Dawn of War Codex

Kvek wrote:Chaos Lord is the best funny Chaos heroe.

Tzeentch and the Chaos Sorcerer disagree.

Of course, Chaos Lord it's one of the most powerfull commanders... if you let him reach melee.

He can counter sub commanders, commanders (if they are not immune to knockback) with Drain Life,

This is just untrue, it used to in retail because it did last a long time, now it barely does anything.

Chaos Lord is the most effective chaos hero.

yeah, nah, that's the sorcerer.

I will add to this later Generally speaking though, he has one build order except in rare 1v1 circumstance

orks/eldar combi-flamer,LTGB,visage
sm/gk/chaos sometimes combi but generally claws-maul/harness/dark halo
or the vs everything build which was used in retail alot claws/LTGB/icon of khorne

Everything he has is perfectly viable in everygame mode.

@castle: Just no, the chaos lord is a very effective commander.

And then this:

Castle wrote: (CSM) being weak to power weapons and less capable than Tacs in melee,

Csm do more melee dmg than tacs and can actually upgrade to a melee unit ...

Ace of Swords wrote:

He can counter sub commanders, commanders (if they are not immune to knockback) with Drain Life,

This is just untrue, it used to in retail because it did last a long time, now it barely does anything.

In retail was used to incapacitate/snipe commander/subcommanders/squad leaders. If you had a heavy melee army and you enemy commits the failure to retreat him, depending of how low hp had, you could kill him before the ability ends. The damage and the Chaos Lord autoheal was testimonial more than useful.

Now in ELITE... well, the Harness of Rage or the Armour of Inferno are more useful in more situations than the Mantle of Hate.

Dark Riku wrote:And then this:

Castle wrote: (CSM) being weak to power weapons and less capable than Tacs in melee,

Csm do more melee dmg than tacs and can actually upgrade to a melee unit ...

Dark Riku is right. Even if the Tactical Marines use their "Kraken" fists, CSM do more melee damage. The CSM AC do 34.62 dps in melee combat. Not mention if they buy the Eternal War upgrade.

The problem is such powerfull damage is difficult to take advantage of in T2 because the proliferation of plasma damagem, power_melee leaders/squads and the lack of melee abilities (charge, special attacks...)

Just noticed a few things whilst playing as chaos.

The noise marines 'cachaphony ability' doesn't synergise well. with other chaos units. The reason being is that, although noise marines have less range than chaos space marines, they are still within range of the cachaphony ability. This means that should my noise marines be targeted by melee troops, their ability will hinder my range troops from firing back.

I suggest reducing the area affect of the ability by about half.

You don't have to position your noise marines near your ranged units. Put the noise marines front and centre, and then have the ranged units deblobbed from the noise marines. Using cacophony requires positioning.

What about to change Malignant Blindness? IMHO at the moment is almost useless except in 2vs2 or 3vs3, because even if reduce to almost 0 the sight range they can shoot against your squads.

I suggest to rework the ability. Reduce the red cost to 70-75 from 100, make the ability affect only one squad and reduce the range of the squad by 75%-80% and the sight range by 75%-80% instead of 90%. Keep the duration and cooldown as it is.

Wat, Malignant blindness is awesome, it can save dreads from lascannon fire, lure enemy to traps, etc

The problem is tho, that unit that fires while Malignant Blindness will reveal themselves, or that it really doesn't even work 90% of the time when you pop it to force a retreat. There's always some magical way that they actually somehow see your stuff.

I've tried to use it both retail and normally, but it's such a fluke if it's a hit or miss due to it's mechanics.

If it only decreases sight radius ATM just make it decrease weapon range as well, problem solved.

Lulgrim wrote:If it only decreases sight radius ATM just make it decrease weapon range as well, problem solved.

No because that would be ridiculously OP. The point of malignant blindness is to allow you to surprise a foe with some threat - possibly some bloodletters teleporting behind their army, or some flanking KCSM.

Regarding the mechanics behind malignant as a defensive global does it work only when a unit is not already shooting another unit? For this reason it will sometimes stop a plague marine from being able to kill a dreadnought as while reloading he wasn't shooting? I dunno, it does seem quite capricious.

That Torpid Gamer wrote:No because that would be ridiculously OP.

Why? I thought the point of the global is that enemy units are blinded. Why should they keep shooting stuff normally @ max range if they are blind and cannot even see there? Smells like unintended behavior to me.

Lost Son of Nikhel wrote:at the moment is almost useless [...] because even if reduce to almost 0 the sight range they can shoot against your squads.

and

Caeltos wrote:it really doesn't even work 90% of the time

Well it doesn't really make sense that units can fire at things outside their sight range just because a friendly unit has sight there...

fv100 wrote:Well it doesn't really make sense that units can fire at things outside their sight range just because a friendly unit has sight there...

doesn't make sense that units can see over line of fire blocking things, but they do.
They magically know what's on the other side of the wall :p
Just how the game works. Would be interesting if it had the new LoS from CoH.
Modders/programmers(Thomas)? possibility? :p [Prolly impossible ]

If malignant blindness reduced range to zero it'd be like commissar flare-ing the whole damn map. Not only could you use it get your melee troops into melee but you could use it auto-win any ranged fight. That sounds grossly OP, or like a 200+ red ability.

If there was a way to tell your melee squads to hold fire then the ability as it is coded now would work great. Implemented the way it as, you can't tell your tics to stop firing off their pea shooters so they give away their positions.

Dark Riku wrote: Would be interesting if it had the new LoS from CoH.
Modders/programmers(Thomas)? possibility? :p [Prolly impossible ]

That was actually my first thought when I started playing CoH2: 'god this (true LOS) would be awesome for DOW'

But yeah, that is something hard coded into the CoH2 engine. Pretty much impossible to do here...

As for the blindness power and units firing where the player cannot see...yeah, that sounds lame and unintended. Cover/sight issues are one thing; if an objet is in a playable area and not intended as blocking (eg a wall or a big ledge) than shooting or "seeing over/through" something is fine imo. But being blinded and severely limited to range of sight should not allow for full firing range by any means. Although limiting units to firing at exactly the fog line when the blind power is active seems a little harsh too... Prolly need a little 'buffer' in there somewhat.

Just gonna follow up here some....

@Dark Riku: huh, I had no idea CSM could out-perform tacs in melee combat. I thought until CSM have their T1 upgrade, or go Khorne berserk build, they cannot hold up in melee much... I have tried melee-ing Tacs with generic lvl 1 CSM, both sides with near full health... and it has not gone well for the CSM. Weird. Maybe I missed something at the time. Good to know

Kvek wrote:Castle have you ever played as the Chaos Lord in a 1v1 ?

Yes I have, quite a bit.

Kvek wrote:He can counter sub commanders, commanders (if they are not immune to knockback) with Drain Life,

This has been addressed by others who have answered, and yes Life Drain is not an effective choice in Elite unless it is changing in 2.2. It does snipe in retail sure, but it is a heavy investment for something you may have a rare chance at unless you are facing (several) melee heroes. 1-shotting a hero is lame, but it is currently not so great in Elite. I will try it out in 2.2 beta sometime soon.

Kvek wrote:Destroy IG/eldar/nids/orks with LTGB, or can be super-tanky with Halo+Harness of rage.

Of course, if he can get close enough while being fired-down at ridiculous rates from IG troops... being kited and chasing around little Cadians or Eldar or Big Shoota's etc etc while getting shot to hell. And Dark Halo sucks all the energy out of his build at that point, ending up not being the best CL accessory choice except early early on.

Kvek wrote:Chaos Lord is the most effective chaos hero.

Most certainly not at this time. Really good Sorc play will trump almost any other build out there, except perhaps solid Apo/ASM and Warpspider builds imho.

Kvek wrote:Increasing the DPS of blood maul ? It does 100_melee dps and has the awesome sweeping doom ability. but is usually overshadowed by lighting claws.

I didn't say DPS, I said damage . Although increasing it's speed of attack could do it, along with fixing it in general. Come to think of it an energy 'leech' or sap could be interesting for it on hit or when the stun ability is used...

Kvek wrote:Not sure about the combi-flamer it is a really good weapon now, changing it into a "tac flamer" doesn't sound really good, i usually get the combi-flamer against scouts to make them bleed against ig against the sentinel etc, changing it to a flamer is not a good idea.

Depends on the race you are facing, and since it takes energy to use the combi-flamer and has a cool-down, I might as well skip it, stick with the T1 armor for fast regen behind the lines and pop the halo when the CL gets kited... if I bother with any of his T1 stuff in 3v3 or 2v2 at all. I still don't get it in 1v1 very often either. I need the resources in other places for build order e.g. a champion on ma 'tics. It just doesn't fit well into a build... if it does I still have yet to find fit nicely or see a build suggested using the combi-flamer

Kvek wrote:Heretics do ok ? They are great against space marines if you give them AC

Yeah, I know. Trust me. Ma favorite thing to do is ambush with heretics, like I do with Slugga's.

What I was referring to there is heretics bashing gens..."they do ok". But heretics cannot keep up with the likes of the SM Tac flamer, or IG Flamer, or Guardians.....etc etc etc when bashing gens. Yes, Noise marines are epic, if you get them...and if you can get them close enough to a gen farm.

Further, the combi-flamer does not burn gens much. It is helpful, but having tried a couple of direct burns on a gen site during a match in Elite (one right after another) I never did finish even one gen off...but I did splash all 3 and the node with some moderate damage.

{end responses}

To finish:

hypothetical: imagine CL charging a well setup line in T2, with a compliment of good build order coming with him:

opposing enemy:
ctrl+a, target all units on CL: he drops or is chased off quickly. Multiply that by another teammate coming in...etc. etc.

Thus the CL must come up pretty late after a line is set, and he still may not work out unless I bring plenty of melee with him... thus starts a kite fest. Can he wreak havoc and be a boss in such circumstances? Oh yeah. Especially when all goes right, but in comparison to other offensive commanders he does not scale imho.

Additionally, if someone targets the Bro Cap with all units in the same circumstance, he will either tank through it (long enough for his units to damage the enemy long sufficiently) or has lots of tele/jumping support to come to the rescue, even for himself if need be.

The FC works similar to the CL--needing to come up late and line break--but again the FC has plenty of tricks available for wargear and is quite a bit faster.

I have been working on my CL play, especially since my post in this thread. The issues of malignant blindness aside, if I am facing other players who know what they are doing at all, I have to focus on ambushing to a rather ridiculous degree for an offensive commander. And if I get 'caught out' while trying to flank with my CL and other melee units it's 'Weeee' back to HQ half the time. He is overwhelmed quite easily, and special attacks do not seem to occur often enough (even at the average lvl 5), that the CL can keep from being mobbed all that easily.

The claws do not regen him fast enough too. They are great, but I have yet to see the CL hold up in a real melee fight now, even with regen on melee attack. He's a bully to some units sure, but generally even fully equipped he just get's his ass kicked. I enjoy the hell out of a good Khorne build sure, and the CL does feel quite a bit funner to play in 2.2 But I still can't help feeling he is lack-luster..

So I hope I am supporting my claim of the CL being currently somewhat 'ineffective'. I really would not post if I did not believe it.

You are entitled to have your own opinion.
But I think a lot of players will have to disagree and say the CL is not lackluster.
Me included ^^

Some random replies:

-The maul is referring to the maul for raptors.
-You can always sling shot your cl into the enemy with worship.
-Getting flamers to a genfarm is something the other races have to do too :p
(that have flamers)
-CL can tank quite a lot with the halo, don't see him getting focused down that fast.
And when the enemy would do that, all your other units are going in unscathed.

The Chaos Lord is absolutely better than the Sorcerer and has far more flexible builds. In 1v1 it's not even close.

@Castle

Castle wrote:Of course, if he can get close enough while being fired-down at ridiculous rates from IG troops... being kited and chasing around little Cadians or Eldar or Big Shoota's etc etc while getting shot to hell. And Dark Halo sucks all the energy out of his build at that point, ending up not being the best CL accessory choice except early early on


Most certainly not at this time. Really good Sorc play will trump almost any other build out there, except perhaps solid Apo/ASM and Warpspider builds imho.

If he is being kited, you can buy the Combi Flamer (you have it almost all the time against orks/eldar/ig anyway.)

Well if you buy Harness+Halo, you want to make him tanky, so while he tanks all the fire you can move your heretics there and suppress big shootas etc etc.


Lets have a game then, on your new map you will play as CS and i will use CL, lets see who will be the "more useful" commander

So Lclaws don't regen too quickly ? 100power_melee dps, do you want more ??


Is it just me, or is he using 3v3 perspective ?

huh, I had no idea CSM could out-perform tacs in melee combat. I thought until CSM have their T1 upgrade, or go Khorne berserk build, they cannot hold up in melee much...

I think Chaos Space Marines might as well be the strongst ranged unit in melee ( if that makes sense ).

I dont think their melee damage is pretty much on a par with Stuff like Assault Marines. Its just that they lack their Special Attacks, etc.

When going against Tactical Marines though you have to keep in mind, that their Kraken Bolts do work in melee, so its important to force them to pop and waste their Bolts before you engage them.

Maestro Cretella wrote:The Chaos Lord is absolutely better than the Sorcerer and has far more flexible builds. In 1v1 it's not even close.

How could he have more flexible builds over the Sorc? ... the Sorc can hide units and thus increase there effectiveness 2 fold, even a Landraider... do explain please

The CL can make units go fasta, and that is not useless, if the enemy has a detector.

Kvek wrote:@Castle

Castle wrote:Of course, if he can get close enough while being fired-down at ridiculous rates from IG troops... being kited and chasing around little Cadians or Eldar or Big Shoota's etc etc while getting shot to hell. And Dark Halo sucks all the energy out of his build at that point, ending up not being the best CL accessory choice except early early on


Most certainly not at this time. Really good Sorc play will trump almost any other build out there, except perhaps solid Apo/ASM and Warpspider builds imho.

If he is being kited, you can buy the Combi Flamer (you have it almost all the time against orks/eldar/ig anyway.)

Well if you buy Harness+Halo, you want to make him tanky, so while he tanks all the fire you can move your heretics there and suppress big shootas etc etc.


Lets have a game then, on your new map you will play as CS and i will use CL, lets see who will be the "more useful" commander

So Lclaws don't regen too quickly ? 100power_melee dps, do you want more ??


Is it just me, or is he using 3v3 perspective ?

Kvek, you have turned this into a pissing match over the CL being good or not. Going as far as to PM me in Steam, harass me in game deploy and even be so arrogant as to use the wargear I have mentioned here in game... against very inexperienced players I might I add. Not cool...

I did try your build against some vets later...it failed hard. Combi flamer is just another way to get kited, since you can see it coming easily. Just move infantry out of the way every time he tries,. Works for awhile, esp in T1

I am not saying the Chaos Lord isn't good, just that he does not scale well in comparison to other offensive commanders. Thus he is lack luster.

As for challenging me to a match, perhaps. But not with the Sorc. He is next on my list to master, but I am a long ways off from that. But since you told me you can be "braindead" and play the Sorc well, why don't you play the Sorc and I will play the CL and see how things go

And I have played plenty of 1v1's with la CL in retail over the months away from Elite. So no, this is not coming from just a 3v3 perspective.

Anyway, my last thought here: why not give the CL a short warp into melee perhaps... random chance and with plenty of warning? Anyway, just ideas...

Castle wrote:I am not saying the Chaos Lord isn't good, just that he does not scale well in comparison to other offensive commanders. Thus he is lack luster.

Dark Riku wrote:You are entitled to have your own opinion.
But I think a lot of players will have to disagree and say the CL is not lackluster. Me included.

Also disagree on the not scaling part.

What ? All i said after we won that game was (cus my CL rocked pwetty beastly) that he is the best Chaos hero.
I didn't know they are inexperienced, PM on steam-Asked for the "1v1 CS vs CL" nothing more.


I would play Sorc against you, but i don't like the fact that CL rofl stomps him everytime.

Btw i didn't say that you can be brain dead while playing CS.

I am not saying the Chaos Lord isn't good, just that he does not scale well in comparison to other offensive commanders. Thus he is lack luster.

Man he scales well enough, he is a counter to every t3 SHI/super unit that's infantry, Terminators,nobs etc...

And you can kit it out for anti blob which is always useful, or if needed you can use it to tie up things like VC carnies, he has no problems whatever about scaling, he is an offensive hero and does what offensive heroes do, which is tanking and dealing damage, support heroes are always stongers later game if you can manage their abilities propely.

Castle wrote:To finish:

hypothetical: imagine CL charging a well setup line in T2, with a compliment of good build order coming with him:

opposing enemy:
ctrl+a, target all units on CL: he drops or is chased off quickly. Multiply that by another teammate coming in...etc. etc.

Thus the CL must come up pretty late after a line is set, and he still may not work out unless I bring plenty of melee with him... thus starts a kite fest. Can he wreak havoc and be a boss in such circumstances? Oh yeah. Especially when all goes right, but in comparison to other offensive commanders he does not scale imho.

Additionally, if someone targets the Bro Cap with all units in the same circumstance, he will either tank through it (long enough for his units to damage the enemy long sufficiently) or has lots of tele/jumping support to come to the rescue, even for himself if need be.

The FC works similar to the CL--needing to come up late and line break--but again the FC has plenty of tricks available for wargear and is quite a bit faster.

I have been working on my CL play, especially since my post in this thread. The issues of malignant blindness aside, if I am facing other players who know what they are doing at all, I have to focus on ambushing to a rather ridiculous degree for an offensive commander. And if I get 'caught out' while trying to flank with my CL and other melee units it's 'Weeee' back to HQ half the time. He is overwhelmed quite easily, and special attacks do not seem to occur often enough (even at the average lvl 5), that the CL can keep from being mobbed all that easily.

The claws do not regen him fast enough too. They are great, but I have yet to see the CL hold up in a real melee fight now, even with regen on melee attack. He's a bully to some units sure, but generally even fully equipped he just get's his ass kicked. I enjoy the hell out of a good Khorne build sure, and the CL does feel quite a bit funner to play in 2.2 But I still can't help feeling he is lack-luster..

So I hope I am supporting my claim of the CL being currently somewhat 'ineffective'. I really would not post if I did not believe it.

Just to jump in, and perhaps I've not yet read all the stuff pertaining to the usefulness of the CL and his effectiveness, but even if he is being focused as he tries to break the line, isn't it irrelevant as the CL shouldn't be trying to charge in unsupported and by himself? Just as it's easily said that he can get focused by enemy fire, you can just as easily use, say Raptors, to jump in and suppress the enemy and giving time for the CL to jump in?

I don't play him (or Chaos for that matter), but from what I've played against and what I've seen in casts, he's a terrifying opponent, if not just because of how easy it is for him to regain any lost health running up to his opponents, especially in T1 encounters. Not to mention he has a terrifying arsenal, with Dark Halo, Claws, Let the Galaxy burn ... just to name a few. He is pretty nasty in his own regards, imho.

He's extremely powerful, most definitely the strongest of the three chaos heroes in 1v1 based on MUs and mirrors. How can anybody think that the chaos lord is weak? He's like a brother captain, except he doesn't have any strikes to support him but oh wait he has speed worship and csm which both scale fantastically. He is extremely powerful early on especially vs csm/sm/ig where you can overwhelm their marines effectively eliminating their dps instantly or just tank tonnes of damage from the guardsmen so the rest of your units can force them off early on without bleed.

Castle, you've written a lot, but you haven't actually said much to support your belief that the Chaos Lord is ineffective. You've mostly just said that he's ineffective, that he doesn't scale well, that other offensive heroes are better, but you don't provide much of anything concrete or specific to support this. You've mostly just listed the weaknesses that characterize any tanky melee hero, but you don't actually explain what makes the FC, or any other similar hero, better.

The Sorcerer is a different beast entirely and I don't think you understand him. The overwhelming majority of this game's heroes fulfill either of the following two functions, with or without wargears:

1) They act as a tanky melee hero.
2) They can act as a source of ranged dps in tier 1.

The Chaos Lord is unique because he is one of the few heroes who can perform both functions. The Sorcerer is unique because he is one of the few heroes who can perform neither one, which leads to less flexible builds, since specific units are needed to perform the functions that the sorcerer can't. In 1v1, Sorcerer builds are pretty much a 2 tic minimum, with 3 being ideal, and a havoc being almost mandatory in a big number of matchups. The Chaos Lord doesn't need that third tic, and might even be able to forgo the second. Why? Because you have a Chaos Lord to provide melee superiority and melee deterrence. The Chaos Lord doesn't need the havoc, as nice as it would be. Why? Because you have a Chaos Lord to provide that additional ranged support, and instead of having to worry about controlling your opponent's hero, your opponent has to worry about controlling you. This gives the Chaos Lord more flexibility in his builds because units that are pretty much necessary for the Sorcerer can much more easily be exchanged for something else with the Chaos Lord. The Sorcerer also more frequently needs to go for extended tier 1 builds that gamble on having winning map control, while the Chaos Lord can go for lighter builds.

Your basic view of the Chaos Lord seems to be a superficial one that is actually common among newer players, which is reflected in the statements that the Chaos Lord just gets focused down and that Kill the Weak is too hard to land. When you approach with the Chaos Lord, or any tanky melee hero for that matter, you are forcing inefficiency on your opponent. You are either tying up a unit that straight-up loses (and bleeds) to the Chaos Lord, or you are getting your opponent to kite. Kiting means your opponent has two or more units engaging only one of yours, leaving the rest of your army to approach, jump and dps relatively uncontested. Units that are moving backward are taking damage while dealing none. You're also gaining map control by pushing your opponent back and pressuring them into power purchases that would delay their tech.

The complaint that Kill the Weak is too hard to land, while technically true, is missing the point. The power of Kill the Weak comes heavily from the implicit threat of simply having it, which makes the Chaos Lord basically unapproachable by melee units unless the ability is on cooldown, which protects any units around the Chaos Lord, such as havocs, CSM, or any other unit that could be jumped or flanked by melee units. The result is your havocs and CSM staying on the field while sluggas and banshees retreat. If you're really concerned about landing Kill the Weak, then I'll pull a page out of the Sorcerer strategy book and suggest combining it with suppression. The result is either a guaranteed Kill the Weak or an immediate retreat from your opponent.

You say the Chaos Lord "just gets his ass kicked," but again, you're vague here and don't provide specifics. The thing is, the specifics would pretty much lead to the opposite conclusion, that the Chaos Lord kicks ass in most cases. This comment, as well as your general approach, often seem to almost unconsciously and maybe even unintentionally assume that the Chaos Lord is fighting an entire army by himself. The Chaos Lord won't get focused down so easily if you have the rest of your army disrupting your opponent's army, bleeding models and suppressing them. As far as single units are concerned, an upgraded Chaos Lord beats pretty much everything that's not a vehicle or a tier 3 melee super unit like Nobz or Lightning Claw terminators. In fact, not only does he usually beat most units, he does it very efficiently and inflicts a lot of bleed in the process.

In some cases you don't even seem to have your information correct. You said the Chaos Lord does not do the damage of the Commissar Lord and the Warlock "upfront"...and this is something that is straight-up incorrect. The Maul and the Lightning Claws are two of the most powerful commander weapons in the game at 100 dps melee and 100 dps power melee respectively. Only the Hive Tyrant can do more. The Commissar maxes out at 85 dps heavy melee. The Warlock isn't even close to the Chaos Lord, maxing out at 49 dps power melee or 69 dps melee, which leads me to believe that you just aren't checking the facts here. Even if "upfront" is re-clarified to include spells and abilities, Let the Galaxy Burn is still one of the best attack spells for any hero.

Given the impression by everyone else that the Chaos Lord is not just effective, but one of the best heroes in the game, given several factual errors on your part, and given how vague and insubstantial your comments about the Chaos Lord's weaknesses are, I think this is a case of you not fully understanding the strengths of the hero, and not accepting his weaknesses and dealing with them.