Dawn of War Codex

This post comes with the caveat that I know that the patch hasn't been around for a long time, nor am I a GK/OM expert yet.

Melee strikes seem much more survivable, versatile and better overall than their ranged counterparts. They allow you to engage dedicated melee units, have a useful melee charge and special and have a fantastic snare and drain energy with the leader. Given the option of your strikes having the health of CSM's or upgraded ASM's in T2, which would you rather choose? All for the low, low reinforce cost of a base CSM model. This only gets exarcebated as they level up, having a whopping 2400 health at level 4.

These arguments apply even if the enemy is spamming ranged, even vs IG. A difference of 400 health in T2 makes such a huge difference it terms of bleeding less and allowing the strikes to tank and support ahead of the GK damage components (storms & purgs). Though the accuracy modifier and ranged dps increase is nice, it still pales in comparison to the sheer versatility of melee strikes, since you're only going to debuff a single squad anyway.

All in all, I think the T2 squad health increase for melee strikes should be toned down to 5-10% (down from 15%). I'm not sure why ranged strikes don't get the snare since they neither have the utility of tacs or the godlike damage TCSM.

Imo ranged strikes scale very bad into t2 compared to melee strikes dat get a ability that burns energy away with snaring the squad with the justicar. Ranged ss only gud in t1 because of theyre high damage, but becomes less competetive with other ranged squads, cause most units get better damage buffs or additional abilities or cost much less in comparison. The ranged ss should get something for t2 so they scale better into it.

As someone who has mained OM for some time now (and still terrible), I have fallen into the habit of sticking with ranged SS due to their previous benefits.

In T2 they had the facility to get a Psycannon which was great for early AV.

I think I'lll start playing around with Melee SS as when I've used them a little recently I've been impressed, especially with the Justicar too. Banshees have always been an issue for me, as have Sluggas so I'll give them a spin!

Ok, been trying double Melee SS for several games now (irrespective of opponent(s)) so I might switch to one of each as another test - although my macro I'd forget which was which, forget to use the slow down ability etc etc.

A point on the slow down ability, I could be wrong, but I think the Psybolt SS would benefit more from that as it could help counter melee squads by allowing them to focus fire them for longer or fall back.

Melee guys still benefit from the extra HP and skill.

Thoughts?