Eldar - all modes - rework Kyre post nerf?

Lude

Hi,

I think the change to Kyre was appropriate, because it was pretty strange seeing an entire army fall in a ball underneath his feet after his pull move. However, with this nerf and the nerf to the speed of Eldritch winds, I think Kyre is somewhat weak and too easy to avoid for a 5 point elite. He provides very little utility other than his pulling move, so this should be made strong again, or he should be given some other function. His melee DPS is low and true damage is hardly useful on a melee unit, because the opportunity to go 1v1 vs enemy armour is extremely rare. His winds don't do enough damage to make him an effective nuker, and are slow enough to simply walk away from for most units.

I don't think Kyre is weak, per se, just easy to counter-play and predictable. I think he either needs some buffs or a rework, and here are my suggestions; they are not intended to be used together, but could be.

1: Make Kyre the Eldar Diomedes

Kyre's critical strike gives shield regeneration in a circle, but because he gets focused down he's hard to keep in combat, and doesn't deal a lot of damage in melee anyway, so it's too risky to send him in to melee. Eldar have no elites that provide healing to their units in battle, and because they are so vulnerable, could definitely do with this to give them more staying power in the mid game. I'd like to see Kyre given a role as a 'whole army healer' like Diomedes; he could give shield regeneration to his whole army with his critical strike, similar to Diomedes. Alternatively, Eldritch Winds could give some shield regeneration to the whole army that's proportionate to the amount of damage it deals - so, even if they do only mediocre damage against upgraded units, allowing your units to get hit by this attack would strengthen your opponent's forces. Another way of implementing this would be to give shield regeneration in the Eldritch Winds area.

2: Buff Eldritch Winds and Plasma Grenade Barrage

With his pull nerfed, Kyre could do with his other abilities buffed. Plasma Grenade Barrage is very weak against single targets, and because his pull no longer scatters all units under his feet, it's difficult to hit many units with it. It's damage should be buffed considerably so that it's worth to actually use this ability, because as it stands, I don't feel it's worth the risk to the hero.

I'd also buff Eldritch Winds alongside this; I think it would be really cool and flavoursome if Eldritch Winds caused enemies to levitate, like the SM orbital bombardment does. This means that Eldritch Winds would be a very useful crowd control method so he can support an army. Since the winds are now avoidable, I don't feel this would be imbalanced. Furthermore, since Eldritch winds takes so long for him to cast, I think it should really wreck a lot more havoc when it reaches enemy lines than it currently does.

3: Buff Kyre's Presence

Kyre's Presence is pretty lacklustre as it stands. This is for several reasons. Firstly, by the time Kyre takes the field plasma grenades are not really relevant to the fight any more. Secondly, because I can just build more Dire Avenger squads at that point of the game if I want more plasma grenades, there's not really much need for the ability. Also, plasma grenades don't scale well because of the knockback caused; I can't bombard a single target with plasma grenades to destroy it, at least not efficiently, because the units are scattered over an area reducing AoE. Thirdly, I think the presence is weak in general; as a presence, it should really have much more of an effect on your army, not just let them use an ability they already have more often; compare to Terminator's presence, which turns heavy bolters in to a completely different unit.

My suggestion is to add something on top of the additional plasma grenades to his presence. Perhaps Dire Avengers could be given deployable energy shields with Kyre's presence, or give free reinforcement for Dire Avengers.

Thanks for reading. Like I said, I don't think Kyre's weak, just that he needs a gentle nudge towards viability again, and think this is an opportunity for him to be made a much more interesting elite.

Stoner

If Relic will go through with unit HP increase across the board, it will throw ALL Elites in big hiatus, completely changing perspective on them. While suggestion are appreciated, I think it would be better first to see what happens after update and consider how and who must receive what tweaks.

Darkstirling

I said this in my other thread, but what if they gave him some kind of weapon to use while flying? As of right now, his flying is pretty useless outside of his combo, but what if he had a fusion gun or something. That might give people an incentive to keep him in the air, instead of always going up, and straight back down

vindicarex

Kyre's nerf to scatter units pulled from winds was 100% needed - he was completely OP due to that + grenade combo.

And while he can no longer insta-gib armies, he is still quite potent.

The Eldritch winds may be easy to dodge at-times - but the fact that you force squads to re-position or basically die is quite good. Even still, you can often pull a group of 2-3 squads if your opponent splits well and bring them into range of a killing field of gunfire (and probably still manage to land a few grenades on them to boot).

Say if you're facing a space marine who is going Devestators - pulling these guys towards Kyre is crippling for the SM player as the devastators don't work well when CC'd (obviously) nor when they are close to enemy fire. I've had games where people complain vociferously about Kyre grabbing devastator blobs as it's basically GG when you nab 3+ squads of those guys. As they are pulled and scattered, they are basically stunned and unable to fight back until they are dropped and get back up - quite a bit of time to fire on them without retaliation.

Kyre has like 4k HP - which is quite a lot - making him more or less as tanky as Gabe or Gorgutz - which is quite a lot for Eldar. So saying he is weak to focus fire is true - but that is saying everything is weak to focus fire (which is true as well!) - so that point is kinda moot imo as that's like saying "well, an entire army can counter Kyre so he's bad." An army will counter anything in this game.

If anything, Kyre is more resilient because of his Winds pull and that he can escape through flight.

As for his presence, it probably could use a slight buff - but so could a lot of doctrines (which Relic has stated a few times that they are looking into buffing underused doctrines).

I find Kyre to be in a solid state and worth his 5-point cost. His pull won't tend to wipe entire armies so easily, and so he is a bit weaker solo, but the ability is still quite, quite powerful when used appropriately in conjunction with your other forces.

RedDevilCG

I'm also pretty sure that the damage of his Winds stack on top of each other. Either that or I was dreaming when a triple stack of winds dissolved my troops faster than a flamer.

Stoner

@RedDevilCG said:
I'm also pretty sure that the damage of his Winds stack on top of each other. Either that or I was dreaming when a triple stack of winds dissolved my troops faster than a flamer.

This is true, my 3/3 lascannons melted from winds pretty quickly, and these units speed is so slow, I can barely dodge them. Not sure about mirror or vs. Ork, but Kyre is still good vs. SM.

Atlas

I'd like to see what happens when Kyre is given the standard charge and speed increase while charging, and then we'll see where he's at.