Dawn of War Codex

So I started playing a few 1v1s, which are apparently quite fun, who knew. So that combined with my experience with orks in teams I'd like to propose a few changes.

For Orks in general
Waaagh banners need a nerf. Especially in teams, it's very easy to get 4 and it will basically guarantee you the first engament. Increase the price from 75 rec to 100.

For the warboss:
Use Yer Choppaz (UYC) and Hard Boyz (HB). They're too spammable. I was able to use them almost every major engagement to win melee fights between sluggas vs banshees. The damage increase is good, but of less import than the melee skill buff. I like the red cost as it is on both, I seem to never accumulate massive stockpiles of red due to using all the ork abilities; I think it could use a cooldown increase. It's currently at 120 seconds for UYC, increase to 150? HB cooldown is 50 seconds. Increase to 75 or 90 seconds?

In addition the enhanced custom shootah needs to be looked at (I presume the warp spider HGDS as well), it does not provide reliable knockback. It now provides RNG knockback. The elite mod has sought to reduce chance as much as possible (sync kills for example), having in rng ability is a back step. If I get the custom shootah I'm using it to control an entity that can be knocked down. I need it to do it's job 100% of the time not 30% or 50%. It's too erratic currently. The problem in the past was that you couldn't retreat out of it, due to the chain knockback. Currently it has a %chance to knockback in an area, with knockback not occuring more than ever 4 sec (The codex doesn't have the ability listed so I'm going off of memory and HGDS). I don't know how the damage mechanic on the ability works, but I think it does to much. I've somehow managed to take half of the WSE's health away with one use before. I'm wondering if it's tied to that %chance to knockback. Ok, proposed changes, I have a few different ideas here. On all of them the RNG nature needs to be removed.

Idea 1: the ECS does guarenteed knockback at the start of the ability, it continues shooting for 5 seconds not dealing knockback, then deals a 2nd guaranteed instance of knockback. The knockback is not constant. Add a slow in between if you like. That window in between the 1st shot and last, along with after are your windows to retreat. Damage should be let's say 100 total? So 50 damage piercing with the first knockback, then the other 50 with the second. Numbers open to discussion. I think this should be a single model rather than an area

Idea 2: change the whole ability completely. Instead of knockback, the ability stuns for 5 seconds (current duration of the ability) and does 100 damage. While this eliminates all the problems with the knockback this is a net buff as it would now work on entities it didn't before. I.e. FC with battle cry, brocap, chaos lord. Just like before this should be a single model not an area. price would need to go up. 25 power to start with?

For Kommandoes:
Kommdoes are amazing. I see everybody going for nobz when hitting t3 and not very many people getting these guys. They do so much for you, I consider them an auto-buy almost always. They disrupt, do increased damage and have double the health of shootas, anti setup with burna bomb, anti ranged with the smoke grenade, cap 2x, and have anti-vehicle. While they are a t3 unit I think they do too much. The problem is really the nob rokkit launcher, everything else is basically fine. It's too good vs all vehicles except lemans, and landraiders/BB. and even then it can put on some serious dps especially because you can get rear armor shots with the infiltration. There are a couple of options on how to nerf them. The first is to increase the cost of the nob to 30 power. Potentially increase the req cost as well so that the whole upgrade is now 100/30. Another option is to make the rokkit launcher a secondary upgrade that becomes availble after the nob has been purchased. This would require an alternate weapon for him which would be a shootah. Doing this would increase the damage of the squad however, but it would change there anti-all role to that of anti-infantry. They currently do 30 dps piercing (tied with warpspiders and storm troopers).

For painboy:
He doesn't have melee resist. I think this was something that just got overlooked in a previous update. It should be added as he is a melee unit.


Musings:
These are less thought out changes and ones that I am less certain of;thus I would like you guys' thoughts on them.


For Shootas:
This one is a complete musing, but what are the communities thoughts on allowing shootas to upgrade to either kommandoes or flash gitz come t3 a la sternguard/vanguard? I find that shootas are no longer relevant once t3 rolls around, their effectiveness drops off, and they start bleeding too much. I usually throw them away to get pop for other units. Both kommandoes and flash gitz fullfill the same role, and they do it better. So the upgrade to either would require the nob, and say 150/30? It's higher than sterns or vanguard in req, because req is more important to orks in t3, and to discourage auto-buying. Moving to kommandoes would be a straight upgrade, and something that I wouldn't want to consider until after the afore mentioned kommando changes are looking at. Altering kommandoes is a precurser to any consideration of this. Upgrading to flash gitz is in actual tradeoff in versatility (aiming watz dat) for straight up damage. Upgrading should not give you the kommando nob, nor gitfindas/ blastas for the flash gitz.

Disregard (question posed and received feedback)

For Stormboyz:
Stormboyz aren't very effective, they just bleed too much. The bomba boy upgrade is pretty good and also underused, but you do sacrifice a model to make it happen. The ability is ideal when you need disrupt a blob/setup, but actually jumping in would be too costly. In addition the squad is locked into place for 2-3 seconds while the kamikaze waits to happen. They work well with a trukk, but again they're ruinously bleedy. Possible changes include changing how they reinforce or their performance. Currently they are 35/4 to reinforce. Its the power cost that hurts when needing to reinforce. Remove that and stormboyz are no longer an unattractive option. Other option is to adjust performance. Increase their chase potential and they become worth it. Atm they can be easily kited and unless whatever they jumped on sits there, stormz are not that useful (alleviated come t2 with nob purchase for the stun). Their pistol currently deals 1 dps for the regular models and 7 for the nob. Increase both regular infantry and nob pistol damage to 10 dps (still less than all other jump troops, as it should be). The nob is extremely beefy and very threatening whereas the regular models kinda aren't. In fact without the nob they kinda suck. So another way to increase performance is a health buff, either at the expense of of the nob or just as a flat increase. Start it off with 20 hp per model, going from 180 to 200. I would prefer increasing chase potential as it keeps the fragile theme and doesn't lessen the high risk/high reward that a health buff would. Regardless the stormboyz sitting there until the bomba boy explodes needs to change. As soon as he jumps away the squad should be able to receive commands.

i main wb for a long time and use your choppas and hard boys should just go up to 100 red make them both same cooldown 120 as you say done. kommandoes idk never really use them in 1s mainly cos t3 just make them cost more me think 500 or 450 rec 60 power nerf them and people wont buy them again but like i say never really get them in 1s.
painboy no melee resist is stupid never get him come t2 anything with melee will kill him.
Never get stormboys in t1 they just bleed and die only good vs sm and that's saying something other than melee raves they are the worst jump troop in the game and it often the jump that get them killed remove power melee and give them more heath. maybe come t2 they can buy power melee but atm don't get them in t1.
shootas i was think of this sick of have to let my shootas die come early t3 to not only bleed rec but to get other stuff aka flash gits and kommandoes think it would be nice.

-Like I said I would prefer to increase the cooldown, as orks are heavily red dependent on all their abilities.

-Kommandoes don't need a price increase, they're readily available at their current cost. Increasing their price makes them less competitive with other t3 options. They just need the rokkit looked at.

-Doesn't it defeat the purpose of having a jump troop in t1 if you shouldn't get them? Stormz are not that great, but they're not complete crap either. I'm against removing their power melee for a health increase. That is one of the big reasons to get them. I would argue that orks need that power melee in t1, especially vs power armor races.


Editing a few things in initial post, adding a few more.

KOMMANDOES
they do need a cost increase 400 rec and 40 power for what they do lol out shoot most things, infiltrate, deal with garrison and setup teams with Burna Bomb av with nob, cap faster, knock back with love the dakka and smoke bomb for caps for 400 rec and 40 power is looooool


USE YOUR CHOPPA
need red increase 100 red lets sluggas or storms win fights that's they would never win so it should cost plus orks get red at a decent rate anyways

STORM BOYS
like I said I don't get them no more in t1 they often cost me games then wining them they need more heath then power melee they already do good dps 30 for 5 = 150 plus waaagh buffs or wb buffs just that that die to fast for them to fight long and power melee is only good vs sm and maybe chaos so yea.
Enhanced Kustom Shoota
also I might also add this need to cost more it so good atm 33 dps 100% fotm more melee dps 5 for 120 rec 20 power

Kommandos are fine as they're.
WB globals imo are not the problem the problem is wb himself with angry bitz and spiky armor tanking whole armys like nothing.Kustom shoota is fine
bleedboyz need to ALWAYS be supported thats what WB globals are for so they can survive
waaaaaagh banners are fine imo you usually dont have the rec to build all 4
shootas are fine aswell sure they dont scale into t3 but you usually want to get rid of 1 for flash gitz

Why are kommandoes fine?

I didn't say anything about spiky armor/angry bitz, though the regen doesn't stack anymore. Regardless of those being balanced or not doesn't mean the globals are fine. They're two separate parts.

I disagree about the kustom shootah being fine. Anything that only does what it's supposed to some of the time is not fine. It's incredibly erratic.

When I play, stormboyz are supported, and they're still not/rarely worth it in t1. 2 of the other commanders don't have the wb globals. yes the mek has the battery pack and the knob has hide da boyz, but should a unit require a global or a wargear to be useful? I don't think so.

Waaaaagh banners are not fine in team games. As I outlined above. It's a minor nerf, they will still see use.

As for shootas yes they don't scale well into t3, and yes you get rid of 1 or both. As I said. That one was more of a musing but you kinda validated my point.

kommandos are a harassing unit they should be able to beat most units by themselves [mostly t1 units and some t2], thats why they are counter set up teams and back breakers
Use Yer Choppas i hardly use this global unless ik for sure i can win, i will mostly use ard boyz to keep bleedboyz alive. if the enemy keeps using
use yer choppas and you're losing you dont ahve the right counters to it then cause he'll just be wasting red or kite
kustom shoota ability is weird idk if it can be fixed [Calling Sir WINDU]
waaaaagh banners are easy to destroy they dont have much hp the only way banners can be a problem is if you let it be a problem by letting your enemy build them

Aguxyz wrote:- kustom shoota ability is weird idk if it can be fixed [Calling Sir WINDU]
- waaaaagh banners are easy to destroy they dont have much hp the only way banners can be a problem is if you let it be a problem by letting your enemy build them

1) Take away the RNG - fixed
2) Banners can be built before the first engagement even starts and already apply pressure. This is even more so in teamgames where this situation can easily steamroll into early defeat. Apart from that I agree that Banners are fine.

Kommando rokkit launcha is probably a bit too good atm.

Kustom shoota ability is crap. Remove the rng from it. No stun though. Two knocbacks with 5 seconds in between.

Storms are more or less fine. Though they still aren't great with Knob.

Banners are super easy to abuse in team games.

Big shootas are still way too meta.

Yes, Stormboyz are bleeding lot and that is a big issue, but you really don't see the threat of theirs.

Stormboyz are doing power melee. No, all of them, like flying baby Genestealers with jump packs. They are really fitting for countering ranged blobs, specially for SM and Chaos. They can kill a Devestator squad in seconds! Do I need to mention on Warboss buffs on them? They are fitting for countering ranged units and a jumping unit ( Ork mob game says ) and with further melee potential.

Yes, they are not so desirible without nob leader, but what is wrong with that? And I think they are really good without their Nob leader for T1. If you think about it, Ogryns are also a useless squad because they are not desirible without Bone 'ead leader right?

I really like stormboyz and the kustom shoota. In fact I think EKS is balanced while the warp spiders heavy gaude death spinners is just silly. EKS doesn't need to be buffed to its level but rather the HGDS should be nerfed closer to the level of EKS. HGDS is more expensive and it fits the role of WSE better than WB so I'm cool with it being clearly the better of the two but I'm not cool with heroes getting chain knockbacked for 5+ seconds so they can easily be sniped by shees.

Shootas don't need to be able to upgrade to kommandoes or flash gitz, they will still be able to do their job in t3 if they're level 4 like they should be at that point. Granted "their job" isn't nearly as important in t3 as it is in early game but they can still pull their weight just fine in late game.

Me, Tex and Mathis tend to get stormboy everytime we play WB/Mek in 1v1s. I really have no qualms with them. They aren't no ASM but SM don't get big shoota dps backing 'em up, battery pack heals, WB globals, or fucking sluggas. Storms are meant to die quickly, they are an ork unit. They do loads of daamge though and scale amazingly. If there is an issue with them it is how they internally balance with the KN.

Banners being too spammable in the early game in teams can be solved by giving them a red cost each. Given that orks naturally generate red I'm not sure how much is appropriate. Perhaps 10. They could also probably grant more exp when destroyed much like capillary towers so that just casual spamming of them is discouraged but to put them in key locations on key pushes is still very rewarding.

Seriously, Orks play identical to retail version and this is still balance?

Toilailee wrote:but I'm not cool with heroes getting chain knockbacked for 5+ seconds so they can easily be sniped by shees.

That has been removed quite some time ago. In fact the current state of the HGDS calls for a slight buff again since you can fire for seconds sometimes without a single knockback due to the rng element. Precisely because it is the most expensive variant of the 3 chain-kb weapons it should be more reliable than the other two in my opinion.

Adeptus Noobus wrote:Precisely because it is the most expensive variant of the 3 chain-kb weapons it should be more reliable than the other two in my opinion

Ye, that extra 25 req you pay for HGDS over the custom storm bolter means the wse should be able to delete heroes/subcommanders whenever he wants.

So much for studying.
@Forest
That's not what he's arguing for Forest and you know it. He's saying the same thing that I am about the ECS, which is also applicable to both the custom bolter and the HGDS, that RNG is bad for a competitive game. Even though this game is based on the table top, we're not rolling dice to determine if an ability works/hits/dmg etc for good reason. The ability needs to be reliable, it doesn't mean that it should delete opposing single entities.

dichotomies are bad and such.

@Vidicare
What about big shootas being to prevalent? That they're too common? Also I'd argue that orks don't really play like retail. Swamp em no longer breaks suppression/grants immunity allowing them to be controlled significantly easier. Weird Boy got major nerfs (not saying they weren't needed mind you), Nob frenzy now costs 75 red which starts to add up really quickly. Also LRR flamers suppressing makes nobs less effective vs them. Mek mega rumblah can no longer destroy your base in two uses. Many others, subtle and otherwise.

@Agu
I have no issues with kommandoes dealing with set up teams. What is a back breaker? Line breakers like Ogryns? I have no problem with their knockdown ability or their capping faster trait. I think they're an important ork unit for map control. But that all adds up to a lot of versatility. The only change I'm advocating for is the rokkit launcher on the nob. I don't think that because they are excellent skirmishers (Harassering unit) like scouts they should be as good at AV as they currently are.

On YUC. I don't use it when I know I'm going to win, I use it when I don't. It guarantees you a win in a melee fight. The damage is nice but it's only 20%. the melee skill buff is the significant part. I'm not sure I see your point.

@egewithin
I do see the threat that storms pose, and I realize the effectiveness of power melee vs heavy armor. They are not that great at countering ranged blobs/ranged units because they can kite, which is my point. Setup teams are a different matter that they can kill quickly if unsupported, but that's true of every jump troop. I don't think genestealers or ogyrns are all that great of a comparison, both are not jump troops and counter different things/apply pressure in different ways. In addition Ogryns are plenty good without their leader, he just adds a lot to them. That's the differences, orgryns are still good without their leader, whereas stormboyz are really not. Ogryns have heavy melee, superheavy infantry armor, big health pool, good ranged damage too. Also there are two other commanders commanders that aren't the warboss.

I realized that my proposed dps for their pistols is too high because of the model count by the way. If you're seeing that now, mentally scale it down. They were originally in the musings section before I edited the OP. Verdict still out

Perhaps the details have changed, but ork T1 play (that is meta) is basically identical imo.

Big shootas are still too effective - 20 power for a weapon that adds a tremendous amount of DPS and a flexible instant suppression ability. The nob leader also makes the squad REALLY DURABLE, so 3/6 members are still doing like 70% of the squads damage at all times - making model losses insignificant.
- I'm aware that this does costs quite a power investment, but since orks almost always go generators immediately after their intial 3 boyz opening, it doesn't hurt them too much to spend power upgrading boys to make them murder machines.

Compare this to SM upgrades (or even chaos upgrades) - 25 power for scout sergeant makes them good... but nothing like a shoota squad in terms of generalist abilities to deal with anything they find (i.e. scouts have to run away from any ranged unit). 15 power for Eternal War upgrade, which is much more situational in t1 than slugga burnas (which cost the same IIRC and are objectively better).
- "But Vindi, you're not looking at internal balance!"
- Oh but I am - this meta ork play of quick gens > upgraded boyz quickly translates into super easy vech rush. And since ork vechs are so cheap, it further translates into quick and easy pushes (often wins) as soon you as hit T2 as a trukk or deff dredd quickly overwhelms the opponents meager force who often have to Sacrifice significant anti-infantry abilities to counter the vech rush.


This makes going 2x shootas > big shootas an almost no-brainer - you get tech, cheap and efficient squads all at once without having to spend extra req on extra squads (like a good Ork should...). Going any other unit other than shootas also makes your life very difficult as I feel the balance has been cemented around this terrbile A-move meta.

Unupgraded Shootas have almost double the dps of unupgraded Scouts

Flash wrote:I do see the threat that storms pose, and I realize the effectiveness of power melee vs heavy armor. They are not that great at countering ranged blobs/ranged units because they can kite, which is my point. Setup teams are a different matter that they can kill quickly if unsupported, but that's true of every jump troop.

Want to cut in here because what you are saying there is simply not true. Any setupteam can easily get away from jump units by pressing retreat, stormboys are the only ones that can wipe setupteams very easily because of their high damage and power melee (devastators and havocs suffer the most from this).

I'll defer to your expertise here, and play more with them in 1s to arrive at the same conclusion. Moving storm changes to a new section.

Is there any problem with granting the pain boy melee resist?

If you think Stormboyz cant chase kiting units... you should really try using ASM ; )

At least ASM to knock back units on jump in T1.

Tinibombini wrote:At least ASM to knock back units on jump in T1.

At least Stormboys do damage

if they live longer then 20 secs

Paranoid Kamikaze wrote:

Tinibombini wrote:At least ASM to knock back units on jump in T1.

At least Stormboys do damage

The point is that ASM don't have as much of problem with kiting since they can actually knock the units down and get hits. Storm boyz actually can't do damage since you can just kite away.

Tinibombini wrote:

Paranoid Kamikaze wrote:

Tinibombini wrote:At least ASM to knock back units on jump in T1.

At least Stormboys do damage

The point is that ASM don't have as much of problem with kiting since they can actually knock the units down and get hits. Storm boyz actually can't do damage since you can just kite away.

That's fine. Suppress them with Shootas if you don't want them kiting. Suppress them with Lootas if you don't want them kiting. Chase them with Sluggas if you don't want them kiting. Use hero wargears if you don't want them kiting. Hell, every T1 Ork unit besides Sluggas and and Painboy counter setups. Hell, even they counter setups if you flank.

Paranoid Kamikaze wrote:That's fine. Suppress them with Shootas if you don't want them kiting. Suppress them with Lootas if you don't want them kiting. Chase them with Sluggas if you don't want them kiting. Use hero wargears if you don't want them kiting. Hell, every T1 Ork unit besides Sluggas and and Painboy counter setups. Hell, even they counter setups if you flank.

All that is fine and true but irrelevant to the point that Vindicare was making.

For SM you could also use devs or shotgun scouts or hero wargear to stop kiting. Hell, every T1 SM unit besides tacs counters setups.

Tinibombini wrote:

Paranoid Kamikaze wrote:That's fine. Suppress them with Shootas if you don't want them kiting. Suppress them with Lootas if you don't want them kiting. Chase them with Sluggas if you don't want them kiting. Use hero wargears if you don't want them kiting. Hell, every T1 Ork unit besides Sluggas and and Painboy counter setups. Hell, even they counter setups if you flank.

All that is fine and true but irrelevant to the point that Vindicare was making.

For SM you could also use devs or shotgun scouts or hero wargear to stop kiting. Hell, every T1 SM unit besides tacs counters setups.

I don't read every post in a forum anymore. Too time consuming

Orks counter them easier

I decided to read partial parts of some posts. Read somewhere someone said they want better chasing of kiting units with Stormboys. Not very well known, but there's a very large problem with that. There's a moment when you first auto-charge into a unit and swing your weapon where you can't control it. You can get nade spiked and have your squad wiped. I do it versus other ASM's easily and it's fine since they have lots of health, but a Stormboy squad is another story

Without a doubt painboy should have melee resist.

IIRC, shoota base dps was increased, but big shoota dps was decreased. This was done in an effort to reduce the effect of 3 shoota models doing an insane amount of DPS.
Perhaps shoota base DPS needs to be lowered a touch? I think a consolation buff would be needed elsewhere though... as Vindi said, shootas are super meta for ork.

IMO, Lootas do insane damage. Are they perhaps doing a bit too much? I mean, now that they suppress stuff reliably, I'm totally okay with them doing a little bit less at medium/long and long range. It feels like it is more than the other setup teams.

There is nothing wrong with UYC. Global spam is the greatest strength of the warboss. He is actually a very dead weight hero if you play correctly against him.
Also, ECS seems completely fine other than the melee damage boost. I don't really see a reason for buying a great DPS gun to increase warboss melee damage.

Waaggh banner is nuts. But, its a team game thing, so, do what you will, you will only ever see 1 or 2 go up in a 1v1.

I don't know which games and game modes you are playing in Flash, but I almost never see anyone buy Nobs. They are definitely not the meta right now. Kommandos help orks out with so many of their transitional problems, and they counter A LOT of units. Kommandos and Looted tanks is what top tier orks are buying in T3. If anything, I could see lowering the ranged piercing DPS of kommandos slightly, but I love that orks actually have a unit that can provide transitional AV that doesn't tickle.
Compared to Kommandos, Flash gitz (and Kasrkins) cost too much.

Storm boyz are fine IMO. They are called bleed boyz in T1 because that's when they suck but are sometimes necessary. In T2 I would argue that they are the best shock troop in the game. The damage output and jump range is monstrous. Their utility is amazing (aoe damage from bomma boy, stun on landing, Heavy melee on Nob). If they were made better in T1, I think they would need to be made a lot worse in T2.

Last point from me, I think the slugga nob could use a cost increase to 90-25. Its not even a question of whether he is worth that or not.