GK in Patch 2.3.1

[krimson]

1. The Psycannon in Purgation squad absolutely shreds everything now. I love it.
2. SS is still bad and with the lil buff to IST...3 IST to Purg/Jump squads is more viable.

What do you guys think?

[Indrid]

The Strike Squad are bugged atm and doing way less ranged damage than they should. So much so that you shouldn't even really bother to get them until it's fixed (which will hopefully be soon).

[Sub_Zero]

Yeah, I wasn't impressed at all by the performance of strike squads. While we are at it, can I clarify and probably raise some problems?

- Strike Squad Justicar now has his plasma weapon by default

This is a very specialised damage type that usually comes with a specific weapon. How come a squad leader is given that specific damage type? That basically means that this squad leader is a very desirable purchase in certain cases and in some other cases his combat efficiency leaves much to be desired. I suggest he should be given inferno damage type. That damage type is pretty versatile and won't cripple his performance against light squads.

- Strike Squad & Justicar ranged damage increased from 13 to 15

Does that mean they have 15 dps?

- Psybolt Ammunition damage increased from 15% to 20%

Nice to hear that a T2 upgrade is a little bit better than T1 EW. Now I have an important question. Does it affect the specialised weapons of the strike squad such as psycannons and flamers? If it does I have no complaint here, but if it only affects standard ranged weapons of the strike squad then I have to suggest that it should affect the specialised weapons.

And now is the proposition I wanted to make. I perceive this unit as a melee oriented one (their ability, their good melee damage, their good melee skill and their mediocre performance against other ranged squads). So basically they are better at fighting melee units because of the factors named above (hell I always beat up melee squads with my 2x tacs so don't even come here and say strike squads cannot fight melee units). In T1 they can easily stand their ground in melee due to their high melee skill for a ranged unit who can always wound any melee squad on its approach by firing at it. But their specialised ranged weapons make them significantly worse at it. The model who wields it has 60 melee skill (correct me if I am wrong) and about 12 dps in melee (almost 50% nerf to their strenght in melee). The biggest downside of these weapons is their inability to fire on the move which is again even worse for a melee oriented ranged unit who can possibly force melee on weaker ranged squads. So even if it is reasonable that the model who loses his halberd to lose his melee skill I can't get why the melee damage should be reduced. A tactical marine with a rocket launcher strikes as hard in melee as a model with a bolter (despite the patheticly looking melee animation). So my proposition is to retain the damage in melee with an upgraded weapon.

[Forestradio]

It's impossible to judge their balance due to how badly the SS and melee dread are glitched. Wait until after the hotfix resolves those issues.

Does it affect the specialised weapons of the strike squad such as psycannons and flamers?

Yes.

60 melee skill (correct me if I am wrong)

He retains 70 melee skill, but can no longer perform special attacks.

2 major issues would be SHI rhino being a total troll in t1 (and the extra armor upgrade is still bad) and flamer dread is still absolute garbage. Though it's nice to get the inferno cannon sometimes, it might make your opponent laugh hard and thus mess up his micro.

[Crewfinity]

GK will be in a really good place with the hotfix. lets take a look at their roster. they've been buffed almost across the board, especially in T1. keep in mind these are just my personal opinions, i'm not trying to start a flame war or anything

T1

IST- they used to be the go to spam unit to get GK through T1. awesome burst damage, and now with their upgrades getting buffs (grenade and plasma dps) they're even more awesome. with a couple of IST squads with sergeants its really tough to get into melee with them. they have on demand suppression with plasma guns, and on demand knockback with sergeant or grenade launchers. really great utility unit, are able to melt light infantry when kiting properly, and do decent damage to HI now with plasma.
Thoughts: Very strong with their control abilities now. but they are fragile, so i'd say they're okay.

Strike Squad- with the hotfix changes they should be pretty awesome. much more powerful in T1 than either tacs or CSM, although they dont scale as well. will have more starting ranged dps than tacs, more melee dps than CSM, as well as having a special attack. also have the same health and cost as tacs. In T2 they become less of a primary damage dealer, and more of a support unit, with the justicar abilities. Can still do decent damage to all targets with their upgrades, but much less than CSM or tacs when they're upgraded. you want them on the front line in T1, but not so much later in the game.
DPS to HI- 70.23 (TCSM do ~108, plasma tacs do ~84)
Thoughts: people need to stop expecting them to do as much damage as the other HI equivalents, they fufill different roles. that said, still a little on the weak side, even with the proposed hotfix. Psybolt ammo could probably buff to 25% instead of 20% and still be okay, since it only increases ranged damage. Psycannon could maybe be a bit stronger than the purgation versions, since there's only 1. especially since the purgation psycannons got buffed and i dont think the SS version did?

Interceptors- their buffs helped a lot with making them more useful. not really essential to a GK build since the BC can assume the linebreaker role in T1, and you have purifiers in T2, but allows for a lot more variation in builds. extremely good with canticle from BC, also good an with incinerator purgation squad. they are as tanky as ASM and deal as much damage as raptors, at least in T1. awesome at getting retreat kills, which can really throw off an opponent. in T2 they get access to some awesome grenades, both a more powerful melta bomb than ASM get (and also disables weapons/abilities of vehicles) and psyk grenades, which are half as good as scout nades and also suppress. dont have as much anti-melee as ASM do so you have to support them more, either with BC(using ward, force sword, or canticle) or libby(using sanctuary). dont expect them to solo dedicated melee squads, but they're awesome as disrupting and messing with ranged blobs. can also get incinerator(stronger than tac flamer), which is pretty cool. makes them even better at messing with ranged blobs and also gives them some really good gen bash potential.
Thoughts: much better now with the buffs they got. very happy with them ATM

Rhino- speed 8, SHI armor, able to carry 2 squads. ridiculously awesome. as fast as a sentinel, and although it does have rear armor it is much more difficult to kill when supported by IST, especially with smoke grenade. can get really powerful upgrades in T2 to either be anti infantry(doing more dps than a razorback) or anti tank(does almost as much dps as a lasdev). look at it like a really cheap, fast predator, its speed can really help in vehicle fights. I'm suprised more people dont get these in T2. its 290/30 with a weapon upgrade. awesome unit. can be suprisingly good in pairs if your micro is up to it (see crazyman vs holyhammer in the last MRT)
Thoughts: probably a bit too powerful. could go back to HI and be fine.

Purgations- more expensive than other suppression teams, but they also play differently so thats fine. incinerators are much better now that the suppression removes passive leaps. their snare ability is also really good. i find they perform best either in pairs or with a rhino to support them. with a rhino they're really good at going for quick genbashes or for roasting blobs of infantry. can get psycannons in T2, and i think the codex values haven't been changed yet to reflect their new stats. by my calculations, they now do ~20 dps explosive each, so ~60 dps per squad. when you get 2 of them, you can see how they can melt just about everything. they don't really do as much burst damage though, so you want to keep them behind front lines, protected, and steadily contributing their DPS. Also they do AOE, so they really are an anti-all unit. 2 squads of these can kill a deff dread from full health in a little more than 6 seconds. extremely good in almost all matchups.
Thoughts: psycannons are a little too powerful imo, especially when you have multiple squads. they were a little too weak before though, so overall i think the changes were good.


Overall thoughts: GK now have a really diverse lineup, and can make multiple builds work well, even in 1v1, where they were traditionally weak. very good at keeping the enemy at a distance and dealing damage there. with their changes they are now extremely good at countering melee units, with the speed of the rhino, the high melee skill of the SS (in t1 at least), the control abilities of the IST, and the snare of the purgations. they are extremely powerful in T1 with the BC providing a damage sponge and linebreaking abilities. they lose a bit of their strength in T2, when the SS becomes less relevant, but their T3 is extremely powerful as well. I might make a couple more posts like this examining T2 and T3 in detail, but i have some stuff to do and I've rambled enough as it is. I'm thinking I might start maining GK in the future so I'd love to hear what other people think.

[Cheah18]

I kinda miss nemesis focus...

How long can we expect it to take SS to be fixed? No pressure and no need to rush, just curious.

[Sub_Zero]

I tried the new strike squad and I can say with no doubt that now they are even more than just good at ranged combat. Earlier I wanted to suggest replacing the justicar's plasma weapon because I thought it would be ineffective against light infantry. But now I want to suggest replacing it because it clearly overperforms against heavy armour. Inferno damage type will fit perfectly I think. It still deals high damage to HI (24,6 with the upgrade and inferno vs 28,8 with the upgrade and plasma) and won't be ineffective to LI (19 with the upgrade and inferno vs 13 with the upgrade and plasma). I don't get why a squad leader has a specialised damage type. No other squad leader in the game has and that is alright because there should not be restrictions like this one when you think that against a certain race this purchase is not so desirable and is not compensated by anything.

[Cheah18]

No other squad leader in the game has...

Catachan sergeant does. And is AC on KCSM the only one with a melta pistol or do they all have one?

[Torpid]

Melta weaponry are not specialised weapons. They are good at everything from light infantry to tanks and even buildings.

[lolzarz]

Wouldn't the Kommando squad nob's rokkit launcha count as a specialized weapon? Also, vanguard veteran plasma pistol.

[Caeltos]

No, because the Kommando Nob(s) rokkit launchers as well as tankbustas rokkits have terrible terrible terrible accuracy againts medium/small targets. Meaning they're pretty dreadful against infantry.

[Cheekie Monkie]

2 major issues would be SHI rhino being a total troll in t1

They SHI me rollin', they hatin'

[Cheah18]

Oh that's what he meant by specialised...

[Ven]

i personally use strike squad mostly as a melee unit, i think their ranged potential is just fine as it is. and their abilites are awesome. in T1 they're your disruption/ima tie you up unit and come T2 they're a supportive squad with their abilities, and noone would think to tie them up in melee. i personally thing SS are criminally underused.

[Cheekie Monkie]

Just realised that the new purgation psycannons fire normally while suppressed #drool

[Daddy]

I still find Grey Knight roster have waaaay to many psycannon options. Any Chance we will see a psilencer for the purgation squads maybe?

Psilencer - A Psilencer fires nothing less than the focused and amplified psychic might of its wielder. The Psilencer does not have a triggering mechanism as such -- it is activated when the Grey Knight sends a bolt of psychic force into the weapon's containment core. The resultant energy pulse is then channelled by a series of focusing crystals into a refined beam of irresistible azure force that has a particular propensity for destabilising a daemon's physical form.

Sound so cool, ^_^ taken from the warhammer wikia.

[Crewfinity]

soooo psycannnons are kinda nuts now. absolutely shred everything. they outshoot TCSM now while being able to kill a banewolf in like 5 seconds -_-

[Ven]

soooo psycannnons are kinda nuts now. absolutely shred everything. they outshoot TCSM now while being able to kill a banewolf in like 5 seconds -_-

i think you're overexagering there. was that one squad or two? pre-patch Tzzetch marines seemed to be the only ranged counter to psycannon purgs.

[Cheah18]

They are a heavy weapons team really... they SHOULD shred things in ranged combat

[Torpid]

Indeed, they are not as good as CSM in melee, nor do they have as much HP and they have no fire on the move.

[Ven]

thats the thing. people say that purgs are OP yet dont treat them like HWTs. if a heavy bolter squad didn't supress, they would instead melt any infantry that went in to their line of fire. this principle is true of the psycannon purgs, sd they dont have supression they're basically an autocannon squad, but 3 of them instead of one. HOWEVER their weakness is, if they loose models then they loose a third of their dps, autocannon havocs for example would not loose a third of their DPS.
pre-2.3.1 psycannons were only outshot by Tzzetch marines (no dark reapers didn't, they melted) now they are the best dakka anyone could get, especially as they have NO RELOAD.

i say that psycannon purgs are fine. they're really the only GK ranged infantry unit so their damage is justified. treat them like a more mobile setup team, but with more damage and no supression. blobbing up your guardsmen for example vs 2 psycannon purgs is silly, psycannons doing full damage to all targets and have a splash... infantry isnt going to have a fun time, especially big blobs; you wouldn't blob up and charge a dev squad with no setup team counter so why do it to purgs?

[Oddnerd]

I tried playing Grey Knights, having recently switched to Elite from retail. I have to say that as someone who played tabletop the strike squads were incredibly disappointing. These are guys who are souped-up tac squads, but I find that I just want to spam IST units until later tiers.

Tac squads are not as good in melee, but the difference doesnt feel all that great in T1, since TACs already pulverize most other T1 units well enough. Then when you hit T2-T3, the tacs can get a missile launcher, which makes them really solid anti-vehicle units, and the plasma gun, which when combined with ATSKNF makes them a super tough anti-infantry unit. The SS upgrades on the other hand, just feel really underwhelming. Overall you get a unit that feels trivially better than tacs in T1 and not as versatile in the late game.

EDIT - I have seen posts regarding them being bugged, curious to know exactly what the bug is.

[Indrid]

They shouldn't be bugged any more, assuming you are using 2.3.1 H2.

[Ar-Aamon]

Strike Squads are now in a perfect spot. They do good damage and they have some awesome abilities to support your army.

[Ven]

Overall you get a unit that feels trivially better than tacs in T1 and not as versatile in the late game.

thats the thing though, in terms of their weapons they're not AS versatile but they are somewhat versatile still in T2 and beyond. their incinerator is kinda meh really, removes their awesome melee weapon on one model for a meh flamer. pyscannon can be useful as its good AV and AI but its not quite as powerful as purgation psycannons, and for its price i dont think its worth it.

HOWEVER, their justicar is where the shit is at. gives them two awesome abilities that screws pretty much most units. bloodletters teleport behind you? use energy blast which slows them and takes away their energy, usually forcing a retreat. also they can give energy to a friendly unit. need i say more? my point is that they will and can do a lot of things for you if micro'd correctly.

and to elaborate on your comment here. yes they're better than tacs in terms of melee, but tacs with melt them in ranged combat due to higher DPS and kraken bolts in T1. both units have their strengths and weaknesses.

[Darkhavien]

SS have a slightly higher ranged dps than Tacs in T1, except vs Heavy Armor.

They also seem to be a good deal more bursty than Tacs, due to their firing pattern.

Honestly, all in all, I think they're in a fantastic place at the moment.

[Sub_Zero]

I want to say that purgation squads with psycannons aren't as strong as people claim. I used them in pairs. This way they really demolish vehicles, though they can't pursue and that balances them. But against infantry they are just OK, strike squads deal more damage, they are your anti-infantry choice. If some squad's members happen to stay close to each other then indeed the splash damage will kill them fast. So in terms of that psycannons are really dependent on this factor to be 100% effective.

[Element]

I would like to express my concern for the GK rhino as well...I think that naturally this buff to the armor was the right call, I believe what is in order to scale back the tank is to remove the stormbolter on the rhino itself. The nature of the stormbolter when it was added, was to add something in regards to that of the ability to apply pressure to your opponent in compensation for being fragile, while in addition adding some extra to an extent needed dps however, now that the damage of the strike squad is very much respectable, and the armor of the tank itself is a bit over the top, scaling it down by removing its capability to deal damage so that it is not such a field sustainability modifier would bring it into balance. Remember, the whole reason the GK rhino was introduced for T1 was for mobility. The problem was that the mobility was hard to keep well lived as the vehicle took too much damage in the process of relocating however as of now... that is no longer a problem. The problem that has arisen is that when the GK player finds themselves in a situation where they are losinng map control because of the natural push back manner of the game, they largely negate this feature of the game in T1. 2x IQS on repair duties can easily out repair damage coming in while the stormbolter does all the work and practically engages the enemy for the Gk player to which after then causing said enemy to fall back they pore out their troops and then cap up the map and bash power without the slightest manner of impediment. This is what I believe is pretty much all that needs to be changed...other than the dreads plasma cannon... The flamestorm cannon I find alright, others find still underpowered... I think the weapon is very specialist and when used correctly under the right circumstances is quite balanced... it's more of the fact that it seems to be too specialised that I think people find it to be underpowered as when used against anything other than in those situations it somewhat tends to underperform which I'd agree with... Thoughts?

[Ven]

i personally think that the rhino is fine with the storm bolter. HOWEVER, i do think that the HP of the rhino should be scaled back a bit as it seems only setup teams are the things that can barely scratch it in T1 other than power melee etc. but some races dont have power melee, or plasma damage or specialised damage types to deal with the rhino in T1.

here is what i propose for a few changes to the rhino.

When in T1, limit the rhino to 1. double rhinos is just too hard to deal with in certain MUs as stated before.

Give the rhino some kind of decorator to indicate it has vehicle armor, its very annoying buying Tzzetch marines assuming im the first to T2, and then half way through its health bar the rhino stops taking damage from the inferno damage :L

In terms of its armor, im not sure. SHI seems a bit too powerful with its current ammount of HP, but HI armour makes it in to a wet flannel. would it be possible to create a new armour type that is somewhere in between? because right now we need something in between. SHI = too powerful, espeically when the rhinos are doubled up and HI = too underpowered.

also i feel like the rhino is too cheap for what it is in its current state, a GKs opponent might spend a lot more resources trying to counter the rhino, more than what the actual rhino costed. so even before the rhino goes down its a bad trade in resource investment.

one last thing, i personally think that the gunner on top should be a purchasable upgrade if possible for something like

100 req
15 power

that way the rhino is reasonably priced for having that weapon. without the weapon yes it would be balanced out the gate, but i wouldn't want sterling modelling and the teams modding to go to waste, so make it an upgrade that brings the rhinos price more in to line of what it should be.

[Element]

I could get behind what your saying Ven in suggetion of Making the mounted stormbolter an upgrade piece and limiting them to 1 for T1