Dawn of War Codex

Cyris wrote:You are one of my favorite new posters.

Tex and Crew both play as GK, and Tex is one of the better players around. Their opinions carry a solid amount of weight. So when the Eldar player muses that their own unit was a bit strong, it says a lot

As for adapting, the trick is, firedragons don't really have any weaknesses to exploit. They are resistant or immune to CC, their speed and FOTM means melee is mostly unable to stop them, and their low model count and ranged resistance makes focus firing a trick. All of this come for a very low price, and very high anti-all dps.

In my experience as GK, the adapting I have done against Eldar (including when playing against Tex) is to not make vehicles at all, because of how thoroughly efficiently they are countered. The only countermeasure you listed that really works is Energy Burst (Purg and stun nades are not going to work against the speed of Fire Dragons, the BC is nearly worthless against them and Smoke Bomb counters your Rhino for the Eldar) but it has a short range and won't stop the dragons from shooting.

Thanks

Indeed I have seen what they (and you) are capable of, I would never go past T1 so my remark was a bit bold. I just could imagine that forsaking KB control against an eldar unit is not an easy step for top players because of years of game habits (they look so frail ...), so I tried to ask if everything was tried. I have my answer about counter measures - though the GK units might want to be outside of the smoke effect ?

yeah i mean as with any anecdotal evidence that particular example is up to interpretation. to give some more context:

i bought a rhino as my first t2 purchase, got a squad wipe or two with it, and was capping the contested VP on fedrid folley with my IST and rhino next to them.
Tex bought 2 fire dragon squads, the first i saw them was as bumrushed my rhino. i definitely made mistakes by not keeping it further back, but they killed it so fast there was almost no room for counterplay at all.


with swift movement they're running around at speed 8.5, so the rhino can't outrun them. they can't be knocked down or easily suppressed, and they're suprisingly durable with their passive damage resistance.

they also have a very high damage rate of 67.2 melta dps (84 and +4 range with exarch)
compared to IG melta stormtroopers, which have 61.75 melta dps.
with their ability active, their damage turns into a monster 87.6 melta dps with 100% fire on the move (109.5 dps with exarch).

looking at double fire dragons, that's 175 melta dps on the move with their ability, and they can be buffed by various globals or leader abilities. that's enough to kill a razorback in about 2.3 seconds, or even kill a dreadnought in 7 seconds. add in holofields or webway gates and it gets crazy.

Well the dickish answer would be to not build rhinos but that seems like an unreasonable answer. But those numbers are so stupidly high that even non vehicle units could be countered.

most upgraded t1 units or t2 units barely make it to 60 - 80 pierce dps (forget plasma that thing never gets that high on anybody) , heck even inferno dps wont get that high on one unit. and here we have something doing 80+ melta? for cheaper? on a similarly durable unit whose only major downside is a slightly shorter range?

Well it is obvious why no one is bothering with dark reapers these days , you want to counter heavy infantry and terminators. just get some fire dragons.

Sounds to me like they have everything too high. reminds me of those t1 plasma damage type ravener devourers. oh those were hilarious.

Heck with all those perks one can make a pretty convincing argument to skip t3 as eldar in-favor of haming up the fire dragons with like 4 of them or something ridiculous.

saltychipmunk wrote:

Well it is obvious why no one is bothering with dark reapers these days , you want to counter heavy infantry and terminators. just get some fire dragons.

Sounds to me like they have everything too high. reminds me of those t1 plasma damage type ravener devourers. oh those were hilarious.

Heck with all those perks one can make a pretty convincing argument to skip t3 as eldar in-favor of haming up the fire dragons with like 4 of them or something ridiculous.

Well, this strategy is definitely worth testing

I wonder though why for the last 2 months I haven`t seen eldar dominating the game, players stomping everyone here and there, winning tournaments without a loss, and causing the start of "No eldar" movement? Everyone just too shy to abuse that terminator-killing anti-everything surpisingly-not-squishy super fire dragons?

Crewfinity wrote: looking at double fire dragons, that's 175 melta dps on the move with their ability, and they can be buffed by various globals or leader abilities. that's enough to kill a razorback in about 2.3 seconds, or even kill a dreadnought in 7 seconds. add in holofields or webway gates and it gets crazy.

You forgot to mention that they can retreat.)

I dunno how spammable they are, my concerns are more that they are a unit that, if you get it in the right position, can melt just about any vehicle in a few seconds with very little counterplay options available to the other player.

their high damage and speed, along with the buffs available to eldar, give a very small window of reaction time when setting a trap for a vehicle. furthermore, of the counterplay options available, suppression isnt as effective as normal, knockback does nothing, and they're so fast that they can outrun a lot of melee units (especially with buffs) to keep chasing the vehicle. really the best options are stuns or ministuns, but those aren't that widely available.

fun fact, fire dragons actually deal more damage that dark reapers to every armor type besides HI. although reapers have range ofc.

for some more discussion, here are some of the combos that fire dragons have available:

with any hero: webways to flank, warp spiders to completely immobilize vehicles (really what can you do to keep a vehicle alive vs warp spiders and fire dragons?), holofields from rangers, falcon as a delivery method

with warlock:
swift movement- gives them +2 speed (8.5) for 20 seconds
enhance- makes them deal 84 melta dps(105 with exarch) and +3 speed (9.5) for 6 seconds
combo-use swift movement, enhance, and dragons fury with 1 full fire dragon squad: 136.8 melta dps and speed 11.5 for 6 seconds, then 109.5 melta dps and speed 8.5 for another 4 seconds. total gives you potential of 1259 melta damage over 10 seconds running around so fast you can barely see them

with WSE:
crack shot-gives them +7 weapon range and 25% damage buff for 25 seconds
with the exarch that gives fire dragons range 35(just below standard) and 105 melta dps. which is pretty crazy. if you keep them back a bit behind a DA shield that's a huge amount of damage over the course of an engagement. ofc they always have dragon's fury to use as well for those extra few seconds of damage.
WSE also has access to phase shift, levitation grenade, and group teleport, all of which can synergize with fire dragons quite well.

with farseer:
cloaking from webway gates really makes these guys a terror. they can pop up anywhere with huge mobility and stealth. great backcappers, ambushers, and vehicle hunters with this hero.
guide-increases range and damage by 30% for 10 seconds (36.4 range and 109.2 melta dps with exarch)
doom-increase recieved damage by 40% for 10 seconds
combo-cast guide on fire dragons, cast doom on enemy vehicle, pop dragons fury, laugh while your fire dragons deal 142 melta dps and your target takes increased damage for 10 seconds. on a vehicle thats 150 real dps, on SHI that's almost 250 real dps. over 10 seconds that's almost half the health of a squad of terminators just from fire dragons.


in my opinion fire dragons could use a few nerfs. i'd like to see a few less perks for them, and a few more avenues of counterplay against them, there are so many combos and buffs that can get insane with even just one squad of fire dragons, and their cost seems to be wayyyyy less than their stats or performance account for.

Step one , buy rangers
Step two, buy ranger upgrade
Step three, buy 4 dragons
Step 4 hide dragons in infiltration field and wait for tank
Step 5 melts it , no need for warp spiders when you are doing 400+ melta a second

saltychipmunk wrote:Step one , buy rangers
Step two, buy ranger upgrade
Step three, buy 4 dragons
Step 4 hide dragons in infiltration field and wait for tank
Step 5 melts it , no need for warp spiders when you are doing 400+ melta a second

But does 4 fire dragons do enough melta damage to break the 7 zoan spider tank?

can 7 zoans hit a speed7+ unit with 100% fotm? , of course another question would be "can a zoanthrope survive a damage spike that is twice its maximum hp"?

saltychipmunk wrote:can 7 zoans hit a speed7+ unit with 100% fotm? , of course another question would be "can a zoanthrope survive a damage spike that is twice its maximum hp"?

The answer to both is: if you get enough of them together

That Rhino had it coming, didn't it ? For all these months with T1 SHI armor. 4 beamy lootas. Set up, hide and wait. 960 damage in the first second (front armor). Done. One day I have to try that. Oh I hate this cheap lonely Rhino. If it ever dares to show up again 4 genestealer broods will be waiting. Hidden. 1075. D. P. S.

Rhino Delendo Est

<3

edit: hmm genestealers might not quite do that to vehicles actually ... Just to add on FD, I wonder if the problem is more specific to tanky, more control-based than raw dps factions (SM/GK), but if really they are out of place I hope there is a way to keep their unique traits instead of making them "normal" (same for retreating termies). A shorter range could be the first step for me, then sure moving traits towards moar abilities is always "dow 2 eldar"... yet at the same time I would have hoped Eldar would move a bit towards rewarding smart positioning and fast situation judgement above keyboard light speed smashing.

Here is my simple stance on Firedragons without wanting to get into an argument (I know many people here will disagree^^):
I don't think they are over the top, and the only thing that should be changed is the knockbackimmunity working against abilityknockback.

They still die quickly to rangedfire, they still have low range, and their dps isn't that great and not bursty.
Melee is still effective against them if you don't move your vehicle away, because then they can't follow it.

I will say, I have to experiment more with a pair of Firedragons, but 1 of them kinda feels underwhelming.

Thanks for reading, while I have talked about it more indepth before, I just wanted to state my conclusions in this thread, .

FD seem like IO with AV. They really don't have any weaknesses, and are pretty hard to control given their speed, kb immunity, and suppression resistance. It feels like they were overbuffed just so people would use them, but I think it's time to dial some of that back.

They didn't really have a use previously not just because they bled easily or whatever, but because eldar already has all the tools it needs to deal with what FD were supposed to deal with. It was basically a superfluous unit, now its just an anti all unit

Keep em like they are but remove the KB immunity vs ability knockback.