Nobs and Frenzy ability

[ytimk]

Having listened and read about dealing with Nobs, it seems that the best way to reasonably deal with them is with disruption. But I'm curious about how to counter the Frenzy ability, given the invulnerability is enough for them to get close and cause some serious damage (eg wipe an unlucky vehicle). The codex says Frenzy grants suppresion immunity, but I'm curious if it also prevents disruption/knockback of any type?

Eg, can Nobs with Frenzy enabled still get effected by things like: shotgun blasts, grenades, Whirlwind salvos, Manticore/Commissar Storm Eagle, Sentinel stomps, Kill the Weak, Pestilent strike, weapon knockbacks/ability knockbacks etc?

[BaptismByLoli]

Disruption still affects Nobz on Steroids so blast away to make sure they just wasted 75 Red on an ability with a long cooldown and simply achieved nothing.

And no ((Super) Heavy) Infantry is immune to Ability Knockback be they Terminators or Guardsmen. It affects everyone and everything including retreating units

Sent from my GT-S5830i using Tapatalk 2

[PhatE]

They're only immune to damage and suppression for a short while.

[Torpid]

The codex says it only grants suppression imunity and a damage buff; that is all it does (on top of temporary invulnerability ofc).

Therefore the most ideal counter to nobs is to get suppression and make them use frenzy to break the suppression but then have either knockback or a stun on hand to make them waste the frenzy, it will then wear off and they will be suppressed again. A good way to do this? Suppression team+artillery.

Eldar have it so easy. Wraithguard + shuriken, then when they use frenzy use warp throw to throw them back, gravity blade to halt them, or entangle to halt them OR just get a fire prism since nobs aren't knockback immune. It will knock them back constantly.

SM can use the combination of a heavy bolter devastator and plasma devastators, or a HB dev + dreadnought/shotgun scouts + plasma tactical marines.

Chaos can use Tzeentch marines + Havoc + blastmaster, that absolutely melts nobs, not to mention khorne dreadnoughts can solo non-buffed nobs, bloodletters do a number too as do chosen plague marines. Let the galaxy burn can be used to disrupt them, the blood maul can be used to disrupt/stun them to counter frenzy. The plague champion can stun them with his power fist to counter frenzy, and he can do really good damage vs them himself, the sorceror can counter frenzy with the chains of torment and/or subjugation.

Other orks have it even easier than eldar. Nobs suck in ork mirrors. Firstly, if one ork gets a battlewagon and the other gets nobs (they both cost about the same), the one with the battlewagon wins easily. Nobs can't approach a BW due to its deff rolla, and its burst aoe damage will bleed the rest of the orks tremendously. It's also so tough that looted tanks don't really stand a chance vs it. 2 fully upgraded slugga boys will do very well vs even fully upgraded nobs, however if you warp vomit the nobs the slugga's dps will get rid of the nobs in no time, just make sure you have stormboyz and you jump their weirdboy with them. Yes, you can have 2 sluggas and storms when he has 1 slugga and nobs BECAUSE HE BOUGHT NOBS and you stayed T2. The nobs are useless in this scenario. In an ork mirror if you get to T3 first you get a looted tank or a BW if you think you can afford to wait for that.

Imperial Guard can suppress them with a HWT then knock them back using the charge on ogryns, or either the shotgun blast or the ol 'unreliable of catachans, or even a stomp from the sentinel (although that's risky as getting that close can result in the nobs getting in a few swings and likely the shootas will be behind those nobs). Double plasma gun guardsmen will do massive damage to nobs too and if they get into melee charge range you just retreat then cancel it via execute.
Assail from the inquisitor as well as purgatus make nobs 100% useless, and if orks don't buy a looted tank vs IG they're basically just asking to lose because they will have no real way to kill any lemans the IG gets. The commissar can use flak jacket to debuff the nob's damage by 50% and aura of discipline to heal his nearby ogryns, the combination of which results in ogryns (who have their bone head and thus the charge to counter frenzy) beating nobs in a 1v1 fight, ogryns win especially easy if the commissar has his power sword which gives him the battlecry ability, buffing the ogryn's damage even more and knocking the nobs over endlessly. The lord general doesn't really get anything special vs nobs, but the sniper rifle buff will make nobs cry as they will lose half their health in seconds as well as get suppressed from the other side of the map...

Tyranid's best counter to nobs are genestealers and in general that's the role genestealers have, they're a dedicated melee unit counter. With melee synapse genestealers have a much higher melee skill than nobs and so they proc a lot of specials knocking them all around. You can periodically leap in your warriors to knock over the nobs reducing their dps temporarily but never keep your warriors in there fighting the nobs, they will die very fast, which will hurt your genes and make your warriors need to retreat meaning your genes have less health, less damage and less melee skill, which means they will lose vs nobs. If they use buffs on the nobs or use frenzy you can simply crippling poison them with your termagants and back off till he buff wears off. Hero forms of control include the burrow mines of the ravener alpha which not only suppress and knock back, but also STUN, which will result in the nobs getting slaughtered if genestealers attack them while stunned, alternatively you could get the burrow armour for the ravener alpha which gives you on demand knock back, the raveners (brood) themselves have a burrow ability which causes on demand knockback and stuns too. The Hive Tyrant can knock the nobs away with his seismic roar from his rending talons, which is a good frenzy counter. He can also debuff the nob's damage with psychic scream which has a similar effect as flak jacket + ogryns does - it guarantees a win for your genes assuming they have melee synapse. The Lictor alpha can leap on the nobs to disrupt them (that's a frenzy counter there) or he can get the menacing visage and force them to retreat over and over. Just flesh hook a model that seems to have not been shot at much (and so won't die from the flesh hook) then use visage on the nobs, bye-bye nobs.

If your economy or composition for any reason won't permit you to use any of these options then there is still hope! You can buy a tank and kite the nobs forever. Nobs are speed 5. Lemans/prisms are speed 6, looted tanks/loyal or chaotic predators are speed 6.5. A tank + some knockback is going to prove difficult for the ork to deal with considering orks have no snares at all and their mobile AV (tankbustas) are pretty darn fragile in T3. Tyranids don't get a tank. However, they do get barbed strangler carnifexes. The damage they do to nobs is quite easy to underestimate. They also act as suppression on demand, so you can suppress the nobs and focus them down with termagants (lol) or zoanthropes. Are they going to waste frenzy to close in on the fex? If they do genestealers re bound to absolutely slaughter them, and the fex itself is no slouch in melee even with a ranged upgrade. Alternatively nids can purchase a DOOM, the doom's paroxysm is very strong vs nobs since it does % based damage which negates their high hp, cataclysm also acts as on demand knockback to aid your genestealers.

Overall nobs are pretty easy to defeat and generally aren't a very good compositional choice for the orks as they do nothing that sluggas boyz don't already do except some AV damage. Yet the chances of catching any transport/tank with nobs is very slim and nobody is foolish enough to leave a walker fighting nobs unsupported (except massive noobs, but then you could probably win spamming nothing but bustas/sluggas/shootas).

[Broodwich]

over dere
vomit

your argument is invalid

[Tex]

Bahahahah well said broodwich.

Although Torpid is speaking a fair bit of truth. In the current meta, nobs are not nearly as attractive as they used to be.

[Surprise Attack!]

Bahahahah well said broodwich.

Although Torpid is speaking a fair bit of truth. In the current meta, nobs are not nearly as attractive as they used to be.

That being said I think that the issue with theoryhammering is that it relies on ideal circumstances that are often not always going to be the case.

To me Nobs are the epitome of the random and chaotic factor of this game. Every time I see them used to incredible effect it isn't when they are made to lead the charge but when they're thrown into the fray mid way through the battle where your opponent is too focused on his micro to notice the nobs bearing down on him.

To assume that the receipient of the Nobs is going to be able to react to perfectly means you're also operating at a very high skill level that 90% of players are not going to be at.

I can name multiple instances where my attempts to subjugate nobs have failed, for instance

[Torpid]

The only alternative though is to say "play more; improve your micro; get better". That doesn't help. At least if they know what they ought to be doing then they can refine to their practice to make it more efficient.

[Surprise Attack!]

The only alternative though is to say "play more; improve your micro; get better". That doesn't help. At least if they know what they ought to be doing then they can refine to their practice to make it more efficient.

My bad, allow me to rephrase: I think we would be negligent if we did not take into account human error while theoryhammering. I certainly agree with you 100% regarding the Nobs but based on your post I might be led to the conclusion that Nobs are a poor investment in all cases just based on all those counters.

The reality might be totally different as my opponent might have no idea how to counter Nobs at all, or might not notice them in the middle of a furball.

[Torpid]

The only alternative though is to say "play more; improve your micro; get better". That doesn't help. At least if they know what they ought to be doing then they can refine to their practice to make it more efficient.

My bad, allow me to rephrase: I think we would be negligent if we did not take into account human error while theoryhammering. I certainly agree with you 100% regarding the Nobs but based on your post I might be led to the conclusion that Nobs are a poor investment in all cases just based on all those counters.

The reality might be totally different as my opponent might have no idea how to counter Nobs at all, or might not notice them in the middle of a furball.

I think, when there are those counters present and the ork has nothing significant to counter them such as a stikkbommas to deal wtih set-up teams or a weirdboy to vomit on genestealers, then nobs are a bad choice.

I don't feel there is much purpose to saying that they may be a good choice if your enemy sucks because then anything would be a good choice. Granted, certain units noobs find harder to counter than others - newbies find the CL a nightmare to fight, higher level players will find the CS much more troublesome (of course there are MU weaknesses here too, but ignoring them). But the optimal choice is always the optimal choice even if some unoptimal units perform better vs noobs than vs non-noobs. Sure nobs might win you the game vs a noob with terrible micro but if nobs aren't the optimal choice then the optimal choice certainly won't lose you the game, if it does it was not the optimal choice or you messed up your micro but you could mess up your micro with nobs and lose them. To always go for the optimal choice is to build a good habit. It will make you less reliant on "easy units" and thereby improve your micro. Not doing this is what has left so many retail players so SLOW - they always just overwatch plague marines in T2 as chaos or spam stikks as orks. It will also make you more aware of what is optimal and why.

This does raise one problem with theorycrafting in RTSs though. In fact, the biggest problem. Theorycrafting can tell us what is objectively the best thing to do to counter any given build. Problem is, how do we know what build your foe is going for? Any build they use at any fixed point in time is subject to change as they pursue an "end build". But based on your predictions about what "end build", and therefore your unit choices and macro choices, they will change the "end build" that they are going for

What optimally counters build A might not counter build A + unit B, even if it counters build A + unit C optimally. So it's a game of predictions. Often when we say "Build X is the best build" what we actually mean is not that in all scenarios build X is the optimal build, that isn't true and never should be true in this game so long as it is balanced, instead what we mean is that Build X best counters the vast majority of builds that your opponent can get OR that build X best counters all the builds which are optimal vs your hero based on them best countering the vast majority of builds you may get.

Unfortunately however the only solution to this problem is good awareness in-game. Not micro-based awareness - not seeing squads flanking, no a deeper awareness. Macro awareness, strategic awareness. Notice which parts of the map they are prioritising, do they node power a lot, are they going for req mainly? Do they seem intent on bashing power or are they content to sit back and play defensively, hence when and how much power do they have? What are they likely considering getting in T2, what do they suspect you will get in both T1 and T2? When will they attack and from where will they do so based on everything they have been known to do in the past few minutes of the game? How much red do they have atm? How close to fully healed is unit X in their base atm? Will ability X of their Y be off cooldown if I take an engagement over there in 5seconds?

For someone to say that DOW is a simple game seems to me like they cannot be considering any of these factors. There's a lot going on here that you should be thinking about and unless you have UBERLEGITPRO micro you won't beat high level players unless you think about these things.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?) this cannot be taught over the forums and so we come back to the originally piece of advice "play more; improve your micro and your macro; get better; hf".

[Surprise Attack!]

The only alternative though is to say "play more; improve your micro; get better". That doesn't help. At least if they know what they ought to be doing then they can refine to their practice to make it more efficient.

My bad, allow me to rephrase: I think we would be negligent if we did not take into account human error while theoryhammering. I certainly agree with you 100% regarding the Nobs but based on your post I might be led to the conclusion that Nobs are a poor investment in all cases just based on all those counters.

The reality might be totally different as my opponent might have no idea how to counter Nobs at all, or might not notice them in the middle of a furball.

To always go for the optimal choice is to build a good habit. It will make you less reliant on "easy units" and thereby improve your micro. Not doing this is what has left so many retail players so SLOW - they always just overwatch plague marines in T2 as chaos or spam stikks as orks. It will also make you more aware of what is optimal and why.

I understand what you mean now and I agree.

I think I was coming more from the perspective of a disinterested observer rather than someone who was trying to correct an error he spotted, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but also is not really the point of this discussion.