Project Balance: Tyranid section

[Tex]

@Bahamut

I was referring to the strategy where you pressure very hard in t1 with 2x ravs, but you don't reinforce them as well as trying to not reinforce your other units very much either. Then in t2, you use a ravener call-in to reinforce your ravs and give you incredible shooty power. Then you hold off on reinforcing again to give you a hero melting 4x rav blob.

It's an absolute nightmare to deal with when played correctly. Especially now that Rav upkeep has been lowered (hurray!).

[Lulgrim]

Hellfire bolter rounds are stupidly hard for nids to deal with... GOOD GOD!

Accidental fluff fulfillment?

Hellfire Rounds have devastating results on organic matter, as the rounds were developed to combat the Tyranids. The core and tip are replaced with a vial of mutagenic acid with thousands of needles that fire into the target upon the shattering of the vial, pumping the acid into the foe.

[Tex]

Wow, that is seriously right on the money!

[Bahamut]

@Bahamut

I was referring to the strategy where you pressure very hard in t1 with 2x ravs, but you don't reinforce them as well as trying to not reinforce your other units very much either. Then in t2, you use a ravener call-in to reinforce your ravs and give you incredible shooty power. Then you hold off on reinforcing again to give you a hero melting 4x rav blob.

It's an absolute nightmare to deal with when played correctly. Especially now that Rav upkeep has been lowered (hurray!).

4 ravaner squads, that has to be painful to play and to play against. hewly shiet

[PhatE]

Torpid, you appear to have very little experience in this matchup and are looking more from an observational stand point rather than a practical one so I'm going to try and break it down for you as best as I can without trying to sound condescending.

No he should not. The painboy is ineffective because of what I have mentioned prior. It's much smarter to get storm boyz (given you aren't just jumping them any old place unsupported) or perhaps lootas for surprise bursts. Don't get me wrong he can be effective as can all units given a time and place but he's not the go to guy for orks in t1. He fixes very little and still falls into the same trap that sluggaz do. His heal doesn't stop the endless slow that Tyranids can do. The very good ones are using attack ground instead of relying on the AI making their suppression potential massive. There's no point in getting a healing unit to heal units that limp into battle. What if he gets fleshhooked before the heal comes? What do sluggaz do then? What if there's a charge or a roar that happens as I'm approaching? The answer is they lose the majority of their HP in seconds and you have a much larger amount of upkeep to deal with potentially very little pay off.

Slugga builds are NOT viable vs Tyranids unless it's a major investment into t1 that being big shootas as well as burnas. An upgrade that's required nearly 100% of the time these days. The Tyranid player needs to fuck up big time for it to work out really well. End of story. The only reason I do it is because I happen to like melee a lot not because I'm necessarily trying to win games.

Now who in their right mind uses Ravs for melee to fight sluggaz when they now have the fucking awesome range upgrade. Let's say even if they use them for melee the disruption from the burrow strike seals the win. Not all heroes have access to UYC. You can even choose which way you want the sluggaz to go for crying out loud that's like fleshhook on 6 models!

Who's going to spend an extra whatever Warriors cost to get a second one when barbed strangler destroys shootas. Wasted money, later tech, little reason to get them.

Are you kidding me right now? Special shoota is one of the greatest anti blob weapons and vs the biggest blob race (which many can agree) you say it's not a good upgrade? Stormboyz plus this is super awesome.

I've already said my opinion on why stunbombs are hard to hit against Tyranids in this mod but I'll reiterate. Capillary towers make it all that much harder to land these when there are warriors and a fast as shit army surrounding them so just saying land the stunbomb and you'll be all good isn't valid here. The upgrade in the third armour slot is the only time you can say "damn that was EZ"

Just because X person doesn't have trouble in a matchup does not mean that there aren't glaring balance issues given set game. If I play the Warlock and win where in that game I had no problems in that match does that mean that Eldar and/or warlock are balanced? Or that my opponent player poorly? Or that I was more skilled? Perhaps some of these, perhaps all of them, but it's a wide variety of factors that add it all up and a far greater number of factors that I've listed.

[Asmon]

Good post from Phate.

Barbed strangler carnifex is garbage.

I disagree here. It will be the best choice against an IG only-infantry-army for instance.

Thornback fex is largely unkillable. How does anyone even lose one of these?

Indeed. Only full snaring works.

[Torpid]

No he should not. The painboy is ineffective because of what I have mentioned prior. It's much smarter to get storm boyz (given you aren't just jumping them any old place unsupported) or perhaps lootas for surprise bursts. Don't get me wrong he can be effective as can all units given a time and place but he's not the go to guy for orks in t1. He fixes very little and still falls into the same trap that sluggaz do. His heal doesn't stop the endless slow that Tyranids can do. The very good ones are using attack ground instead of relying on the AI making their suppression potential massive. There's no point in getting a healing unit to heal units that limp into battle. What if he gets fleshhooked before the heal comes? What do sluggaz do then? What if there's a charge or a roar that happens as I'm approaching? The answer is they lose the majority of their HP in seconds and you have a much larger amount of upkeep to deal with potentially very little pay off.

I was discussing the knob which is why I suggested the painboy as part of the build, stormboys synergise quite poorly with the knob and I really prefer the extra durability the pb offers. Furthermore if we also want to evaluate the tyranid heroes then the painboy is weakest against he lictor (due to flesh hook, and storms being comparatively good against the LA), but storms are weak against the RA/HT (Rending talons, bleed, acid splatter). I find a lot of my builds as orks revolve around the painboy because he makes counter-initiating against the ork dakka EZ. Ultimately orks out-shoot tyranids, the nids must come to you when you have upgraded shootas, so why not get better counter-initiation? That said a stormboy/painboy build is certainly viable.

Slugga builds are NOT viable vs Tyranids unless it's a major investment into t1 that being big shootas as well as burnas. An upgrade that's required nearly 100% of the time these days. The Tyranid player needs to fuck up big time for it to work out really well. End of story. The only reason I do it is because I happen to like melee a lot not because I'm necessarily trying to win games.

What are you talking about? You want to be spending well over 100 power in t1 as orks in this MU, you can't neglect your t1 vs nids as any race, but especially orks since orks lose to nids in t1 but do much better in t2 due to weirdboy and nob leaders. How will tyranid punish a ork heavy t1? They can't, sluggas cheaply counter TG, webo cheaply counters genes, DD counters zoans without crippling your eco. You also have the knife anyway as the knob which insta-kills zoans on retreat and alongside trippa shot it's very easy to pop zoans. I'm not referencing your playstyle of various slugga builds so I'm not sure why you put that last line in. Melee is effective here since t2 sluggas are really good vs nids and you have stun bombs in t1 which synergise so nicely with sluggas+painboy.

Now who in their right mind uses Ravs for melee to fight sluggaz when they now have the fucking awesome range upgrade. Let's say even if they use them for melee the disruption from the burrow strike seals the win. Not all heroes have access to UYC. You can even choose which way you want the sluggaz to go for crying out loud that's like fleshhook on 6 models!

Raveners with devourers cost 60 power, if they get ranged ravs get more lootas or shootas. Why would they get melee ravs? It's the only way for the nid to counter your dakka as I've already said. HT can't charge you because you have trippa shot and assassinate so he will die literally instantly if he tries (stab him on retreat, focus fire him while he charges). LA can hook a model if you screw up your positioning, but you have stun-bombs and 2x AWD so there's no follow up. Besides even without lootas the shootas beat termagants, and because you have trippa shot the barbed strangler warrior brood isn't very useful at countering the shootas, hence you need raveners, melee ravs, when they jump the lootas, the sluggas counter-initiate and kill them, they won't sit on the lootas so they won't be affected by the disruption, nor will the shootas, you seem to have an issue with blobbing Mr PhatE - insert reference to complaints about scout shotguns explosive shot being OP.

Who's going to spend an extra whatever Warriors cost to get a second one when barbed strangler destroys shootas. Wasted money, later tech, little reason to get them.

You obviously don't play nids much, maybe that would help you understand the MU more. Normal warriors counter melee not ranged, this is due to their knockback, it's only the warrior+horm combo that deals with ranged. You use the normal warriors to cover your barbed warriors from melee and when there is are more than 3 melee units crippling poison alone is simply not going to cut it. Heck, the painboy heal effect lasts a longer duration than crippling poison alone. And as I said - the knob's knife, trippa shot, use it, it makes barbed stranglers not very effective.

Are you kidding me right now? Special shoota is one of the greatest anti blob weapons and vs the biggest blob race (which many can agree) you say it's not a good upgrade? Stormboyz plus this is super awesome.

No, I'm not kidding you, the special shoota is a good aoe damage weapon, which is different from anti-blob because aoe-damage doesn't necessarily imply anti-blob, it all depends on what the blob is, whereas true anti-blob such as phase shift, suppression, manticores, upgraded stumbombs, purgatus, weirdboy vomit, all these things will completely shutdown a blob regardless of what that blob is.

Maybe that's just a semantic offshoot, I'll accept that, but I'm trying to use it to elaborate my point. That being that tyranids come t2 (which is as early as you can get the special shoota) are very durable with synapse and very bleed resistant with endless swarm. The power expenditure, the loss of assassinate and trippa shot or the loss of longer range on your default attack greatly greatly outweighs in value the gain from the small amount of aoe damage the special shoota grants you.

I've already said my opinion on why stunbombs are hard to hit against Tyranids in this mod but I'll reiterate. Capillary towers make it all that much harder to land these when there are warriors and a fast as shit army surrounding them so just saying land the stunbomb and you'll be all good isn't valid here. The upgrade in the third armour slot is the only time you can say "damn that was EZ"

It's not really a matter of opinion whether stunbombs are hard to hit against anything, but rather a problem of not having an objective way to describe or monitor such a thing. Regardless, I think your argument about capillary towers is dreadful. You should only be throwing stun bombs at units that are a) moving in a predictable manner TOWARDS you and are bound to enter into melee combat shortly (which for nids mean leaping), b) fighting your melee, in which case you throw it slightly behind them to not stun your melee, c) Other suppressed squads (of course these can be from AWD, not just lootas).

There are some exceptions such as capping units, or units you assume are not being looked at, or units already stunned by the weirdboy's vomit, but they're the general rules. If you do it in any of those situations it is hard, very hard or impossible to dodge respectively.

Just because X person doesn't have trouble in a matchup does not mean that there aren't glaring balance issues given set game. If I play the Warlock and win where in that game I had no problems in that match does that mean that Eldar and/or warlock are balanced? Or that my opponent player poorly? Or that I was more skilled? Perhaps some of these, perhaps all of them, but it's a wide variety of factors that add it all up and a far greater number of factors that I've listed.

That wasn't my point, I was just trying to illustrate that my reasoning behind my opinion was based on what I had observed - anecdotal evidence, which you can safely assume is always the case, but for some mystical reason I felt the need to specify that here.

[Tex]

Good post from Phate.

Barbed strangler carnifex is garbage.

I disagree here. It will be the best choice against an IG only-infantry-army for instance.

Thornback fex is largely unkillable. How does anyone even lose one of these?

Indeed. Only full snaring works.

An IG only infantry army all the way into t3...

lulz.

You always did have a good sense of comedy asmon

[Cyris]

I gotta admit, I really love the BC fex also. It gives some soft AV, it's lack of fotm doesn't matter with it's long fire time, summoning spore mines is pretty strong, it's damage and aoe are way better then warriors, it does an amazing job of babysitting my ranged squads etc.

And, I also really love it against T3 IG! It cuddles with my Venom squad and gets the job done.

[Codex]

I also really like the BS Fex. It does plasma cannon damage type, making it really effective, micro-unintensive to use and durable enough considering it's not in the front line. On the other hand, having a free spore mine insta-drop is really annoying for your opponent and will be the main micro-sink (and let's be honest, with barbed strangler dropping on your face that spore mine is hella annoying to take down).

[Forestradio]

I feel the strangler fex is better in team games where a thornback could get drowned in enemy ranged fire and stacking snares.

strangler does plasma cannon damage, so hitting stuff like tacs and guardsmen will really ruin their day.

And you can kill tanks with it (granted, it's hard to pull off).

[PhatE]

Torpid, saying that essentially I have no clue what I'm doing or don't know how to fight Tyranids is a little redundant. I probably have more experience fighting Tyranids as all 3 commanders than you playing both races combined. I don't necessarily need to have played a great deal to see what can work and what cannot. Yes it would help better understand, but that's why you ask others for their advice on the topic at hand to fill in the gaps in your knowledge.

What's wrong with my capillary towers example? Having an extra amount of speed and vision is huge it allows for drastically stronger pushes and makes throwing stun bombs all that much harder as it adds to the unpredictability of the direction of where the army is going. Surely you can relate this to fleet of foot and how any kind of grenade is so much harder to hit when they can just sprint away. It's not a fast grenade by any means and nor should it be for what it can potentially offer. Having multiple capillary towers is essentially fleet of foot at all times until they are destroyed.

I'm actually going to leave it there. Not because I'm mad or anything but this has turned into a pissing contest that neither yourself or I are adding anything of real value to what the OP has actually intended. We're just adding the clutter with novel posts about Orks, this is the wrong thread for this kind of discussion. You have your opinions which is cool and all but it seems that you are unrelenting in your position so it's pointless to continue. I can talk about this matchup for days, theorycraft and then (without trying to suck my own dick) put it into a relatively intuitive manner. My first post wasn't actually meant to be just a bunch of T_T. It was actually meant to be sharing my experiences on this matchup, as I have a lot of it, with others who I'm sure can relate so that maybe some things can be looked at (need to be looked at? If at all?) as I'm sure that some races have similar issues that run in parallel to what I have described.

[Tex]

Anyone have replays where BS fex does the job better than the other two variants?

Please provide...

I stand by my previous claim that it is garbage. I believe it needs a shorter windup, at the least, to compete.

[Raffa]

Don't get confused between 1v1 and larger game modes.

BS Carnifex is arguably the best variant in team games when you can tear chunks out of and suppress armies (*hint* that's your cue to send spore mines in) whilst also kind of pressuring vehicles. It's huge damage with no windup and decently manoeuvrable. Makes countering a ranged blob with ranged armies very hard and synergises very well with crippling poison to counter melee units.

In 1v1 however BS Carnifex is, well BS You can't trololol retarded noob blobs which bunch together nicely in 3v3.

Venom Cannon Carnifexes are awesome anti-vehicle and counter anti-armour tanks (laspreds etc...) because of their huge hp. Thornback is practically a super unit for cost so yes it is damn hard to kill without ott 3v3 firepower.

Ye technically game is balanced around 1v1, but buffing BS Carnifex will affect teamgames a lot. Personally I don't give two shits about that but quite a few people do

[Bahamut]

Acutally, Tex could you try using VC more often? i know is a weird request but i havent seen barely any VC fex in your replays. I'd like to know exactly how you feel about them, specially against leman russes with their 35% extra damage resistance. Also knowing chaos is your best race, you could accurately compare the performance of the VC fex vs the performance of the tzeentch dreadnought

[Dark Riku]

That's a very hard thing to do though. You go into a game and respond to what your opponent gets or force your opponent in some buys. Going into a game with a mindset of: "I'm getting X unit in T3 no matter what" is a bad mindset to have.

[Cyris]

I believe it needs a shorter windup, at the least, to compete.

I'd agree with that at least. Not sure exactly what it is, but when I know he's off cooldown and I go to fire, there is what feels like a excessive delay before the shot comes out. I wouldn't want it's fie rate changed, just the responsiveness.

[Tex]

I have used the VC fex in a few games, and right now I have a few problems.

1) I don't get to T3 very often when I'm using nids. Not sure if its just my style, or if its just the way nids work atm, but I get to T3 in maybe 30% of the games I play at the most.

2) I can tell you right now that the Tzeentch dread out performs the VC in the job of AV. However, repairing is a huge problem for chaos, so keeping a tzeentch dread alive is much harder than sending a VC back to base to autoheal. Also, Tdread comes a whole tier earlier and for less price. So yes, it out performs the VC overall.

3) VC fex just doesn't quite cut it against certain threats and that is largely because bio-plasma is a bit wonky. For instance, VC fex against SM is a horrible idea tbh. SM are able to tie it up for a few precious seconds and then bam, you are double snared and dead in the water. Other races lose models in droves if they try shit like this. If bio-plasma wasn't so unreliable, the VC fex would be able to much better deter such brazen tactics.
And by the way, I'm not saying its horrible, I'm just saying that you can't count on it, and you really should be able to when you pay for such an expensive unit.

4) Thornback fex is god-mode. Paying for the other variants seems borderline foolish. I think the main thing here is that the thornback fex can summon rippers FOR FREE.

[FiSH]

seems like people have problems with VC fex's bioplasma since forever, so:
what do people think about replacing it with DoM's cataclysm? (and same for HT's bioplasma as well?)

[Tex]

I have been using the HT's bio plasma. It has received probably 3 or 4 buffs and guess what, IT STILL SUCKS!

This thing needs help in a bad way. We need to find a clear role for it, and we need to make it useful and competitive in that role.

[Asmon]

I have been using the HT's bio plasma. It has received probably 3 or 4 buffs and guess what, IT STILL SUCKS!

This thing needs help in a bad way. We need to find a clear role for it, and we need to make it useful and competitive in that role.

I'd give it a weak but long flame-like DoT with AoE to counter garrisons.

And yes I'm funny yo =)

[Cyris]

2) I can tell you right now that the Tzeentch dread out performs the VC in the job of AV.

This is the main problem I've had with the VC fex for a long time. It is outperformed by comparable T2 units that cost less. It is outperformed by the other mutually exclusive fex upgrades (that all cost the same). And I feel like it's outpreformed by a venom brood with a zoan :/

seems like people have problems with VC fex's bioplasma since forever, so:
what do people think about replacing it with DoM's cataclysm? (and same for HT's bioplasma as well?)

I actually like that a lot. Step 1 for bioplasma is to make it actually reliable. Step 2 is balance it once it's consistently preforming. Projectiles that impact on random bits of geometry are a lot more ok as a units basic attacks, but a long cooldown ability you have to invest in isn't where I'm willing to deal with this level of unreliability :/

[xerrol nanoha]

I have been using the HT's bio plasma. It has received probably 3 or 4 buffs and guess what, IT STILL SUCKS!

This thing needs help in a bad way. We need to find a clear role for it, and we need to make it useful and competitive in that role.

I'd give it a weak but long flame-like DoT with AoE to counter garrisons.

And yes I'm funny yo =)

Do you mean like a plague marine bile spewer or chem cannon from the Bane Wolf?

[Tex]

@Cyris,

Yeah man, after taking on this project, I have definitely come to a few realizations and one of them is that the venom cannon fex under performs compared to not only its cousins, but also to its other variants (even though I do feel like the BS fex sucks).

That isn't to say though that the VC fex is (globally speaking) underpowered, I just feel now like it isn't quite in the right spot.

I am in agreement with you that bioplasma needs to be better. And also, I feel that the VC fex should do higher damage with a slightly lower splash radius to compensate for higher damage against infantry. Right now its splash radius is 2 and perhaps it could be turned down to 1.7, but in the mean time, the damage from the cannon could go up by a proportionate amount.
This would make the VC fex hit vehicles harder, but it would even out with largely an equal amount of damage vs infantry.

[xerrol nanoha]

@Cyris,

Yeah man, after taking on this project, I have definitely come to a few realizations and one of them is that the venom cannon fex under performs compared to not only its cousins, but also to its other variants (even though I do feel like the BS fex sucks).

That isn't to say though that the VC fex is (globally speaking) underpowered, I just feel now like it isn't quite in the right spot.

I am in agreement with you that bioplasma needs to be better. And also, I feel that the VC fex should do higher damage with a slightly lower splash radius to compensate for higher damage against infantry. Right now its splash radius is 2 and perhaps it could be turned down to 1.7, but in the mean time, the damage from the cannon could go up by a proportionate amount.
This would make the VC fex hit vehicles harder, but it would even out with largely an equal amount of damage vs infantry.

Do you think that the venom cannon needs to be more powerful/ effective in some way damage/ cooldown/ accuracy/ etc, or would you prefer a more general improvement to the carnefex? i.e. speed /health/ cost/ etc ?

Since it seems you would prefer direct changes to the venom cannon, is there any reason why you think the carnefex itself doesn't need changes, or that the problem might be with the carnefex itself, as apposed to the venom cannon specifically?

[Bahamut]

I'd would totally take away the splash from the VC fex and give him back fire on the move

[Nuclear Arbitor]

he CANNOT have fire on the move unless the bug with it gets sorted out.

something specific to the venom fex and/or excluding the thornback. that guys is terrible to try and kill.

[Caeltos]

Fotm is out of the questions.

I'd be glad if people also tried to dwell into subtle, yet important statistical values, like the following;

Weapon Cooldown
Reload Frequency
Reload Duration
Rotation Rate

etc, adjusting any of those can help fiddle with a general unit performance.

[Bahamut]

The very reason the tzeentch dread totally outperforms the VC fex is because you can tell it to melee a tank and while he moving towards the tank, it is firing his AV weapon.

VC fex can't do that and that's the main issue. Also, when chasing it will get into range to fire its weapon but, since the target tank is moving, i wont be able to shoot at it and it creates the same effect as a FC trying to land FoS on moving vehicles.

Weapon cooldown is pretty low same as reload frequency and duration. There's also no problem with rotation rate. If fire on the move is out of the question then i'd say either increase its range or add a vehicle snare effect. I dont think increasing the range will solve anything since it will still still go bananas at max range vs moving targets and the snare seems it can be either way too good or just not good enough

[Tex]

A snare is out of the question man.

I think a damage increase vs vehicles is appropriate. Perhaps a slightly quicker reload? I really don't know the numbers here... I just don't want the veno fex to all of a sudden do unstoppable damage to infantry again without use of bio-plasma.

And btw, you know you can move your fex slightly forward, shoot again, and then keep moving forward, and then shoot again. Its just a bit more micro intensive than those FOTM auto tank kill things.

Also, veno fex retains its melee charge, so you can use that to maintain a decent range on retreating vehicles.