I can't stop talking about Tacs n' Sternguard...

[Nurland]

350 red is not easy to come by by T3 if you are fast teching. If playing out normally you might have roughly enough for Termies if no globals have been used. Highly dependent on how the game has passed so far though.

And why the past tense? It's not like red is any harder to come by now than it was when Terminators could level?

[Dark Riku]

Sternguard and Vanguard become very very powerful with levelling because of the hp and damage spikes - I mean seriously you're suggesting having lv3/4 asms in T3, and making them right into lv3/4 Vanguards for 100/30? With heavy melee for another 30 power? It's the retail SM snowball effect all over again.

If you absolutely must make SG/VG keep their levels then I'd like to see a serious damage nerf on both of them and drastically reduced levelling bonuses to compensate.

Do you even know SM already gain less from leveling?
And I'm still waiting on your response.

Well when Terminators could level, lvl 4 Assault Terminators 7,2k hp SHI armor and 180 dps heavy melee. Clawminators had 6k hp and 280 dps power melee + splash. Normal Terminators would have the 6k hp and roughly 118 dps piercing damage (148 dps with Assault Cannon). This should answer why Terminators can't level.

You could easily let them level, just not 15% but like 7,5% or something for all those lategame units (nobs, seer council,.. ) It's absolute bullshit that terms don't level anymore especially now that they have become so easy to counter in Elite.

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

As far as I remember, Caeltos said there is NEVER going to allow the Terminators gain levels.

[Nurland]

Well I suppose that pretty much settles it.

[Asmon]

Terminators leveling would require so much tweaking if it'd be back. Health, DPS and MS increase would need to be very low. But it's a waste to discuss it if Caeltos does not want it so.

I'd agree with a no bonus leveling thus you can just be happy with the level 4 mention when you select the unit =)

[Codex]

How can you lower the increase in MS? I'm pretty sure that even back in the day you got 1 melee skill per level.

[Asmon]

Codex you nub :p

[Codex]

Yes I am nub at a lot of things. Including life.

[Asmon]

I know. My point was that it is possible to gain 2MS per level then why would not it be possible to gain zero?

[Torpid]

I know. My point was that it is possible to gain 2MS per level then why would not it be possible to gain zero?

Well although that's lowering it, you would generally not say that you were lowering it if you were reducing it to 0 and instead say that you were no longer granting it, or possibly removing that effect.

[Magus Magi]

Wow, the thread's blown up since I last checked it.

I've never minded terminator's lacking in levels. I wouldn't mind removing levels from Sternguard and Vanguard vets for that matter. But, most of all, I just want to see more dps for Sternguard (whether that takes the form of SG keeping levels, or through some other buff), and I'd like to see Vengeance round range and reload reverted now that Kraken rounds have been balanced to them.

As for the poor Vanguard vets, I like the idea of moving them to tier 2 and giving them the power fist as a tier 3 upgrade (Riku's suggestion). And as for Tacs, I'd still like there to be some discount for weapon repurchases (although I'm less passionate about that than the Sternguard stuff). If that doesn't happen, I'll live.

And Panda, I don't agree with the idea of seriously nerfing Sternguard and Vanguard damage if they got to keep their levels. I don't think the result of letting SG keep their levels will be that dramatic, although we'll never know unless the mod devs implement the change and we all get to playtest it. I do see where your concerns are coming from though.

[Codex]

Well although that's lowering it, you would generally not say that you were lowering it if you were reducing it to 0 and instead say that you were no longer granting it, or possibly removing that effect.

Just connotations really. It's just a matter of semantics, not that important then.

[Magus Magi]

New Beta out, no SG changes....

[ThongSong]

vengeance rounds need that buff vs vehicles. I had 'For the Emperor', battlecry and a battlestandard buff on my sternguards and their damage vs a half-dead wraithlord was pretty pathetic

[Nurland]

SG base dps against vehicles is 18,68 for a 4 man squad if the codex stats are up to date. So with FTE and Sacred standard they should do 28,02 dps. With the addition of BC buffs it probably goes into roughly 32-36 dps. That is not pathetic AV damage.

[saltychipmunk]

um.. for 20 pop , short range , gradual damage
and the movement speed of tacs... AND sacred standard + battle cry? and all they can do is under 40 dps to vehicles?

that isn't just pathetic , that is disgraceful .



if they had the range
or they had spike damage
or they had movement speed

that would be a different matter , but they dont have any of those attributes

[Caeltos]

That's like one of the highest av dps in the game ...... considering that it's consistant and not in burst makes it even more potent to some degree.

[saltychipmunk]

That's like one of the highest av dps in the game ...... considering that it's consistant and not in burst makes it even more potent to some degree.

but it has none of the good qualities of av. constant damage is the worst form of damage.

spikes in damage is what one can use to kite , ambush and trick players into over committing. gradual damage is by far the easiest kind of av to deal with.

this is why sniper spams in 3v3 games are so stupidly un fun to play against.

you can do double the dps in constant gradual damage , but if all it takes is a quarter second to do all my damage , kill half a squad and then run away then i come out on top despite having less dps potential.

but on top of that they have short range too and no movement abilities.

all the dps in the world wont save a bad av unit if it doesn't have the proper means to economically deal its damage.

[Caeltos]

but it has none of the good qualities of av. constant damage is the worst form of damage.

It depends on the scenario. If you've got snares to back it up it compliments each other well. There are pros and cons to burst and continous damage.

[Torpid]

Not to mention they do absurd damage vs infantry, garrisons and HI/SHI for an AV unit

I think you guys are really forgetting the point of sternguard; they're a generic all round upgrade, each of their ammo types is better than defualt tacs at beating what they are designed to beat, but worse than a specialised tac squad.

[Magus Magi]

CAELTOS:

Forgetting whether or not you find the damage vs. vehicles satisfactory, the Vengeance round range nerf was originally meant to give Kraken rounds a niche. Now you have rebalanced Kraken round and Vengeance round damage so that Vengeance rounds aren't a one-stop-shop for all infantry other than light. I believe that Vengeance round range should be reverted to normal.

That's one, little thing, that you could do to make the SG better. I really think they need it. Right now, I don't think they've impacted how SM play much at all, and usually its better to ignore them and keep the tactical marines. That's a wasted opportunity to make an awesome new unit for your mod, that has it's own awesome role within the army (see: artillery spotters, kasrkin, painboy, flashgitz, dark reapers, etc.)


SUCCESS STORIES:

Earlier on this thread someone said that SG isn't an upgrade. It just changes what the unit does without making it any more powerful. If that's the design philosophy behind SG, I think it's an unfortunate choice.

The SG upgrade as a tier 2, limit of one, resets your levels, non-upgrade is just lame. You had it right with so many of the other new units. So many of them bring something totally new or awesome to their factions. Kasrkin and Flashgitz just pile on the dakka in tier three. Dark reapers answer a specific problem that Eldar had with heavy infantry. The painboy brings a unique mechanic for the orks that is immensely valuable. And artillery spotters offer a new disruption mechanic to the IG in several forms that is useful in a HUGE number of situations.

I think Sternguard need help. Look at how you went at the other new units in this game. Even the Whirlwind is better because it fills a niche in the SM army roster in an interesting way (with a visually pleasing and new mechanic).

[Magus Magi]

Forget everything I've said before.

What about the range revert? Can we get the range revert on Vengeance rounds? That would be enough for me for now. I just don't want my SG to have to charge the Land Raider Phobos or the mark of Khorne dreadnought ahead of the rest of my ranged army.

[Codex]

I honestly don't see why some people want Sternguard to be flexible tacs, but better all around. If you were to make Vengeance rounds good AV, what are the downsides to buying Sternguard? Biobolts are insane, Krakens are okay, but only because they pale in comparison to bio-bolts... they currently retain the 1.5x cap speed and don't bleed sergeant power as Sterns.

As it stands the only scenario where Sternguard are perhaps lackluster is AV: but due to the fact they deal sustained damage they are better against ranged vehicles (melee vehicles can just run to tie it up). Their damage is decent but it's also worth noting that the AV is supplementary: it's not meant to be your primary AV source.

This gives you flexibility as say if you have a Wraithlord chasing you, and your SG are not your primary AV, the wraithlord chasing down the primary AV will allow the SG to shoot the Wraithlord, and if it chases the SG then the primary AV can shoot the WL. If your SG had no AV capability at all (or if it was non-missile launcher tacs) you do not have this tactical option and the WL will just try to run down your primary AV.

In the end, if you made vengeance rounds good AV, then SG would have little to no drawbacks considering at what phase of the game they arrive in. And I probably would buy them almost every game considering one of the main reasons I don't is because I find that my playstyle requires the option of going missile tacs.

[Magus Magi]

I don't want SG to do lascannon damage, I just don't want them to have shorter range with their Vengeance rounds than with their other rounds. That was implemented to re-balance their damage compared to Kraken rounds and is no longer necessary to that function.

Also, there are a bunch of reasons why SG should be better than Tacs. You lose the Sergeant's special attack, the choice of more specialized weapon damage, the levels of your tactical marine squad, you pay resources to get them (you could just keep a three man tac squad with a special weapon), and you are limited to only one (why is that?).

On a separate note: Those of you using the eyeroll smiley are doing a great job of communicating contempt without using direct insults.

[Bahamut]

by reverting the nerf we're talking about making the vengeance rounds range and reload speed to be the same as other ammos while keeping the same dps as of now. That will not make SG AV OTT. The reason veng rounds reload and range are the way they are atm was not because of their AV but because the vengeance rounds were just plain better than kraken for HI and SHI and that was conceptually wrong

What we want is to SG vengeance rounds is to have 38 range, 18.7 dps (or whatever is the exact dps value atm) against vehicles and the same reload speed as of all other ammo's.

Do you really think 8 range and even steadier dps than of now would make veng rounds OP against vehicles?.

[Codex]

Cleaned up the thread a little bit. There's really no need to clutter up an already very long thread by doing "I agree" and "+1".

You're missing my point though. I don't believe that reverting vengeance rounds to 38 range would be OP. I'm saying if you were to make SG to the point where people would consider them "good AV" they would be TOO generalist and it would be a no brainer upgrade. After all, it costs less power than a missile launcher and gives you access to biobolts, kraken and anti-garrison on top of supplementary AV.

TL;DR: I'm not against the range revert, but I am against any suggestion that SG should be good AV.

[saltychipmunk]

but codex you are forgetting , that to get that av over the missle you need to

make that 15 pop tac squad into a 20 pop stern guard
you need to sacrifice the 1 -2 levels on the tacs
you lose the range
you lose the spike damage
you lose the focus specialization



tacs retain all their options , terns lose all their options. once they are the generalist unit they are , you are stuck with them.

[Torpid]

But Salty, you are forgetting that alongside that AV you get the great AG, AHI, ASHI and AI alongside more hp and a permanent sergeant. You're not meant to purchase sternguard if you need AV. That's the purpose of the missle launcher. The purpose of sternguard is not to make all of the normal tactical marine upgrades completely redundant...

[Dark Riku]

more hp

Explain? When you upgrade from a lvl2tacs squad or higher you will lose HP.

Imma say it again. Let them keep their levels. It makes no sense for an upgrade to make your squad lvl1 again with less MS, HP and all them stuffs that comes with levels. And revert vengeance rounds to old range or reload speed or both.

[Codex]

but codex you are forgetting , that to get that av over the missle you need to

1. make that 15 pop tac squad into a 20 pop stern guard
2. you need to sacrifice the 1 -2 levels on the tacs
3. you lose the range
4. you lose the spike damage
5. you lose the focus specialization

that right there would be reason enough not to get the stern guard without the current predicament of the vengeance rounds .


you must add 200 req and 55 power to your tacs to make them stern and they will never be anything but sterns

tacs retain all their options , terns lose all their options. once they are the generalist unit they are , you are stuck with them.

Numbered your points to make them easier to respond to.

1. You make it sound like the sergeant is not a common pick up in T2 for SM. In fact, when I get missile launcher, I'm almost sure to pick up a sergeant on that tac soon after (giving the 20 pop) to not only secure the investment of 80/40, but to give them more map presence so it's harder for my opponent to force off my primary source of AV. So I don't see the extra population as a big commitment on the SM's part.

2. Yes, that is sad, but with biobolts sternguard really have zero problems levelling up quickly so long as they aren't getting roflstomped off the map by vehicles.

3. You lose the range? Only on vengeance rounds and even then I specifically said I have no problem with a range revert to 38. All the other rounds have standard engagement range.

4. As has been mentioned by Caeltos before frontloaded spike damage can be a pro as well as a con, depending on situation. Because so much of the damage is frontloaded tac missile has low dps: 10.68. It's not even like it's a beamy deffgun, you really need to snare the target, have VOT on missile or some serious inspiration buffs on the missile to make them do serious AV damage.

http://www.dawnofwar.info/elite/weapon. ... e_launcher

5. But this is exactly my point. For the sake of argument, let's imagine a situation where vengeance rounds had comparable AV contribution to a tac missile launcher. Well, they wouldn't have access to a flamer, a missile or a plasma gun, but for the sake of this argument we already said they are comparable to having a missile.

So what does the flamer specialisation provide?
Anti-infantry AOE (SG have no AOE, but their hellfire bolts more than make up for the lack of AOE with their terrible terrible anti-infantry damage)
Gen bash potential (hardly a major loss as overall you'll have more deeps in T2 to follow through a gen bashes)
Anti-garrison (provided by dragonfire bolts, which has superior range while doing so)

And what about the plasma gun?
Anti-HI high burst single target damage, especially effective when combined with Kraken bolts ability.
SG imo make up for this by having better scaling in terms of levels, and hellfire, and having other rounds at their disposal.

So assuming that SG can handle vehicles just fine, I really don't see the point in holding onto vanilla tacs at all. Whenever I play SM, yes I don't like losing my levels on my tacs, but the fact of the matter is that I hold onto my tacs because of the missile option it gives me and as a result it will be generally lackluster against inappropriate targets, especially the later the game goes. The very fact that I tend buy flamer=> missile and then never change is because of the utility role that tacs give me: they fill the roles that I need considering the compositions I see.

But here is the crux of the point: if my tacs are there to serve a utility role, and the specialisation on demand is what's great about them, if SG were to have comparable AV potential there would literally be ZERO reason for me to want to hold onto my vanilla tacs, levels notwithstanding. This is because with that AV potential they would serve the utility role of tacs, but be more generalist and be a one-off investment.

SG would be able to contribute to all phases of the fight whereas my tacs would want to hold back a bit and not fire the missiles at the wrong targets. I also wouldn't have quite the same issue where I feel like my level 4 tacs are great but are stunted in overall fight contribution because they run around with a missile launcher for most of the game.

TL;DR: If SG were good AV, they perhaps would still be worse than all the specialisations in terms of actually dealing with the specialised situations, but the on-demand switching of ammo would more than make up for it in terms of overall game impact and utility, with utility being the tactical marines' hallmark. As such, I would argue that they would be a out-and-out upgrade with no real downsides, and as such please don't make SG good AV.

P.S. I really loathe getting plasma gun on tactical marines in general. It has little utility and is just dps, is expensive on power, and I hope you're willing to commit to a lasdev if they get a vehicle, or be happy to have bought a plasma gun just to switch out for a missile launcher. What are people's thoughts on the tac plasma gun?