SM advice for DOW II returnee

[Reg9678]

Hi guys,

I used to play DOW II quite alot, especially 2v2 with my bro. Especially in vanilla, but also retribution we were quite good and reached a ranking on the ladder which was around 50. Once Relic stopped the official support, we stopped playing. Now with Elite we came back, but many things changed since back then.

Getting in to Elite is quite hard honestly because of the good ol' problem online gaming has in general(and ofcourse one has to train microing again): In one game, you absolutely roflstomp your foe. The next game the enemy is maybe slightly more skilled than your mate and you, more or less dominates the first engagements and that can pretty much be it in DOW II. To conclude: It's not too easy to practise because a game is often a lot too easy or way too hard depending on your opponents. So I thought coming a bit closer with the theory could possibly a solution for closing this "gap". Please note that most of my problems are in T1.

So first question: Which SM hero is in general the best choice? I know there rarely is a "best" way to do stuff in games, but often there is "more favoured" approach. My first pick was the Apo because I very much like the idea of keeping your expensive SM units alive and helping them to stay in the field with his passive heals. Also I'm a fan of the purification rites, which allow cool squad wipes and also to sustain especially your ASM much longer in melee. In practice, skilled enemies made this barely possible because the easiest way to deal with the Apo is plain ranged focus with always the same result: He gets killed quickly or is too far away for supporting ASM in an offensive role(for example when ASM counter a HWT). Also if you're keeping your units just outside the range of his healing ability it is kinda buggy. I also don't like that for making the most out of him, you basically have to blob and get his best armor with the advanced heal.

Second the FC. He didn't change at all to be honest and he's still good at kicking xeno ass. The problem I have with him in T1 is the fact that he is a)quickly killed by ranged focus fire or b)kited to death. Last but not least I'm not too sure how to protect my army from melee units with him in T1, because he's lacking any targeted or triggered knockback (like a shotgun blast or knockback heal from Apo) and his DPS won't chase off enemies fast enough. To be honest, most of these problems vanish in T2, but my biggest struggle is in T1.

I used the Techmarine only in few matches, but so far I think he's good. A targeted suppression and/or his bionics (getting both is pretty expensive) are great tools for making fights with ranged and melee blobs a lot easier. His turret is very nice for either protecting your gen farms or being nasty and locking your enemy down early on. Also cool as a fallback point for a HWT of your own. Not so sure which wargear is best for him later on.

To keep this post short, I will keep my last question more unspecific: What are generally viable build orders for SM in T1 or T2? Not to say I don't have any plan, I just want to see what you've got to say regarding that topic because the meta changed a lot it seems.

I'm no native speaker so please excuse me if my post is hard to read.

Looking forward for your help.

[Paranoid Kamikaze]

Play whatever hero you want to play. They're all have their own ways of dealing with things. When you play try to focus of making the correct counters, using your abilities in ways that would bring the most use and making sure your positioning is correct. Your micro will slowly return as you play so you don't have to do any specific training unless you want to.

If your enemy makes a dev, what do you do? If your enemy makes a jump unit, what do you do? If your opponent makes a positional error how can you best exploit it? What wargear is best for your hero in whatever situation he's in? Try to think of these things before battle and implement them when you play to see if your strategy worked. Make changes and improve from there.

Some general SM advice:

- Scout with Scouts and move your army accordingly
- Tacs cap faster, but cap at a regular speed if another unit is capping the same point. Make sure to yell at your teammates if they double cap your points
- Apo needs to be behind his units to not be focused
- FC can use Battlecry when an enemy melee squad is in melee to get automatic hits on them
- Attack power early game and req late game
- Don't leave any openings to your power farm
- Lead with a ranged unit when encountering ranged and lead with a melee unit when engaging melee
- Watch your own replays. Identify mistakes and dead time you could have better spent doing something more useful
- If your unit isn't countering an enemy unit or being used for another purpose it's being useless

Normal build order is -Tac - Scout - Dev/ASM + whatever upgrades you want. Node after second Scout and gens after Devs/ASM's come out

[egewithin]

1-) Apo is prorobly the weakest SM hero curently. All he does is to keep your army alive, while FC and TM an awsome part of your army. Apo is like a snowball rolling down on a mountain. It takes a while for him to pay off. The more marines you have, the more it pays off. I also agree that Apo is awsome, but at equal skilled opponents, Apo tends to loose at most of match ups. For starting, stick with TM and FC.

2-) FC focus fire is not something special. Everyone focus fires a dangerous melee hero. Kiting is not a big deal. Maybe you can't attack them, but also they can't while kiting. Your plan should be like 1-) force off any melee danger with focus fire 2-) fuck rest of army with FC and marine chase. And if you really want to chase something, get Alacrity or whatever it is called armor.

[Nurland]

Apo is probably the overall weakest SM hero. TM and FC are both generally better imo. I find FC to be the easiest to play.

When it comes to builds I suppose in team games either scout, tac, asm or scout, tac, asm, dev are the most common ones.

You can do 2 scout, tac devs or just single scout, tac, 1 or 2 devs as well. Lots of viable builds but I prefer the asm builds generally.

T2 you get whatever. Usually you want to go either Lib or Dread but whirlwinds can be super obnoxious in team games. Pdevs are a great req dump.

[Antandron]

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[Nurland]

Pdevs are a good way of spending extra requisition in team games

[Oddnerd]

Pdevs are a great req dump.

I do not understand what you mean by this.

A SM who avoids unnecessary bleed in T1 will often find himself with an excess of req compared to power in T2. pDevs are a great way to spend excess req without spending your limited power, because they are a fairly mindless anti-all damage unit with amazing range.

[Paranoid Kamikaze]

Pdevs are a great req dump.

I do not understand what you mean by this.

A SM who avoids unnecessary bleed in T1 will often find himself with an excess of req compared to power in T2. pDevs are a great way to spend excess req without spending your limited power, because they are a fairly mindless anti-all damage unit with amazing range.

They're not mindless, but a lot of people use them like that nowadays. Back when this game was more popular and I had a really high APM I was capable of controlling it to the point that it was essentially a mobile endless grenade. I would control it with Viel of Time and that other teleporting one and just attack ground each attack individually while microing the rest of my army in 2 other places. I could even knock back armies with the Libby moving barrier thing and time Pdev shots and Orbital Bombardments at the end. Back when I was taking this game more seriously

[Oddnerd]

I don't doubt that you can do some high-level plays with them, it's just that a brain is not essential to use them effectively.

[Paranoid Kamikaze]

I don't doubt that you can do some high-level plays with them, it's just that a brain is not essential to use them effectively.

True dat

[Reg9678]

Hi guys,

thank you for all your replies. It's a shame that the Apo is the weakest SM hero by now. I very much liked him back in the days after the "There is only war" content patch, where dope purification rites timing was one of your best chances to overcome the beastly Nids. You know where you could buy Ripper Swarms in T1 and counter every ranged unit.

I have been playing with the TM for some games and I think he's really fun. As I said,I'm not to sure about his wargear. The MCB doesn't seem to be worth the 30 power in most cases. The bionics seem nice and the artificer armor also. But is it really worth it to get one of those and then switch to Signum in T2? Also I'm not sure if a weapon upgrade is worth it against races without a lot of heavy armor.

Also: Are turrets worth it? I used them with good effect in some matches (especially top in Calderis 2v2), but in some cases they were just wasted energy. I like that they force your enemy to make an investment for effectively countering them (for example jump troops), but once your turret is gone, so is your advantage. So what do you think about them?

Edit: My T2 question was revolving around the fact, that I often have the impression that I either get to few units or upgrades in T2 or too many. A dread is nice, but a tank will still be a problem.

Also wondering how to counter Scout sniper spam. Razorback with scout sergeant can work, but is easily countered though

[egewithin]

1-) MCB is worth for 30 power. Amazing vs Orks, nids and Eldar. It takes out models one by one, sinking enemys economy. Specially effective against Eldar since they are kind of expensive to reinforce.

2-) About Signum switch. It really depends on what are you facing with. I would switch to Signum to deal with a very problemetic unit to focus fire the shit out of it IF my current armor doesn't give me very necessery benefits. I would switch from artificer to signum but from bionics to signum should be questioned. Why did I get bionics in the first place and am I going to miss them if I switch?

3-) About turrets. It really depends on how you use them. For examle; 3v3 Calderis map. I would go for a really quick turret to shut down any contested power point and defend that point with everything I got. Worth it. Or to protect my power farm from any power bash in a 1v1. Worth it. You spend 30 power so you can save your self from wasting 450+ req on gens again. It really depends on how you use them.

[Reg9678]

Hey guys,

I'm returning to you with some more questions which came up while gaining some additional Elite experience over the last weeks. Special thanks to egewithin btw for the detailed answers.

1. Assault Marines

ASM are one of my favorite SM units considering their role etc. But I've asked myself in many cases if they've been worth their hefty cost: While they're certainly an nice unit, their expensive bleed caused me some resource problems, especially once T2 hits. So I'd like to hear some of your opinions towards them. Sure, ASM are a nice go to unit against enemy suppression but against good players there are so many drawbacks and the cost for jumping right into the enemy forces is way too high. Example: Banshees standing next to weapon team(outside the knockback range of the ASM) who will straigthly descend upon the ASM and quickly forcing them off while the weapon team simply has to run away for some seconds. I think there are cheaper ways to counter suppression and especialy as a FC with teleporter and TH in T2, you have the perfect shock unit without bleed and therefore really a lot less need for ASM.

2. Heretic Grenade Launchers

Ok this one might appear like a total noob question but I'm gonna ask anyways: If you're Chaos opponent isn't totally stupid, has 1 or 2 CSM, 1 Havoc, Chaos Lord and 2 tics with GL, how exactly do you counter this? I usually goes like this: The Chaos Lord charges your army and forces at least one of your squads to be constantly moving while the tics force the other squads to move with their CC ability and GL autoattack. The Havoc can quite comfortably move into position, as it's barely sufficient to let ASM jump into them(2 CSM await). When you try to bind the tics in melee, they will usually just soft retreat while your advancing forces while be either supressed or shreeded by double CSM. So what am I supposed to do here?

3. Stormboys

Last question for now: So against the Orc standard double Shoota, a nice option in my opinion is to get a setup team. But how to counter Stormboys? Double suppresion teams? Double Scout shotgun? Or setup team + a more defensive ASM?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

[Paranoid Kamikaze]

1) Jump Shuri - shift right click ASM's to attack Banshees - FC goes after Shuri (but don't go through Banshees or they'll supress) - Focus Shees with Tacs and Scouts - ASM's and Shees will probably both retreat (Take your ASM's out before any model losses. Shees are guaranteed to have some so you come out on top but your unit is more expensive so it's kinda even) - Fight Guardians + Commander

2) Snipers in T1. In T2 you shouldn't have a problem as there's tons of artillery. If he has 2 GL Tics he has no melee btw. ASM's would wreck him, which is why they usually have one Tic with champ on for protection. Oh, and get Vengeance Rounds. It's good against the CL and hitting Tics when they're just slightly out of your range

3) Setup team against Orks is required. If you don't all they have to do is make a Painboy and you automatically lose the game. Couple of way for going about this:

- Set up your Dev at the back of your army and move it back to your base (without retreat) when jumped and then just ignore the Stormboys as they'll be forced to chase them, which they suck at

- Put them at the front, bait the jump, and then hope to trade

- Double Dev for a more expensive hard counter

- FC specific strategy is keeping your commander slightly behind Devs and using Battle Cry when they land to get free hits (with your disruption) while having your Dev run off to resetup in safety. Apo can heal and TM can use Bionic Sweep

[Black Relic]

Personally i found that a SM player's scout play makes and breaks games. 2 scouts with shotguns gives 2 instances of on demand suppression and knockback. However they are easily focus fired as you know.

And option but somewhat hard to pull off is having an infiltrated scout with shotguns away from detection to go around and either melee the set up of just knock it back with the shotguns. Then you are free to use the ASM in a different way than countering a set up. Grant it only works if everything goes well. But having a surprise knockback and suppression might just be what you need to keeping the Apo in the fight and/or get an ASM heal.

FC is my favorite hero. Kiting him is normal. If you want, investing in AoA is a good choice since he can use the sprint to flank or catch up to enemy squads making kiting harder. The Armor would also help passively with is 0.5 speed increase. Although you OP out for being more tanky with Artificer Armor and can't teleport and battle cry with thunder hammer until level 6 or 7 i think.

[Rostam]

Apo v inquisitor 1v1
good to go for 1-1-1 build : scout sarge(for inquiz infiltrate armor detect)+tacs+devs+asm
storm bolter is good - in t2 dread and pdev if u have extra requisition,also if u wanna go tanks in t3 care, better to go for termis and in case of lemans going for a 2nd dev with las (keeping the other for supression mb with advanced targeting) also missile tacs are gonna be good (despite being expensive is a bad option in t2) vanguard also single handedly take care of ss and cats