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My Eldar army review
MrBenis
So as some of you have seen from my replays I am not the greatest player, I don't play ranked (due to no interest) however I have had plenty of hard fought matches in custom battle from 1v1 to 3v3. Since I primarily play Eldar I thought that post-patch with their new balance dropping and about 100 hours or so invested in the game thus far I'd do a play by play review of Eldar. I do play the other races and I have a 100% win rate with SM however I don't post those replays mainly because I forget to save them, I stopped playing SM a while ago. I don't play much with orks and need to practice with them more.
My style with Eldar is to be as aggressive as I can trading units early and bleeding models where necessary.
I'm gonna start with basic units and move on to Elites last because it's important to discuss their synergy with a few basic concepts already in place.
Bonesinger: Can build a shield which is expensive, otherwise standard builder. The nerf to their teleport was probably unnecessary. Starting on a cooldown is enough.
Dire avengers: still very poor ability to trade with enemies. The idea that they have a tiny range advantage, no notable damage advantage, no notable speed advantage (except when under FOF) and no FOTM means you engage and then retreat straight away because your guns overheating mean there's no point in staying in a fight. The strategy of dire avengers is one of retreat, but what do you do when you run out of ground to lose? Their low damage makes killing melee squads hard leading ranged enemy troops to just run in to melee with them and kill them in melee because they don't have enough speed to escape. Especially weak vs orks, Dire Avengers are functionally useless and every eldar player I've seen rushes for banshees and dark reapers because these two units actually are good/better. Dire avengers are overcosted at 330rq and should be cheaper or made more damaging in some capacity. They are literally the worst unit in the game. It is possible to band-aid some of their deficiencies with doctrines like +10% shield or stronger grenades however other races don't need these kind of band-aids to make their most basic unit function in the game. For orks and SM doctrines outright improve their t0 fighters in some capacity and change or add new functionality like tireless/slowdeath or Ork thumpfromdasky, Eldar need doctrines just to make DA's viable at all.
contd
Comments
MrBenis
Banshees: One of my least used units. These are slow and and very vulnerable to being suppressed. People say to use them with stealth ignoring how you need a doctrine to enable this and this still won't let them assault heavy cover positions because if a detector is present they will be spotted and shot. They are not fast enough to chase down units in open ground and they are too expensive to trade with boyz and unable to pin down assault marines. Banshee shout only lasts a tiny amount of time and you cannot toggle when it is cast leading to banshees wasting a shout on an enemy that is no threat and then being unable to shout when a counterattack is mounted. Contrast with boyz who are significantly cheaper and can reinforce on field for free or ASM who can always leap in/out/inside combat to either force the engagement or escape at whim. Banshees also get doctrines that only barely make them functional, including having a scream that actually does something rather than a slow (which is pointless because melee units already slow things they attack by default) but that silence period is so short it isn't really effective enough to hold down a unit from using a toggle. Their other doctrines include a stealth doctrine (which requires a hero to be DEPLOYED) or one where they gain some temporary shield after 6 kills. Again these are bandaid doctrines because banshees cannot leap or stun or knockback, they require a doctrine to let them further injure a squad they have already caught. They require a doctrine just to give them the staying power in a fight they're already obviously winning if a single squad manages to kill 6 models and not die completely in the process. Banshees are not actually a good unit for their cost but they're better than Dire Avengers so props where it is due. Banshee scream MUST be modified to taunt, it MUST blind by default and they MUST have the capacity for true damage after an upgrade. If powersword ASMs get truedamage then powersword banshees should get it too.
Dark Reapers: The only actually good infantry unit that Eldar have. They have long range and AOE true damage which makes them effective at killing blobs and passable at killing enemy vehicles (though pretty weak at only 32 dps). This unit is let down by a long setup/teardown time that other races either can ignore completely or have other mitigating strategies to defend against. At 440 rq and no power they're also one of the more spammable units in phase 2+ which means they're able to completely replace Dire Avengers. In terms of doctrines they don't get bandaids but they do get relatively useless ones like a temporary attackable beacon they can teleport back to or extra vision radius in heavy cover/stealth cover. This is not a range extension for their guns, it's an increase in vision radius for that singular unit. Because clever people use HWTs as scouts, or something. Dark Reapers only make the grade thanks to their excellent late game spammability and true damage, if not for these two factors their very low speed, overly long teardown/setups and lack of any crowd control would mean they weren't worth taking.
Rangers: the ultimate ++heresy redacted++-trap. As a tier 1.5 unit that requires an unlock just to build and then 330/20 for every squad thereafter rangers are one of the worst units in the game. Compared with scout snipers they are less spammable and have lower utility during normal play. Once again this is a unit that suffers from being too slow to outrun any danger, they rely completely on stealth and high-ground for protection. Rangers are an ASM magnet and are very hard to earn their money back with. The enduring fears of ranger spam are equally ridiculous. Requiring doctrines to function, rangers can teleport to cover, gain extra vision in cover and/or gain the ability to shoot with increase ROF at a singular target. Rangers aren't actually bad per se, they're just extremely unwieldy and it's very hard to get the proper mileage from them because they have low damage and no utility outside of scouting or picking off weakened units.
Shadow Spectres: After their recent buffs these units are finally in a place where they are worth building 1 or 2 squads for a push in to an enemy base. Still suffering from their enduring problems of being squishy, low range low damage and being too expensive, this is another t1.5 unit that Relic themselves publicly acknowledged were being built very rarely and this was not ideal for a unit that is meant to be a contributing AT team. Their problems I could write a whole post dedicated to but suffice to say its the same as the fire prism, Relic think that being able to float makes them worth their asking price and ignore that having a super low ROF and very predictable play style drops their worth. They MUST be front load alpha damage to be worth taking during regular skirmishing. They are simply too weak and too easily kited thanks to needing to be micro'd while they apply damage or else they lose lock. They wind up to shoot, their dps grinder guns don't even do that much damage when factored against the alpha of tankbustas. They have zero utility natively and zero utility doctrines that make them perform more roles to justify their cost. They can't hurt heavy armour heroes properly, too slow and I'm gonna stop here. At least they can grind structures I guess, they aren't good at anything else.
Whooo boy that was a lot of typing! Now we move on to t2 units. Yippee!
MrBenis
Falcon: Another ++heresy redacted++-trap. The falcon is great for butchering squads of units that can't fight back, unfortunately by the time you are able to field one of these bad boys the enemy has undoubtedly built their counter unit. Unlike other t2 tanks the falcon is especially susceptible to their counters and die very quickly, they're too slow to work with the hit&run concept of the army and pathing despite being improved with the Jun27th patch is still a bit wonky. The Falcon is another unit suffering from pre-nerfing, requiring doctrines to be competitive with other t2 units/natural counters. A falcon speed doctrine or falcon bubble doctrine both of which improve their battlefield performance that should have just been standard for the unit, the falcon doesn't trade well with any heavy armoured unit and cannot kill HWT AT fast enough to not get killed itself. Essentially only useful to deploy once a fight is already underway, falcons are a ++heresy redacted++ trap because you think they're a tank but really they're only a mediocre APC with a huge price tag and low HP, such low HP they're actually a detriment to the troops they carry because they are not that much faster than their cargo and if the falcon dies at least 1 carried squad is killed outright. The falcon was better represented in previous DOW titles, I have nothing left to add. Just build vypers or save that power for t3.
Vyper: my favourite (read: only useable) Eldar vehicle. The vyper has true damage, slows on hit with a doctrine, slowbombs and is natively very fast and a great harassment tool for killing enemy tanks/peppering heroes. The vyper has seen the most gains from skimmer pathfinding improvements meaning they won't move themselves out of position or waste time doing donuts instead of shooting. I feel like the vyper is in a really good spot right now and maybe a tiny dps buff to its regular nose mounted gun would be perfect.
Wraithguard: this is an absolute must-buy for any eldar army. They have several interesting doctrines that can boost their performance over a number of situations and they come with an appropriate limitation to unFOF'd speed and a windup that is actually fair (alpha damage). Their relative weakness in melee and not huge HP makes them very balanced in my opinion, they get outranged by other AT squads whom are their natural counters, thus requiring synergy with other troops to not be swamped or killed by enemy AT. Wraithguard are perhaps the best balanced unit in the eldar army besides vypers. They trade appropriately well with their natural targets and can take a number of modifiers to improve their overall performance without bandaids.
Well that was easy. T2 Eldar is actually generally OK apart from Falcons being trash. On to tier 3!
Wraithblades: these should be a t2 unit. T3 upgrade to hp/damage that puts them where they are now. It's absolutely crazy to wait until t3 for only a mediocre melee heavy troop meanwhile all other races get dreadnoughts and tanks to help them push. They are improved with the Jun27 patch but still hard to justify because they come too late and don't "do enough" for their cost. They need to taunt by default and be much faster in T3.
Fireprism: I know I said that DireAvengers were the worst unit in the game but that dubious honour actually belongs to the fireprism. At 100/100 this tank would still be overcosted. It's worthless, its doctrines are bugged and are bandaids to patch pre-nerfed baked in weaknesses. Don't ever build this tank unless you like to lose games.
Slow ROF, low HP, low damage, comparatively low range, can't fire over terrain. Another ++heresy redacted++-trap that Relic balanced on the principle of them being able to float which is pointless because anything that can kill it will either have the ability to shoot it down or get on top of it. No utility, no CC, no staying power, barely contributes to a regular fight. Hands down the worst unit in the entire game, worse than even builders in combat.
T3 is nice and brief because our T3 options are garbage. Next we move on to discussing Elites and Eldritch storm.
MrBenis
Eldritch storm first: not worth using until all your heroes are out. I originally thought the conduit would be something that expends all the super on a single point like DOW2 but this was not the case. It should though, just transform in to a nuke. I avoid using this super because it's much weaker and generally just a waste of time compared to other racial supers.
Striking scorpions: another overnerfed unit. Removing their truedamage was absolutely necessarry, the other nerfs were not. Now useful for detecting stealthed units and maybe a bit of HWT harassment, they are a low performance unit that gets outplayed by Stormboyz and Killteam. Scorpions die extremely fast in t2+ and scale poorly compared to other 2pt elites. They will be one of the most controversial units to balance because plebs will cry wolf about how they were at release. They can't CC effectively thanks to super long cooldown on their pounce, their stealth is negatable and wears off if they attack, they have low damage and low hp. I forsee this unit never getting fixed because Relic don't know what to do with them.
Macha: Hands down our best elite for cost. Not much to address here, she's pretty much perfect for a 3pt elite.
Ronahn: another pre-nerfed character. Slow, low hp, low ROF, low utility. Very rare to see this unit on the battlefield. Even rarer to see him earn his pay. Relic wasted their time on this character, back to the drawing board please. Increase ROF, increase damage, increase movement speed, toggled stealth and some sort of marking ability required to make him worthwhile. He has zero synergy with units that aren't rangers. Perhaps one small advantage he offers is a reasonably high damage toggled Q that can hurt vehicles and structures quite a lot. Useful at least for long term harassment of base structures and the odd lucky shot against a vehicle.
MrBenis
Jain Zar: A great 4 pt unit that when used by an expert is extremely damaging and hard to tie down. Loses value quickly in T2.5+ thanks to prevalence of heavy armour units and stunlocking. I don't propose to offer any critical feedback on Jain Zar because she is a great all-rounder and very punishing in skilled hands.
Autarch Kyre: Recently nerfed, intended synergy with him is wraithknight for its portal power to keep units sucked underneath him while he grenade attacks. Actually a decent melee unit I have used him to kill dreadnoughts before and having faster spectres or 2x DA grenades never hurts. Over all I feel he might be a bit weak now but that's only because he was such a gimmick character before.
Warpspiders: commonly thought of as one of the best elites for eldar, they certainly are very strong but I found them to be tempermental and that they didn't add much with a worthless FP doctrine and their vyper doctrine actively damaging vyper performance. As a result I don't take them anymore because they don't synergize with my play style. In terms of raw stats though they seem fine and aren't overbearing in any combat situation.
Wraithlord: Another pre-nerfed hero. Barely able to function without FOF. Saving grace is a charge attack that murders infantry and Heavy damage allowing him to kill enemy heavy troops/vehicles/structures quite quickly. His shield power is useful but situatioal, I wish it was larger but it's intended to be used with wraithblades which is a problem for other reasons. Wraithlord doctrines aren't very useful, there is no reason to use a wraithlord teleport for wraith units because anywhere the wraithlord can go he might as well have walked there with the wraith units anyway. Improved webways is a valid reason to take this guy but their benefit is fleeting.
Wraithknight: Very strong and versatile unit. A bit too squishy compared to other 9pts. Really not much to say, the wraithknight is very powerful at area denial but not so useful on the attack.
MrBenis
Taldeer: my favourite elite unit. She has CC, great speed, great damage and very versatile range of engagement profiles. Her power level is perfectly placed compared to her performance. Synergises well with macha. Essentially one of the holy trinity of eldar heroes.
Elites are going to be controversial for as long as they're in the game. Situationally they're totally overpowered or extremely weak, this is true for all races but Eldar in particular suffer weak heroes due to no synergy with their own armies. I find Jain Zar especially useful as a support unit for HB Devs thanks to their AOE suppression. I find Kyre to be very useful with Jonah thanks to dungeon of doom. I find Wraithlord to synergize well with Gorgutz because these units can cover each other on the approach.
Eldar army: The conclusion
Unlike the CC heavy factions like orks and SM the Eldar have almost nothing and this amplifies the weaknesses of their units. They cannot tie up enemy squads, they cannot suppress them and they cannot kill them efficiently with straight dps. Eldar are the weakest race in the game and will continue to be so for a long time while higher skill and higher APM players abuse the generous CC abilities of other races for gross advantage. Eldar do not trade units well, they're expensive and expected to fight defensively like Zerg, slowly expanding their sphere of infuence while simultaneously responding to threats on their territory by being faster, which is counter-intuitive in a game where getting resources requires aggression and capturing ground. They cannot assault properly due to weapon cooldowns and setup times and banshees being unable to enter heavy cover efficiently. They cannot defend properly due to having almost zero crowd control and no mechanics to disincentivise engagements under WWP. They cannot tech efficiently due to power bleed on all their structures and "utility" units.
My review of eldar after many 100's of games is this: they're awful.
DonDimon
Said but truth.
Don_Zauser
This thread should have more visibility.
Ace40k
to be honest, i dont think Banshees and Prisms are that bad. YES, compared to other races' options their effectiveness is quite debatable. but Banshees are a solid T1 backbone inf coupled with Webways speed bonus. and Prisms may require HEAVY micromanagement (aka "Prism dance") to keep them alive and away from danger but i wouldnt wanna miss their longrange shot in lategame battles.
i agree nonetheless, it's a shame Eldar is so weak
KanKrusha
I think the following would make Eldar more satIsfying to
play. The emphasis here
Is on fun but I think this will have a good effect on balance.
Give knockdown to banshee improved charge (I think this will help dire avengers through synergy so no change to dire avengers)
Reduce power cost of Rangers
shadow spectres need a rework with burst damage rather than sustained damage. This would make them hit and run and actually give them a point to being skimmers
striking scorpions need really short cool down on pounce
Have webway gates eliminate dark reapers teardown
webway gate can teleport from t1 but webway gate does not regenerate except with doctrine. Can be repaired.
Give vyper much longer range on stun bomb
DonDimon
Dear @Kat_RE , please pass this to the team.We struggle even after the patch. Good SM players are very adept at knowing their strength and some stuff we Eldar just can't counter. How can we answer to Deathwatch Killteam + Banner + drop pod + ASM squad? Only retreat and get our shield gens wrecked.
Diogen84
Crying again)))
MrBenis
You're bad with space marines, we get it.
Don_Zauser
Yesterday I reached the top 100 eldar ladder. (Playing mirrors and vs- orks) Had a surprising +4 win streak
Then I had 2 matches vs SM, all the same build:
1x Tactical
2x scouts with grenades (absolutely OP)
2x ASM
Banner+Droppods+ Flamer Killteam
Can't do nothing to counter this.
I tried everything, but it didn't work. Either I lose the first encounter or I'm forced to retreat losing map control ---> ASM harass my resources ---> I lose the grip and I get smashed in tier 2 by superior tech and resources.
I neither can find any replay that show how to counter this ++heresy redacted++
Diogen84
No, you are bad eldars because you are crying in order to get more eldar buffs.
You shout about scouts and simply can not split your firces. Always run blobs. Sure ALL your forces will be chain stunned.
"Omg it doesn't suck, op, op, nerf, nerf e t c"(c)
DonDimon
Because there is no way of countering this as an Eldar.
Diogen84
Banshee. Reapers. 1 bonesinger tie dw.
A, let me guess it costs a lot(c).
Don_Zauser
Can you post a replay?
DonDimon
This clearly shows that you never even played as Eldar, even if you stated otherwise. Pls don't make us laugh.
Diogen84
Oh I am sorry, really what am i talking about. You are so pro that even can't split your own army.
Praxis
God I miss how Banshees felt in DOW II, the where made of glass but where fast and dps machines.
Don_Zauser
https://www.gamereplays.org/dawnofwar3/replays.php?game=95&show=details&id=322057
Maybe this could be of some inspiration.
Bikerushowns' micro skill is AMAZING
DonDimon
Ranger spam vs DA spam up 10th minute lol. The most boring match I've ever saw or played. Micro is good, yes
tharrival
i agree totally with everthing you satd and to add the eldar units power cost and upgrades cost way to much
Lude
Yes, if you add up the cost of Webway Gates, unlocking units, the Shield Regeneration upgrade, the power cost of their main melee unit (Banshees) and main anti-tank unit (Spectres), their only cloaked unit (Rangers), and their special abilities (Quick Strike) you find to get a lot of the basic utility that the other factions get without power would prevent you from teching up.
MrBenis
A great point especially when considering how things like quickstrike got nerfed quite a lot compared to other abilities remaining static. The post release nerfs to Eldar were so massive and overextended that they killed the race's viability in 1 move.
Eldar aren't uninteresting as an army, instead they're ill-conceived and implemented poorly. I remain convinced that half way through development they realised that eldar were probably too good at hit&run and so they pre-baked in nerfs everywhere to the army with ++heresy redacted++ like WWP speed bonus aura and basic unit upgrades and band-aid doctrines to tone them down. The result? A race which needs to play aggressively to take advantage of burst damage and a lot of ablative shields but can't because they're shackled by WWPs and all their utility upgrades being locked behind timesinks and soulshrine taxes.
Lude
This is exactly right, their globals have been nerfed this way too. The lack of webway relocate in t1 is fair, but even their building to building teleport isn't available until t2 or t3 on webway gates. Fleet of Foot is too short range to be helpful in attack situations in the late game, because webways are so easy to destroy and the pace of the game, where armies get wiped and replaced in the space of 5 minutes. Webway gate FoF radius should be increased every tech level, if it was easy to cover 70-80% of the map by t3 then a lot of eldar balance problems would be alleviated.
Also Shadow Spectres should clearly be available at T2 without upgrade, same with Wraithblades. And Banshees were probably designed to have Quick Strike by default, ASM get jump packs after all
MrBenis
Banshees definitely should have had quickstrike by default, boyz get Shout! and ASM get jump without needing to unlock these abilties.
Relic just have NFI what they are doing when it comes to Eldar balancing in any of the games they've released.
Cataclawy
Writing my frustrations here, hiding from the public masses whom may judge me too much! (scared of that -karma)
Eldar just really feels completely fucked right now, they just are not enjoyable at all to play. Too many things against them, too many con's compared to pro's.
It really feels like Relic has no idea what the ++heresy redacted++ they want to do with this race anymore.
MaxwellsDaemon
Honestly I think such a big part of it is deciding to have a wraith themed t2 and t3.
Sure they an Eldar unit - but on TT they make up a small portion of the roster and represent an antithesis to the Eldar playstyle.
By making them as prominent as they are in DOW3 it completely messes the flavour of the race and they simply play in opposition to the rest of the forces as opposed to synergistically.
Give me units like warp spiders, war walkers, fire dragons in t2 etc in t2. Hopefully when they widen the roster Eldar will play more like Eldar rather than a bunch of wimpy elves running in circles around some slow lumbering pieces of wraithbone.
Lude
I agree, I think Wraith units have a place in this game for sure, but they should both be a T2 upgrade that's valuable because it gives you options early on, rather than intended to be the main composition of any Eldar army. A third building for Eldar vehicles would help them out, maybe one that can build Vypers, War Walkers, and Jetbikes could be available in T2, then Sky Portal could be available in T3 with Falcon and Fire Prism (and Wave serpent?)
For this we can hold out for DoW 4