Dawn of War Codex

I've come to the conclusion for a while now that yes they are. Let's have a look at what's going on here:

Firstly the Deff Dread (DD) then. The DD is an ork vehicle that costs 250/60 to initially purchase with a build time of 30seconds, but to reach its full potential it must pay another 140/20 to buy burnas and bitz (BnB) which results in it having excellent gen bash potential and 1050hp not to mention a great way of punishing kiting high model, low hp squads (is there a useful acronym for that? I'm tired of saying it).

The problem then is that it only has a build time of 30 seconds to come out initially. Which you may find fair because when it first comes out it's nowhere near as effective. It gen-bashed very slowly, it only has 650hp and it's ranged damage is meh. However, by the time 30 seconds has passed from you starting to build the DD and the DD actually being out on the battlefield, you've easily got enough time to buy BnB. So overall this means that the DD with it's 1050hp has come out extremely early - as you started building him when you had 60 power (same as a bloodcrusher), yet unlike the bloodcrusher this thing does excellent damage to kiting units, has an awesome tracking special, has nearly double the HP (meaning you need two significant AV investments to take it down, and even then it's hard due to ork support from vomit/AWD and the DDs innate escape mechanism - rampage) and is way way way better at bashing gens. Most importantly though, despite all that the bloodcrusher has a build time of 45seconds and the deff dread comes out in 30seconds! Why? How is that fair?

This all ignores the fact that orks tend to be more inclined and more equipped to go with light t1s. All of their heros are fairly strong at countering suppression and big shootas help with that too, as well as providing a very good defensive base making turtling style play very easy. this makes rushing vehicles for orks even better than it is for other races, so why do they have the strongest rushable vehicle?

I'm thinking then that 1) increase the build time to 45 like the bloodcrusher. 2) make BnB cost more, how about 40 power instead so you have to think a bit more when buying a DD and going for that gen farm rush. I'm not suggesting do both, but one or the other would be nice and if one isn't sufficient or is too much of a nerf then values can adjusted from there, but it's just too strong atm imo.



Zoanthropes cost 400/40, but for that price you're getting a very potent source of AV - far better than most complementary AV sources such as melta grenades/autocannons because of the low cooldown and long range on top of the snare+damage - a great form of anti-infantry in general, a good set-up team counter, and a buff to their your ranged blob in the form of the healing synapse. All around then this thing overperforms for its price. Watching the most recent replays of tyranids it seems like zoanthropes are the tzeentch marines of 3v3 custom games on retail, here on elite. You get T2 with nids, no matter what the map, the MU, the circumstances you want zoans! That can't be right and fighting against them and using them seems to illustrate to me that it isn't.

I think a power increase is justified. This is because firstly the tyranid T2 is very power cheap as it is so the 40 power cost is practically negligible, they need to carry more weight, they shouldn't be so easily spammable, or replaced if you lose one. Secondly these guys completely counter whole compositions so long as the foe lacks either snipers, a jump squad or some single-model assassination ability. So then costing so little seems a little bit of, so I think an increase to 50 power would be fair. 45 is we don't want to be overly bold.

Secondly though, I would also like to see an increase of 50% on the cooldown of the zoanthrope's focused warp blast, or an increase in it's energy cost, either or, it doesn't really matter, they serve the same purpose. The problem seems to be that the ability is too spammable and therefore too effective at it's AV role, when really the zoanthrope isn't even meant to be an AV unit. An alternative to changing the energy/CD values would simply be to make it much shorter ranged, overall inhibiting it's effectiveness, but also increases the risk of using the zoan in such a way.

Finally I still think towers are slightly too strong. 35 red is very little, yet they make a huge difference to the game for arguments we've all heard before. I would really prefer for them to be a little less spammable. In which case an increase in the red cost to ~50 seems reasonable.

I would remove health regeneration and FWB from zoan, with an upgrade that brings it back for something.

Not sure about the DD. Let's remember Ork's only way to repair is sluggas (assuming you're not MB). If anything I would decrease the amount of hp that the burna upgrade provides.

DD needs a nerf, it only has 300 less hp than a normal dread or wraithlord, but costs almost half the price and has a scape mechanism no other walker has

Zoanthrope, i can get behind the 400/50 price tag, and to increase the energy cost of FWB to 40 per shot instead of 30

And about towers, moving their price to 50 red wouldnt matter IMO, if you think about it Nids don't really have thing to save red for, so unless you were already spamming hive nodes and spore mines that change will do nothing. Instead i'd take away the OOC speed boost from the towers, and just keep the rest of the bonuses

HM/LH?

agreeing with everything

I'll chip in on the deff dredd;

Right now the unit itself is overall good. But it's walker, it has pros and cons. It's cheap but requires an upgrade to have reasonable survivability. It major downside is adaptability. Is that not a fair tradeoff? Are units simply not allowed to be good or something?

Asmon wrote:...
Not sure about the DD. Let's remember Ork's only way to repair is sluggas (assuming you're not MB). If anything I would decrease the amount of hp that the burna upgrade provides.

That's a very a good point. Players in many cases won't be able to feasibly repair a deff dread. They aren't like scouts where you get two pretty much every game or 2 DA or 2-3 GM or x heretics. The repair rate it's not bad but it certainly isn't good.

You can't afford to say oh damn he got it down to 200 hp I'll just baby sit this deff dread whilst I use 50% of my army to fight 100% of his army. Finding your window of opportunity is so unbelievably crucial.

Bahamut wrote:DD needs a nerf, it only has 300 less hp than a normal dread or wraithlord, but costs almost half the price and has a scape mechanism no other walker has...

But yet at the same time it does a fraction of the damage of what any other walker can do (this includes the tyrant guard who's massive 2500HP outlasts a deff dredd anyday), can't upgrade to meet a much more vast amount of situations that they can do (TG excluded). It's only great advantage over the others is after an expensive upgrade (for orks at least given they are a req heavy race and one that is entirely necessary) is that it can run fast and burn gens. Now don't get me wrong that's not a bad thing at all. Being able to take out gens that fast is pretty huge but ultimately the staying power of the walker itself dwindles more and more as the game progresses at least on a much steeper decline compared to the others. Very rare that you see this thing well into the late game. Without the upgrade the unit isn't by any means a unit to fight with. I'm not by any means advocating a buff in no way shape or form but leave the poor thing alone.

How fucking boring would this game be if all you did was have each race go oh yeah they get this so I should get it to right? Races are allowed to have different characteristics that make them strong. It reminds me SO SO SO much of the Raptor vs Assault Marines complaint fest where if it were implemented you would have two identical units. And after people starting using raptors effectively the complaints stopped. People saw that just because two units are within the same category doesn't mean they have to be the same to have their EQUAL uses.

People can take this as Ork bias or QQ or whatever but of all things to want to nerf it's this.

what about giving the DD burnas and bitz out of the gate with increased price?
everyone would get it anyway...

PhatE wrote:I'll chip in on the deff dredd;

Right now the unit itself is overall good. But it's walker, it has pros and cons. It's cheap but requires an upgrade to have reasonable survivability. It major downside is adaptability. Is that not a fair tradeoff? Are units simply not allowed to be good or something?

The problem lies in the timings more than anything. This thing is out and at your gen farm far before a bloodcrusher is these days and that's saying a lot since this thing is WAY harder to kill and rips through gens much faster.

"Are units simply not allowed to be good or something?" Rhetoric?

PhatE wrote:

Asmon wrote:...
Not sure about the DD. Let's remember Ork's only way to repair is sluggas (assuming you're not MB). If anything I would decrease the amount of hp that the burna upgrade provides.

That's a very a good point. Players in many cases won't be able to feasibly repair a deff dread. They aren't like scouts where you get two pretty much every game or 2 DA or 2-3 GM or x heretics. The repair rate it's not bad but it certainly isn't good.

You can't afford to say oh damn he got it down to 200 hp I'll just baby sit this deff dread whilst I use 50% of my army to fight 100% of his army. Finding your window of opportunity is so unbelievably crucial.

Indeed, I hadn't took note of how ork repairs were somewhat lacking, however I don't really think this is too huge a deal. The MB can assist with repairs and with the KN dual slugga builds are very viable, regardless, I think this is countered by the DD having rampage, which is one thing that makes him so much more survivable than any other walker. Also, in the scenario in which you both want sluggas to fight and repair, all you need to do is take the engagement with your sluggas and gen bash while the engagement is happening. The DD moves so fast and bashes so fast that even with 2hp there isn't much of a threat to him, assuming you've scouted properly and know all his AV-potential is mid, fighting your main force.

Bahamut wrote:DD needs a nerf, it only has 300 less hp than a normal dread or wraithlord, but costs almost half the price and has a scape mechanism no other walker has...

PhatE wrote: But yet at the same time it does a fraction of the damage of what any other walker can do (this includes the tyrant guard who's massive 2500HP outlasts a deff dredd anyday), can't upgrade to meet a much more vast amount of situations that they can do (TG excluded). It's only great advantage over the others is after an expensive upgrade (for orks at least given they are a req heavy race and one that is entirely necessary) is that it can run fast and burn gens. Now don't get me wrong that's not a bad thing at all. Being able to take out gens that fast is pretty huge but ultimately the staying power of the walker itself dwindles more and more as the game progresses at least on a much steeper decline compared to the others. Very rare that you see this thing well into the late game. Without the upgrade the unit isn't by any means a unit to fight with. I'm not by any means advocating a buff in no way shape or form but leave the poor thing alone.

Well, OFC it can't do as much damage in melee as other walkers, it's a rushable vehicle, if it wasn't doing the same damage as those 120 power walkers, there wouldn't even need to be a discussion would there? That's not my point at all.

Comparisons to the TG are completely unwarranted. The Tyrant Guard has 2500SHI hp and only gets vehicle hp when he enters shieldwall. So, the result of this is that to kill the tyrant guard a space marine need only invest in a plasma gun + lascannon, whereas a space marine must invest in a missle launcher/lascannon to take down a DD. The thing is that not only does the missle launcher cost a little bit more, but usually orks won't get anymore vehicles in a game in which they buy a deff dread, so the money that you spend on that ML is wholly wasted outside of DD hunting, whereas the plasma gun you get to deal with that tyrant guard is very useful in dealing with the entire tyranid t2.

Also, do note that unlike the other walkers the deff dread has that tracking special, which just makes it that bit more scary in melee. You claim that the walker dwindles in survivability at a greater rate than any other, but I couldn't disagree more. The thing is only very slightly less durable than the other walkers, yet it comes out earlier (so is more likely to have levels), can rampage (no other walker can do that) and is very easily defended by the weirdboy (attack ground and vomit) and shootas with AWD. I think the DD is by far the hardest T2 vehicle to kill alongside the chimera, bane wolf and assault cannon dreadnought.

Finally can you note that I'm not asking for much of a nerf. Merely that BnB increases in price by 10-20 power, or that the initial build time increases by 15seconds. It's mainly the timings that concern me.

PhatE wrote:
People can take this as Ork bias or QQ or whatever but of all things to want to nerf it's this.

No opinion on the zoanthrope?

@sk4zi, I don't actually think that's a bad idea. I'de still get it, I love this thing, it's so damn strong. It ends 80% of the games I play with orks.

The Deff Dread is a special case: it's a cheap walker which can turn into a full walker on the field through an upgrade which also gives the possibility to burn genfarms thanks to his burnas and the Rampage ability, which makes him reach the enemy's genfarm quickly.

You have a cheap (and quickly to field) Bloodcrusher which can turn in almost a Dread with less melee damage and health but with an awesome special attack.

A build time increase is needed IMHO. The need of Sluggas to repair the Deff Dread isn't a excuse, since other armies have similar issues. (Heretics workshipping the Bloodcrusher instead of fighting, capping, for example.)

Zoanthropes need a cost increase. His HP regeneration synapse can get out of control because it scales with lvl. Focused Warp Blast should have a CD/energy cost increase.

regen syanpse is actually fine. At lvl 4 is around the same as nurgle workship

I don't know how someone can even defend the DD, you get it out, you burn the enemy power and he has to respond with av and then you fuck him over with your army+weirdboy
hardc0re ork strats

true, also a quick defdread into base is sometimes a huge issue

In retail it is, in elite it is not anymore.

Yes It is, you hit t2 yyou get a DD and you just rampage to the enemy power farm and burn it down, and then you know.

And if he's in t2 already, i doubt he will have a brightlance/missile launcher ready for your DD
And it's easier to do in elite than in retail anyway, DDs are the only reason i played knob anyway

50% damage reduction, your deff dread won't make a squad wipe. It is not wise to press enemy units at their base in elite mode unless you want to hunt down a weakened squad.

Oops, my fault, I didn't see skazi's comment

The thing with Deff Dread is that it's more of a window of opportunity unit. Dreads and Wraithlords have their place even in t3, they have ranged weapons and even t3 upgrades, also compared to sm/chaos/eldar ork repair is pitiful.

Early DD can be increadiably effective due to it's ability to raze gen farms fast, rampage speed and dat special but it doesn't scale and will die sooner or later everytime.

Lost Son of Nikhel wrote:The need of Sluggas to repair the Deff Dread isn't a excuse, since other armies have similar issues. (Heretics workshipping the Bloodcrusher instead of fighting, capping, for example.)

Tics can worship bc during an engagement even while it's moving, which makes bc the only melee walker in the game capable of donig that (barring tm global) + the speed/infiltrate from worship...

Toilailee wrote:The thing with Deff Dread is that it's more of a window of opportunity unit. Dreads and Wraithlords have their place even in t3, they have ranged weapons and even t3 upgrades, also compared to sm/chaos/eldar ork repair is pitiful.

Early DD can be increadiably effective due to it's ability to raze gen farms fast, rampage speed and dat special but it doesn't scale and will die sooner or later everytime.

The fact that it doesn't scale isn't a big deal, most of my games where i pulled off the DD bash were won like 5 mins after it, and if you don't then it's only your fault for not doing so.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's like the bane wolf. It doesn't need to scale in any way because the speed at which it comes out, combined with the difficulty in killing it and the rate at which it destroys generators means that given you destroy one farm with it, it's already paid for itself. You've denied them power at a time when it is most pivotal, you're capitalising on a lead you already have and at no risk to yourself due to how hard it is to kill the vehicle, while also further hindering their eco by forcing them to purchase AV which sucks vs everything you build.

I just want it to slow down a bit, it's too forgiving a unit to purchase I find. It's certainly not like the bloodcrusher in that regard and I think that's the most best analogy we can make.

Speaking of the banewolf, what's the deal with that thing? It basically gets off a full gen bash by the time you can field any AV, so it pays for itself immediately (aside from the red cost) and on top of that you get a vehicle which is pretty good in combat and not easy to kill.

Maybe it's OK in 1v1 where it's often hard to get 150 red by early T2, but I've been royally fucked by it in 2v2/3v3... any opinions?

Completely overpowered, been saying that for ages, it was in my IG balance thread from a while ago.

150red is too strong even in 1v1. It did need a decrease to that much red because it was unseen before, but in doing so and making it 150 red it also needed some price adjustments because it comes down way too fast, is speed 8, has a great ability, burns gens in seconds and even snares vehicles...

It should be 60 power, 40 is way too low.

Toilailee wrote:

Lost Son of Nikhel wrote:The need of Sluggas to repair the Deff Dread isn't a excuse, since other armies have similar issues. (Heretics workshipping the Bloodcrusher instead of fighting, capping, for example.)

Tics can worship bc during an engagement even while it's moving, which makes bc the only melee walker in the game capable of donig that (barring tm global) + the speed/infiltrate from worship...

Yeah, and have it costs: low hp, no ranged damage, no splash damage, very low scale to T3, high build time...

Still, I have to say it wasn't an adequate comparison.

Bahamut wrote:regen syanpse is actually fine. At lvl 4 is around the same as nurgle workship

Projects a specialized Regeneration Synapse in radius 22, multiplying the health regeneration of Tyranid allies by 3.5 and scaling to 5.25/7.875/11.8125 as the Zoanthrope gains gains levels 2/3/4

Except I am wrong, (with a default of 0.5 hp/s) it increases the HP regeneration to 1.75/2.625/3.925/5.90 hp/s at lvl 1/2/3/4, which is a bit more than a Nurgle Workshipp.

a t2 entity that has to lvl up to lvl 3 to equal a free right of the bat regen. OP

The banewolf is OP?I did not know that...are we talking about the sticky slime shooter in T2 that looks like a Chimera?If so I must suck with it

Warp Dust Addict wrote:The banewolf is OP?I did not know that...are we talking about the sticky slime shooter in T2 that looks like a Chimera?If so I must suck with it

thats probably a pretty good assessment of the situiation

also, your signature gives me seizures

Wurgl wrote:

Warp Dust Addict wrote:The banewolf is OP?I did not know that...are we talking about the sticky slime shooter in T2 that looks like a Chimera?If so I must suck with it

thats probably a pretty good assessment of the situiation

also, your signature gives me seizures

I never see anyone use the banewolf how fast does it genbash?

About as fast as the deffdread; faster than any t1 squad can do, including noise marines.

As an avid ork player..i agree. The DD comes out too fast.

I also agree that zoan needs adjustements. I think tex was arguing the same thing in another thread.

the bane wolf...definitely a bane in my existence as ork. I was at a slight advantage everytime I played an IG player whom then used this and I lost all equality in the game. Either more red or more power cost. The fact that you can drop it anywhere almost instantly is unreal to an army not prepared for it. Just like the LRC back in past

just change the damage type on the banewolf to something that does less damage to buildings. it's not a flamer anyway, it's poison.