GK Balance Suggestions

[Shas'el Doran'ro]

Not sure if this has been brought up before, but I had a talk with The Torpid Gamer the other day about Grey Knight Purifiers should do Heavy Melee damage on all models instead of Power Melee and only Heavy Melee on the Justicar, to make them a more considerable AV option in Tier 2 so you have a better way to counter vehicles instead of having to get a Dread or Las cannon Razorback.

[Batpimp]

purifiers are fine..wait make that GOOD. They super kick ass with BC globals, GK librarian buffs, and the BC himself. purifiers are not your AV. thats what rhinos and dread and interceptors are for. To give them heavy melee just so they can what?...tank dreadnaughts?. Thats not their intended role. The buff you are wanting to give them and the reasons for them are the exact reasons why bloodletters heavy melee dmg was removed. Because its insanely good. Power melee already does some dmg to vehicles and the justicar does hvy dmg. This change is unnecessary and in fact i believe is WAY OVERBOARD.

[Forestradio]

I wouldn't mind another ability being given to purifiers, so they don't just have one single ability that takes up all their energy.

That being said, giving them heavy melee is dumb.

Their insane charge range and speed, combined with shrouding and/or the WE ARE TEH HAMMER buff would make them too good at chasing vehicles.

[Ace of Swords]

Purifiers are meant to have the libby support, the problem of that is the fundamental problem of GKs, it leaves you yet again exposed to vehicles and I don't think Heavy melee is going to help much if at all, they will still be getting controlled by melee walkers or simply supressed while ranged dreds fire at them or outrunned by tanks, while they will lose most of their effectivness vs heavy infantry, the best thing would be to exchange the Terminator Libby purge for a Curse of the Machine Spirit, something that would disable to vehicle for some time.

[SirSid]

Yha purifiers are very good ATM i feel having AV on them would be overkill.


But i would really like to see some AV wargear for the brother captain in T2. This would solve alot of the so called "problems" they have vs tanks, especialy tank rushes.


However i am still unconvinced that they really even do have a problems vs tanks, they lack a reliable snare but other than that they seem to have all the tool's they need for AV putting it together and making it work seems to be a diffrent story. I find with GK i ether destroy my enemeys tanks very fast and effecintly or i am not able to deal with it at all, forcing me to get units i do not wish to have.

Having something like the forcecommanders power fist would be a great solution however i think hat war gear is to strong already with SM so something diffrent would be nice.

Mabye a accesory slot hard stun would work wonders

[Torpid]

I originally suggested such a change under the assumption that they wouldn't have access to new units. However the preferable way to fix GK problems is to give them a suppression team which scales into an AV team, there really is no alternative.

[Panda]

However the preferable way to fix GK problems is to give them a suppression team which scales into an AV team, there really is no alternative.

Although it would be a radical change...is it too drastic to suggest purgation squads should start with a heavy bolter and be able to upgrade into lascannons/psycannons?

[ThongSong]

make the BC's daemon hammer heavy melee.

that will give walker's something to think about.

[Kvek]

make the BC's daemon hammer heavy melee.

that will give walker's something to think about.

no, it already counters melee, and does a shitload of damage, if it had 100heavy melee damage, his other melee wargears would be poor,

[taco86]

make the BC's daemon hammer heavy melee.

that will give walker's something to think about.

no, it already counters melee, and does a shitload of damage, if it had 100heavy melee damage, his other melee wargears would be poor,

Meh, maybe i'm teribad (probably) but I find the halberd to be far more useful in a melee dps role. The aoe special the hammer gives can be very nice combined with a tele pack tho, especially when you have a ceptor squad using furious intervention with strike squad feeding them energy (so you can use it 3x back to back). Overall I find the power melee aoe or the staff specials to be better tho.

If the hammer's dps was dropped to the same has the halberd and staff but changed to "heavy melee" I can see myself taking it far more often tho.

[saltychipmunk]

I am not a huge fan of the purifiers. It is not that they are a bad unit , it is just that most of the time they are unnecessary.

gk already have plenty of anti heavy infantry options, from the psycannons to the force halberd to even the interceptors to a minor degree. there are not many heavy infantry melee units that do a ton of damage until t3 or after 2 -3 levels of exp.

Dare I say they are some what redundant with just power melee weapons. The one melee heavy weapon they do have on their squad leader is barely noticeable on anything larger than a troop transport. and for a little under 600 req and 100 power ... why wouldn't one just get a dred ?

[Nurland]

The teleporting is the problem with giving BC heavy melee imo since he has access to invulnerability and can't be knocked back or suppressed in addition to already high hp pool and a damage resistance ability. Also as 100dps heavy melee is a lot it would at least need to lose the Demolishing Strike or get a nerf to the damage.

[crazyman64335]

i think people are missing the point, the bro captain doesn't need any AV. It wouldn't solve anything, he could still get kited very easily, then once the rest of your army gets forced off, gets focused down. It would be like giving the Chaos Lord some sort of anti vehicle. The problem is a lack of snares. They have 1, and that's an interceptor grenade. I agree with the suggestion that they need a set up team, because they need slows / snares. People need to play them in 1v1's to fully understand this. Team games don't present the same problems as 1v1's do, because you can simply get your ally to cover up your weakness.

[Cyris]

I've been playing GK a lot in 1v1 lately, trying to give them another chance. Without getting to deeply into the faction, here are some of my thoughts, primarily on T1 and early T2, where I spend the most time and have the most experience:

The req price of Storms and Strikes makes you choose between having bad capping power or very late power farm. This is of course fine if the magnitudes are reasonable, but I believe they are not. I'd really like to see storms price and balance come down to ~200 req, and the potency and price siphoned into sergeant. This would make 2 storm, strike builds get a gen out at a much more reasonable time, while letting 1 storm strike get the single more potent sergeant enhancement.

Strongly consider adding the proximity mine upgrade to the sergeant or putting some other bonus on it. Movespeed could move from the sarge to this? It could be more health that was removed from the base squad? The upgrade is hard to price-justify (especially the power after a late gen) in matchups where base squads get detectors (I'm looking at you orks!)

I love purgation squad, but watching melee squads run right at them and tie them up before being suppressed is getting old. How about the vision buff thing doubles courage damage instead? Or just increases it for a couple seconds, and the vision remains. Or maybe a 2nd ability that does the doubling. Both can cost energy!

The factions theme of giving energy back is really interesting and reasonable, but then suddenly becomes degenerate. I really hate interceptors. They are so very meh in T1, and even T2, but with infinute energy they really do get goofy strong (though not unbeatable). I'd much rather see them more uniformly good: stronger if they get infinite energy but not downright dirty with it. This would give more choice in which squads to give energy too.
The strike squand energy hand-off ability really makes the faction fun, but tying it to an incredibly expensive leader who tends to die a lot has made me focus on getting potency from the faction without relaying on it. I really think it's a fun play choice to make (provided some of the energy spenders are re-balanced :cough: interceptors). Could the energy grant be a default skill of the squad, or tied to a non-leader upgrade?
On the theme of energy regen, please, please, please make stormtrooper plasma rifile ability a true toggle with actual toggle feedback like in retail / single player. Like, an icon overlay or alternate icon while active, and then de-toggle when energy gone. Please? It's really quite frustrating the way it's implemented now.
And for toggles, purgation ability would make a great toggle/energy skill, allowing them to be a valid target for energy restoration, and opening up more playstyles.

Rhino and Interceptors are T2 squads in T1, giving GK 2 squads to pick from. As said before, buffing interceptors T1 and nerfing T2-infinite energy mode would go a LONG way. Rhino with the tinyest of buffs would go a long way. Ideas: A skill (smoke bombs, deployable turret, temporary gun, temporary healing aura), make it able to decap, give it a gun (though I don't liek this). The main key being, keep it's cost where it is, just give me a reason to spend 20 power on it in T1.

I still think strikes shouldn't have a special that will take an enemy T1 melee squad from full health to 50% and all on the ground on very potentially the first attack. It feels lame both using it, or being on the receiving end.

I think in parting, my main points were:
T1 builds are limited, and have what apears to be clear counters.
I love the energy return mechanic, and want more of it. More toggles, less OP skills so the energy return is more strategic. Maybe a red skill that grants energy! That'd be awesome and cool.
Please nerf T2 interceptors. It's goofy.

[Tex]

Pretty well said there cyris. I have other things to add, but that will be later.

[Cyris]

Thanks Tex ^_^. Here's my quick, un-reaserched, first take on some specifics. BTW, where do you guys find unit stats these days for units? Everything I used to use sucks now, and http://www.dawnofwar.info is lacking a lot of stuff still, making the writing of this very hard

Edits.

Stormtroopers:
Cost/renforce costs reduced from 230 to 180 (yep)
Health and weapon reload time both nerfed by a commensurate amount.
Squad count increased by 1 which will cause bleed city when aimed at, as with Sarge change, the squad will not have an invulnerable model anymore.
Sargent upgrade replaced with "Inquisition Lore" (or whatever), which increases health, movespeed, reduces weapon cooldown and grants detection to the squad. Reinforce costs for the squad increase to (some other number) once the upgrade is purchased. Has a high cost (50 mroe req then sarge is now... maybe 100/20?)
Landmines power cost down 5.
Plasma Rifle knockdown skill is now a true toggle (clicking once puts the shining outline on the skill icon, when at 0 energy the skill is toggled off)

Strike:
Special attack changed to 180 degree, knockback distance down 25%
small melee damage increase
small ranged damage increase
Nemesis force upgrade now grants the Energy regen skill (name?) No longer bars/removes ranged weapons. No longer reduces cooldowns of skills.
Leader grants the snare and cooldown reduction on energy regen skill.

Purgation:
Now has 100 energy
Range/vision skill now costs 50 energy, no cooldown
New skill - "Aiming? It's this!" - For X (4?) seconds, reduces damage of flamers and doubles courage damage. Cost 60 energy, no cooldown. Lost when changing to psi-cannons.
New Skill - Something for the psi-cannon upgrade only, same cost as AIT. Maybe slightly decrease base damage and this upgrade buffs it? Or maybe it changes damage type to something more AV that loses the AOE explosions.

Rhino:
Can now decap points at 50% reduced decap rate (so, it has a .5 cap modifier I think?)
Alternate - Gains a energy bar and a skill that provides a small healing aura for 6 seconds that immobilizes the Rhino for the duration.

Interceptors:
Teleport now stuns enemies on apear for X (1 or 2?) seconds
Teleport has same min range as ASM
Furious intervention knockdown distance reduced, also applies stun

BK
Canticle regen amount reduced (AOE regen much less interesting then unit targeted, and this skill is a bit nuts now)
Some sort uf upgrade that gives him a unit targeted energy regen

New red skill:
Emperors Blessing - Grants energy to target unit
Alternate - Add energy over time to the melee red skill

Some other notes:
Purifiers suck.
1-2 more units would really help the faction as far as variety goes... not sure what niche I'd want yet.

[FiSH]

while i am not good with GK, you are suggesting that a unit that has
- cheapest detection option in the game
- vehicle support
- ranged weaponry with situational upgrades
should cost 160 req? i cannot agree with that at all.

[Cyris]

while i am not good with GK, you are suggesting that a unit that has
- cheapest detection option in the game
- vehicle support
- ranged weaponry with situational upgrades
should cost 160 req? i cannot agree with that at all.

Good points. The detection upgrade should cost both an arm and a leg (something like 125/20) and increase reinforce cost. The damage nerf to the base squad should be comboed with damage decreases in the GL and Plasma upgrades. The repair I don't think is a big deal though. 160 was picked because it plus the 500 for strikes is 660, which is the same cost as a scout and a tac. Note that as the potency and cost of IST goes down, the starting squads value decreases as well. Perhaps 180 would be a better start. The inention is to swing far, and see how things work out, this is beta after all! I'd be much more able to have good numbers if I had a good data source though...

[Black Relic]

GK is an interesting race. And every one knows that every squad from them is powerful, like strike squads special attack (it is 360 special. looked at rbf with cope's tool). Even so, i probably does not need to be changed.

But I feel that GK lack three things. One is a promising AV option. When I say AV option, I dont want it to be overly expensive. Say 30 power max. In my experience with GK they are immensely good at dealing with I\HI\SHI until a vehicles come around. Since they dont seem to have a fast solution, without the resources, to a vehicle makes me not want to choose the race if i am playing competitively.

Now on the note that Cyrus stated. I like his idea on improving the purgation squad. They should have a way to suppress faster, but should also make them more open. Since devastators do this. I can explain this later since i have a way (in 1v1) for suppression teams (unless havocs).

They also need a artillery unit in their that is more dedicated than Storm Troopers with their nades.

I think that with the upgrade to a lascannon on the rhino should change it armor type from HI to Vehicle armor (if it ever was HI armor).

Here are my thoughts. Take them how you will.

[crazyman64335]

i proposed GK get a tank earlier, and that was shot down, but i feel that's something they NEED in t3, all of their t3 options.
A LRR, or Termies. that's it. Adding a tank could give them a somewhat viable AV option, while not being a "super unit". I also they feel they need some form of artillery, but that's something that would need to be more thought out in terms of how it would work with their current arsenal of weapons.

[Bahamut]

i do like the idea of the hammer doing heavy melee tho i'd say his teleporter can get too good with titan armor so might end up being a little too good

[Nuclear Arbitor]

no heavy melee on the BC please; he already covers anything infantry can do and he could easily deal with walkers if he could deal heavy melee.

[Panda]

i proposed GK get a tank earlier, and that was shot down, but i feel that's something they NEED in t3, all of their t3 options.
A LRR, or Termies. that's it. Adding a tank could give them a somewhat viable AV option, while not being a "super unit". I also they feel they need some form of artillery, but that's something that would need to be more thought out in terms of how it would work with their current arsenal of weapons.

+1 to this and Cyris' first post.

[sk4zi]

maybe that Demolisher Rhino thin which is a SM T3 unit in Codex edition...

im not very familar with GK fluff thou.

[Orkfaeller]

What, the Vindicator?

uh-eh, I allready want this for SM (Techmarine) T3 as a Linebreaker unit.
Greyknights are not gonna steal it from me.

[Torpid]

Just give them a custom skinned grey predator since the inquisition can requisition units and vehicles from pretty much anywhere in the imperium. They could easily get their hands on the pred and if you give it a nice metallic paint-job it would be easily differentiated from other preds.

They still need suppression horribly badly though and purgations don't fit it. Ace has said it before and I agree with him. They need some form of set-up team and some form of long ranged set-up AV. The original set-up team could just be heavy bolter squad (this is apparently allowed in the fluff according to lexi) which could then have an upgrade to the initial heavy bolter set-up team to turn it into a Conversion beam projector which could take a similar animation as the beamy deffguns, but maybe with a blue beam.

The other thing that the grey knight army are lacking is control. Now this mainly occurs because of the fact that they have no long ranged suppression unit, but I think it would be interesting to preserve the purgation squad as a nice blob/melee counter and a decently scaling unit into t2 with their psycannons. I think a good way of doing this either would be to change their clear sight ability to make it increase courage damage dealt for a short period of time ( effectively suppressing one unit instantly) or giving them an ability that knocks back a squad kind of like a warp throw animation, but obviously only affecting one squad, not throwing as far either possibly and being target-table.

I agree with Cyris' proposed changes to the Strike Squad. It's just silly how in one engagement they deal only 10% hp to shees due to getting no specs and then in another they demolish them without losing a model due to them getting 3 specs in a row. Toning down the special attack's damage, kb radius and arc while buffing their default melee damage/ranged dps slightly is a good change I think.

It's still my opinion that the Grey Knight Rhino should get a 0damage bolter in t1 just so that you can actually use it to kite melee and force a suppression team purchase. The micro argument is usually sound, but in this case it's just an absolute mess. It's just not possible to micro this thing using hotkeys effectively enough to counter melee because you will constantly be swapping hotkeys and you will only have so many units inside and some outside and it's just a nightmare, honestly, it's just not viable, my micro isn't even bad, I mean as if vehicles didn't have enough pathing problems... >_<

Purifiers are nice, they serve as an elite melee counter as ewll as a very powerful HI infantyr squad and the best single counter to the tyrant guard in the entire game. I like this squad now, however it must be noted they are quite niche due to the fact they are anti-HI and not AV, it would be nice to be able to do a IST, SS, IST, HWS (heavy weapons squad [bolter/conversion beam projector]) t1 into a purifier, rhino, libby t2, into predator build. At the moment the lack of AV options just limit the role of purifiers, but against a race like tyranids who don't have any fast vehicular threats you can really punish them (shame nids don't need vehicles to run riot over GK since they can just get stealers and you can't counter them due to the lack of suppression). The only issue at the moment I have with purifiers is that they bleed a bit too much. IIRC they are as expensive as orgyns to reinforce but nowhere near as durable (especially to ranged fire). I think a reinforcement cost of around 65/12 would be more fitting.

The dreadnought is fine, it does its job well. At the moment it's just lacking due to it not getting much support from set-up teams of any sort, but with these other proposed changed I think the dread would be in a far better place.

I feel the same way about the libby, termies, pallies, the LRC and the BC

Stormtroopers are in a good role at the moment. They are good anti-melee by default and good anti-blob/suppression with GLs. They certainly shouldn't get such a cheap price, it's like you don't even want to use them in combat Cyris. The mines are pretty blah atm though, although when combined with set-up teams I guess they would be better. There is also no way the BC will ever do heavy melee, that's a really stupid suggestion. I mean the chaos lord is too durable to get heavy melee and he can't even teleport, nor doe she have WATH for a speed buff.

I'm done.

[crazyman64335]

oh 1 more thing i forgot to add, how about giving the purgs splash suppression (make any sense?). It's a little silly to see them suppressing a painboy and sluggas charge right past the painboy and tie up the purgs. It also looks a bit stupid when the run right through the flames that are suppressing him!

[Cyris]

I played GK a ways back, and bounced off of them hard because of a mix of how bad I was with them, and how overpriced and limited their tools seemed. Between then and the current 2.2 beta, GK have gotten a number of needed buffs and readjustments, so I started maining them again a month or so ago. I clearly think they still need work, which is both expected and fine, as they have been progressing at what I think is a very reasonable rate. However, I've come to apreciate the faction for being unique, and I'm very happy Cal has resisted the calls to make them more "mainstream". Best examples: No setup teams, no tank, all soft AV. I am ultimately pleased that these have stuck, it makes interesting design constraints, and a unique faction.

In short, Bravo GK. Keep your setup teams and tanks away!

I think GK badly needs 1 or 2 more units. Unit count represents the depth of verbs you can express skill with, and the clear limiting factor in the number of build varieties the faction supports. T1 needs some smoothing, AV is getting really close, I'd really love to see the "we restore each others energy" mechanic focused on a bit more. Looking forward to beta 5!

[SirSid]

I agree with that cyris

They have taken me a long time to get use to but not having set up teams with a strong backed army that can spec into diffrent styles is proving to be a very interesting race to play.

They are slow, but always moblie, The buffs can be devistating but also used in less conventinal ways like jump capping or area lock down.

As to people saying they need set up teams , humm hard call for me to pick a side hear. Sometimes i would really like to see 1 would solve alot of problems. However on the other side i would like to see a diffrent things to fix the "problems" that not having a set up team creats.

Mabey a cool solution would be to give GK a Anti supresion ability something that would remove supresion from a unit alowing GK to basicaly be abel to force any set up teams off making them not used vs GK . IDK just a thought mabey something diffrent than a set up team

[Broodwich]

Making interceptor krak nades targetable on vehicles would go a long way to making them not suck so hard against vehicles