After a long while I have started playing dow2 again because I saw the release of a new Elite mod balance patch. After the initial WoW i have come to the realization that despite offering many new a option unit and upgrade wise, dow2elite actually has far less playing styles, namely only one.
Every single eccentric strategy or map movement has been nerfed or pretty much removed from the game. First and foremost is snipers and mobility skills. Secondly, due to a nature of forced engagement, the overall threat of gen bashing imbalance is even more present.
From my perspective as an Eldar WSE player dow2elite is bad. My whole gamestyle is removed from the game and the vanilla based unit to unit interactions and expected results are no longer there.
Guardians are far worse then in vanilla. They also scale far worse into tier2 due to lower hp and weaker damage reduction boon.
Banshees are better, but everything around them is better so it does not matter.
Rangers are absolute trash.
Shurikens are worse off due to additions or improved viability of other races flanking and jump options.
And this is just tier1. Come tier2 other races explode with options and dirt cheap upgrades. On the flip side You have to pay an arm and a leg for something that is not really THAT impactful. Lets not forget the over priced and under performing WS who cant really punish bad retreats anymore.
So, to cut this short, I prefer the vanilla dow2 gameplay to that of elite. Elite selectively removed eccentric stuff that made for interesting tempo and movement counters while forcing direct combat, all the while buffing cost efficiency of direct combat units. I dislike this, dow2 is not about combat it is about map control, at least 1v1. And Eldar are terrible.
Unfortunately despite as much as it pains me to say this given you were one of my favorite players to watch, analyze, and build relationships from...Many of these statements are very much false, and quite lackluster in presentitive evidence-relational event playability- not to mention outlook & perspective given what seems to be an obvious game intermission lapse.
This game has beyonst changed since vanilla in offerings for you to play.
-The way in which you go about that of playing 1v1 has changed
-There are new Players
-There are new Maps
-The Commanders have slightly changed (1 has been added)
-The Factions have slightly changed (1 has been introduced)
The 2 Most Critical Elements
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*Build order and how we understand build order is always in the works of being changed*
*and finally player understanding is always in the works of being changed*
When I look at these factors, and note the length of the list of matters which I at least tailor to that of, which many would consider to be *Broad* relational changes across the board, I can't help but say that given your leave of absence, and your only just weekly return, that you are making some rather pre-understood judgmental remarks. Some are fine, others quite questionable, while others have already been naturally filtered out which only further amplifies your "Spacial, Time, and Projective Lapse" which is currently taking place of 5 years regarding vanilla, and that of how people play, with that of what thought process given what presentive game aspects, unit opportunities, and abilites, not to mention the directional sense of the game given that of where it stood in corresopndence to facilitative balance changes.
1.)
Every single eccentric strategy or map movement has been nerfed or pretty much removed from the game. First and foremost is snipers and mobility skills. Secondly, due to a nature of forced engagement, the overall threat of gen bashing imbalance is even more present.
-Eccentric play will always be apart of any matter in life regarding the infusion of oneself into to that of what it one's part-takes in that of a craft of doing, however the key to a relationship is not in that of what it is presented as in that of a correspondence to its model but the elements which make up that said model, whatever that may be. Finally, there exist no game where you will not have some balanced relationship amongst capping, engaging, and essentially capping and skirmishing.
2.)
Guardians are far worse then in vanilla. They also scale far worse into tier2 due to lower hp and weaker damage reduction boon.
Banshees are better, but everything around them is better so it does not matter.
Rangers are absolute trash.
Shurikens are worse off due to additions or improved viability of other races flanking and jump options.
-Dire Avengers as Dark Riku has pointed out are actually better. You have the ability to from the beginning of the game, be capable of choosing amongst the utility, warlock, and or for that of say both upgrades where as before you never had such abilities to do so. this means you can create a more so that of accurate build which would situate the relationship vs another faction. While utility is great, sometimes you have plenty of map cover presentation to which perhaps D.P.S would be more so that of important. sometimes buying a ranger squad really wouldn't normally fit into your build order later on in the game so instead of buying one, you can buy a warlock and immediately have in game detection. If I really need to stay in a skirmish yet still apply some well- effectiev damage layout perhaps I should take both upgrades to enable them to be completely upgraded earlier so as to present them as my main support-ranged-opportunistic-skirmish force going into T2 with a relatively well-standing foundation. As for Rangers and Shuriken Catapults. The true skill of a player at least to me comes to showcase itself that of how you would choose to go about that of utilizing these units to augment the rest of the units in your force build order to which they are very far from bad.
3.)
and this is just tier1. Come tier2 other races explode with options and dirt cheap upgrades. On the flip side You have to pay an arm and a leg for something that is not really THAT impactful. Lets not forget the over priced and under performing WS who cant really punish bad retreats anymore.
So, to cut this short, I prefer the vanilla dow2 gameplay to that of elite. Elite selectively removed eccentric stuff that made for interesting tempo and movement counters while forcing direct combat, all the while buffing cost efficiency of direct combat units. I dislike this, dow2 is not about combat it is about map control, at least 1v1. And Eldar are terrible.
-Eldar have always been balanced in scale regarding their Synergetic capabilites via the well-standing-capabilites of the player using them. Eldar have so many options in T2 going into T3 that its really quite laughable in comparison (only further enhanced with the bright-lance as an upgrade to the shuriken catapult in T2 in addition to the dark reapers, and fire dragons. ) especially given that of how they can create opportunity more so that effectively than any other faction via unit- combination- playability links which otherwise decimate opposing players unit force builds. The W.S.E has been scaled back indeed and indeed is no longer as "One man army" capable as before meaning that the player will actually need to consider utilizing the warp-spider exarch around their units more so that of often than not ot deal with opposing forces (which I'd argue is a good relationship to build given Eldar work best when they are relatively spread, centralized, yet still uniform) Finally, I play Eldar/SM/& Gk, and many individuals often type into the in-game chat that I play in that of a very similiar way, or more rather "incorporate" that of such a play in my own games. However, I never go so as far as to always be capping, I play to the map, and look to have the resources augment my map capabilities, but never do I look only to resources, because you can cap the map as much as you want but if they can re-cap those resources and the V.P.'s aren't ticking away with that of a reasonable rate, you'll never reach the conclusion you're looking for.
Balance Suggestion Changes
For example:
Banshee upgrade gives additional 20% hit points and 10% damage
Ranger upgrade Increases its fire rate by 100%
WS upgrade makes WS invulnerable for 3 seconds after teleporting
Dire Avenger upgrade gives them 100% faster repair speed and the shields are much stronger
Fire Dragon gives back the 30% ranged damage reduction due to a low range nature of the squad
Reaper squad range increased by 20%
WL upgrade gives it 200 extra hitpoints alongside the heal
WG upgrade gives them 20% ranged damage mitigation as well.
Again, this would all be tier3 upgrades which you would have to pay for to keep the squad relevant as the units are very defined role wise.
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Just to asses some of the suggestions from the list. above..
A.)Giving Banshees an extra 20% health and 10% damage would be rather concerning given their already great supportive opportunistic- flanker- sweep- bounce- finishing capabilities and improving their chase venture capabilities given the increase in health which would otherwise render a retreat earlier may prove vital end-game. Having such staying prowess in addition to the field presence not to mention the set-up Warshout capabilities would make make them quite far extensively capable of being effective in relations to all the other T1 units given their capabilities to wipe in T3 (due to the level gains). While I personally would be happy to see some iteration of a buff in T3, I believe this would place too much over emphasis on the banshees being effectively capable of "staying within high tier engagements with dedicated T3 units" that other T1 units would not be able to have. They may be slightly underextensively melee capable as a (force v force) initiatior however, I would say...anyone whom would ever use their Banshees in such a manner may want to consider to start "searching for new ways in which to incorporate their banshees into the game" because that way of playing is relatively fading out of existence though still exercised in "high level play" (quote on quote)
B.) Increasing the Rangers Squad fire rate in correspondence to that of a scaling level of effectiveness would be fine to me, but by that of a flat out rate of 100%... they would become verging on broken in cost -utility- confrontation-effectiveness regarding their capabilities to pulse-burst-kill volley units trying to acquire req, power, and vp's. during the critical end-game moments. where a 2-3s volley as opposed to a 6-7s volley is much so crucial to be able to re-set the cap given that the model which would otherwise be capping dies from your "under protection from extensive range" Rangers, which would be very difficult to be "suggested to back off." Rate of Fire> Damage if the shot being applied with that of a reasonable rate of fire is still capable of threatening model loss, incurring vast health unit loss, and/or/for say that of setting- up a burst force-set up wipe on that of the said "unsespecting unit".
C.) Dire Avenger upgrade gives them 100% faster repair speed and the shields are much stronger
-Dire Avengers already have considerably decent repair abilities, to which I believe Caeltos even presented a thread to that of looking to alleviate the punishment of A.V. damage applied to Eldar vehicles in the late game by I believe enhancing the mobility? "Don't quote me on this " However, I believe it should always be administered by that of the player that he/and or she properly manages their tanks position/maneuvering/ and presentation to shot/facing/damage prospects so as not to have to undergo many mechanical repairs.
While I may have been under the influence of the WoW and WTF moments in the game when i opened the topic and came off as dismissive, the fact is that i have the utmost respect for what you guys have done here.
The issue at hand is that, when the mod was made, some of the reasons as to why certain extreme things existed were forgotten and evertyhing was streamlined.
By design, Eldar in vanilla were very cost ineffective but had leaders that could scale the squads pretty decently come tier2 to make them semi cost effective in certain situations. The point of tier1 play was to not bleed heavily and the goal of the opponent was to bleed guardians and banshees. To have a proper response to that, strong shurikens and 160 damage rangers existed. However, Eldar gen bashing potential was abysmal so any bleeds that could be made would have been rather a small step towards the opponents power farm. On the flip side, the threat of gen bashing was very existing for eldar all the time because many a squad the opponents had was either very fast and cheap or had the flamer upgrade, or both!
Take the IG matchup for examle. It was always IG favored and 2 years of gameplay proved that. Simply because they could set the temp very early on with the sentinel and start bleeding the Eldar ineffective un upgraded squads. Eldar needed 30 power to get on equal footing early on and IF the IG make catachans you NEEDED Rangers to start bleeding IG properly. So that was another 30 power. Furthermore, you needed them if the opponent made las upgraded stormtroopers to put out counter pressure. Also 1000 hp guardian squads with 333 HP warlocks existed. Bleeding guardsmen is pointless and the sentinel could just repair. It is expected for the IG NOT TO lose the sentinel until late tier 2. Everything else is a miss play.
What do we have now? You are forced to take a second shuriken as your 4th squad. On some maps banshees work and on some they dont. Catachans wreck face now that there is no threat of ranger counter bleed. This all sets the tier1 tempo clearly in IG favor and you all know what happens when players of similar skills have a matchup whos tempo benefits one and not the other. And DoW 2 is about tempo and flow, not about massing and direct combat.
Another matchup that also needs Rangers and very cost effective guardian leaders was the Eldar vs SM. While SM in vanilla was kind of weak at the mid tear of play, in high level tiers the bleeds were none existant and eldar was the one bleeding. The core unit here was the banshee and on some maps the ranger because scouts are better then guardians as a caper. Guardians are stronger but scouts are cheaper and faster and they add to the SM blobb efficiently.
Banshees were stronger in combat vs tacticals and ASMs pre ASM leader KB attack. The goal of the matchup was to strech the SM while bleeding scouts and wait for an opportunity to take out a few models from ASMs and Tacs. This again favors SM now. Their commanders are stronger and Eldar infantry poorly scales into tier2.
I could go over the matchups more but I just want to state my conclusions and suggestions:
Rangers:
- they need to at least be able to one shot: sluggas, shootas, Catachans, Stromtroopers, Guardians, GK starting light squad etc...
- they need to scale into the mid late game
My suggestion would be to either return the old rangers and limit the squad to 1, or to add an upgrade in tier2 that gives the other 2 members rifles, all the while buffing the initial damage to one shot models from the above squads. This would still prevent scout one shots or spam to one shot heavy infantry models.
Banshees:
- they are strong when chasing or in ideal conditions but having said that, they poorly and cost ineffectively scale into tier2. The leader is too expensive for how effective or durable it is.
Personally I would make it so that Eldar exarchs die the last or have significantly more HP. The squads are not cost effective at prolonged fights by design but are effective in ideal conditions
WG and WL:
- they dont scale into tier3 at all. They have an upgrade but its not impactful albeit sometimes useful.
As far as WL goes, miror DaoT, give it a HP boost OR a Ranged damage reduction buff with the Wraithbone upgrade. Same with WG. They can tank better late game when crit mass happens, but the melee counter remains.
Rangers:
- they need to at least be able to one shot: sluggas, shootas, Catachans, Stromtroopers, Guardians, GK starting light squad etc...
- they need to scale into the mid late game
My suggestion would be to either return the old rangers and limit the squad to 1, or to add an upgrade in tier2 that gives the other 2 members rifles, all the while buffing the initial damage to one shot models from the above squads. This would still prevent scout one shots or spam to one shot heavy infantry models.
-As I'm pretty sure many have brought to your attention earlier in the thread, this has already been concluded to be very bad for the purposes of enjoyment when playing the match
Banshees:
- they are strong when chasing or in ideal conditions but having said that, they poorly and cost ineffectively scale into tier2. The leader is too expensive for how effective or durable it is.
Personally I would make it so that Eldar exarchs die the last or have significantly more HP. The squads are not cost effective at prolonged fights by design but are effective in ideal conditions
-Banshees are not supposed to be in prolonged fights, this completely confilicts with their conceptions of, contact melee initiation, accountive unit model health standing, and their sweeping unit wipe capabilities. They are a unit verging on being a glass cannon. Glass cannons usually surge>hit hard> and often wipe units, but otherwise can't stay in the fray for long. in addition, this verging on glass cannon melee unit doesn't have a fine means of entering into melee "head on head". They don't have the health, the armor, nor the models to spear upon losing any trying to run them into combat, because they aren't supposed to. They are shot to pieces and even upon a flank you still have to be conscious so as not to leave them in the scuffle for too long given any units which would otherwise be able to initiate C.C.'s., facilitate one unit hit model losses, and otherwise be faster than them under normal circumstances, stand a great chance of wiping them upon retreat...however, with the proper facilitative support in this case via Ranged D.P.S from the W.S.E. and most notably some mannerism of normal Warpspiders, you are looking to have their DPS effectively attune to act as your extra needed compensation of health for that engagement and then some given their abilities to also well effectively chase given their teleportation capabilities, where as the Warlock and Farseer would help-out via health, buffs, and damge.
An Aside Note:
-Warpspiders aren't supposed to be often performing as the mainstay of your facilitative ranged damage. One whom is trying to use warpspiders primarily for the purposes of Ranged-Filament D.P.S. isn't using their
WG and WL:
- they dont scale into tier3 at all. They have an upgrade but its not impactful albeit sometimes useful.
As far as WL goes, miror DaoT, give it a HP boost OR a Ranged damage reduction buff with the Wraithbone upgrade. Same with WG. They can tank better late game when crit mass happens, but the melee counter remains.
-WG and Wl scale fine into T3 with the WarpspiderExarch, you have a group teleport ability that effectively means that you can practically gen bash, effectively negate the walking distance of the Wraithguard, or more rather gain the flank of your choosing that you would like to come in on at any moment to facilitate a engagement, not to mention the anti-gravity grenade to suspend units in the air to wipe them, I mean really you can set-up just about anything given that is what the Warpspider Exarch does in the late game, in addition to map wide harrasment, and having wide- ranging map contest capabilties. I'd even think the Warpspider Exarch would be one of the best vehicle chasers in the game. You can blink in front a tank or in back of it and impede that vehicle's pathing allowing your Wraithlord to effectiely snipe it from with the brightlance while supporting the chase with the powerblades. Finally, I don;t believe you are appreciating the gravity of the situation as to be able to effectievly heal up a walker out on the field without having to have units come by and repair that vehicle not to mention having the ability to keep the wraithguard out on the field longer without having need to retreat them back to base and walk them back out again, and instead retain one's standing out on the field. These are huge *unique* plays in themselves where through proper unit engagmenet management you can practically keep them both out on the field throughout most of the game given you just don't over extend them.
-In addition, I would definitely disagree with Eldar peeking in T2 given that many of the polishing force build order units come in T3; notably the Fire Prism Cannon, the Seer Council, and notably the D-Cannon (though having Eldritch Storm on stand-by & having been able to find an opportunistic game where it would make sense to field the the Avatar, let alone buy it, let alone be able to bring it out onto the field are rather quite rare)