why a damage type won't really solve the issue.

I think he got that but was considering the damage type/value for which you weren't sure. If you want a greater effect of the dot for units inside garrison than 2x dmg then I guess it would work although weird.

[Crewfinity]

this seems like an okay change to me. If Torpid's suggestion doesn't get implemented, I would suggest that we should decrease the amount of damage that detonations do on retreat. right now it's just stupid high, especially if you spam them or do some cheeky tower purchases in retreat paths.

[Atlas]

- What hakon said -

Basically, yeah. Changing the damage type by itself would just be a flat and heavy nerf. It would need some other adjustments which, going from Torpid's post, would be some kind of AoE DoT and/or slow on the detonation ability.

The main thrust of my post was getting a damage type down that would reflect more of an anti-garrison damage type that isn't as punishing to infantry squads. My only real concern is that I don't think the AoE will have the effect Torpid envisions on large buildings, as I think they will be too spread out to effect each other.

[Torpid]

- What hakon said -

Basically, yeah. Changing the damage type by itself would just be a flat and heavy nerf. It would need some other adjustments which, going from Torpid's post, would be some kind of AoE DoT and/or slow on the detonation ability.

The main thrust of my post was getting a damage type down that would reflect more of an anti-garrison damage type that isn't as punishing to infantry squads. My only real concern is that I don't think the AoE will have the effect Torpid envisions on large buildings, as I think they will be too spread out to effect each other.

It's something we'll have to check in game with blight nades and apo heals to get over the initial blast damage and just gauge what DOTs on the floor do to various buildings too. I dunno about the damage type, because it should still hurt infantry to wipe inactive squads. If it is a DOT and the suppression is removed though they shouldn't do much to any active player actually microing his shit.

[Dark Riku]

Then why would anyone even get spore mines?
I hardly imagine the spore mines working well as anti garrisons, especially versus setupteams, by the fact they will get shot on approach.

[Black Relic]

Honestly i would like rippers to be an anti garrison. I want to entertain the thought of the tiny nids swarming through the windows to attack the enemy. Maybe instead they reduce enemy range of unit inside the building to nil or something but i still like the swarming intention and attempted representation of the idea.

[Crewfinity]

nids already have barbed strangler as t1 anti-garrison, i dont think they need spore mines or rippers to fill that role as well.

my 2 cents

[Torpid]

Then why would anyone even get spore mines?
I hardly imagine the spore mines working well as anti garrisons, especially versus setupteams, by the fact they will get shot on approach.

Set-up teams fortunately cannot manually target though so all you have to do is bait the fire with all your endless squads that you have as a nid then send the mines in. They would still act as a sort of melee deterrent just not as overtly as they are now where they are really scary just because of their retreat wipe potential.

[Oddnerd]

I can see why Riku has said no one will use spore mines. I am not a regular tyranid player myself, so I can't say so on the basis of personal experience, but I can see why taking away the immediate killing power of spore mines will make people ignore them as an option.

Could you just take away their ability to wipe retreating units? Manticores do massive damage to units, except when they are retreating.... could you not change spore mines so that they function the way a manticore's missiles do? This would allow them to be a fair damage and crowd control unit, while eliminating the chance of them being used as a cheap unit-wiping gimmick.


EDIT - I played tyranids during the 3rd edition of tabletop 40k and they had at least 3 different types of damage. Could you maybe give spore mines different kinds of detonation? 1 could be raw damage in a single burst, 1 could create an area-of-effect where units are slowed and damaged, and 1 could apply the blight grenade plague effect. Maybe it wouldn't work exactly like that, but you get the idea.