Purgation Justicar?????

[Forestradio]

I've been thinking about GK again. This is an idea I had. I didn't think this out nearly as well as I did the Vindicare assassin, but thought I'd just throw it out there.

Grey Knight Purgation Justicar:

Model: Strike Squad justicar model, nemesis force sword and storm bolter

XP value: same as SS justicar

Size: small

25 normal melee dps (same as an ASM) and 13.5 piercing dps (same as SS storm bolter)

cost: 80/20

Tier one
Health: 350

Armor Type: Heavy infantry

Grants Ability: Holocaust: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Grey ... ey_Knights

Fires a searing burst of physic flame at the targeted area, dealing 5 flame damage per second for 7 seconds in radius 10.
Range on this is the same as Full Auto. Animation/visiual effect is a LTGB orb that leaves cinders behind when it hits the ground.

When pyscannons are purchased in T2, Holocaust changes to a slightly different ability.
Fires a searing burst of physic flame at the targeted area, which explodes, dealing 40 plasma damage and weapon knockback to all units in radius 10.
Range is the same as a normal ranged weapon (shoota, bolter, etc)
Animation and visual effect are a LTGB orb that explodes in an orangish wave of energy (think pysker special attacks like those of the libby or bro-cap)

Why include this guy?

Standard build for GK right now seems to be INQ+SS+INQ+INT. If you don't get interceptors, you are left without any disruption of ranged blobs in T2. The Holocaust ability and the justicar in general are designed to make two things happen:

1. More anti-melee from purgation in T1. Firing the Holocaust at the ground in front of advancing melee units makes it much harder to charge the purgation.
.
2. Disruption from purgation in T2. Once pyscannons are purchased, purgation become a one-trick pony. They do one thing: shoot stuff up. If a player wants the extra versatility of the justicar, he can choose to make them disrupt as well. At the same time, interceptors are still superior at disruption because of their multiple teleports.

OMG THIS IS SO BROKEN AND OP
No it's not.

Compare T1 holocaust to stuff like warlock immolate. Warlock immolate practically assures a squad wipe of stuff like GL heretics when combined with destructor. Most T1 melee squads also have fire_resist armor, so the ability actually ends up doing less than 35 per model. Not to mention that the fireball can be avoided pretty easily once the opponent knows you have it.

In T2, purgation can now disrupt stuff like double shootas, double dire avengers, double guardsmen, etc. You are no longer forced to buy interceptors in order to counter blobs of concentrated dakka.

Keep in mind that this is not a must buy for a purgation squad. It does however add to their anti-melee and blob-killing powers, as well as giving an extra model.

The justicar himself is also not super-effective in combat, dealing ASM melee damage and SS ranged damage. By himself, he won't tip engagements.

In order to make sure you can't spam clear vision and holocaust, give the purgation squad an energy bar of 100, with each ability costing 50 energy to use.

LET THE DEBATE BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Flash]

so want this!

[ThongSong]

Im all for another on-demand CC for GK, but not for another squad leader because GK squad leaders are already so obnoxiously expensive

[sk4zi]

why should the pondon to devastors, Havocs, Wheapons teams have a sergant?

the others also dont have one.

the others also loose their CC potential if you get the T2 upgrade for them.
most of them even loose their ability to damage infantery (exept Khorne havocs and autocannons)

imho just be happy that T2 purgation is anti all and not just a lascannon ...

[saltychipmunk]

some days i really do wish they just had a las cannon , would make killing tanks a hell of alot easier.

especially sentinel spams which gk have shockingly few answers too since the majority of t1 upgrades deal with aoe style anti infantry weapons... or melee.

Its really hard to kill kiting light vehicles with no long ranged spike damage. and the rhino just gets destroyed by sentinal rocket spams

[sk4zi]

of course 1 rhino is not enough against a spam
1 predator would also not be enough as well as 1 Lascan deva

[Dark Riku]

especially sentinel spams which gk have shockingly few answers too since the majority of t1 upgrades deal with aoe style anti infantry weapons... or melee.

Strike squad ranged dmg? Psycannons? Any upgraded rhino? etc? ...

[Torpid]

Strike squad ranged dmg? Psycannons? Any upgraded rhino? etc? ...

No, NO and no...

[saltychipmunk]

Ehh I think it would just be better to have a t2 health buff upgrade as that is really the only issue people have with the purgs. They don't need to cost more pop , nor do they need new abilities.

they just need to be less squishy and even that isnt a huge deal either , it is definitely something you can work around currently anyway.

[Codex]

Guys, what happened to dealing with people's points by responding to them with logical and evidence-based argument? Torpid, No, NO and no... does not constitute an argument. It's quite a good exclamation though, you should consider auditioning to do commercials. In the meantime it has no place here since some people might consider it disrespectful to their argument.

This is like the bajillionth (oh who am I kidding, thirtieth) time I've said this now. I would prefer not to have to say it again.

[Torpid]

Well I'm not going to explain why a strike squad fails at killing a sentinel, nor a purgation squad who unlike strike squads can't FOTM and have less HP, or a rhino which dies in a couple of missles to sentinels and moves way slower and has less hp...

[Codex]

Well if you can't play nice you're headed down the road towards a ban.

So play nice.

[saltychipmunk]

but .. he is right , sentinel spams silly face roll gk in most cases. sometimes you don't even need the stomp , just get 2+ sentinels and upgrade 2 guardsmen squads and no power rush to t2 and get the missiles.

again I dont see the merit of this suggestion.

the purgs don't need a squad leader to bloat their already high power cost and pop cap requirments.

they just need to be more durable.

and the gk need a las cannon on something other than a tank that can be countered by better tanks.

[Ar-Aamon]

especially sentinel spams which gk have shockingly few answers too since the majority of t1 upgrades deal with aoe style anti infantry weapons... or melee.

Strike squad ranged dmg? Psycannons? Any upgraded rhino? etc? ...

T1 Riku...Sentinel spam is pain in the ass against GK. You bleed endless especially IS and you can't do much about it in T1. T2 is a different story.

[Codex]

but .. he is right , sentinel spams silly face roll gk in most cases.

For the record, being right isn't justification for posting in ways that aggravate other members of the forum. Nurland and I have noticed a trend of that happening increasingly and this has to stop.

Carry on.

[Torpid]

Well comeon, I think Riku knows fine well that a squad that can't FOTM and dies VERY quickly to sentinel missles can't counter a sentinel. It's like saying yes, to counter sentinels buy catachans. I mean, is Riku just trolling here or what, I'm genuinely confused here.

[Forestradio]

I didn't post this idea to counter sentinel spam.

Instead of raging about all the things you don't like about GK (I share many of these sentiments ) can I get some real feedback here

The thread title is "Purgation Justicar"

[Codex]

Riku clearly disagrees with your position, so just make a good argument and we wouldn't have any trouble. Torpid, the whole point is that if your argument stands on its own merit it doesn't matter what the other guy is doing. Going NO NO NO is not constructive. Remember there are also newer players who are reading the thread and while Riku knows what he's talking about, not everyone does. So if not for Riku's sake do it for the newer players.

But to get back to the point, before it gets lost in the depths of everything.

This game has always been about combined arms. Unfortunately, sentinels aren't hard countered by any of the things that Riku has listed: there's no real way for them to hunt down a sentinel solo.

But the fact of the matter is: sentinels counter melee, and they are countered by heavy ranged firepower. Look at IG vs SM: Tacs don't hard counter sentinels either. But if tacs and sentinel trades blow for blow, tacs win. Psycannons beat sentinels up, if they trade. Rhino with upgrades do as well, and in this matchup sentinels don't have a mobility advantage (or at the very least a much lessened one).

The sentinel is actually deceptively fragile. In general, when you play direct competitive games like DOW2, you want to be trading favourably all the time if possible. Thus in terms of pure fight contribution, a sentinel IS countered by ranged firepower, and all of the things that Riku has that potential. If a sentinel is backing off from ranged aggression the sentinel might just get zoned out from the actual engagement that is happening, allowing the GK to turn on the now exposed IG army, and the sentinel's contribution is clearly lessened.

[Cyris]

I agree Purgation could use some variation. However, I am incredibly opposed to adding another high cost leader model to GK roster. IST, Strike and Purifier leaders dying all over the place is painful enough combined with the bleed that happens on Purgation. Unlike setup teams and noise marines, you need that at the full 3 to do full dps, so adding a 4th model is not something I'd like to see at all. I'd much rather see some of the functionality and utility discussed here to be on an upgrade of some sort.

Give this unit a Energy bar, make the vision buff cost energy. Give a new T1 upgrade that unlocks this Holocost or some ability that makes incinerators deal more suppresion. When Psy-cannons are purchased, the ability changes. Maybe the upgrade can increase health/movespeed/damage whatever.

With this change, Purgation have more interesting choices to make, synergize better with GK's energy return and don't do it with a another bleedy leader!

[Forestradio]

Here's my argument from the original post. Not accusing anyone of trolling, just wish that people could stick to the topic at hand.

GK builds that have interceptors are far superior to ones that have purgation in them. That's pretty much an established fact. The combination of retreat killing, insane disruption in T2, soft AV, and highest dps for a jump unit (outside of stormboyz) makes them a no-brainer.

The purgation justicar is designed to make purgation squads a bit more viable when compared to the current cheesy goodness that is the interceptor squad

And I don't know why people think this is so expensive. 80/20 for a squad leader is not that bad, and all GK leaders except for INQ sarge cost more..............

[Cyris]

On the note of sents in T1 against GK, they are not fun. SM comparison is good Codex, and the SM are better across the board at dealing with them. Better ranged damage plus Kraken bolts and the tac flamer to zone guards will crush face. Adding a dev lets zoning turn in your favor and a sniper rifle can always get mixed in. For GK the strikes trying to melee guardsmen with sent around is a bad choice, their incinerator can't fire while advancing, the strikes don't put out enough ranged fire to trade damage with sent and purgation don't to anything to the sent. Combining arms with IST and BC of course can work, but you end up way over-commiting resources (time, capping power, bleed) while the Ig can ninja and flank all day. I find GK earlygame vs IG to be incredibly unbalanced. All the good solutions come in T2!

[Flash]

I honestly think I would pay for this. But I would pay for most things with gk to get a ranged disrupt and/or more aoe damage.

What gk has is/can be very strong. But it is limited and somewhat inflexibile. (read melee melee melee).

Also I very much agree with sents are hard to deal with in t1

[saltychipmunk]

because gk has no t1 high single target damage sources.


no setup units , no snipers , strikes do dinky damage and might as well be a melee squad with no melee charge.

and storms can do damage when you have like three of them with leaders in spikes , but they will bleed so much.

an purgi squads are plenty viable as is, they have a job and they do it well, it is not their fault the gk has some painfully exploitable holes in their unit roster and use interceptors as a crutch ala vanilla dow2 catachans.

[Codex]

I'm not saying that GK have a ton of units that are flat out amazing against sentinels, I'm saying that these are the units by design that are meant to counter sentinels for GK. The matchup may yet need to be looked at, but you counter sentinels with ranged firepower. You don't counter sents by running up to them and meleeing them. It really is that simple.

[saltychipmunk]

but gk t1 line up is full of bad single target ranged or melee.

ranged damage is not the gk forte. strikes can hold maybe one unsupported sent .. kinda

but a supported sent? not even two strikes will break that ig repair . two tacs could do it but two strikes? hell no.

you are missing the underlying point. gk has no economical ranged firepower.
They are forced to resort to melee or aoe fire power which has very little effect on the sentinels themselves

[Dark Riku]

Just wanna clear something up here:

.... IST, Strike and Purifier leaders dying all over the place is painful enough combined with the bleed that happens on Purgation. ....

IST leaders have the die last mechanic.

strikes do dinky damage and might as well be a melee squad with no melee charge.

I'm sorry but this is just plain wrong.
Tactical bolter: 14,85dps, Strike squad storm bolter: 13,68dps.
You lose 3,51dps on the whole squad in comparison to tacs ranged damage
while getting 12,24 more melee damage, special attacks, more HP, etc.

@Cyris. While not having an on the move flamer they have very fast projectile grenade launchers for the storm troopers who can also disrupt very fast. Vanilla storm troopers with their sergeant also do very respectable ranged damage.

[Cyris]

Just wanna clear something up here:

.... IST, Strike and Purifier leaders dying all over the place is painful enough combined with the bleed that happens on Purgation. ....

IST leaders have the die last mechanic.

Sorry, meant interceptor squad!

@Cyris. While not having an on the move flamer they have very fast projectile grenade launchers for the storm troopers who can also disrupt very fast. Vanilla storm troopers with their sergeant also do very respectable ranged damage.

I agree..... except that in my experience getting the grenade launchers in T1 means that you do even less damage to the sent by an amount that does not make up for the damage to guardsmen, and you spend precious power on it.

[Codex]

Since when has the standard way of tackling sentinels under IG repair focus firing them until they're dead? You shoot the sent, bait the guardsmen to stand behind the sentinel repairing, and then you go on the guardsmen to try to force them off (preferably with AOE). If he kites off the guardsmen, you go on the sentinel. If he turns around the GM to repair, go on the guardsmen, ad infinitum. You've given him a ton of micro to do, while his sentinel is tripping over the guardsmen behind it. If his guardsmen retreat, the sentinel has to back off too.

If you can't kill the sentinel in one burst this kind of tactic is your best bet.

[saltychipmunk]

do the tac kraken bolts effect the sentinal? It is not about how good strikes are in other areas its is do they do enough damage to break the ig tank , can they break passed that tipping point?

if the bolts to effect sentinels then that's the tipping point , if they don't then i fully apologies for my ignorance.

the problem with doing the whole focus sent then focus ig etc is that it breaks up your dps over both units , which is exactly what ig wants.

ig replace for the cost of dirt , and all the while the sent is repaired. any storm trooper lost is i think around 3 guardsmen worth

It also hinges on there not being that many sents or guardsmen or at the very least a proportion of units between the two sides of a fight being similar.

[Codex]

Kraken bolts affect sentinels. Sentinels have heavy infantry armor, kraken bolts increase tac damage vs heavy infantry including damage dealt by the equipped weapon.