Dark Flames

[Slaaneshi Cacophony]

Does anyone else not feel that moving it to T2 was a mistake? Ideally it was always brilliant to deal heavy damage to blobbed up light infantry units to turn the tide of an engagement but more often than not now, Tyranid and IG blobs take very little damage even from a well placed line of Dark Flames in T2 because of the amount of buffs and abilities that make it ridiculously easy to shrug off or avoid entirely. I almost never use it now.

Thoughts?

[Flo]

Agreed. I much rather pay 50 more red and use daemonic summoning, which is an awesome global. Even with perfect placement you have to get really lucky to wipe a squad with dark flames.

[enasni127]

Agreed. I much rather pay 50 more red and use daemonic summoning, which is an awesome global. Even with perfect placement you have to get really lucky to wipe a squad with dark flames.

how horrible would it be if dark flames wiped full squads easily and without any good placement or "luck"?! it would be like the ig rocket run then, i think.

dark flames were horrible for squishy races and i think they are right placed in t2. ig and others still suffer losses, sometimes squad losses, due to dark flames cause these buffs you are talking about don't make their units invulnerable at all.

dark flames usually makes you run away from it, give up your foritfication or cover, spreads chaos among your line and often leads to retreats. i think this is what it should do. it is still not a nuke, quite cheap and very dangerous for retreating units.

[Flo]

Let me rephrase that: Even with perfect placement you have to get really lucky to wipe a severely damaged squad with dark flames.

[Torpid]

No, I've wiped many squads with this global and it kills turrets and other light structures with relative ease. It was just absurd in T1 vs Orks and the like in retail when combined with doombolts which themselves got buffed in damage in elite.

It's a 150 red global. It isn't really meant to be wiping squads left right and centre. If anything though I do think a reduction in the red cost to 125 would be justified.

[Torpid]

Let me rephrase that: Even with perfect placement you have to get really lucky to wipe a severely damaged squad with dark flames.

It's nothing to do with luck, it's to do with judging the retreat path and knowing how much health a squad will lose after you put it down and they run through it accounting for health regen. If you had perfect knowledge of such you'de be able to wipe squads with 100% of your dark flames.

[Ven]

+1 to what torpid said.

[Flo]

It's nothing to do with luck, it's to do with judging the retreat path and knowing how much health a squad will lose after you put it down and they run through it accounting for health regen. If you had perfect knowledge of such you'de be able to wipe squads with 100% of your dark flames.

Alright, seems like I have to give this global another chance

[Cheah18]

Why should globals be measured by their wipe capability anyway?

[Flo]

Because that (seems) more or less the goal of this global, its a long and narrow target area easy to avoid/move out of if a squad is not in retreat.

yes, you can also use it to force people out of positions. However, daemonic summoning most often is more effective for that purpose and is the global I'll use 9 out of 10 times in a situation like that.

[Protagonist]

It shouldn't be moved to T1, because it allowed for chaos to easily snowball against some of the squishier races during the transition to t2. For example, I used to win alot of games right after the first DF because a well timed usage combined with the grenade launcher disruption allowed a wipe on a guardsman squad and often the sentinel they were trying to repair, which (frequently) led to a complete power bash. That was a sudden economic shift coupled with Dark Flames getting a hefty refund of the red due to the implications of the spell. Having it in T1 was just a bit too strong from my own experience. Having it moved to T2 also helped force people to use the warp global, something that was largely ignored by most sorcerers for a long time (even after the change to a single selected unit). Only good things from the move to t2 if you ask me.

[Slaaneshi Cacophony]

Would second a red cost reduction for its use if it was to remain unchanged, it's almost never worth it in T2 compared to an extra 50 red for a ton of Bloodletters and reinforcement

[Atlas]

I concur with Torpid. I personally use Dark Flames 99% of the time to wipe a heavily damaged squad on retreat and 1% to destroy brood nests. I don't actually know how much damage it does to turrets. Does it wipe a Tarantula Turret in one go? If so, that opens some possibilities and I'll admit I've never tried that before.

I don't really know about a price reduction though but I can see both sides. 150 red to wipe a squad seems pretty good but similar abilities like Hellfury also cost 150 and do considerably more raw damage. Still, the Flames can cover an entire retreat line very well so meh, I can see it but I don't know if it's needed.