Last chance to voice your balance concerns for 2.2

[Spartan717]

Vangaurds' merciless strike (whatever it's called) needs a damage buff. All it does is knock back units for a couple of seconds. The barely notice any damage done from the ability itself.

[Torpid]

Isn't it the same as ASMs? btw, do levels affect the damage of abilities such as merciless strike?

[Indrid]

I asked Lulgrim about level scaling yesterday. The only activated ability he's aware of that scales with level is the Apo heal, and of course passively Tyranid synapse also does.

[Sub_Zero]

Vangaurds' merciless strike (whatever it's called) needs a damage buff. All it does is knock back units for a couple of seconds. The barely notice any damage done from the ability itself.

I would like to see it only with the hammer. Now I see no point for them to keep the hammer. 15% passive chance to knockback is very rare (to be honest I didn't see it at all). And the hammer does a little bit more damage against hi/shi.

[Asmon]

I asked Lulgrim about level scaling yesterday. The only activated ability he's aware of that scales with level is the Apo heal, and of course passively Tyranid synapse also does.

Destructor is also supposed to scale with leveling but Relic failed at it, as usual.

[Sub_Zero]

Destructor is also supposed to scale with leveling but Relic failed at it, as usual.

Even at level 1 this ability decimates squishy squads... Thanks God they failed

[Torpid]

Vangaurds' merciless strike (whatever it's called) needs a damage buff. All it does is knock back units for a couple of seconds. The barely notice any damage done from the ability itself.

I would like to see it only with the hammer. Now I see no point for them to keep the hammer. 15% passive chance to knockback is very rare (to be honest I didn't see it at all). And the hammer does a little bit more damage against hi/shi.

The thunderhammer also gets that freaking AMAZING tracking special, IMO that's the best part of it.

[Forestradio]

Vangaurds' merciless strike (whatever it's called) needs a damage buff. All it does is knock back units for a couple of seconds. The barely notice any damage done from the ability itself.

I would like to see it only with the hammer. Now I see no point for them to keep the hammer. 15% passive chance to knockback is very rare (to be honest I didn't see it at all). And the hammer does a little bit more damage against hi/shi.

The thunderhammer also gets that freaking AMAZING tracking special, IMO that's the best part of it.

only good if you're chasing stuff, not so good in a straight up melee fight.
Rather have a more damaging special that didn't track.

[Torpid]

The special knocks over entire squads, it's like a passive merciless strike, it's amazing.

[Sub_Zero]

The thunderhammer also gets that freaking AMAZING tracking special, IMO that's the best part of it.

That is great BUT at level 1 vanguard veterans have 70 melee skill. And it is T3 when you get them. Enemy's melee squad will be at least at level 2.

[Forestradio]

The special knocks over entire squads, it's like a passive merciless strike, it's amazing.

so now my vanguards are glorified shotguns scouts.......

I don't want disruption, I want damage.

And enemy leveled melee squads will toss around your shiny new 70 skill vans like nothing

[Sub_Zero]

And enemy leveled melee squads will toss around your shiny new 70 skill vans like nothing

This is an exaggeration. Dedicated melee squads toss around tactical marines or chaos marines if they decide to accept the fight. And there is a 10 melee skill difference between them. And I would not say special attacks happen that often even between tacs/chaos marines and dedicated melee squad.
Level 1 vanguards (70 melee skill) vs lvl 4 banshees (73 melee skil). Not such a big difference, is it?

[Forestradio]

And enemy leveled melee squads will toss around your shiny new 70 skill vans like nothing

This is an exaggeration. Dedicated melee squads toss around tactical marines or chaos marines if they decide to accept the fight. And there is a 10 melee skill difference between them. And I would not say special attacks happen that often even between tacs/chaos marines and dedicated melee squad.
Level 1 vanguards (70 melee skill) vs lvl 4 banshees (73 melee skil). Not such a big difference, is it?

shees with their exarch have 6 models, vans have four.
More models=more chance of special attack.

here's how melee skill and specials are calculated........

Source: http://dow.wikia.com/wiki/Dawn_of_War_II_combat

"When an attack is made, if the attacker's melee skill is higher than the defender, the chance of a special attack is (5% + x%). Thus, if an Assault Marine (Melee Skill 70) were to attack an Eldar Guardian (Melee Skill 50), he would have a (5% + 20%) = 25% chance of performing a special attack."

"If the attacker has a lower melee skill, the difference is used as a negative modifier that is further multiplied by 5 (5% - 5x%). Effectively, having a Melee Skill of even 1 point lower than the defender means there is no chance of making special attacks at all (5% - 5% = 0%). Having a negative final percentage (below 0%) has no effect."

"The skill comparison is especially important in the case of opposing units that start off with equal skill (for example Assault Marines vs Howling Banshees, both with 70); an advantage of being just one Experience level ahead (and therefore 1 point more melee skill) can tip the balance of a fight even further than the level bonus to health/damage might suggest."

In your hypothetical situation, the vans have no chance of a special at all as a squad.
The shees have a 6*(5+73-70) or a 48 % chance of pulling off a special as a squad.

So yes a few points of melee skill is a huge disadvantage/advantage in melee combat.

[Codex]

The shees have a 6*(5+73-70) or a 48 % chance of pulling off a special as a squad.

I know probability is not necessarily widely understood, but that's not how probability works.

You do not just add up probabilities of 8% 6 times to get 48%. If this were the case then in theory if you had 13 banshee attacks in a row, you would get 104% chance of a special attack, and clearly this is wrong.

This is because the probability needs to account for situations where only 1 attack procs, 2 attacks proc... all 6 attacks proc special attacks, and hence the trials are NOT independent.

Therefore the correct probability of getting a special attack within one round of banshee attacks is:

P(Banshees proc 1 or more special attacks)= 1 (certainty) - P(No special attacks proc for banshees)

Where the second probability P(no special attack) 6 times:
(1- 0.08) * (1-0.08) * (1- 0.08)* (1- 0.08)* (1- 0.08)* (1- 0.08)
=(0.92)^ 6
= 0.60635...

giving P(Banshees proc 1 or more special attacks)= 1- 0.60635= 0.393644... = 39.3%.

By comparison if we do 13 banshee attacks in a row now, you would still only get 1- (0.92^13)= 66.17%, far lower than 104%.

That said, having a level advantage and having 1 melee skill difference alone is a massive advantage. ASM fare infinitely better against Banshees with a level advantage, given that they are immune to special attack procs.

[Asmon]

Good answer Codex, though it still lacks a bit of precision :p

[Codex]

Feel free to correct, it's been years since I did any probability work

[Bahamut]

I havent done discrete math in a long, long time but overall what codex wrote does makes sense

Tho i would actually have added them numerically since each banshee has an independent chance of proccing, (means tha if shee #2 triggers a special, shee #3 is still allowed to roll for a special) so the chance of at least 1 banshee triggering a special attack each time all shees perform one attack would be 8%*6=48%

If i remember right, whenever the chances are dependent of each other, you multiply, but if whenever they're independent of each other you add them. I'll definitely gonna double check on that whenever i can tho

[Nuclear Arbitor]

i don't know if its accessible but if so it might be worth tweaking lower melee skill so that, for example, one 70ms can still proc against 71ms.

[Spartan717]

The special knocks over entire squads, it's like a passive merciless strike, it's amazing.

Putting aside the fact that the models need to be lined up to be knocked over, the ability itself isn't that useful. If I wanted to knock over units I could have my vangaurds jump on top of them. Sure they won't be knocked in the same direction, but my vangaurds will be closer to attack the units than having to chase them after using the 'merciless strike' ability (as they will be pushed away from the squad).

[Codex]

If i remember right, whenever the chances are dependent of each other, you multiply, but if whenever they're independent of each other you add them. I'll definitely gonna double check on that whenever i can tho

The problem with this is that if you add enough discrete instances of a finite probability it will eventually have a probability of occurrence which is higher or equal to 1, which never happens. The probability of something occurring at least once is 1- P(the probability of it never occurring). As a result the probability will tend towards 1 as n the number of trials tends to infinity, but it will never actually equal 1 as there is always the possibility there a special attack will not proc after x trials, however close to 1 you may get.

[Forestradio]

If i remember right, whenever the chances are dependent of each other, you multiply, but if whenever they're independent of each other you add them. I'll definitely gonna double check on that whenever i can tho

The problem with this is that if you add enough discrete instances of a finite probability it will eventually have a probability of occurrence which is higher or equal to 1, which never happens. The probability of something occurring at least once is 1- P(the probability of it never occurring). As a result the probability will tend towards 1 as n the number of trials tends to infinity, but it will never actually equal 1 as there is always the possibility there a special attack will not proc after x trials, however close to 1 you may get.

But Codex, math is HARD!!!!!

Thank you for your correction though.

[FiSH]

hopefully the below clearly illustrates why a simple calculation of 6*0.08 does not take into account the actual complexity of probability, as well as show why the method codex put forth is efficient and correct.


Codex's method:
Chances of at least 1 banshee model doing a special = 100% - chances of no banshees doing special. This method is easy to calculate because we can think of it in a multiplicative way. That is:
chances of no banshees doing special = multiplicative. assuming a special has 8% chance of occurring here, there is 92% chance this will occur
this means -> 0.92^6 for all of them to not special.
that means -> 1 - 0.92^6 = chances of at least 1 special

Difficult method:
straight up calculating chances of at least 1 special is more difficult since we must add all cases:

chance of exactly 1 specials -> say banshee 1 does special (with probability 0.08), no others do (this each has 0.92 chance of happening). then this total event will have 0.08 * (1-0.08)^5 chance of happening. same applies for any banshees, that is, this scenario can be written for banshee 2, 3, ... 6, so total chance of exactly 1 special is:
0.08 * (1-0.08)^5 * 6

chance of exactly 2 specials -> similarly to the above case, have banshees 1 and 2 special, others don't, this has chance 0.08 * 0.08 * (1-0.08)^4 of happening. We may pick any 2 banshees from the 6, so the pair can be (1,2), (1,3), ... (5,6). The total possible number of pairs is known as a combination, so 6C2 = (6*5)/(2*1) = 15
...
much more math, doing same reasoning for 3 specials, 4, so forth...
...
chances of 6 specials -> 0.08^6

finally, we add all the chances of each special, and should get the same answer as what was given at the top.

[Dark Riku]

The special knocks over entire squads, it's like a passive merciless strike, it's amazing.

Too bad they start with MS70 so won't ever do knockback.
Not to mention buying these never happens in a real game.

[Bahamut]

There you go Fish, u cleaned up the logic behind it good job!.

For vanguard/sternguard i still dont know what's the logic behind making them lose their levels and experience.

Sternguard are already somewhat inferior than tacs PLUS they lose their levels

Vanguards have a total cost of way too much 450/50 + 75/25 + 100/30 = 625/105 MINIMUM price but most likely you had to purchase melta bombs too so they end up being 675/130!!!! for a lvl 1 squad in t3...

[Tex]

I routinely pay 740-215 (ish?cant remember exactly) for a level 1 squad in t3 that doesn't fly. What's your point?

Vanguards are an obvious (how to) use option in my opinion. In case you haven't noticed, they are basically assault terminator wanna-bes for the apo and tm. If you have gone through the game with a leveled ASM squad, then odds are that you aren't going to want this upgrade unless you lose all models save for the sargeant and the need for power_melee has come up. If however, you didn't have ASM, then purchasing them in t3 and upgrading to vanguards is a PERFECTLY LEGIT THING TO DO.

As far as Sternguards go, how can you possibly call them a downgrade? Your generalist tacs have given up their vesitility (aka burst damage in plasma or rocket form) to instead be able to swap freely between any form of damage needed. And yes, I understand that burst damage is way better than sustained damage. AND YES, I understand that the tacs with rockets or plasma will do a bit better DPS wise than Sternguards. But how about considering that Sternguards are basically retreat killers (something that SM lacks dearly) with their hellfire rounds, and they are quite possibly the best hero counter in the game.

If anything, you have to call it a specialization upgrade. I refuse to ever call a level 1 or 2 tac squad turning into a sternguard squad a downgrade.

[Bahamut]

For vanguards then what's the point of having them as a purchasable upgrade to another squad? why not just have them as a stand alone squad in t3?. That's what i dont trully get. I thought that the ASM had a scaling issue since they are somewhat incapable of dealing with the new units that come in t3 and the vanguard upgrade was meant to fix that scaling issue.

Anyway, from my PoV, the concept of SM is to have few beefy squads that can adapt to any situation and that scale accordingly. Tactical squads fulfill this concept and they remain viable in all tiers where as ASM and their melee_pvp damage type just can't remain a competitive squad in t3. They needed something to keep them up to par and i guess that's why Caeltos gave them the vanguard upgrade option and sure, it's ok they trade the melta bomb and all but why also reset their levels? that's what i dont get.

As for sternguard i did not say "downgrade", i said they are "somewhat inferior" to tacticals and they are and that's by design they are. By "somewhat inferior" i mean they don't perform as good as tacs with the specialized weapon, so a tac with a plasma gun will outperform sternguards with kraken ammo. If sternguard were superior than tacs then they would be OP don't you think?. By all means sternguard are not a downgrade but a generalist sidegrade. I just don't get why this particular sidegrade has to come with such a harsh penalty.

[HandSome SoddiNg]

For vanguards then what's the point of having them as a purchasable upgrade to another squad? why not just have them as a stand alone squad in t3?. That's what i dont trully get. I thought that the ASM had a scaling issue since they are somewhat incapable of dealing with the new units that come in t3 and the vanguard upgrade was meant to fix that scaling issue.

Anyway, from my PoV, the concept of SM is to have few beefy squads that can adapt to any situation and that scale accordingly. Tactical squads fulfill this concept and they remain viable in all tiers where as ASM and their melee_pvp damage type just can't remain a competitive squad in t3. They needed something to keep them up to par and i guess that's why Caeltos gave them the vanguard upgrade option and sure, it's ok they trade the melta bomb and all but why also reset their levels? that's what i dont get.

.

Uh, i kinda wish they made Vanguards an option in T2 instead of T3 but might be little too much for Chaos to handle,lulz. Vanguards are always situational choice for ASM to transition in T3. I said before, if your ASM is still lv1 or lv2 , don't get Vanguard if your ASM at lv2/bar is fast approaching to hit Lv3. Vanguard is somewhat a fair trade for losing some utitlies , giving more Power meele and they can still get Rear armour hits on Vehicles, that is Also if you already posses sufficient AV for stuff .

[Torpid]

I would say vanguard are a much better choice than keeping asm in a scenario where you know your enemy is stuck in t2. It's not necessarily the case that you have won in these scenarios as high-level players know all too well, but the pure dps of the vanguard on a jump unit will decimate t2 units and bleed them to bits, not to mention the only thing that can take vanguard on on an economic level in melee is genestealers, but even then with SM support even then they are gonna get flipped about and the synapse creatures popped fast.

Other than that, yeah they're a great t3 choice when your build previously lacked asm kind of like the seer council which I often get when I reach t3 with an eldar DA based t1 where I got no shees.

Also, why do SM necessarily need vanguard to be any better? It's not like vanguard truly fill a hole in the SM roster that must be fixed else SM are doomed. They never had a dedicated power melee squad before but they were fine, they still don't need one. I would suggest y'all stop complaining and be grateful for the added versatility they grant you in this form. Suggestions to allow vans/sterns to keep their levels upon leveling pretty much defeat the points of the upgrade and is still absurd.

[Dark Riku]

Vanguard is somewhat a fair trade for losing some utitlies , giving more Power meele and they can still get Rear armour hits on Vehicles, that is Also if you already posses sufficient AV for stuff .

Suggestions to allow vans/sterns to keep their levels upon leveling pretty much defeat the points of the upgrade and is still absurd.

By this logic many upgrades should reset a squad's exp for example: MoK/MoT csm.

[sk4zi]

Vanguard is somewhat a fair trade for losing some utitlies , giving more Power meele and they can still get Rear armour hits on Vehicles, that is Also if you already posses sufficient AV for stuff .

Suggestions to allow vans/sterns to keep their levels upon leveling pretty much defeat the points of the upgrade and is still absurd.

By this logic many upgrades should reset a squad's exp for example: MoK/MoT csm.

if the vanguards stats start where a asm Lvl 4 ends, its fine ^^