Chaos Power Spending

[JV.paranoid]

I am having a hard time spending my power and I was wondering if that was normal. I have been mostly playing 3v3's and I typically go for req before power and don't even upgrade gens because I am typically to power heavy after the first few minutes. I always feel like I need more req to spend my power and not vice versa. Other than starting with a tic and a CSM, Ill start going into power options with maybe a turret from PC, grenade launchers on tics, going fast havocs or noise marines. So I spend my power as soon as I hit 30 and then save up for t2 after usually spending ~100 power in T1 upgrades or units. After I hit t2 though, I don't have the req to spend all the power im getting without even upgrading gens or anything.

[Crewfinity]

Sounds like you're losing more models than your economy can afford. Buying back models, commonly called bleed, is much more of a burden on your requisition income, and can really throttle your economy to a crawl if you lose a lot of expensive models like CSM or raptors. Try to retreat earlier and make use of cover, and try to be more aware of how much you're spending on reinforcements. Losing ome or two CSM models in every major engagement will really put a dent into your req income.
Hope this helps

[JV.paranoid]

There very well may be it. I have found myself retreating a lot it feels like. The past few games I have been focusing on positioning, cover, and trying to play more defensive. I try not to even force engagements unless I absolutely feel it is necessary.

[Tex]

There are a few tricks to this situation...

Noisy and I both run into this a lot when we do large T1's. The bleed can eat up your momentum if you slip up for a moment. Here are some things to try:

1) Start your capping pattern with being greedy in regards to power nodes. Further, try to make it out of T1 with only two generators if you can.

2) If you go with a 3 generator build, once you hit the T2 button, you need to pretty much commit yourself to never rebuying your gens unless absolutely necessary.

[Crewfinity]

There very well may be it. I have found myself retreating a lot it feels like. The past few games I have been focusing on positioning, cover, and trying to play more defensive. I try not to even force engagements unless I absolutely feel it is necessary.

Well on the converse side of game balance, while bleed and reinforcement costs punish you for being too aggressive, req points and upkeep can punish you for being too passive or retreating too often. If you're ceding map control to the enemy by playing too defensively, you are effectively handing him extra resources. The upkeep mechanic basically taxes your req income relative to army size, so if you get a large T1 and your opponent doesnt, you will have less req income. If you play too passively with a large army you will often find yourself req starved compared to your opponent even if you dont bleed too much. If by retreating to save a CSM model you allow your opponent to decap your natural req point then it's probably better to defend and risk the bleed. DOW2 is all about timing, you have to find the right balance for your playstyle

[JV.paranoid]

There very well may be it. I have found myself retreating a lot it feels like. The past few games I have been focusing on positioning, cover, and trying to play more defensive. I try not to even force engagements unless I absolutely feel it is necessary.

Well on the converse side of game balance, while bleed and reinforcement costs punish you for being too aggressive, req points and upkeep can punish you for being too passive or retreating too often. If you're ceding map control to the enemy by playing too defensively, you are effectively handing him extra resources. The upkeep mechanic basically taxes your req income relative to army size, so if you get a large T1 and your opponent doesnt, you will have less req income. If you play too passively with a large army you will often find yourself req starved compared to your opponent even if you dont bleed too much. If by retreating to save a CSM model you allow your opponent to decap your natural req point then it's probably better to defend and risk the bleed. DOW2 is all about timing, you have to find the right balance for your playstyle

That is helpful insight, thank you. One thing I've started doing with my map control is I don't even try and push and power bash a lot of the time if I win the early engagement so as to not overextend myself. As long as I have up to mid area in my lane and we have 1 or 2 VP's and they aren't bleeding our VP points yet, I'll just sit and wait for them to come to me. For me, I have a hard time finding a way to engage early. Partly because I use PC over CL I think and I just wanna get to tier 1.5 units comfortably. I feel like noise marines and amazing but so expensive. 1-2 havocs and a noise marine squad into t2 has been nice cause then I can get blastmaster and more noise marines. The knockback is just so effective. And t2 chaos has a lot of good options I feel.

[Crewfinity]

That is helpful insight, thank you. One thing I've started doing with my map control is I don't even try and push and power bash a lot of the time if I win the early engagement so as to not overextend myself. As long as I have up to mid area in my lane and we have 1 or 2 VP's and they aren't bleeding our VP points yet, I'll just sit and wait for them to come to me. For me, I have a hard time finding a way to engage early. Partly because I use PC over CL I think and I just wanna get to tier 1.5 units comfortably. I feel like noise marines and amazing but so expensive. 1-2 havocs and a noise marine squad into t2 has been nice cause then I can get blastmaster and more noise marines. The knockback is just so effective. And t2 chaos has a lot of good options I feel.

well in 3v3 as long as you dont lose power in your lane you're doing alright, so that's good.
as the PC, you have access to the awesome nurgle worship, which helps immensely in the early game when there isn't much ranged dps on the field. if you push your PC and CSM up a bit into green cover and worship with tics behind them, you can slowly crawl up the map and inflict bleed while keeping the enemy at arm's length. try to split up the PC and CSM as much as you can so that you can punish approaching squads more. the plague champion's bolter does damage over time which is awesome at picking off models, so you want to be shooting with him as much as possible. if the enemy tries to push, you just need to shoot his melee units up on approach and counter-initiate with heretics, then continue bleeding his ranged units with your PC and CSM in green cover under worship. you should be able to use this tactic until you get a havoc, which makes controlling the enemy a lot easier, allowing your ranged units to contribute their full dps more often. if the enemy gets jump squads you can get the plague sword or aspiring champion on your heretics to counter, and if he goes ranged heavy with suppression teams or snipers, you can get noise marines or raptors or grenade launchers on your tics.

good ways to engage early on:
moving up with CSM and supporting with havocs
nade tics firing at enemy formations
PC moving up into green cover
raptors jumping on ranged blobs/suppression teams

try to use worship as often as you can, the health regen is critical to your staying power since you're so slow. try also to not retreat unless absolutely necessary, since it does take so long to come back to the field.

all that said, if all you do is hold half the map then you're not really doing too much to affect the flow of the game, and it would be easy for your laning opponent to move across the map and double your teammates while you're hunkered down. try to capitalize on your opponent retreating by capping up the map or laying defenses further up your side. the PC's bile spewer is awesome at burning down full gen farms in just a few seconds, so that's an easy way to follow up a good engagement or something.

you're right about chaos T2 being awesome
lemme know if you have any more questions!

[JV.paranoid]

Out of curiosity crew, what do you think is the best chaos commander(s). From what I have read and looking over them I feel like the best options for competitive play is the PC or CS. Are they all pretty viable or is there a clear cut winner on what is the most efficient or best for competitive games?

[Crewfinity]

tough to make a call really, they're all great commanders.

in 1v1 at least sorc is probably the best. his worship is insanely good and he has the highest skill cap of the three. so while he's tough to use, a well played chaos sorcerer can do a lot of really mean things.

PC is better in 3v3 than 1v1 imo due to his turrets and defensive playstyle, but he's certainly a viable commander in any game. completely shits on the ork matchup.

Chaos lord is the easiest to use imo and a very powerful hero. good commander for people getting used to playing the game, but powerful at all levels of play.