Dawn of War Codex

2.4 Release Notes wrote: Retreating units now path through other units and vehicles in an attempt to prevent buggy retreat behaviour

There were two (perhaps unintended) side affects that also occurred as a result of this change. Let’s start with the positive one.

Abilities such as (s)Kill the Weak, Emperor’s fist, Stomp, Seismic Roar etc no longer interfere with retreating units.

This prevents hitting the retreating unit extra times with other melee squads. At the same time all of these abilities will still damage on retreat (or in KTW’s heal the CL) and imo none of them now underperform now that they don’t allow for additional retreat losses/wipes.

The second, less positive change...

Charge abilities (Hive Tyrant, Bloodcrusher, Carnifex, Venerable Dreadnought, etc) now inflict squad-wiping damage if aimed on retreat, because the charging unit now no longer stops once it has hit enough retreating models and instead continues to inflict damage for the full length of the charge.

Charge abilities now seem to be overperforming due to this squad-wipe potential. Of particular concern are the Bloodcrusher’s charge (as a rush vehicle it can be fielded very early in the game and easily influence the outcome with a quick squad wipe) and the Carnifex’s charge (which is the most damaging variant and can run down whole blobs).
IMO no charge underperformed prior to 2.4, charges have always been a way of moving from one point to another very quickly to either tie up a unit or escape danger and doing some disruption along the way, the fact that they do damage is just a bonus pretty much. Now that they can wipe full health squads with the click of a button it's a bit over the top.

Just a couple of thoughts, I'm not sure if charge abilities should be changed or not, but their current state is pretty ridiculous.

If you check out BbBoS' twitch.tv account, there is a highlight where a Bloodcrusher charges down 4 retreating Heretics, which wipes them all. Twitch.tv/bbbos

http://www.twitch.tv/bbbos/v/10744110

This is the infamous 4 tic wipe, I love it!

Maybe the damage type could be altered so that it is reduced by 80% like ranged damage is for retreating units. I believe most charges do piercing damage anyway.

Slaaneshi Cacophony wrote:http://www.twitch.tv/bbbos/v/10744110

This is the infamous 4 tic wipe, I love it!

"Trample damage"

That is the best damned charge EVA!

Damned if we do , damned if we dont.

anyone remember when spore mines had that charge up explosion that caused path errors on units? oh man that was evil .


trample is a tricky thing though. i would hate to give retreat another get out of jail free card against another mechanic .
but on the other hand.. good lord that is so exploitable.

Doh! Very much in favor of the retreat pathing changes, too bad about this side effect I saw it in a match with Tex last night, BC charge executing a squad of IST. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is something that clearly should be changed. For you dev peoples, what sort of fixes would the engine allow? Things I thought of:

Add a charge damage mitigation to the retreat effect.
Make the retreat effect give full damage immunity to charge.
Damaging a retreating unit with a charge puts a hidden effect on the unit, making it immune to charge damage for the next 10 seconds (long enough to get home).