Dawn of War Codex

I was discussing this with Handsome and Board 2 Deaf yesterday about how useless, or counterproductive the passive leap assault marines / raptors is. When compared to the passive leaps of other comparable units, it makes me wonder why that is so.

I'm sure all of us know the ASM passive leap involves said marine hurling himself 1-2m at his target to close the distance. but this does no damage, no knockback, and rather leaves the marine standing there like a muppet for 0.5-1 second. It screws up retreat kills, allows enemies to get back on their feet after they've been knocked over, and allows enemies coming in from the flank to get free hits on them.

for that matter, stormboyz also have this same dilemma.

compare this to the passive leaps of other units.

Warriors -> knockback (a t1.5 unit as well. I am aware they don't have an asm jump)
Horma -> damage
Warlock/Seer council -> knockback the entire galaxy (yes, they don't have a jump either)
bloodletter teleport -> they can attack the INSTANT they come out of the teleport. vs asm who wait a second before attacking

one thing that makes interceptors such great retreat killing units is that they don't have this jump which makes them waste a chance to attack a unit walking past them.

Would it make sense to at least allow them to do a bit of damage on this leap? It is a 10ton marine/ork hurling himself with a jetpack at you. it doesn't have to be ludicrous, but it should at least do something productive.

I think you are missing that the passive leap gives them a bonus 2 speed for a short duration and that it can also be redirected with a bit of micro, making them very hard to grenade. I'm pretty sure that it also makes them knockback immune for the duration of the passive leap.

The short range charge/jump/teleport is always a double edged sword, when you want to get squad wipes remember to 'waste' it on some other target or even a structure before pursuing in retreat or placing yourself in a retreat path, overall it's fine as it is imo.

Only the blood letters are jump troops....

Personally I think the mini jump should do damage, in normal melee they basically waste their first attack but it's especially infuriating when they shoulder-charge a 10 hp retreater for 0 damage and then just stand around while it gets away...

I always thought that the asm/raptor/stormboyz leap was designed specifically to be bad for retreat killing, to make it hard to get kills by just jumping in and attacking something that needs to retreat. Interceptors don't have this problem and can pull off lots of unexpected retreat kills as a result.

^ thanks Lulgrim

@ fv100,

yes precisely. the lack of a passive leap from interceptors is what makes them so good at killing retreating units because they don't waste an attack move on a zero-damage jump.

@ the earlier point on blood letters. yes, they are jump troops, and they can attack the instant they come out of teleport which makes them great at retreat killing as well. why isn't the same thing applied to the other jump troops?

NB. autarch passive leap knocks over units as well. yes she's a sub commander and all that but then what is the logic in making her passive leap useful?

in line with what lulgrim said, I'm not for making them disrupt the planet when they passive leap because that would be a bit overkill especially with asm knocking back everything around them, but it should at least do normal damage considering the animation has them raising their chainsword in the air.

Lulgrim wrote:Personally I think the mini jump should do damage, in normal melee they basically waste their first attack but it's especially infuriating when they shoulder-charge a 10 hp retreater for 0 damage and then just stand around while it gets away...

Ah come on, a 10 HP model is not going away from ASM.

Bolt Pistols aren't that bad, they are just going to shoot it down on retreat and if it gets close, ASM should also have their second jump.

Bolt Pistols aren't that bad

That's purely based on RNG.

Yes bolt pistols will terminate 10hp units.

Tex wrote:I think you are missing that the passive leap gives them a bonus 2 speed for a short duration and that it can also be redirected with a bit of micro, making them very hard to grenade. I'm pretty sure that it also makes them knockback immune for the duration of the passive leap.

Precisely.

I'd add that the jump does not cost them a melee attack in melee combat (not for retreat killing), it simply makes them cross the distance to the enemy. Faster. And also males kiting them harder.

If you find yourself raging at storms/asms/raptors that leap at a retreating model with 1hp left and miss the kill, --> Don't order them to straight up attack that retreating model when you see it running toward you. Instead order them to move and when the model(s) are within melee distance you order them to attack, and they will attack without leaping.

And that's another secret dow2 mystery revealed to the public.

Wp toilealealealealeaelee, wp.

Toilailee wrote:If you find yourself raging at storms/asms/raptors that leap at a retreating model with 1hp left and miss the kill, --> Don't order them to straight up attack that retreating model when you see it running toward you. Instead order them to move and when the model(s) are within melee distance you order them to attack, and they will attack without leaping.

I'm generally not opposed to micro-increasing stuff but that's just gay (no offense to homosexuals intended).

i like the idea of the charge doing some damage, like the leap from hormaguants

It's not like asm/raptors are UP, their leap doing damage would be a major buff. They're jump units, they're not meant to be fantastic at retreat killing, I don't think they warrant any change.

Could be ½ of a normal chainsword punch or whatever.

I don't think their passive jump doing a small amount of damage would be a massive buff. Would just be nice to have their leap actually do something rather than a speed boost. Not saying that that doesn't help them but there it is. Also the passive jump does not make then immune to knock back. That is only a modifier on their jump ability and in lasts for 3 seconds. Not very long.

I think it should be less than 1\2 of what their chain sword does if this gets implemented. They should get a small first attack in though. Id say 1\4 of what they normally do and see what happens there.

Tbh I'd rather not change it.

interceptor tripling jumping and retreat killing along with teleportation dmg does not seem overkill to you?

Bah, what else do GK get though

Honestly though, with the teleport considered, GKI are no better than shees at retreat killing yet GK get nothing else really that can retreat kill, except purifiers so...

That Torpid Gamer wrote:It's not like asm/raptors are UP, their leap doing damage would be a major buff. They're jump units, they're not meant to be fantastic at retreat killing, I don't think they warrant any change.

Depends of the value. I don't see 10 damage per "jump hit" a major buff in a 3/4 models squad.

Hormas dont have bolt pistols, I imagine the leap was given to offset that for chasing units.

The technique described by toil is pretty much what you have to do, but in doing so you have to preposition your units in retreat path, and then when in range they still have to rotate to the target and then start their windup. It usually results in losing some potential hits because your guys will just spin there trying to decide who to hit as the retreaters blaze by. More than once I've had my jump unit not hit anything on a huge retreating mob. And thats if you have energy to jump ahead. The jump charge isnt particularly helpful because as aforementioned the guy zooms in then sits for a bit before gettin to choppin

Seer is t3 unit. That being said I think a knockback on the charge of Vans would be a pretty good addition to the unit in general.

the charge jump should give them knock back immunity for the duration as it's not a walk or attack animation. i'm not entirely sure as i've never seen anything get knocked back during such an animation but the general rule is that everything other then walk and attack gives immunity, including specials.

The leap does give them kb immunity.

Broodwich wrote:Seer is t3 unit. That being said I think a knockback on the charge of Vans would be a pretty good addition to the unit in general.

I actually really like that idea.

Lulgrim wrote:Personally I think the mini jump should do damage, in normal melee they basically waste their first attack but it's especially infuriating when they shoulder-charge a 10 hp retreater for 0 damage and then just stand around while it gets away...

Why don't you just implement it? Since it sounds logical, and you re one of the masters-of-the-mod. =)

Tex wrote:I think you are missing that the passive leap gives them a bonus 2 speed for a short duration [...]

^^ This makes them decent enough retreat killers. I've certainly lost plenty of units to ASM jumping after and cutting down the last member of a squad. In my experience they only totally whiff if the retreating squad has already been accelerating for a while... but at that point regular melee squads/heroes will often just spin in place as their target blasts past them. And let's not forget, regular melee squads/heroes don't get a second chance at taking down retreating units. The ability to jump after a squad makes up for the wonkiness of the mini-leap IMO. If they had comparable chasing power to regular melee squads they'd be retreat killing machines.

Yes, Arbit. To mention something I said earlier which should be conclusive here:

They're jump units, they're not meant to be fantastic at retreat killing.

The only jump unit that is able to kill retreating units, IMO, are interceptors, with their awesome instant teleport.

Which explains why the current GK meta seems to involve getting interceptors on the field as soon as possible, and using canticle to (ab)use their jump as much as possible.

Arbit wrote:

Tex wrote:I think you are missing that the passive leap gives them a bonus 2 speed for a short duration [...]

^^ This makes them decent enough retreat killers. I've certainly lost plenty of units to ASM jumping after and cutting down the last member of a squad. In my experience they only totally whiff if the retreating squad has already been accelerating for a while... but at that point regular melee squads/heroes will often just spin in place as their target blasts past them. And let's not forget, regular melee squads/heroes don't get a second chance at taking down retreating units. The ability to jump after a squad makes up for the wonkiness of the mini-leap IMO. If they had comparable chasing power to regular melee squads they'd be retreat killing machines.

which is what Interceptors currently do and there is another problem as well.