Dawn of War Codex

With the recent changes to sacred standard, the terminator armour will undoubtedly become even more niche than it already was, with the benefits of taking the armour being far outweighed by the cons (loss of levels, wargear etc.)

As it currently stands, the armour amounts to little more than a trolling armour, used to taunt your enemy over your obvious tech/game advantage, being absolutely infuriating to fight against (very tanky, dealing high damage with retreat) used simply to put salt on your wounds.

I've been wracking my head on how to make the terminator armour viable, balanced and fun to both fight as and against; I've come up with some drastic design changes. Bear with me, as this is only a conceptual idea.

Make the armour purchasable in T2
There is nothing inherently wrong with having terminator armour in T2, as long as it's properly balanced in return. As precedence, the CL and BC has it in T1 and the termie libby has it in T2. Furthermore, opening the armour at this stage reduces the level reset disadvantage.

Drastically reduce the functionality of 'vanilla' terminator armour
Reduce the health bonus significantly to rival that of the BC and CL in T2 (e.g around 1000-1250, half of its current value). Not only is this a balancing act, it also makes the armour much less frustrating to fight against.

Remove the teleport and replace the fist with a vanilla chainsword equivalent. This change ties up with the next concept...

Allow the FC to retain his wargear!
Wargear, as a whole should be an investment, not something you throw away once you've got something better. Allowing the FC to retain his wargear not only reflects on this philosophy, but it also diversifies the playstyle of the FC. You can still grab the halo or standard, or you can go for the classic teleporter. The flamer and AC can still remain as a T3 'armour' option which replaces the storm bolter. For example, you can have a one handed thunder hammer, AC and sacred standard in T3, though I'm unsure as to how the stormshield would work.

Risks and cons for the propopsed changes
Costing and balancing issues
Risk of making the FC a 'clone' of the BC/CL

Personally i think that terminator armor for the FC its fine as it is. If you have invested in nothing or some wargear from T1 like the iron halo or the stormshield the upgrade that the FC gets its amazing , especially if the comander is low lvl. Lets not forget that is avaible for a relativly low cost upon reaching t3 and gives the FC a free teleporter , soft AV and a very decent ranged weapon, also fast teching if the situation allows it can pay off imensly if the enemy still in t2 since both the heavy flamer and the lightning claws are very good vs t2 infantry compositions. Also it works wonders vs supresion heavy play since you not only get teleporter for free, you also obtain supresion inmunity and a huge HP pool. IMO its like with chosen plague marines they are very situational but they can do wonders when used in the right scenario.

Nevertheless im up for the option of allowing to swich between wargears since that option would benefit everybody and we would definetly see more TC term play if that could be made possible.

@ Freeman:

The lightning claw is anything but good. It doesn't provide enough dps compared to the t2 power fist, nor does it grant you the awesome crowd control utility the thunder hammer provides.

I think the fact that the lightning claw underperforms might have to do with the the special attack (the same you would activate via the battlecry) not doing the damage it should do (well that is something Caeltos mentioned to me at one point while I was aksing him to give the FC Terminator armor a thunderhammer + stormshield [like the normal AT], why I thought that that might be a great upgrade and why I think that the claws were lackluster).

The biggest problem I see with this change is that the termy armour upgrade basically becomes a no-brainer purchase that is good in pretty much all scenarios and just a straight up buff like eternal war. It would also make artificer armour quite redundant.

1H thunderhammer sounds absurdly OP though, I mean that thing is more than good enough as it is, let's not make him bleed models at ranged and be able to slaughter worlds in melee :O

Not sure if your TH post was about my idea of giving the FC a TH if so follow this here link: http://www.dawnofwar.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=144 it should be the last suggestion of Indrids first post.

Anyways that was my TH FC Terminator suggestion a while back, which was always meant to be an av wargear option.

"FORCE COMMANDER

Hammer of the Righteous (Max Power)

A dedicated AV option for the FC terminator armor.

Availability: Tier 3 (requires Terminator Armor)
Cost: 200/100
Weapon Family: blunt weapons - hammer -> melee_heavy
Damage: 105 melee_heavy dps on impact
Swing Pattern: The same as the normal thunder hammer assault terminators
Ability: Hammer of the Emperor - ability knockback - radius 10 (cooldown 50 seconds - 50 energy) .
Bonus: +500 HP

It would give the terminator armor of the force commander a good av option, cause right now, the only av he has is the power fist that comes with the terminator armor (and im just talking about the terminator armors av options - so yes i know that the normal fc has a good power fist). The kb ability means that he has some staying power on the field.

Potential Balance Concerns

It's too good! FC is too potent/versatile to have this (i.e. Max u FC fanboy - u just want buffs)! This could indeed be a problem, i mean u would get a 3000 hp teleporting hive tyrant with crushing claws. But - the tier it comes out and the price make up for that i guess - i mean the armor + the wargear would cost 400 req and 200 energy - if u didnt get any other wargear for ur hero.

Also maybe the terminator FC power fist should get a damage nerf, because it is only a sidearm after all."

I am also no big fan of a T2 Terminator armor, instead tweak the existing T3 Terminator armor (make claws viable + maybe give him the TH wargear as an av option). Give a discount on the armor if you already bought some wargear.

Btw. if one would change the armor type to commander armor, would that make the Terminator armor op as hell?

Commander armor would make him a lot harder to deal with with melee troops that's for sure. Regarding ranged squads not sure. That is probably very mu dependant.

Yeah kinda thought so, but right now the terminator armor is only viable if you didn't get any wargear upgrades whatsoever. Which most of the time won't happen I guess.

Or if you are vs IG, or orks/eldar stuck in T2, but this is due to the heavy flamer. The time the termi fc is worthwhile is if the flamer would wreck. That's a bit silly. His other terminator wargears are really overpriced though since unlike the flamer its not like you get something that can force off armies instantly and demands an immediate counter.

I dont agree u because heavy flamer. FIRST Light lnfantry -horde(eldar ig orks nid...) army very weak to flamer. Maybe guardsman,gaunt,guardian will be slaughtered. And i know generater bash
I know use cleansing flame, 3 gen will be wiped at once.

I think elite mod fc is normal not powerful because all armys rangepower better than retribution. But terminator in tier 2? Is this best choice? Well in next patch, it become fc termi armor down tier 2, at least heavy flamer NEVER use in tier 2. Unlock in tier 3. Tier 2 heavyflamer should be balance braker

why not a chainfist upgrade? it would basically give him a little more melee damage and give him an ability that ups his av damage even more, does that sound op considering he still has a fist and not a hammer? or make his default melee weapon a power sword and give him the powerfist as an upgrade so it costs even more money, I dunno just throwing it out there

MaxPower wrote:@ Freeman:

The lightning claw is anything but good. It doesn't provide enough dps compared to the t2 power fist, nor does it grant you the awesome crowd control utility the thunder hammer provides.

I think the fact that the lightning claw underperforms might have to do with the the special attack (the same you would activate via the battlecry) not doing the damage it should do (well that is something Caeltos mentioned to me at one point while I was aksing him to give the FC Terminator armor a thunderhammer + stormshield [like the normal AT], why I thought that that might be a great upgrade and why I think that the claws were lackluster).

it's also good to note that the thunder hammer does about the same ammount of DPS as the lightning claws. but the normal FC gets damage increases with level, termie FC can not level so if your FC is lvl 2 then its probably better to get him some other wargear unless you REALLY want a ranged FC or a bunch of extra health. the weapon_knockback and supression immunity is basically nothing you should be worrying about in T3 and late T2. especially when battlecry already gives him immunity to knockback, and one of his T2 wargears gives him supression immunity.

the terminator armor is 100 power. thats the same ammount of power for a full squad or terminators. i really do think that the termie FC needs to be looked at, because for its cost. its NEVER worth it in almost every situation.

Thunder hammer doing the same damage than Lightning claws? Lightning claws do 80dps + splash which is 12 per hit and the attack speed is once per second. So 92dps compared to TH's 62,5.

If your FC is lvl 2 and has no wargear on him by the time you have the Termie armor available it is most likely the best option as it gives you quite a decent package for the 100 power and 200 req.

Gearing the FC in T1/2 is the better choice though almost every time.

yea my appologies. but for 140(!) power in total you get a worse weapon than the TH, and the TH basically can overtake the LCs depending on level. litterally the only purpose of the termie armour right now is to rush for a heavy flamer if your oponent is still in T2 for example. its just like cheekie said; its a troll wargear that personally; i think really needs a look at. because right now it might aswell not be in the game.

Lvl 10 FC with TH will do less dps than LC Termie FC but yeah. Leveled up FC with T1/T2 kitout is generally the more desirable option since you get that stuff earlier and can pay in smaller parts etc.

But if you have invested only in like Alacrity/artificer and the FC remains very low lvl. Like 1-3 it is very unlikely he will level up all that fast esp since you are in the late stages of the game with not that much time left even when fully kitted out so Termie armor armor is a viable option. The bugged special makes LC undesirable that should prolly get fixed and then they should be re-evaluated.

Nurland wrote:Lvl 10 FC with TH will do less dps than LC Termie FC but yeah. Leveled up FC with T1/T2 kitout is generally the more desirable option since you get that stuff earlier and can pay in smaller parts etc.

But if you have invested only in like Alscrity/artificer and the FC remains very low lvl. Like 1-3 it is very unlikely he will level up all that fast esp since you are in the late stages of the game with not that much time left even when fully kitted out so Termie armor armor is a viable option. The bugged special makes LC undesirable that should prolly get fixed and then they should be re-evaluated.

actually according to my calculator the FC with TH lvl 10 will do 5 more dps than LC dont forget the higher melee skill and the melee special doing more damage. i believe the special attack of all his weapons got a damage buff ages ago? perhaps thats why the LC special is "bugged". it just doesn't do enough damage. unless there is a really obvious bug with them that im not aware of.

Well his specials in termy armour only seem to ever hit one model for some reason...

Max you fanboy you just want buffs

More seriously, I don't really think this is all that warranted. The TermFC has some problems but I don't think it's because it's a T3 only armor. Even the discussion I've read above is about how there are some bugs with some of the weapons AND how the few applications of doing this seem to revolve around a very fast heavy flamer.

Should probably start with what's actually there right now.

@Ven if you count in the splash since iirc it affects also the infantry model hit, the LC will outdps the TH (TH dps is 85 with lvl 10 FC and LC dps is 92 [80 dmg per hit + 12 dmg splash, one hit per second] + the splash to other models).

Bugged may be wrong term for the fact that it apparently does less damage than intended. Other than that, no points conceded ^^

TH/PF + armor + accessory is in most cases better than terminator + weapon. Not denying that. Just saying that Terminator is a viable option if you are in a situation with a low lvl FC with mininal investments made. Which happens when you have been capping a lot with the hero or he has been down for extended periods of time.

Torpid wrote:Well his specials in termy armour only seem to ever hit one model for some reason...

Because AFAIK the AOE of the Powerfists and the Lighting Claws' special attack is very small.

I find the Terminator armour as a situacional upgrade, but at the same time is so versatile. It gives you weapon_knockback inmunity and a tanky commander (Iron halo), a teleport (teleport), suppression inmunity (Chainsword + stormshield ability), great ranged and melee weapons...

Of course, if you have purchased some wargear and your FC have some levels isn't a very worthwhile option. But if your FC have no wargear or levels is a very interesting option.