Dawn of War Codex

I have in my forays into Chaos noted a problem child...the Sorcerer. He just doesn't perform to the level of the CL or PC, the problem lies not in the sorcerer himself (although a new tier 3 staff to round out the wargear would be nice) but in his underlings. How could the followers of Tzeentch be so narrow in focus?

While area stealth is great in theory in practice it leaves much to be desired...the fact that you have to have two heretics squads doing it at the same time to accomplish "complete invisibility" is only one of them. No other heretic squad has to do that to be effective support...

Furthermore they can't really counter CL and PC heretic worship except by killing them, with CS tics just bring in one detector and your screwed.

Now onto the fix delivered by The Lord of Sorcery himself...I swear.

Magi-tics

At tier 1 whenever heretics are worshiping they gain two abilities.

Dread Blast

Dread Blast functions exactly as Doom Blast but can be used anywhere within the radius of worship, as normal it sacrifices a heretic and has a cooldown of 10 seconds.

Cloak of Tzeentch

By sacrificing one of their number a heretic squad can give a target unit stealth for thirty seconds. Cooldown 15 seconds.

At tier 2 heretics gain two more abilities that they can use during worship.

Web of Fate

By sacrificing one of their number a heretic squad disables the ability of a target squad to retreat for ten seconds. Cooldown 20 seconds

Key of Tzeentch

By sacrificing one of their number a heretic squad can summon any one of your non-vehicle units to a point within the radius of their worship. Cooldown 30 seconds.

At tier 3 heretics gain one more ability they can use during worship.

Manifest Destiny

By sacrificing one of their number a heretic squad can reveal the destiny of all within their worship radius, every 2 seconds for 10 seconds all enemy units take 2% more damage and deal 3% less damage while all allied units deal 2% more damage and take 3% less damage. Multiple uses of Manifest Destiny by multiple heretic squads do not stack and the effects of Manifest Destiny last for 15 seconds. Cooldown 60 seconds.

The Shrine of Tzeentch

The shrine warps reality itself in the favor of Tzeentch's chosen and punishes his foes, all allied non vehicle units within the shrine's radius are considered to benefit from from light cover and all enemies are considered to have their cover value lowered by one step (garrison>heavy>light>none). With worship these bonuses and penalties are doubled.

Design Notes

Magi-tics are designed to fulfill a support role, controlling the enemy and strengthening your allies without healing damage (that would step a little bit too much on the PC's toes). Their sacrifice mechanic is designed to balance them out by either forcing frequent trips for more sacrif-er...I mean heretics or judicious use of their abilities.

The Shrine of Tzeentch is designed around the concept of "anywhere, anytime" allowing you turn any area into a fortified camp for you and a deathtrap for your foes. Admittedly I do feel that it steps on the toes of the Shrine of Nurgle but I'm running out of ideas that don't involve area of effect invisibility... Any ideas folks?

So what's the verdict?

While I can sort of see where you're coming from, I think you're going about this the wrong way. Sorc has always been an incredibly good commander, and his stealth worship has a lot of potential. Even if you get detected, you've still got the inherent damage resistance that comes from stealth benefits.

As far as killing other heretics goes, the Sorc has absolutely no issue there whatsoever. One volley of his doombolts can wipe a full hp non-AC heretic squad, so the other Chaos player has to constantly be on his toes or risk a squad wipe/retreat.

The abilities you're proposing, I'm afraid to say, are wildly overpowered. I don't have the time to get into each one at the moment, but a lot of those are insanely good. Like, equal-to-or-better-than-150+-red-costing-gloabals good, on an incredibly short cooldown. I mean, a Hide Da Boyz on demand every 15 seconds is pretty nuts. And the anti-retreat ability... I don't think I need to explain why that's a bad idea.

Sorc stealth isn't as blatant about its usefulness, but it is still an incredibly good worship ability. I don't think that it needs any bonuses at present.

Admittedly if the worship would cloak the Heretics themselves it would actually make up for the "detector=screwed" weakness... It just distinctly feels like that CS heretics should be doing something else...something sorcerous. Area stealth feels more like something the Shrine should be doing (perhaps with an increase to damage resistance granted by stealth if heretics are actively worshiping the Shrine).

Now if I had my wand of Tzeentch (it got lost in the mail I swear) I would overhaul Chaos itself, turning each commander into a subfaction like the Grey Knights with Heretics being intimately tied to the Red Bar like Orks are. But this sadly does seem to be a pipe dream...

With all due respect for your vision; If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Just FYI, the sorc is stronger than the CL during mid to late game, especially late game and stronger than PC in 1v1, you are trying to make it OP, he's currently fine as it is as it's an hero that requires some brain usage to make it perform well.

These changes would make Sorc insanely overpowered. He already scales very well.

These abilities you ask for are on basically abilities that are on a level where they should cost 100-250 red or be tied to expensive late game wargear.

I get it guys mouth shut and Chaos fled, if I want to be a sneaky, sorcerous bastard (or bitch) I'll go Eldar instead...otherwise I'll stick with the good ol PC.

Well I am a Chaos main myself and current Heretics seem a tad weak in their melee state but these changes would be too much.

The Bad Road wrote:I get it guys mouth shut and Chaos fled, if I want to be a sneaky, sorcerous bastard (or bitch) I'll go Eldar instead...otherwise I'll stick with the good ol PC.

Or you could continue playing the sorcerer and realize that he's a strong commander with some incredibly powerful (and sneaky) tricks