GK Balance Assessment Thread
Posted: Wed 12 Feb, 2014 11:23 pm
I've been maining GK in 1v1 for about a month now and I've noticed a few things about them in that time. I want to make a post that elaborates what I've noticed so as to start a proper meta for the grey knights from which balance changes can be properly addressed.
Overall Grey Knights seem to function as a combination between orks and space marines. They have the clear durability and low model count of space marines along with the unit to unit synergy that SM has, however their emphasis on melee and lack of serious ranged firepower especially after t1 means that they often have to all-in with regards to engagements. Either they follow through fully, which they do quite well with their melee base, or they bleed disproportionately and achieve very little - this is why they're like orks.
GK are heavily focused on t1 pressure. Their t1 is extremely strong due to the bro-captain high durability and damage, the huge burst damage of the inquisitorial stormtroopers (IST) and the efficiency of the Interceptors (GKI). However come t2 their eco starts to lag as suddenly the strike squad is rather inefficient in combat - being easily beaten by both ranged squads and melee squads, IST offer the main form of ranged fire support but they still only have 750LIhp and are easily gibbed by artillery. The vindicare Assassin's high req cost compared to his power means he's often a poor choice for dealing with walkers because you MUST follow it up with a las-rhino or purifiers, both of which have very high req costs on top of the VA and the fact that the GK t2 is innately req-heavy. Often this means I will try to get the economic lead so that I can get a dread out before they get a walker and then take it down with GKI melta bomb support, a heavy bolter rhino ill often get this job done well. Any transports are swiftly destroyed by the VA and the purifiers deal with enemy melee squads very efficiently. The GK t3 is rather simple. Paladins counter tanks. Terminators counter SHI. The LRC counters LI/HI blobs.
1) What does this mean for the balance of Grey Knights in general? It means their t1 is highly effective at pressuring opponents via bleed and map control mainly due to the IST and so typically a heavy t1 should be the response to grey knights much like you would do vs nids. This means often the IST are going to be purchased in abundance by the GK player, often wanting at least 2, but usually 3. This has problems for GK come T2 however as they then have all these squishy 750LI squads that function as their primary form of ranged damage against fully upgraded t2 ranged squads and artillery, both of which bleed them immensely.
Potential Solution (PS)? The strike squad need to assist in the ranged role in t2 mainly so that there is something to counter ranged HI squads without bleeding so much and to act as something more useful than a capping squad when they lack their nemmy focus upgrade, ForestRadio suggests the following to which I would agree is a good idea:
"Psy-Bolt Ammunitions Upgrade
Cost: 100/25
Tier 2
Once purchased, the strike squad cannot equip Incinerators or Pyscannons, and is unable to research the Nemesis Focus upgrade.
The upgrade changes the damage type of the Strike Squad ranged weapons from "piercing_pvp" to "Inferno_pvp"
http://dow.wikia.com/wiki/Retribution/Damage_types
Psy-Bolt Ammunition would not affect raw dps values, only damage type."
This helps GK with the troublesome task of focusing down heroes and it gives them a sturdy ranged base in T2 with which they can fight other ranged units head-on and not be doomed to lose the fight economically every single engagement.
2) Another Issue that I perceive Grey knights as having currently is the purgation squad's failure to scale. At the moment they do their job in t1 well - countering melee, especially high model melee squads, however come T2 they are pretty awful at this job because the flamers don't do enough damage, nor do they have the health at all to fight in full-on engagements. 900hp of HI in t2 when you have a range of 27 and by necessity are meant to be around enemy melee is just bad. Furthermore as a ranged anti-all squad the psycannon purgation squad suffers from similar issues. They still lose horribly to any ranged squad with anti HI upgrades while losing their protection versus melee units.
PS: Grant a further T2 upgrade for the purgation squad that increases their dps and hp by around 25% in addition to this, also add a 25% health boost to the purgation squad when they purchase the psycannon upgrade. This should give them some proper scaling and a lot more utility in T2.
3) Another problem I've noticed is the lack of control that grey knights have. Obviously by lacking a suppression team their control over blobs in general is diminished, but melee is the biggest issue for GK. They don't get the shotguns or anti-melee heroes that space marines get, nor do they have the dedicated melee squads that nids/ork/chaos get, the huge control and aoe that eldar get or the sentinels/catachans that IG get, so ultimately they have problems with melee. To an extent the burst fire of the inquisitorial stormtroopers deals with this, however that simply doesn't scale into T2 which again is the need for some better ranged dps and making purgation scale better, however I feel the disruptive abilities the IST do have just aren't viable at the moment.
Mines have the problem of being really expensive, 15 power is a lot considering your IST need either sergeants or grenade launchers (very rarely) to be effective as it is and as GK you want to be getting to t2 first else you end up being indefinitely stuck in it. Furthermore they are of course countered by detectors and so if you want to make use of them vs anything other than eldar then you need to spread them all over the place - something not possible with only one squad having mines. Note that the mines do very little damage too. Additionally the IST grenade launchers are rather lacking at the moment because although they do significant damage to stationary targets very rarely is melee stationery and also one barrage+attack ground will let your SS deal with any t1 melee squad, it doesn't scale AND you're making yourself more vulnerable to the enemy heroes from your lack of focus fire ability AND making your IST less effective than they would be with the sarge at both map control +250hp+0.5 speed and bleed.
PS: I really think the mine upgrade could do with a power cost reduction to 10 power instead of 15, or at least a lower cooldown on the mines (not sure how the energy regen vs cooldown works, but they're not spammable at all atm).
For the grenade launcher I suggest reducing their grenade damage by 20% and spreading it over 3 models, while leaving 2 lasgun models just so you aren't left completely with your pants down when their melee hero runs in, that way it will hopefully be a viable weapon of choice if you have a serious need to deal with melee that the purgation squad alone isn't aiding with.
So, it's mainly their T1 scaling that is an issue as it results in GK really failing apart economically come late T2. I actually like the performance of their t2/t3 units as of now, it's just their eco is horrendous and it needs help. The only thing that I can think of possibly needing a buff despite the three aforementioned things is the mind blades global - a 10 melee skill increase is just not sufficient when often you want to use this global to allow the GKI or SS to have the upper hand against a non-buffed dedicated melee squad. It still doesn't help them out enough to justify the cost, in fact I use it more on the VA for the extra AV damage, or purifiers. I find it difficult to suggest where exactly GKs should be nerfed given the role that I Caeltos has assigned to GK as the only race to lack set-up teams+tanks
Also, care to shed some thoughts on the role/purpose/intention of the dreadknight Caeltos?
Overall Grey Knights seem to function as a combination between orks and space marines. They have the clear durability and low model count of space marines along with the unit to unit synergy that SM has, however their emphasis on melee and lack of serious ranged firepower especially after t1 means that they often have to all-in with regards to engagements. Either they follow through fully, which they do quite well with their melee base, or they bleed disproportionately and achieve very little - this is why they're like orks.
GK are heavily focused on t1 pressure. Their t1 is extremely strong due to the bro-captain high durability and damage, the huge burst damage of the inquisitorial stormtroopers (IST) and the efficiency of the Interceptors (GKI). However come t2 their eco starts to lag as suddenly the strike squad is rather inefficient in combat - being easily beaten by both ranged squads and melee squads, IST offer the main form of ranged fire support but they still only have 750LIhp and are easily gibbed by artillery. The vindicare Assassin's high req cost compared to his power means he's often a poor choice for dealing with walkers because you MUST follow it up with a las-rhino or purifiers, both of which have very high req costs on top of the VA and the fact that the GK t2 is innately req-heavy. Often this means I will try to get the economic lead so that I can get a dread out before they get a walker and then take it down with GKI melta bomb support, a heavy bolter rhino ill often get this job done well. Any transports are swiftly destroyed by the VA and the purifiers deal with enemy melee squads very efficiently. The GK t3 is rather simple. Paladins counter tanks. Terminators counter SHI. The LRC counters LI/HI blobs.
1) What does this mean for the balance of Grey Knights in general? It means their t1 is highly effective at pressuring opponents via bleed and map control mainly due to the IST and so typically a heavy t1 should be the response to grey knights much like you would do vs nids. This means often the IST are going to be purchased in abundance by the GK player, often wanting at least 2, but usually 3. This has problems for GK come T2 however as they then have all these squishy 750LI squads that function as their primary form of ranged damage against fully upgraded t2 ranged squads and artillery, both of which bleed them immensely.
Potential Solution (PS)? The strike squad need to assist in the ranged role in t2 mainly so that there is something to counter ranged HI squads without bleeding so much and to act as something more useful than a capping squad when they lack their nemmy focus upgrade, ForestRadio suggests the following to which I would agree is a good idea:
"Psy-Bolt Ammunitions Upgrade
Cost: 100/25
Tier 2
Once purchased, the strike squad cannot equip Incinerators or Pyscannons, and is unable to research the Nemesis Focus upgrade.
The upgrade changes the damage type of the Strike Squad ranged weapons from "piercing_pvp" to "Inferno_pvp"
http://dow.wikia.com/wiki/Retribution/Damage_types
Psy-Bolt Ammunition would not affect raw dps values, only damage type."
This helps GK with the troublesome task of focusing down heroes and it gives them a sturdy ranged base in T2 with which they can fight other ranged units head-on and not be doomed to lose the fight economically every single engagement.
2) Another Issue that I perceive Grey knights as having currently is the purgation squad's failure to scale. At the moment they do their job in t1 well - countering melee, especially high model melee squads, however come T2 they are pretty awful at this job because the flamers don't do enough damage, nor do they have the health at all to fight in full-on engagements. 900hp of HI in t2 when you have a range of 27 and by necessity are meant to be around enemy melee is just bad. Furthermore as a ranged anti-all squad the psycannon purgation squad suffers from similar issues. They still lose horribly to any ranged squad with anti HI upgrades while losing their protection versus melee units.
PS: Grant a further T2 upgrade for the purgation squad that increases their dps and hp by around 25% in addition to this, also add a 25% health boost to the purgation squad when they purchase the psycannon upgrade. This should give them some proper scaling and a lot more utility in T2.
3) Another problem I've noticed is the lack of control that grey knights have. Obviously by lacking a suppression team their control over blobs in general is diminished, but melee is the biggest issue for GK. They don't get the shotguns or anti-melee heroes that space marines get, nor do they have the dedicated melee squads that nids/ork/chaos get, the huge control and aoe that eldar get or the sentinels/catachans that IG get, so ultimately they have problems with melee. To an extent the burst fire of the inquisitorial stormtroopers deals with this, however that simply doesn't scale into T2 which again is the need for some better ranged dps and making purgation scale better, however I feel the disruptive abilities the IST do have just aren't viable at the moment.
Mines have the problem of being really expensive, 15 power is a lot considering your IST need either sergeants or grenade launchers (very rarely) to be effective as it is and as GK you want to be getting to t2 first else you end up being indefinitely stuck in it. Furthermore they are of course countered by detectors and so if you want to make use of them vs anything other than eldar then you need to spread them all over the place - something not possible with only one squad having mines. Note that the mines do very little damage too. Additionally the IST grenade launchers are rather lacking at the moment because although they do significant damage to stationary targets very rarely is melee stationery and also one barrage+attack ground will let your SS deal with any t1 melee squad, it doesn't scale AND you're making yourself more vulnerable to the enemy heroes from your lack of focus fire ability AND making your IST less effective than they would be with the sarge at both map control +250hp+0.5 speed and bleed.
PS: I really think the mine upgrade could do with a power cost reduction to 10 power instead of 15, or at least a lower cooldown on the mines (not sure how the energy regen vs cooldown works, but they're not spammable at all atm).
For the grenade launcher I suggest reducing their grenade damage by 20% and spreading it over 3 models, while leaving 2 lasgun models just so you aren't left completely with your pants down when their melee hero runs in, that way it will hopefully be a viable weapon of choice if you have a serious need to deal with melee that the purgation squad alone isn't aiding with.
So, it's mainly their T1 scaling that is an issue as it results in GK really failing apart economically come late T2. I actually like the performance of their t2/t3 units as of now, it's just their eco is horrendous and it needs help. The only thing that I can think of possibly needing a buff despite the three aforementioned things is the mind blades global - a 10 melee skill increase is just not sufficient when often you want to use this global to allow the GKI or SS to have the upper hand against a non-buffed dedicated melee squad. It still doesn't help them out enough to justify the cost, in fact I use it more on the VA for the extra AV damage, or purifiers. I find it difficult to suggest where exactly GKs should be nerfed given the role that I Caeltos has assigned to GK as the only race to lack set-up teams+tanks
Also, care to shed some thoughts on the role/purpose/intention of the dreadknight Caeltos?
