Why are they adding arbitrary caps to abilities? It is so unintuitive that X AoE ability affects Y numbers of units, but Z aoe ability affects a different number. These mechanics are not transparent at all. Or how about this "Tip of the Spear: Units must be out of combat for 20 seconds before being able to reinforce from a Listening Post", it is so arbitrary
Or how about the wraithlords wraith recall, another arbitrary and untransparent limit on an ability. How far is "100"
It also seems glaringly obvious that TAC spam is going to become a thing between the ironmaw buffs and massive buff to tacs, I am already getting flashbacks to early dow2 unstoppable ranged tac blobs
And wtf did you do to eldar Relic?
Ok, great, some units like scorpions and avengers were overperforming, but these nerfs are crazy, and you didn't even buff the shitty stuff either
Where is the buff to vipers (oh wait you nerfed them lol)
Where is the buff to dark reapers (the weakest setup team by far)
Where is the buff to shadow spectres?
And what have you done to the wraithlord anyway. He wasnt a great unit for 7 points, he just had a bonkers ability, now he has nothing.
What is even the difference between regular webway and improved webways?
Everybody hating on the one setup team with aoe true damage. Dark reapers are anti tank and anti infantry rolled into one, though ill admit they dont excel at either. Maybe instead of da spam we can try out a banshee/DR combo.
@Hellhound said:
Everybody hating on the one setup team with aoe true damage. Dark reapers are anti tank and anti infantry rolled into one, though ill admit they dont excel at either. Maybe instead of da spam we can try out a banshee/DR combo.
It seems relic is balancing the eldar race completely around the improved DA perks, rather than just nerfing those perks, Eldar will probably get shitstomped early game without them. This is one aspect that greatly annoys me as a player who never uses those perks.
Macha nerfed, Striking Scorpions massively nerfed, Dire Avengers massively nerfed, Howling Banshees nerfed into the ground, Improved Webways essentially removed from the game, Bonesingers nerfed. Eldar officially have no early game and they sure as hell have no answer to the tac blob spam that's coming. And to top it all off, not only did they nerf Improved Webways out of the game, they went ahead and nerfed wraith recall, cause why the hell bring the wraithlord at all? Bleh, I'm done.
@Screaming_Death said:
Macha nerfed, Striking Scorpions massively nerfed, Dire Avengers massively nerfed, Howling Banshees nerfed into the ground, Improved Webways essentially removed from the game. Eldar officially have no early game and they sure as hell have no answer to the tac blob spam that's coming. And to top it all off, not only did they nerf Improved Webways out of the game, they went ahead and nerfed wraith recall, cause why the hell bring the wraithlord at all? Bleh, I'm done.
Yeah, I honestly have no clue what they were thinking. Space marine are going to run a train on eldar.
We will now have massively buffed tacs and moderately nerfed ASM running amok against eldar early units who are significantly weaker, and will have much less FoF presence on the map.
I also have no idea why wraith recall needed a nerf. They couldve at least buffed the eldar underperforming units (outside of the fire prism)
The worst part is that we probably won't see a patch to fix the damage for another 3 months.
On the plus side though, we have a lot more req available early for the giant losses we will take!
Only took 3 pages for the Doom & Gloom to really kick in.
Just a note that this is the sort of time where adaptation is key. Things changed, strategies are going to shift, so try to roll with the current. If you just keep fighting the current, you're going to drown.
@Screaming_Death said:
Macha nerfed, Striking Scorpions massively nerfed, Dire Avengers massively nerfed, Howling Banshees nerfed into the ground, Improved Webways essentially removed from the game, Bonesingers nerfed. Eldar officially have no early game and they sure as hell have no answer to the tac blob spam that's coming. And to top it all off, not only did they nerf Improved Webways out of the game, they went ahead and nerfed wraith recall, cause why the hell bring the wraithlord at all? Bleh, I'm done.
It's true that Eldar early game seems to be nerfed too much. However......
..........However, there are also some buffs for them. For example Fire Prism's passive deals now true damage, while these units are now cheaper.
Of course, you have the right to disagree with me, but you can at least try to adapt to the new situation, or play a other factions. And don't forget to leave a feedback if needed. Constructive feedback of course.
@wongtp said:
omg that req base rate gain. why? im floating like 2k req in the early game now lol.
Fairly sure it's about comeback potential. If you don't control the map you still can push out some units and if you loose a squad early it's less of a gamebreaker.
its way too much, removes the punishing factor in killing poorly used units. playing orks, i can pump out units after units without really much of a thought. lose them, and rebuild my armies in seconds, while still having enough to tech up and upgrade my units.
vehicle upgrades are pretty much free and no brainer now.
i still feel while the patch fixes some, it kinda overbuffs some.
looking at predator changes, its just unwarranted. pred destructors before patch are pretty effective tanks in game. now they are so efficient at killing infantry squads with that kind of aoe. plus with the wonkiness of armor piercing and heavy armor, they kill 2 fully upgraded nobz models in 1 shot. thats about 800hp per shot.
seems like there's still a long way to go. really hope that relic can hotfix and remove the extra base req gain from t1, as well as pump out small patches to work on the relationship between damage types and armor types.
still though, good patch overall, flow of battle is much more engaging, finally i have a use for boyz to stay in combat without losing half of them to a single assault leap.
For real though last game the eldar still managed to hold their own.
Admittedly one of them ranger spammed. Good god with the resource buff did he have some rangers out there.....didnt work at all though. The other did a clever early banshee rush to beat out the tacs, got to tier two and mixed falcons in with dark reapers, then had vypers assassinating resources and shield gens. I used a hellava lot of deathstorms to counter their tac ally swarm and this eldar player straight up mauled my ++heresy redacted++. It ended up being the ork player on our side with dreads saving the day because both me and the other space marine player got lit up by one eldar player.
If this is what nerfed eldar look like i dont miss the old ones. If anything having less abusable material has opened up new avenues of thought.
On the subject of banshees being terrible i would have to disagree. Especially with tacs being more common. Do they beat assault marines....no but theyre cheaper. Do they absolutely crush tac marines oh hell yes. Flamers arent effective at point blank your opponent just moves past the narrow weapon arc.
The "up to 5 models per squad" thing only nerfs aoe against orks unfortunately, cause other races usually have less than 5 models in a squad.
Btw, that increased requsition gain along with refund for lost squads is really noticable, almost like the game starts in phase two now. Just had a few matches where i was like "oh ++heresy redacted++, i've just lost my entire army. Ah nvm i already have 1500 req".
@Hellhound said:
Everybody hating on the one setup team with aoe true damage. Dark reapers are anti tank and anti infantry rolled into one, though ill admit they dont excel at either. Maybe instead of da spam we can try out a banshee/DR combo.
Once you field them they will eat AOE non stop, they will bleed without any benefit for you.
The fact that everyone was building only DA in early game was because everything else was ++heresy redacted++.
I certainly find myself floating more req than I normally would. I find that I tend to use it to boost my power production rather than get more bodies on the field but I do like the option. Early game losses are less devastating but you certainly will be falling behind economically.
There are some things I find a bit questionable, though need some play to really see, but the one thing that I think is clearly a mistake is the Ven Dread buffs. What was already one of the best elites in the game and BY FAR the best 7 pt elite got absurd buffs. I really want to know in what world they found the Ven Dread underperfoming.
@Darkstirling said:
Really disappointed with the patch actually.
Why are they adding arbitrary caps to abilities? It is so unintuitive that X AoE ability affects Y numbers of units, but Z aoe ability affects a different number. These mechanics are not transparent at all. Or how about this "Tip of the Spear: Units must be out of combat for 20 seconds before being able to reinforce from a Listening Post", it is so arbitrary
Or how about the wraithlords wraith recall, another arbitrary and untransparent limit on an ability. How far is "100"
It also seems glaringly obvious that TAC spam is going to become a thing between the ironmaw buffs and massive buff to tacs, I am already getting flashbacks to early dow2 unstoppable ranged tac blobs
And wtf did you do to eldar Relic?
Ok, great, some units like scorpions and avengers were overperforming, but these nerfs are crazy, and you didn't even buff the shitty stuff either
Where is the buff to vipers (oh wait you nerfed them lol)
Where is the buff to dark reapers (the weakest setup team by far)
Where is the buff to shadow spectres?
And what have you done to the wraithlord anyway. He wasnt a great unit for 7 points, he just had a bonkers ability, now he has nothing.
What is even the difference between regular webway and improved webways?
ANNNND
Why weren't there more doctrine changes overall?
Calling things arbitrary doesn't make them so. Especially when it's all you seem to label the changes made.
1 :: the caps are to benefit squads that have a higher model count vs. these damaging abilities, vs. squads with a low model count from which every member of the squad will take damage. It's a buff to the survivability of larger squads (like regular T1 Ork Line Units). This isn't arbitrary in the slightest.
2 :: 20 seconds is a starting point to evaluate how long a unit has to be out of action before it can gain a healing bonus. It won't have been picked out of a hat. They could've even run internal tests on it. Beforehand, no delay made the ability (arguably) too strong. Picking an increasingly high number is going to render the reinforcing nature of the Doctrine useless (because it will be easier to move things back to the HQ). Therefore, the number needs to be above 0, and below the average number of seconds taken to get from an average of points on the map back to the base buildings.
3 :: all measurements in this game with regards to distance are constant. All abilities that have 100 range will have 100 range. 200 range will be double that, and 50 range will be half that. There is no tricky maths involved. It's the same as any other game, for example in DoW II where units have, say, 35 range. What is 35? Who knows! You have to play the game and get a feel for it. Range indicators are used to help the player learn these things, but at the end of the day you also have put in the effort to learn.
It's okay if you don't understand the changes. Not all of the changes are going to pan out perfectly either. But to call them all arbitrary for no observable reason (I could argue your word choice is, in fact, arbitrary, if not for my guess that you intentionally used it to make the changes sound bad), mere hours after the patch has dropped, gives the impression that you aren't even willing to consider the reasoning behind these changes.
DRs are fairly good, you just don't really want to mass setup infantry, especially since they don't really work well with Fleet of Foot.
@Hellhound said:
For real though last game the eldar still managed to hold their own.
Admittedly one of them ranger spammed. Good god with the resource buff did he have some rangers out there.....didnt work at all though. The other did a clever early banshee rush to beat out the tacs, got to tier two and mixed falcons in with dark reapers, then had vypers assassinating resources and shield gens. I used a hellava lot of deathstorms to counter their tac ally swarm and this eldar player straight up mauled my ++heresy redacted++. It ended up being the ork player on our side with dreads saving the day because both me and the other space marine player got lit up by one eldar player.
If this is what nerfed eldar look like i dont miss the old ones. If anything having less abusable material has opened up new avenues of thought.
On the subject of banshees being terrible i would have to disagree. Especially with tacs being more common. Do they beat assault marines....no but theyre cheaper. Do they absolutely crush tac marines oh hell yes. Flamers arent effective at point blank your opponent just moves past the narrow weapon arc.
Banshees aren't terrible in low number-fights especially if they have the scream doctrine, they just die too fast to concentrated fire. So once the range damage adds up the unit becomes very weak because they don't survive closing the gap. Boyz f.e. have 1200 health and scrap up to ~1600, ASM have 1500 and jumps with aoe knockback and true damage, while Banshees have 1050 and no mid-lategame application at all.
Also if you keep the flamers behind another squad the banshees engage on the forward squad and you can burn them down very quickly, especially if you have the slow doctrine.
Vypers shouldnt pose much of a problem against SMs who can just counter with landspeeders. Not saying that your play was wrong, but if you expend a lot of resources to counter another player, getting mauled by the third one isn't much of a balance statement.
@overall balance: I would have liked to see them make webway gates teleport always at t1 and nerf DA doctrines. Tier 2 comes so late in 1v1.
Haven't time to get into MP yet, so I'm curious about few things that aren't clear enough from patch notes:
Since there's no tweaks I've seen to Ork Trukk price/tier, how are we supposed to fight it without Power Swords on ASM? Can Ork deploy it as fast as pre-patch?
Killa can still does 400+ True Damage???
Does Webway hp decrease to 600 have any effect at all? We still can't catch Eldar units under +50% speed FOF buff?
What's the point of damage per-squad tweak, since the only race with big squads is Ork?
Why buff SM Pred further? It's already pretty OP on its own...
Did they fix bug when enemy can capture SM Banner/Relay while your army stands on top of it?
Do Scout reinforce still cost 90/15 with Tip of The Spear Doctrine?
Looks like ASM got serious hammernerf, are they any viable still? What about Tacs, do Scouts still dominate?
Gonna test it soon, but from notes, it doesn't feel like patch tackled any real issues with the game...
Calling things arbitrary doesn't make them so. Especially when it's all you seem to label the changes made.
Well, I still think some of them are, but perhaps unintuitive would be more apt.
Maybe there is a good reason. But imagine I had no interest in reading the patch notes, or was a new player, what exactly it the explanation for why this giant explosion ability doesn't damage these other guys, and how would I ever learn about this mechanic. I bet it won't be advertised in-game.
"well.uhhhhh.....it was imbalanced so we made it only damage a fixed number, no matter how many guys are in the explosions radius"
Well if that is the case, why did you even give them bigger squad numbers to begin with? If you can't balance it without imposing these opaque extra mechanics, maybe consider giving ork squads few models
Can anybody clarify what the patch notes mean by Dire Avenger Shield 20% -> 10%? That doesn't make alot of sense to me. Does it mean the bonus from the Dire Avenger Shield Trait has been reduced from 20% down to 10%? If it's the Trait that's changed, not the core unit, then they should state that. From what I can see - at least as far as the codex is concerned, the base Dire Avenger unit hasn't changed one bit (not the DPS, either? Maybe they increased the cool-off time, something that the tooltips don't always seem to account for?). Actually, I've noticed this for a few units (such as the Predator Destructor having 2500HP rather than the 2750HP the Patch Notes suggested). Is this just an issue with the codex? Or are these actually non-finalised patch notes from the original patch release date, that weren't adjusted to account for further changes (or indeed, the removal of originally planned changes) Relic made with their extra week of patch development?
If Dire Avengers as a core unit have remained unchanged, and it's only the Shield Doctrine that has been altered (and the DPS has infact remained the same), it really, really shouldn't hurt Eldar that much. Dire Avengers were already effective without the Shield Doctrine.
Not sure were all this Banshees were nerfed into the ground stuff comes from that some people are saying, either? According the patch notes, they remain pretty much unchanged as far as the unit itself is concerned. Sure, Quick Strike has been deservedly nerfed, in-line with the changes to the ASM's Assault Leap, and then a bunch of broken/overpowered abilities/doctrines related to the unit (stuff that I had previously stated was crazy strong and OP in other threads when discussing how Eldar had the best doctrines - like Invulnerability, which is never easy to balance) were changed, but the core unit appears to remain mostly untouched - and Banshees didn't need the said doctrines/abilities to be effective to begin with.
The Webway Relocate not being a thing till T2 now is perhaps the only thing that could cause problems for Eldar in T1, seems it'll make it harder for Eldar to play to their strengths.
Also not sure why the Predator Destructor buff - that doesn't make alot of sense to me. Everybody spammed them instead of Annihilators to begin with, and now people have even less reason to use the Annihilator. Can't understand where this change came from.
As for Tacticals, my biggest concern with them now is how it affects the Ork MU. I think Eldar will be fine with them. But as they are stronger in melee now - I could see this causing trouble for the Ork M.U. Tacticals with Frags, Footspeed, and other doctrines, could now be as scary against Orks, as Dire Avengers were previously. Maybe it'll be okay - no T1 True Damage for SM will make Waaagh Banners harder to crack, same goes for Trukks. Guess we'll have to see how this one pans out.
Gonna test it soon, but from notes, it doesn't feel like patch tackled any real issues with the game...
How in the world can you say that in good conscience? The patch specifically made many changes that were directly requested by the community, especially the loudest complaints.
Also, Killteam Rockets will hit Trukks, and Jonah's damage is True. He actually hits harder than you'd think against vehicles and chips them down nicely, especially low health Trukks.
If a player has no interest in learning about the balance changes made, maybe they're not a person who's going to be so fussed about the balance?
The game has a Learn tab which includes a Codex giving details of all aspects of the game. It comes with several (basic) tutorials and every Doctrine has an accompanying video that demonstrates what it does to the unit in question. Relic has put the work in to ensure at least the basics are comprehensively covered. If a player isn't interested beyond that, that's absolutely fair, but then that is on them, in my opinion.
@Cataclawy said:
People, please do heed that all these comments are but speculations and theory crafting. It is too early to speak upon all the changes so far, while Eldar did deserve nerfs in a couple of areas we also got a nerf to the general Race design of what the Eldar are supposed to be like. As a first impression i am very disappointed in the Webway gate not being able to relocate in Tier 1.
We are supposed to be Hit & Run, and now that's taken away from us. Feels a bit of an overkill in my eyes, as it also fucks with the races core design. Time to camp that webway gate. (Exaggeration, haven't tried the patch yet)
I have tried the patch and well, you're not that far off.
Eldar units pop out of existence outside of webway range.
Also, banshees have completely no place in game against space marines, tacticals rip them apart.
@KotCR said:
Can anybody clarify what the patch notes mean by Dire Avenger Shield 20% -> 10%? That doesn't make alot of sense to me. Does it mean the bonus from the Dire Avenger Shield Trait has been reduced from 20% down to 10%? If it's the Trait that's changed, not the core unit, then they should state that. From what I can see - at least as far as the codex is concerned, the base Dire Avenger unit hasn't changed one bit (not the DPS, either? Maybe they increased the cool-off time, something that the tooltips don't always seem to account for?). Actually, I've noticed this for a few units (such as the Predator Destructor having 2500HP rather than the 2750HP the Patch Notes suggested). Is this just an issue with the codex? Or are these actually non-finalised patch notes from the original patch release date, that weren't adjusted to account for further changes (or indeed, the removal of originally planned changes) Relic made with their extra week of patch development?
If Dire Avengers as a core unit have remained unchanged, and it's only the Shield Doctrine that has been altered (and the DPS has infact remained the same), it really, really shouldn't hurt Eldar that much. Dire Avengers were already effective without the Shield Doctrine.
You're probably right. Just played a few games and didn't notice any difference as well. At first i thought its something like (20% of total health is shields to 10% of total health is shields) but they clearly have more than 10% or 20% percent of their health in shields.
Gonna test it soon, but from notes, it doesn't feel like patch tackled any real issues with the game...
How in the world can you say that in good conscience? The patch specifically made many changes that were directly requested by the community, especially the loudest complaints.
Also, Killteam Rockets will hit Trukks, and Jonah's damage is True. He actually hits harder than you'd think against vehicles and chips them down nicely, especially low health Trukks.
I'm trying to avoid using Killteam, and their rocket does significantly more damage than Librerian, but it still might not be enough. What I'm concerned about is Trukk spam. Since req gain is increased, Ork can get lots of more Trukks than usual, and while only source of damage being Elite, any Ork will just tie them into melee. I guess SM has to rush T2 ASAP now or die... Hope I'm wrong here.
And I believe I can express my subjective impressions freely, eh?
I'm trying to avoid using Killteam, and their rocket does significantly more damage than Librerian, but it still might not be enough. What I'm concerned about is Trukk spam. Since req gain is increased, Ork can get lots of more Trukks than usual, and while only source of damage being Elite, any Ork will just tie them into melee. I guess SM has to rush T2 ASAP now or die... Hope I'm wrong here.
And I believe I can express my subjective impressions freely, eh?
If you want to avoid using Kill Team, that's fine, but saying "SM has to rush T2 ASAP or die" seems like an extreme conclusion to draw if you are eliminating one of the potential counters from your consideration. I do agree it could be an issue if melee squads try to tie up KT/Jonah in melee, but that's what Flamers are for right?
Also, you can express your subjective impressions, but if they are outlandish enough to claim the patch didn't tackle any real issues after it specifically addresses many of the community-proposed issues, then I can express my surprise and call you out. The patch might introduce new issues (RTSes don't get balanced after one patch), but to say none of the issues were addressed? ASM spam with power swords in T1 wasn't addressed? Striking Scorps burning down shield gens wasn't addressed? Suicide Bomba damage on objectives wasn't addressed? TSM feeling weak wasn't addressed?
Comments
Darkstirling
Really disappointed with the patch actually.
Why are they adding arbitrary caps to abilities? It is so unintuitive that X AoE ability affects Y numbers of units, but Z aoe ability affects a different number. These mechanics are not transparent at all. Or how about this "Tip of the Spear: Units must be out of combat for 20 seconds before being able to reinforce from a Listening Post", it is so arbitrary
Or how about the wraithlords wraith recall, another arbitrary and untransparent limit on an ability. How far is "100"
It also seems glaringly obvious that TAC spam is going to become a thing between the ironmaw buffs and massive buff to tacs, I am already getting flashbacks to early dow2 unstoppable ranged tac blobs
And wtf did you do to eldar Relic?
Ok, great, some units like scorpions and avengers were overperforming, but these nerfs are crazy, and you didn't even buff the shitty stuff either
Where is the buff to vipers (oh wait you nerfed them lol)
Where is the buff to dark reapers (the weakest setup team by far)
Where is the buff to shadow spectres?
And what have you done to the wraithlord anyway. He wasnt a great unit for 7 points, he just had a bonkers ability, now he has nothing.
What is even the difference between regular webway and improved webways?
ANNNND
Why weren't there more doctrine changes overall?
Hellhound
Everybody hating on the one setup team with aoe true damage. Dark reapers are anti tank and anti infantry rolled into one, though ill admit they dont excel at either. Maybe instead of da spam we can try out a banshee/DR combo.
steinernein
Well, hopefully Tac > ASM > Tac + Dev > Tac.
Darkstirling
It seems relic is balancing the eldar race completely around the improved DA perks, rather than just nerfing those perks, Eldar will probably get shitstomped early game without them. This is one aspect that greatly annoys me as a player who never uses those perks.
Screaming_Death
Macha nerfed, Striking Scorpions massively nerfed, Dire Avengers massively nerfed, Howling Banshees nerfed into the ground, Improved Webways essentially removed from the game, Bonesingers nerfed. Eldar officially have no early game and they sure as hell have no answer to the tac blob spam that's coming. And to top it all off, not only did they nerf Improved Webways out of the game, they went ahead and nerfed wraith recall, cause why the hell bring the wraithlord at all? Bleh, I'm done.
Darkstirling
Yeah, I honestly have no clue what they were thinking. Space marine are going to run a train on eldar.
We will now have massively buffed tacs and moderately nerfed ASM running amok against eldar early units who are significantly weaker, and will have much less FoF presence on the map.
I also have no idea why wraith recall needed a nerf. They couldve at least buffed the eldar underperforming units (outside of the fire prism)
The worst part is that we probably won't see a patch to fix the damage for another 3 months.
On the plus side though, we have a lot more req available early for the giant losses we will take!
PrimaGoosa
Only took 3 pages for the Doom & Gloom to really kick in.
Just a note that this is the sort of time where adaptation is key. Things changed, strategies are going to shift, so try to roll with the current. If you just keep fighting the current, you're going to drown.
Draconix
It's true that Eldar early game seems to be nerfed too much. However......
..........However, there are also some buffs for them. For example Fire Prism's passive deals now true damage, while these units are now cheaper.
Of course, you have the right to disagree with me, but you can at least try to adapt to the new situation, or play a other factions. And don't forget to leave a feedback if needed. Constructive feedback of course.
wongtp
its way too much, removes the punishing factor in killing poorly used units. playing orks, i can pump out units after units without really much of a thought. lose them, and rebuild my armies in seconds, while still having enough to tech up and upgrade my units.
vehicle upgrades are pretty much free and no brainer now.
i still feel while the patch fixes some, it kinda overbuffs some.
looking at predator changes, its just unwarranted. pred destructors before patch are pretty effective tanks in game. now they are so efficient at killing infantry squads with that kind of aoe. plus with the wonkiness of armor piercing and heavy armor, they kill 2 fully upgraded nobz models in 1 shot. thats about 800hp per shot.
seems like there's still a long way to go. really hope that relic can hotfix and remove the extra base req gain from t1, as well as pump out small patches to work on the relationship between damage types and armor types.
still though, good patch overall, flow of battle is much more engaging, finally i have a use for boyz to stay in combat without losing half of them to a single assault leap.
Hellhound
For real though last game the eldar still managed to hold their own.
Admittedly one of them ranger spammed. Good god with the resource buff did he have some rangers out there.....didnt work at all though. The other did a clever early banshee rush to beat out the tacs, got to tier two and mixed falcons in with dark reapers, then had vypers assassinating resources and shield gens. I used a hellava lot of deathstorms to counter their tac ally swarm and this eldar player straight up mauled my ++heresy redacted++. It ended up being the ork player on our side with dreads saving the day because both me and the other space marine player got lit up by one eldar player.
If this is what nerfed eldar look like i dont miss the old ones. If anything having less abusable material has opened up new avenues of thought.
On the subject of banshees being terrible i would have to disagree. Especially with tacs being more common. Do they beat assault marines....no but theyre cheaper. Do they absolutely crush tac marines oh hell yes. Flamers arent effective at point blank your opponent just moves past the narrow weapon arc.
Bersercker
The "up to 5 models per squad" thing only nerfs aoe against orks unfortunately, cause other races usually have less than 5 models in a squad.
Btw, that increased requsition gain along with refund for lost squads is really noticable, almost like the game starts in phase two now. Just had a few matches where i was like "oh ++heresy redacted++, i've just lost my entire army. Ah nvm i already have 1500 req".
Fww
Once you field them they will eat AOE non stop, they will bleed without any benefit for you.
The fact that everyone was building only DA in early game was because everything else was ++heresy redacted++.
Andtaxes
I certainly find myself floating more req than I normally would. I find that I tend to use it to boost my power production rather than get more bodies on the field but I do like the option. Early game losses are less devastating but you certainly will be falling behind economically.
Silveran
There are some things I find a bit questionable, though need some play to really see, but the one thing that I think is clearly a mistake is the Ven Dread buffs. What was already one of the best elites in the game and BY FAR the best 7 pt elite got absurd buffs. I really want to know in what world they found the Ven Dread underperfoming.
Gorb
Calling things arbitrary doesn't make them so. Especially when it's all you seem to label the changes made.
1 :: the caps are to benefit squads that have a higher model count vs. these damaging abilities, vs. squads with a low model count from which every member of the squad will take damage. It's a buff to the survivability of larger squads (like regular T1 Ork Line Units). This isn't arbitrary in the slightest.
2 :: 20 seconds is a starting point to evaluate how long a unit has to be out of action before it can gain a healing bonus. It won't have been picked out of a hat. They could've even run internal tests on it. Beforehand, no delay made the ability (arguably) too strong. Picking an increasingly high number is going to render the reinforcing nature of the Doctrine useless (because it will be easier to move things back to the HQ). Therefore, the number needs to be above 0, and below the average number of seconds taken to get from an average of points on the map back to the base buildings.
3 :: all measurements in this game with regards to distance are constant. All abilities that have 100 range will have 100 range. 200 range will be double that, and 50 range will be half that. There is no tricky maths involved. It's the same as any other game, for example in DoW II where units have, say, 35 range. What is 35? Who knows! You have to play the game and get a feel for it. Range indicators are used to help the player learn these things, but at the end of the day you also have put in the effort to learn.
It's okay if you don't understand the changes. Not all of the changes are going to pan out perfectly either. But to call them all arbitrary for no observable reason (I could argue your word choice is, in fact, arbitrary, if not for my guess that you intentionally used it to make the changes sound bad), mere hours after the patch has dropped, gives the impression that you aren't even willing to consider the reasoning behind these changes.
Opinion post.
Old_Raven
DRs are fairly good, you just don't really want to mass setup infantry, especially since they don't really work well with Fleet of Foot.
Banshees aren't terrible in low number-fights especially if they have the scream doctrine, they just die too fast to concentrated fire. So once the range damage adds up the unit becomes very weak because they don't survive closing the gap. Boyz f.e. have 1200 health and scrap up to ~1600, ASM have 1500 and jumps with aoe knockback and true damage, while Banshees have 1050 and no mid-lategame application at all.
Also if you keep the flamers behind another squad the banshees engage on the forward squad and you can burn them down very quickly, especially if you have the slow doctrine.
Vypers shouldnt pose much of a problem against SMs who can just counter with landspeeders. Not saying that your play was wrong, but if you expend a lot of resources to counter another player, getting mauled by the third one isn't much of a balance statement.
@overall balance: I would have liked to see them make webway gates teleport always at t1 and nerf DA doctrines. Tier 2 comes so late in 1v1.
Stoner
Haven't time to get into MP yet, so I'm curious about few things that aren't clear enough from patch notes:
Looks like ASM got serious hammernerf, are they any viable still? What about Tacs, do Scouts still dominate?
Gonna test it soon, but from notes, it doesn't feel like patch tackled any real issues with the game...
Darkstirling
Well, I still think some of them are, but perhaps unintuitive would be more apt.
Maybe there is a good reason. But imagine I had no interest in reading the patch notes, or was a new player, what exactly it the explanation for why this giant explosion ability doesn't damage these other guys, and how would I ever learn about this mechanic. I bet it won't be advertised in-game.
"well.uhhhhh.....it was imbalanced so we made it only damage a fixed number, no matter how many guys are in the explosions radius"
Well if that is the case, why did you even give them bigger squad numbers to begin with? If you can't balance it without imposing these opaque extra mechanics, maybe consider giving ork squads few models
Inb4 someone says "muh...muhhh lore"
KotCR
Can anybody clarify what the patch notes mean by Dire Avenger Shield 20% -> 10%? That doesn't make alot of sense to me. Does it mean the bonus from the Dire Avenger Shield Trait has been reduced from 20% down to 10%? If it's the Trait that's changed, not the core unit, then they should state that. From what I can see - at least as far as the codex is concerned, the base Dire Avenger unit hasn't changed one bit (not the DPS, either? Maybe they increased the cool-off time, something that the tooltips don't always seem to account for?). Actually, I've noticed this for a few units (such as the Predator Destructor having 2500HP rather than the 2750HP the Patch Notes suggested). Is this just an issue with the codex? Or are these actually non-finalised patch notes from the original patch release date, that weren't adjusted to account for further changes (or indeed, the removal of originally planned changes) Relic made with their extra week of patch development?
If Dire Avengers as a core unit have remained unchanged, and it's only the Shield Doctrine that has been altered (and the DPS has infact remained the same), it really, really shouldn't hurt Eldar that much. Dire Avengers were already effective without the Shield Doctrine.
Not sure were all this Banshees were nerfed into the ground stuff comes from that some people are saying, either? According the patch notes, they remain pretty much unchanged as far as the unit itself is concerned. Sure, Quick Strike has been deservedly nerfed, in-line with the changes to the ASM's Assault Leap, and then a bunch of broken/overpowered abilities/doctrines related to the unit (stuff that I had previously stated was crazy strong and OP in other threads when discussing how Eldar had the best doctrines - like Invulnerability, which is never easy to balance) were changed, but the core unit appears to remain mostly untouched - and Banshees didn't need the said doctrines/abilities to be effective to begin with.
The Webway Relocate not being a thing till T2 now is perhaps the only thing that could cause problems for Eldar in T1, seems it'll make it harder for Eldar to play to their strengths.
Also not sure why the Predator Destructor buff - that doesn't make alot of sense to me. Everybody spammed them instead of Annihilators to begin with, and now people have even less reason to use the Annihilator. Can't understand where this change came from.
As for Tacticals, my biggest concern with them now is how it affects the Ork MU. I think Eldar will be fine with them. But as they are stronger in melee now - I could see this causing trouble for the Ork M.U. Tacticals with Frags, Footspeed, and other doctrines, could now be as scary against Orks, as Dire Avengers were previously. Maybe it'll be okay - no T1 True Damage for SM will make Waaagh Banners harder to crack, same goes for Trukks. Guess we'll have to see how this one pans out.
PrimaGoosa
How in the world can you say that in good conscience? The patch specifically made many changes that were directly requested by the community, especially the loudest complaints.
Also, Killteam Rockets will hit Trukks, and Jonah's damage is True. He actually hits harder than you'd think against vehicles and chips them down nicely, especially low health Trukks.
Gorb
@Darkstirling
If a player has no interest in learning about the balance changes made, maybe they're not a person who's going to be so fussed about the balance?
The game has a Learn tab which includes a Codex giving details of all aspects of the game. It comes with several (basic) tutorials and every Doctrine has an accompanying video that demonstrates what it does to the unit in question. Relic has put the work in to ensure at least the basics are comprehensively covered. If a player isn't interested beyond that, that's absolutely fair, but then that is on them, in my opinion.
Katitof
I have tried the patch and well, you're not that far off.
Eldar units pop out of existence outside of webway range.
Also, banshees have completely no place in game against space marines, tacticals rip them apart.
synThrax
A plus on the resources change. Lets hope we get the midgane we deserve.
Is your rank relevant for the Matchmaker?
What about maps, alot flaws come from the awkward ( laning ) maps...
Also making custommaps downable in game should be considered, since this game needs this without any further explanation .
Bersercker
You're probably right. Just played a few games and didn't notice any difference as well. At first i thought its something like (20% of total health is shields to 10% of total health is shields) but they clearly have more than 10% or 20% percent of their health in shields.
Meh, so much for DA nerf.
Stoner
I'm trying to avoid using Killteam, and their rocket does significantly more damage than Librerian, but it still might not be enough. What I'm concerned about is Trukk spam. Since req gain is increased, Ork can get lots of more Trukks than usual, and while only source of damage being Elite, any Ork will just tie them into melee. I guess SM has to rush T2 ASAP now or die... Hope I'm wrong here.
And I believe I can express my subjective impressions freely, eh?
jambai
The Lasdevs buff is almost more important than the tactical buffs. They're very good now and you can easily rush to t2 for some anti-armor.
PrimaGoosa
If you want to avoid using Kill Team, that's fine, but saying "SM has to rush T2 ASAP or die" seems like an extreme conclusion to draw if you are eliminating one of the potential counters from your consideration. I do agree it could be an issue if melee squads try to tie up KT/Jonah in melee, but that's what Flamers are for right?
Also, you can express your subjective impressions, but if they are outlandish enough to claim the patch didn't tackle any real issues after it specifically addresses many of the community-proposed issues, then I can express my surprise and call you out. The patch might introduce new issues (RTSes don't get balanced after one patch), but to say none of the issues were addressed? ASM spam with power swords in T1 wasn't addressed? Striking Scorps burning down shield gens wasn't addressed? Suicide Bomba damage on objectives wasn't addressed? TSM feeling weak wasn't addressed?
So much was addressed.