Dawn of War Codex

I need help from people in this forum for detailed arguments and data from actual game file. I will translate the results from here and post there. Your help will be greatly appreciated. Especially, those who have experience in both vanilla retri and elite mod to compare those two will be of great help.

Main Argument - SM, Chaos (Heavy Armor) is overpowered against Horde Army in Elite Mod compared to Retribution

Clarification 1 - They don’t say whether it is team game or 1 v 1. Since Elite Mod is primarily focused on balancing 1 v 1, I think we should rebut these points on 1 v 1 term.

Clarification 2 - It is not stated what they meant by Horde Army. Thus, I am assuming they meant every other faction except SM and Chaos.

Argument in detail
- Heavy Armor factions aka SM, Chaos are designed in a way that if they lose basic units, they cannot recover from those losses as reflected in their high reinforcement, upkeep, purchase cost. As a trade off, their units have much better specs overall and other factions are vise versa.
- They claim that this trade off system was broken by Elite Mod in favor of SM and Chaos.

Reason 1 - Overall upkeep has been lowered
-> Heavy Armor factions can accumulate resources just as well as other factions -> Heavy Armor factions can unfairly overcome their weakness which was supposed to be that they cannot do war of attrition because of upkeep, reinforce cost, purchase cost because they can have nearly equal amount of resources as horde army due to the lowered upkeep.

Clarification - They do not say in detail exactly how overall upkeep has been lowered. It is also not clear whether they meant elite has lowered upkeep of every single unit that exist in game or that elite lowered upkeep ratio per population.

Reason 2 - Retreat damage resistance was lowered in Elite
-> Units die more frequently during retreat -> Heavy Armor factions do not lose their models so easily even after nurf -> Other faction models die more often and loses resource advantage over heavy armor factions since they have to reinforce more often in elite

Reason 3 - Elite armies received ways to recover their losses in case of both squad wipes and heavy model losses while still retaining their advantage that their squads do not wipe so often
Example 1 - Both versions of SM Drop Pods one of which gives a tac squad and the other one that auto reinforce on land
Example 2 - Addition of Chaos Terminators
- Through these means, SM and Chaos can recover their losses

Clarification 1 - Do not say exactly how these means help recover their losses. My guess is that in case of SM, you summon terminator squad and then use drop pod to replace tac squad that was wiped and then use these guys to buy time to get more resources. They think this is possible due to lowered upkeep. Also getting heavy losses in T2 and recover using hero drop pod version is my guess of what the meant to say.

Clarification 2 - In case of Chaos, I think they meant that in Retribution Chaos is screwed if the player loses basic units like tics, Chaos Space Marines and so on of T1 units but in elite mod one can summon terminator to fill in the gap and try to recover using lowered upkeep in elite in late game.

Reason 4 - Purchase cost of some heavy armor faction units were lowered

Reason 5 - Unit xp costs were tweaked so that Heavy Armor faction units are level 3 or 4 by late game while other factions cannot level up that much.

Clarification - Do not say how it was tweaked.

Reason 6 - Skills and equipments that are deadly against horde army factions were unfairly buffed.
Example - Flamers, Apo and PC nades, SM Dev vengeance round skill.
- These things are way too cheap and cost efficient for T1 skills

Reason 7 - Nidz, Orks cannot fight a ranged battle without spending power for their ranged units while SM, Chaos can. SM and Chaos can do whatever they want with remaining power after producing Tac, CSM and Orks, Nidz must passively counter what SM, Chaos brings while struggling with power shortage. This is unfair because upgrades for Orks, Nidz basic units are absolutely necessary.

Conclusion 1 - Horde Army factions with lowered upkeep also have more resources but Heavy Armor factions can push through with their higher specs units by producing more units
-> This was not possible in retri due to upkeep but now in elite it is possible to produce more units for heavy armor factions which is unfair

Conclusion 2 - Due to above reasons. Heavy Armor factions can unfairly recover their model losses and wipes. This results in break of faction designs because now SM and Chaos turn tables over even after suffering squad wipes or heavy model losses.

Or tell them to get gud. Like in Retail every Second Person plays fc or cl. And in factionwars ppl win with ,,horde" races i know its never balanced but the races arent broken

"horde factions" still wipe the floor with sm when played by competent people and chaos has always been good due to the high amount of AoE that it has, which if anything was only nerfed time and time again, especially in the case of LTGB and noxious cloud.

On top of that every race received high dps plasma/inferno/psichic damage units, so no if anything Heavy armor is a stupidly redudant in elite and definitely a big downside of those factions and particularly on this chaos thrives on the fact that their only HI units are csm,NM,havoks and raptors.

Reason 1 - Overall upkeep has been lowered

Wrong.

Reason 2 - Retreat damage resistance was lowered in Elite

Wrong. Grenade damage was lowered on retreat. Many abilities with knockdown on retreat in retail had that changed. Or things like the old lol battlewagon gibbing everything.

Reason 3 - Elite armies received ways to recover their losses in case of both squad wipes and heavy model losses while still retaining their advantage that their squads do not wipe so often
Example 1 - Both versions of SM Drop Pods one of which gives a tac squad and the other one that auto reinforce on land
Example 2 - Addition of Chaos Terminators
- Through these means, SM and Chaos can recover their losses

Level one tacs op in t3, termies as a recovery unit? LOL

Reason 4 - Purchase cost of some heavy armor faction units were lowered

Many pricings were changed in elite quite a bit, only significant thing that affect timing windows was the asm req reduction

Unit red costs were tweaked so that Heavy Armor faction units are level 3 or 4 by late game while other factions cannot level up that much.

XP affects leveling, red values can be changed independently of xp...

Reason 6 - Skills and equipments that are deadly against horde army factions were unfairly buffed.

Ye sure go back to retail spores or LTGB or plague cloud, meanwhile people can't dodge grenades from a speed 4.5/5 600 hp hero? lol

Nidz, Orks cannot fight a ranged battle without spending power for their ranged units while SM, Chaos can

What if I told you that tacs and csm are meant to dominate ranged fights at the 0 power stage of the gaem

tl;dr tell whoever came up with this to actually look at the changes... or if they want they can go back to playing retail where a single pm+BL is enough to destroy a TB fex that costs as much as a superunit

Unit red costs were tweaked so that Heavy Armor faction units are level 3 or 4 by late game while other factions cannot level up that much.

This one was translation mistake. They say xp values were tweaked so that units level up faster and they claim it is more beneficial for SM and chaos.

Either way round thx for your response. If you have time to spare, can you give more detailed reponse on how these drop pods and chaos terminator added in elite does not allow come back chance for SM and Chaos?

Impregnable wrote:

chaos terminator added in elite does not allow come back chance for SM and Chaos?

Chaos terminators are not a recovery unit. They are worthless piercing dps unless you get a weapon upgrade. At which point they cost 620/170 for claws or 650/180 for autocannon. If you are recovering better to just buy a tank. Worthless piercing dps or expensive 650/180 autocannon unit that will get raped without support is not something you want to recover with imo.

I'm getting the feeling this originates from the same korean guy that complained about uncannily similar things in this forum time ago.

Psycho wrote:I'm getting the feeling this originates from the same korean guy that complained about uncannily similar things in this forum time ago.

Yep from this karnak dude ... impregnable is the forum korean ?

The Licking Boogyman wrote:

Psycho wrote:I'm getting the feeling this originates from the same korean guy that complained about uncannily similar things in this forum time ago.

Yep from this karnak dude ... impregnable is the forum korean ?

Wiki is. These are from a popular wiki.

Lol, so the guy who always played Inquisitor with a leman rush build was calling HI factions op?

Most likely... he was medium skill at best.

Ok, I can't promise shortness, but here goes.
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For one, I'll assume "Horde Army" refers to all non-HI core unit races. This would be IG, Orks, Eldar, and Tyranids. (Shut up I know about Sents)

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Reason 1 - Upkeep

Upkeep in DoWII is the amount of requisition paid to "maintain" a unit on the field. Thus, it is charged so long as that model exists on the field. Note that I have said model, not squad. This is because units are charged on a per model basis. A 2/3 Tac squad will only cost the upkeep of 2 Tactical Marine models. If it goes to 1/3, then the upkeep lowers. If the squad goes to a full 3/3, then upkeep is restored to 3 Tactical Marine models.

Also of note for upkeep is that the lowest 30 population's worth of upkeep is "free". You don't pay requisition on that portion of your army, and the game always counts the units with the lowest upkeep as part of that free upkeep. Thus, you will always be charged the maximum possible upkeep on your army.

The "standard" rate of upkeep for DoWII is 2.55 req/1 population cost. A GM model is standard cost because its upkeep is 2.55 and its population is 1. Similarly, a Tactical Marine is standard cost because its upkeep is 12.75 and its population is 5. They both share the same ratio and thus, they cost the same amount of upkeep to maintain an equivalent population force.

I'll skip through listing every single example, but Chaos and SM units almost universally cost the same 2.55:1 upkeep ratio. Most units that don't hold this ratio are typically on the cheaper end. Some subcommanders and vehicles fall into this category. The only unit off the top of my head that has higher than standard upkeep is PM and CPM iirc.

With equivalent populations, a HI army vs a Horde army will often have equivalent upkeep costs. Exactly equivalent population scenarios aren't the normal, but equally skilled players will often have armies of mostly similar sizes and the differences are not very noticeable, so this argument is mostly false.
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Reason 2 - Retreat damage resistance was lowered in Elite

The exact specifications of retreat in retail is 80% ranged damage reduction, 30% melee damage increase, 100% grenade damage, and weapon knockback immunity.

In Elite, the specifications of retreat are 80% ranged damage reduction, 30% melee damage increase, 90% grenade damage, and weapon knockback immunity. In addition, some abilities can no longer affect you in retreat as they could before in retail. Those last changes were often made to the abilities themselves.

Either way, the only major difference between retail and elite retreat is that elite has slightly lowered the damage of grenades on retreat. This argument is blatantly false.
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Reason 3 - Elite armies received ways to recover their losses in case of both squad wipes and heavy model losses while still retaining their advantage that their squads do not wipe so often

I will first address Chaos Terminators as it is far shorter. Chaos Terminators offer no form of reinforcement, healing, or reinforce on the field. Unless we are to argue that unit call-ins are "a way to recover losses" than this mechanism is in no way unique to HI races and it isn't any stronger or weaker than it is in Horde races.

The core of this argument is in the Drop Pods. I've already discussed this in-depth with you Impregnable before, but I'll just reiterate it here.

The basic version of this is that red is often undervalued in these discussions and that, even discrediting it, the value is mostly so-so.

It's hard to determine the exact value of red from a resources standpoint, so we'll work purely on the only constant we really have - the amount of red earned versus the reinforce cost of the unit that was slain. I understand red values are not entirely constant throughout the armies, but bear with me on this one.

First, the two Drop Pods:
2.6 Pods -
Global Pod reinforces for free on landing, grants reinforce on the field for cost and adds a Tactical Marine squad to your army. 350/0/100.
Hero Pod reinforce for free on landing and grants reinforce on the field for cost. 200/0/100.

2.6.1 Pods-
Global Pod grants reinforce on the field for cost and adds a Tactical Marine squad to your army. 300/0/100.
Hero Pod reinforce for free on landing and grants reinforce on the field for cost. 200/0/100.

We're going to compare the value of the drop pod(its cost of use) versus the economic benefit of it(the reinforced models and squad).

Iirc, a Tac gives 15 red to the owner and 19 red to the opponent. A Scout likewise gives 7 to the owner and 9 to the opponent. A CSM gives 11/14. Sluggas and Shootas give 3/4. GM gives 1/2. The list goes on.

The ratio is not exact, but you can roughly expect the red value to be about 1/5 of the value of the req reinforcement of the unit. That is to say that it's roughly 5:1 req/red ratio. It typically oscillates anywhere from 1/4 the value on particularly bleed averse units like Rangers to 1/6 for the more Horde armies, such as Orks and GM considering the reinforcement efficiency.

Since the main argument mostly focuses on HI races, we'll stay with those HI units, to which the 1/5 ratio mostly holds up. As a last note, red will disregard the effect power cost might have on a unit's red value because the main argument's units likewise have no associated power cost. Thus, I will assume that power has no effect on red. Even if it did, red would thus become more valuable and not less, and thus will only bolster main thesis on the value of red.

Moving on. Both Drop Pods cost 100 red. Which means that if we apply the 5:1 ratio, it will need to cover 500 req of value to be "worth" its cost. Adding on the further 350 or 200 req and you get a 850 req and a 700 req investment. In order to be "efficient", we will assume that players use the Pods in optimal scenarios and not pay that cost to say, replace 1 Tac model. Let us instead assume that you will use the Pod in an efficient manner, such as shortly after committing to a large push that resulted in a lot of casualties. In fact, let us assume that you accomplished a full generator bash as well in this engagement.

In this scenario, applying the cost of the Pod so simply doesn't make much sense, because you should factor the red you earned both from kills and losses to help offset the value of the Pod. In that case, Gens drop 10 red (I believe Nodes give the same?), and we've already iterated the red values of various units.

In an ideal scenario, let's say you gain 40 red from destroying the node and all 3 gens. Furthermore, you lost say 2 Tacs (30), maybe idk 3 Scouts (21) and kill something to the tune of like 30 red worth of the enemy. Considering a normal Horde Army's req to red ratio, then that would be something like 180 req worth of losses to them. Something like a squad and a half of Orks or most of an IG army for example.

40 + 30 + 21 + 30 = 121. In other words, it's all paid off! And then some in this very particular case. So this writes off the red cost entirely for our purposes. What this means is that, even with the red cost completely written off, your reinforcements still need to cost roughly 350/200 req of value in order to be made worthwhile. This may make the whole red discussion seem pointless, but I am trying to highlight a very ideal scenario where the red cost can actually be written off. In every other scenario, you need to reinforce even more models for free in order to make up the worth.

Tacs are 75 a pop, Scouts are 35. 75 + 75 + 35 + 35 + 35 = 255. Even with the cheapest pod, you are barely eeking out a profit in terms of worth.

The 2.6 Global Pod however blows this out of the water, with an additional 450 req of value from the Tac Squad as well.

TL;DR
The 2.6 Global Pod was indeed too efficient comparing its cost to the return. This is why the Global Drop Pod no longer reinforces for free on landing to help restore the balance of cost to value.

However, the Hero Drop Pod is resource efficient only in extremely ideal scenarios. You could even make a reasonable argument that, on some level, there's no reason why we should punish an SM player that can create efficiency from their hero global.

I'm tired of talking about this. F*cking next!
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Reason 4 - Purchase cost of some heavy armor faction units were lowered.

Tacs used to be 500, ASM used to be 500/50 and Strikes used to be 500 and then 450 iirc. Now we are at 450 Tacs, 450/50 ASM and 400 Strikes. I am unaware of any other price changes to core HI units. While this claim is true, more information needs to be provided to explain why the difference in the initial cost and the reinforcement costs are enough to offset balance. This claim also ignores the fact that Horde units have also seen cost reductions.
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Reason 5 - Unit xp costs were tweaked so that Heavy Armor faction units are level 3 or 4 by late game while other factions cannot level up that much.

This must be a complaint from far earlier versions of Elite that I haven't played, because I can't recall very many changes to xp yield in a while. Let's just assume there was some change that I am unaware of. Anyway, the xp required to level is consistent for all non-heroes, so let's assume there's something to this.

Tacs drop 250 xp. CSM 200. ASM 240. Tics 50, Horms/Terms 55 atm, Gm 50, Ist 75, Shootas 75, Da 90. What I'm really getting at here is that xp rates to cost are all over the place. There's no real standard rate and for the most part, untouched from what Relic put in afaik.

But just comparing cost to cost xp and reinforce, it's still hardly a big thing. Shootas cost almost exactly the same to tacs in terms of reinf cost to xp (81 req/75 req for 250 xp). Ditto for Terms/Horms (about 68 req/75 req for 250 xp). So on and so on. It bounces around between Tacs being slightly more efficient and slightly less efficient. While there is no real standard ratio in the terms of the xp drop, mathematically they seem to equate out.

Again, for pure value to xp this argument is false.
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Reason 6 - Skills and equipments that are deadly against horde army factions were unfairly buffed.

Much like reason 4, some things have been buffed and some have been nerfed. In the issues particularly mentioned, Flamers have more or less stayed the same, Apo and PC Nades were buffed and then nerfed (though more on the Apo side) and Vengeance Rounds aren't much better or worse versus a Horde Army than they are versus a HI race.
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Reason 7 - Nidz, Orks cannot fight a ranged battle without spending power for their ranged units while SM, Chaos can. SM and Chaos can do whatever they want with remaining power after producing Tac, CSM and Orks, Nidz must passively counter what SM, Chaos brings while struggling with power shortage. This is unfair because upgrades for Orks, Nidz basic units are absolutely necessary.

So it's fair that a 240-270 req cost unit can out-duel a 450 req unit flat out? There's not a whole lot to discuss on this one.
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Conclusion 1 - Horde Army factions with lowered upkeep also have more resources but Heavy Armor factions can push through with their higher specs units by producing more units.

We've already discussed upkeep. Without data-mining every ESL replay to see how many units each race produced on average, you'll just have to take my word for it that HI races rarely field a higher number of squads than a Horde race assuming roughly equivalent skill. How would a race with more generally expensive units be able to field a larger number of units? We've already talked about how armies generally pay the same upkeep, so you can make an argument that the ability to retain models allows the faction to run more efficiently than you would expect. But enough to completely offset the initial costs of the squads? The replays don't seem to agree.
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Conclusion 2 - Due to above reasons. Heavy Armor factions can unfairly recover their model losses and wipes. This results in break of faction designs because now SM and Chaos turn tables over even after suffering squad wipes or heavy model losses.

We've basically been deconstructing this the whole post. There's few examples where this was the case, and the last patch has pretty much eliminated the major offender. Even with the issue with the Global Drop Pod post-Tac, news of HI OP is vastly exaggerated.

TL;DR

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Actually when sm lost half army or Had Many model losses (except for droppod) they actually have the hardest time to do a Comeback compared to all races, hence sm have no infantry in Tier 3 except upgrading t1/2 Units that Need upgrades and start with lvl 1 bring shit vs t3 Units or leveled up ones and termies need red to be purchased and Need to be babysitted by support so they dont die too. So Keeping alive units is mandatory to win in t3. Yh True sm are strong and its Harder to do mistakes, but if they lose something it Hits them twice as hard in my opinion.

Atlas wrote:Ok, I can't promise shortness, but here goes.
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Thanks a lot atlas. The length doesn't matter. More detailed it is, better.

On issue of Tac/ASM costs - Tacs costed 500 req and ASMs costed 500/50 as far back as vanilla Dow2. This price tag was probably justified back before TCSM and Plasma GM (and in Elite mod's case, Dark Reapers) existed. Now that many races can field cost-effective anti-HI weaponry on their infantry, tacs/ASM have been indirectly nerfed in that regard. I don't see the cost decrease as a straight up buff, but more of a response to the fact that HI units no longer dominate the field.