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SM - all game modes - Death watch
GuruSkippy
I am surprised that we don't have seen this thread yet.
Problem :
Deathwatch is way too good right now. It's easy to tell, in every game mode, this elite is taken by a vast majority of SM players, because it brings a lot.
I think their stats are fine, damage, hp, grenades, missile launche/flamer. They are globally fine since they were buffed in a patch.
And keep in mind that deathwatch drop pod dealing damage to objectives will be adressed in next patch, according to Relic, so I won't speak about this particular point.
What is not fine, imo, is their presence doctrine : Death from above.
It is way too good.
The deployment of a 2EP **everywhere **on the field, AND with a drop pod, dealing knockback, damage and stuns to vehicule, while all other elites in game must normally come in a point range, with a basic teleport, is way too good.
In team games, it becomes even more probematic, when a team have 2 or 3 SM players. (with obviously, all of them having the kill team with presence doctrine).
As soon as there is an important fight after the 4th minute, you'll have 2 or 3 drop pods coming out of nowhere, and with KT coming out of them, totally turning the tide of a battle, with close to no counter play for the opposing team, if they don't have a SM player who can help with his own Kill team drop pod.
Then, the other elites come with drop pods too, BUT, at least, it's only in range of the Kill team, and not everywhere. It's very good,
Solution :
I'm ok that after you use the teleport homer, Death watch can use a drop pod and come everywhere on the field with a drop pod.
But I think that their very first deployment, or after a death deployment, shouldn't be everywhere on the map, and shouldn't be with a drop pod.
The first deployment should be standard, like all other elites in game.
Then, after using teleport homer, keep it as it is now.
For the other elites using drop pods thanks to the doctrine, keep it as it is too, because it's not everywhere on the map.
Comments
SupremeSkill
Yes. This is a very clever balance solution. It is always possible to run away when you see killteam closing in, but they too often just drop stun you, throw the grenade and gets your troops. You can block pathways and hammer melee units too easily with so many drop pods so early. The devastating esrly game power that killteam has comes too close to your skin right in the beginning. Then call them off and do it once more. It's so dull.
Killteam should walk around the map since their relatively slow movement speed is their viable flipside.
Lude
Hi, I'm very glad you made a thread about this as I was going to make it myself.
Kill team is a strong unit, but it has two abilities which are too strong especially considering the points cost and strength of the base unit.
Firstly, it`s the only unit that can disappear from the map so it cannot be killed, and return at full health, anywhere on the map, with knock back and damage, even changing their weapon! This is simply too strong for a 2 point elite and makes them way too hard to kill, meaning they simply soak up damage for the rest of the SM army with no consequences.
Most importantly, their presence, in effect, DOUBLES the number of orbital relays an SM player has available. This is simply broken, and makes it way too hard for the other factions to deal with constant drops from the SM player and allows him to deploy a whole army anywhere he likes, all at once .
Think of it this way: without deathwatch, an SM player can drop 3 dreads on a turret, and walk the rest of his army there. With deathwatch, he can drop 3 dreads, kill team, and then 2 more elites. Often SM players simply let their elites fight to the death after their first deployment so they can redeploy them in their opponent`s base for an objective push.
The problem with the ability to deploy your elites on top of your opponent's power core is that there is simply no counter play! I can counter dread drops by spamming AP, but how can I counter a kill team, Gabe with his reflecting ability, and Diomedes with his invulnerability, while taking out 3 dreads and saving the core? How big of an army would I have to just sit in my base, unable to attack? Deathwatch presence is simply too strong in power core mode, because it doubles the number of potential drops an SM player can use, with just a 2 point elite.
There is a simple solution to both of these problems.
Whenever elites, including kill team, come down in a drop pod , it consumes an orbital relay. The 3 drop limit should be a hard cap, which enables factions that don't have drops to anticipate their opponent's actions and react, instead of having to constantly deal with his drops and being unable to attack. This would also mean that if an SM player cashes out the free heal and redeploy for deathwatch, it would be at the cost of an orbital relay. Alternatively they summon it for free at a resource node.
While this change would be a major nerf to SM, I also guarantee it would be completely fair and even doubt people would stop using Deathwatch since they are still a strong elite. However Deathwatch presence is way too strong for a 2 point elite. Remember, it effectively doubles the number of drops an SM player can utilise!
Please consider this Relic, received I`ve had to take a break from the game because I am tired of losing games because of this overpowered ability that makes objectives impossible to defend, especially against triple SM teams in 3v3, making every game a base race with no skill involved whatsoever.
Thanks
Lude
Note: this is particularly a problem in 3v3. Imagine the problem I described above, but with 3 SM players on one team . 9 dreads and 9 elites on a core, that is game over, no matter how strong your army is.
I also remind everyone that it is effectively impossible to prevent any team from getting vision of anywhere they like on the map. You may spread workers, and kill scouts, but a clump of squads of assault Marines with health upgrades jumping in to your base isn't stoppable by anything. And this can be tried over and over again... Drops simply have to be limited, for them ever to be counter able.
Lude
Also, the fact that elites can only be dropped around the deathwatch is irrelevant, because the deathwatch can be redeployed anywhere, meaning effectively elites can be deployed anywhere.
InVerno
This this and this
when i say that SM are op as ++heresy redacted++ they always tell me "you have to hit and run"
Yes, hit and run while they deploy from the sky all that op-ery, stunning all my army and melting it with flamers
I also take a break cause keeping playing vs 3 space marine is no fun, (scout spam, flamers, ecc)
They also have the best AA and CC in the game
Lude
Indeed, I think that making this change to deathwatch as well as already announced would actually bring SM in to line with other races , excluding the lack of cc of other races which requires buffs, not nerfs.
S4ngetsu
Yeah there was no thread yet but there are several comments about Killteam beeing too strong with reasons. Might be easier for Relic to gather all this stuff with a single thread tho gj.
Anyway i don't like your solution. They would still be broken.
The ability to drop elite around them after Killteam is deployed should be completely removed.
Reason:
GuruSkippy
@S4ngetsu
well, to be honest, I don't disagree with you, but totally removing the doctrine might be, juuuuust a little bit, too extreme, don't you think ?
Stoner
Spirit
I agree that dropping kill team anywhere you want and relocating afterwards is to strong also that you can drop all your other elites next to them is to powerfull. But it is just as stoner said, at the current state of the game it is what sm need to stay in the game. Orks with their super strong waaaghh would steamroll you even more without it.
I think this needs to be adressed, i would like to see them adressing it in the august patch but i dont think it will happen, most likely 1 patch later. At the moment my main problem playing this game is orks, its just super frustrating to play on a ork lane and get steamrolled by 50% party buff over and over by weirdboy, auto target nades and later on squig spam or killa kans, i dont enjoy any game i play vs orks and im not even happy when i won cause it was just exhausting ( but the same can be said to play vs sm i guess, its not that i dont have hard times to deal with elite drops and unit drops on my objectives ).
I think what could also help would be not to remove their ability to drop heros wherever you want but to add some kind of ressource spending to drop in elites and units by drop pods. Every other race needs to spend ressources to use their unique ability except sm. Its not like orks can build ork towers for free to use waaghh or that eldar can build gates for free to use swift movement, sm can use pods whenever they want for free.
@Bigamo its very noble of you to say you dont want to play with the kill team cause its to op in your eyes, but i see hard times if you play teamgames vs all early elites, they are just to strong to skip them whats especially hard is is if you play vs other sms and they can drop in heros on their kill team but you cannot cause you skip the kill team, its a draw back for you and your team then. All 2 point elites have a heavy impact to the early game. I also played a long time without the kill team, but my team basically always had harder times due to that if the enemy team all had 2 point elites.
I can understand eldar players and sm players crying about sm but i cannot understand if an ork player does whos abusing his race hard. Ork is by no doubt the most powerfull race atm noone can say to have a 50% damage buff + to be faster than eldar and steamroll everything with minimum micro usage is ok, and start to cry about sm drops i saw this happen alot and i can only shake my head if i see an ork player spamming killa kans, wiping squads with the weirdboy left and right, shootas with auto nades or squigs talking bad about sm drops and to blame the players.
Lude
And playing Eldar is the most frustrating experience of all, because even though the race could be called balanced in many ways, both other races are not. I find SM more frustrating to deal with though as Eldar, because against Orks, if you survive the first 10 minutes of BS on an equal footing your chances of winning go up significantly, whereas against SM they go down because sooner or later his army will appear in your base and there is nothing that can be done about it.
And, fortunately, Orks are being nerfed in a fair and balanced way, hopefully so will SM in time.
Spirit
I agree with you, i hope too that they will change the drop mechanics of sm. Im happy to see that they nerf orks now. I understand what you mean i played eldar a long time and got frustrated by the flamer and backdoor. Also as sm i find backdoor hard to deal with its not impossible but can be very hard. At the moment there is just not much you can do as sm if an ork is in turtle mode and raping you with waaaghh or another sm doing backdoor too, its how sm work and how they are being played now.
Lude
Spirit, what do you think of the solution of making deathwatch and elite drops require an orbital relay?
Some sort of resource cost for drops could be fair, something like 100 requisition, 15 power on top of regular unit cost, however since drop pods are a temporary power spike I personally would find them much more easy to deal with if at least the number of drops an SM player could use was limited and consistent so at least there is some counter play.
I think if SM had to rely less on drops for both offense and defense and more on unit upgrades, then they will have same resource costs as the other factions to remain competitive.
Spirit
Yeah to use drops should cost some ressources so its something really to think about to use, now you dont really need to think about it as you can use them for free.
Lude
One weakness of SM I do think should be addressed is that they don't really have a WMD endgame unit like Kanz and Prisms. While the orbital makes up for this in part, I think some kind of change to the Predator Annihilator so it has more alpha damage or range from its las cannons would help, so they have some way to snipe vehicles from range like Orks and Eldar do. This will also help compensate the Las cannon nerf
Lude
Alternatively some extra frontal armor so they can be used to block the advance of a Prism or Kan army for a time. Even a doctrine that gives temporary invulnerability to the frontal armor could serve this purpose, allowing SMs to fight Kanz and Prisms without backdoor
kodarus
I would be happier if you couldnt nuke the shield gen with the drop pod
Spirit
They will adress this in the next patch, pods wont do damage anymore against buildings and objectives.
Sm tanks are not bad in general, but relatively slow moving. The range is limted and if the enemy army is having kans or prisms you cannot really fight them in the long run.
Also las spam is hard to deal with if you got tanks or tank bustas with their squigs but this will be kind of adressed in the next patch too.
SykA
How about this then?
In order for SM to use drop pods abd bannner they have to build an Orbital Relay. To get it in line with the Eldar and Ork faction trait buildings, it must cost power and drop pods can ONLY be dropped near captured resource nodes and in an area around the Relay. In doing so you'll be able to deny SM their faction traits by destroying the Relay just like the Eldar and Orks can be denied fof and waaagh by destroting the wwg and ork towers respectively.
Spirit
Sounds not bad.
vindicarex
My 3v3 team of Eldar/SM/Ork played vs Jin's 3v3 SMx3 in tourney finals and managed to overcome backdoor play 3-1. With more map awareness it can be pretty easy to counter and win (like scouting servitors in cloak-zones).
In 1v1 it's even easier to counter imo.
Drop Pods are good no doubt, but I don't think re-working their mechanics is a good idea yet. The 3-man Elite drop pod attack sounds more like a cheesy all-in rather than an OP strategy.
Maybe just changes to DW.
Spirit
Yeah but those games wwere no power core mode games, so no objectives at all. I agree it can be countered no doubt. But many players suffer due to it, cry, lose and rage.
Lude
Personally I think the issue with Deathwatch Presence is not just about backdoor but about the extra drops it gives to an SM player for any purpose. It's really frustrating to deal with almost every unit of your opponent's dropping on to your face repeatedly, with no cost. The mechanic itself is kind of fine, but SM simply have too many drops available to them with Deathwatch Presence. Elite drops just need to consume an orbital relay, so an SM player actually needs to think before dropping their elite units in to battle.
The 6 unit elite+dread backdoor is a cheese but for triple SM is way too strong during the mid game when endgame armies that can wipe all units quickly aren't on the field, it's super easy to do and just too hard to deal with for the other factions, for something that is impossible to prevent, short of completely crushing your opponent in the early game. This happens in high level 3v3 power core games as well.
And, again, the utility from Deathwatch Presence is just too great for just a 2 point elite that is very strong without it.
vindicarex
The building sounds interesting to help balance the scaling problem @Lude , but I'm not sure Relic wants to change their mechanic so much. At least not this time.
Lude
My suggestion is that they consume one of the drop pods (orbital relays) that they can use to drop lineunits to drop their elite units with Deathwatch presence. I too think tying drops to a building is too far...
Anyway, I also argue that while an all in backdoor can be dealt with, there is no
counterfor it, because there's so much variety to elites that there is no straightforward way to anticipate and prevent the strat from working. And of course the other factions have to walk in to their opponent's base, so doing it to the opponent is not an option for them .I`ve heard a bit about players spamming production buildings in the late game around the core to prevent people dropping on it, but this is more evidence that the mechanic needs looking at .
Spirit
Hmm scorpions and stormboys can kill alot too especially buffed up stormboys.
Stoner
And you can't tie them up forever with Bonesinger or Bannered Servitor...
On topic, to think more about it, yeah, Deathwatch Presence doctrine makes them a bit too good. Even if they were trash, it would still be good ability to pick them up for. Some tweaks won't hurt, and I honestly got sick and tired of picking DW in every single match and fighting against them at the same rate...
SykA
@vindicarex How would you change the drop pods to get them in line with the Eldar and Ork faction unique traits? And by this I mean making the pods cost power and be deniable to the sm player.