Buff to Nurgle Worship (again?)

[Torpid]

It's hard to formalise an argument for this but it seems to me that the 3.5hp/s that nurgle worship currently heals vehicles for is largely useless because of how vehicles are single entities (which means the hp/s is only multiplied by one, which is the same thing that would make nurgle worship OP on heretics if it affected them in combat) and the large health of vehicles (very few single entities, except heros perhaps, have 800+ hp like vehicles tend to).

I propose we make it a bit more significant because... I feel it's too weak due to the aforementioned. I would prefer it to heal vehicles 5hp/s, bearing in mind manual repairing of a vehicle grants 10hp/s by all squads but guardsmen.

Furthermore I think it would be really interesting if nurgle worship healed turrets/shrines owned by the player by 5hp/s too. Should be possible since tyranid structures regenerate hp. What would you guys think about that? I think it would play into the defensive strategies of the PC quite deliciously.

[Superhooper01]

Hm im a bit of a nurgle fan boy but i dont think healing turrets etc is right tbh i sometimes wish that it would heal the PC more as he has very low hp re-gen and the nurgle worship does little to keep him on the field. See what ever other people think but im pretty happy with it atm.

[Cheekie Monkie]

I'm just terrified that this'll turn worship/shrine into a late game forward base and repair bunker all rolled into one.

There's always ways of balancing anything, sure, but I actually like the idea of making a tactical decision to either repair or worship instead of a one size fits all ability.

[Torpid]

I feel that was exactly the intention when Caeltos made those changes though Cheekie. I mean, nurgle worship was always most effective as a "forward base" in T1 alongside 2x CSM by allowing them to hold ground vs all sorts. It was criticised as being too weak in the late game and not scaling well enough compared to the other worships. I would agree with such criticisms and agree that it's lack of late-game utility is unwarranted.

That said, I know the elite mod developer's were planning a different route of action, namely to make it quite a bit more offensive and geographically flexible (like a sniper, pop worship in one part of the map, get results, move elsewhere, repeat) by making it tremendously effective with demons and terminators. That's one way of buffing it. Honestly I don't think that's in the spirit of the PC though and would prefer what I proposed here for that reason alone.

[Atlas]

I don't play PC but these changes sound fairly reasonable. I don't like it healing turrets, so maybe only a really slight regeneration on that one in my opinion. I think this problem mostly focused on dreadnoughts and tanks though which I can agree that the nature of the healing aura hurts them when they're the ones that'll really benefit from having heretics nearby.

My own counterpoint to that is why you aren't just repairing them then :/ . Maybe if you were going with a very heavy vehicle setup or something?

[Element]

Hm im a bit of a nurgle fan boy but i dont think healing turrets etc is right tbh i sometimes wish that it would heal the PC more as he has very low hp re-gen and the nurgle worship does little to keep him on the field. See what ever other people think but im pretty happy with it atm

.

I stand on the side of hooper on this one Torpid. Playing the plague champ Alot, I find that pc+cultist repair is more than enough to be able to heal up a vehicle quickly and I also 2ND what Cheeky Monkey pointed out. Making it so that cultist have to choose between healing infantry or vehicles is trademarK for the balance for worship in addition to the healing rates. Any more increases to improve that healing rate will effect the infantry, and that would make what I believe an already very strong worship on the verge of becoming quite O.P. The nurgle predator while not often used is a great vehicle if you really are looking for a tank that heals itself. Both the khorne and Tzeentch dreads when used correctly are both sturdy Units as well, I'd even say to be the sturdiest of all the walkers (imo) from my experiences anyways.. The turret if you repair with pc and a cultsist squad will withstand a T1 immolate as it is now if you start early enough...so yea mate, I understand what you are trying to do with this idea but I don't find myself in approval of it..

[Broodwich]

Nurgle tanks are awesome with worship, they just dont die and with your army backing it up as it soaks damage you totally outlast your opponent, although the gun on it isnt particularly good. By that time I generally have another source of av on the field so nbd

[Dark Riku]

I also don't think it needs that kind of change or any change atm for that matter. Keep in mind that when you worship it's not only healing up that one vehicle but all the others vehicles and infantry from you that are around as well.

If your priorities lie with healing up the tank faster then you can start repairing it with the heretics and/or plague champion.

[Raffa]

The PC can offer a nice supplementary repair but, like with the TM, I don't think that's his best use in combat. And while Nurgle worship does give extra field presence in between fights, it is most useful in those cover-to-cover firefights so common in 2v2 and 3v3.

My opinion, having mained the PC in those modes for quite a while in the past, is that heretics are bullshit for anything except worship and repair. Without exception. Very, very occasionally grenade launchers are useful against IG but that is pretty much it.

In 1v1 the PC, while he can be effective, certainly pales in comparison to the other two heroes. His heretics can be spammed for map control, but even so they have next to no scaling potential. Yes this should be the case for such a cheap unit, to an extent, but retaining some utility into the mid and even late-game seems to be a principle that's been drip-fed into the game, for all T1 units, for a while now.

So on that note, I'd agree with testing the OP's suggestions.

[Dark Riku]

They aren't "bullshit" for more than just repairing and worshipping at all. They are a great bodyguard unit due to the doomblast, not to mention the great offensive/defensive synergy they have with ToN. Grenade launchers can deal with any stationary target/garrison, give you a disruptive ability while being grenade type damage, which means they deal more damage to (S)HI.

Their scaling is fine. All the roles they performs stay relevant throughout the game.
They just can't be used as offensive any more later on as they can in t1.

[Torpid]

Their scaling is fine. All the roles they performs stay relevant throughout the game.
They just can't be used as offensive any more later on as they can in t1.

Not true for nurgle tics. Their worship scales pretty poorly but AFAIK it is meant to scale better than it is now however it still doesn't boost daemons like how it was intended to do.

Regardless, right now, it does have poor scaling. The rate which it heals inf or vehicles in T3 is negligible. Khorne worship/tzeentch worship only get better at the game goes on really. Tics also lose their ability to be decent cappers as soon as T2 hits unless they have an AC but they're pretty expensive then. They also become pretty bad at counter-initiation in T2 so to say that they maintain all their roles throughout the entire game is exaggeration.

That said, that doesn't make them bad. They're VERY strong for their cost in T1 so that could explain why they don't scale as well as other T1 squads.

[Cheah18]

Point of info: Nurgle worship is hugely difficult to play against as IG

[Torpid]

Point of info: Nurgle worship is hugely difficult to play against as IG

Again, only in T1 though. It's largely useless once the plasma guns come out.

[Atlas]

Point of info: Nurgle worship is hugely difficult to play against as IG

Would like to second this as well, even when T2 comes out.

[Element]

Not true for nurgle tics. Their worship scales pretty poorly but AFAIK it is meant to scale better than it is now however it still doesn't boost daemons like how it was intended to do.

Regardless, right now, it does have poor scaling. The rate which it heals inf or vehicles in T3 is negligible. Khorne worship/tzeentch worship only get better at the game goes on really. Tics also lose their ability to be decent cappers as soon as T2 hits unless they have an AC but they're pretty expensive then. They also become pretty bad at counter-initiation in T2 so to say that they maintain all their roles throughout the entire game is exaggeration.

That said, that doesn't make them bad. They're VERY strong for their cost in T1 so that could explain why they don't scale as well as other T1 squads.

To be fair Torpid... I'd say the scaling potential of all the worships fall once t3 hit. The only one I would say that doesn't in regards to a steep fall is the Chaos Lord Speed Buff worship because Speed will always be Speed and at any point in the game that is a very strong factor in engangements whether it is tieing up a unit, finishing them off, or getting them out.

What I really think your missing here Torpid is that the P.C. get perhaps (IMO) the best shrine in out of all 3 commanders. It is reinforcement... healing... and suppression for anyone coming nearby... I mean the only thing it is missing is to be a retreat point I mean I personally would say the shrine is better than the beacon at times.. because of the wide radius on the heal, the fact that you won't be accidently possibly retreating into a D-cannon distortion... or some kind of global. And because they are relatively fair priced.. if one is taken down you just put up another one

So inother words tics do losing scaling potential... however they lose scaling potential but also KEEP scaling potential based on what Riku said. They are not your forefront means of attacking. They are more rather your second-third line of defense and really just a support unit, unlike where as scouts can be a bit more offensive seeing they have their ondemand explosive shot and grenade throws for wiping/ crowd control tie-up capabilities.

GL tics with the plague champ, at least when I use them, usually come to work out well, because they play into his natural pace of play and synergy; though you may keep that one Tic unit around with a plague champ for when you want the touch of nurgle usually for say if you go 3x cultist opening. 2x GL Tics, and 1 AC tic squad. Usually if you only have one... you just hold off on them getting nades for T1 and keep their doomblasts because 1:1 I believe the doomblasts has more potential for wipes and to be aggressive but in T2 usually unless I strictly want them for Touch of Nurgle, I'm putting them on worship shrine only duty/ Nade launcher support/repair duty.

All in all.. would it be nice to have a slight buff in hp regeneration come t3? Yes... is it needed? probably not, mainly because we have a shrine which pretty much does that with even more benefits.

[Torpid]

Regarding the best scaling worship:

Tzeentch worship is, undoubtedly by 10million miles, the best worship in T3 and T2 (mainly down to the fact that the CS has sight range+infiltration range to gain knowledge from vs your mere detection range, which itself is smaller than ordinary sight range, so he always is going to be the compositionally superior position at the start of every fight). It is so unfathomably broken it is ridiculous. And it only gets stronger in the late-game when you arbitrarily get hit by blastmasters/GUO vomits/splash from predators/phobos' and the chaos army is able to put out some proper dominating ranged dps. It alone makes the CS favourable vs eldar/IG, where the other two chaos heroes aren't imo.

Good CS worship in 1v1 makes it impossible to ever take back a VP without split-capping, but the split-capping is predictable and easily countered by split-defending on the CS' behalf.

If you don't believe me then watch some of Farzo's CS play in 1v1.

Back to the PC worship and buffs and stuff:

Anyway, I do agree that the PC has the best shrine for sure. However the way I view his shrine is similar to the way I view his turret. Those things are fundamental to the PC himself as a hero. I think if he lacked his turret/shrine/worship he'd be quite a shit hero. On the other hand the CS/CL would still be really useful and in fact get most of their utility from their own abilities rather than worship/constructables. Basically, even with buffed worship and the best shrine I don't think the PC would be OP because he himself is rather shit compared to the CL/CS in terms of wargear and globals. ToN is a good global, but it scales poorly compared to warp/bloodlust. Then the CS/CL get dark flames/malignant blindness which are far superior to poop cloud (which was broken before, and shouldn't really be changed). Then you have chosen PMs vs blood sacrifice and blood summoning, both of which are really nice globals and better overly than the very niche CPMs.

Oh and a point you make about the shrine vs beacon distinction. Shrines are superior in team-games, except for the fact that they're T2 (which is the main OP thing with beacons there, that is, that they're T1, which is when you suppression spam is OP since you lack arty/devs). In 1v1 however beacons are better, this is because the enemy's cannot blob-push you away and destroy the beacon. Furthermore retreat distances tend to be larger and flanking is more useful. Shrines require you to be far more blobby than beacon's do as you can always retreat back to a beacon if it's in danger, you have far less lee-way with shrines which makes them vastly inferior in 1v1.

Insert here reasons for not responding to earlier criticisms -The reason I didn't respond to some of these posts earlier is because this is an awkward situation - I'm not wanting to fundamentally change much here, except in any proposal for the nurgle worship to heal structures, but that's quite radical/innovative. Rather, I'm just wanting the heal rate to be buffed. You can't really make any rational argument for that, it's just a feeling you get from observing the heal rate in game. So that's why I didn't respond to some earlier posts against the idea - all I'm able to say is "well my experience makes me think differently", that doesn't add to the discussion though. - Insertion ended

Still, I stand by the original proposal to make it heal vehicles by 5hp/s instead of 3.5hp/s because right now the healing, even when you're healing multiple vehicles simultaneously, is bascially negligible. Not to mention shrines, as good as they are, essentially replace the PC's worship in T2 where realistically you are unlikely to have multiple vehicles and the heal rate is just not good enough to waste on infantry.

Response to a quote by Anomaly
"All in all.. would it be nice to have a slight buff in hp regeneration come t3? Yes... is it needed? probably not, mainly because we have a shrine which pretty much does that with even more benefits."

Not many changes at this point are needed (except reverting any change to make catachans bleed consistently, but that's the future not the present), but it's not like I'm wanting a revolutionary change here. To remind people of the proposal it was:

Increase nurgle worship's heal from 3.5 to 5hp/s for vehicles only, infantry, even in T3 would still be healed by 3.5hp/s, except for BLs and terminators, who I feel should be 5hp/s too (10 is too high for a unit that is so to bleed of models).
Allow nurgle worship to structures by 5hp/s too, this may seem like a large amount, but remember structures, like vehicles, are single-modeled entities so 5hp/s is really slow, just like the 3.5hp/s on the pc is really slow. If you were to manually repair the building you'de get double that speed. Buildings being shrines, turrets, generators and power nodes (I guess the hq too for consistency but who really cares?).

If I could only get one I'de still be happy.

There's two alternative forms of buff though that could happen:
Alternative 1 - Buff the base rate of regen from nurgle worship based on the tier.
Under this change nurgle worship would heal 3.5hp/s in T1, 4hp/s in T2 and 5hp/s in T3 to any infantry under its effects except heretics in combat or bloodletters.

Alternative 2 - Keep the base rate for normal infantry and vehicles the same - 3.5hp/s throughout all tiers, however, increase the base rate for bloodletters to 13.5hp/s and terminators to 5hp/s and bloodcrusher's to 15hp/s. AFAIK this was actually the intended change to the PC worship Caeltos wanted to do but somewhere along the implementation the daemon buffs weren't added. I don't know if the terminator buffs were changed, the vehicle buffs were changed since obviously before it didn't affect vehicles at all.

I think there's still some debate as to which of these is the best way of buffing the PC worship and whether or not it still needs a buff of any sort. Or even if there's another way that it could be buffed which would be preferable.

[Element]

Worship
That is certainly a just argument Torpid. I've always just thought of the Chaos Lord worship to be best in regards to scaling because as time progresses you can out do the damage of the worship heal from the plague champ, get detectors to counter your opponents strength of repositioning inside the Infiltration worship, and because there really doesn't exist too much counter for surges of speed in an army (Hence why Eldar remain so relevant throughout the game) despite crowd control, it always seem to stay relevant and largely un-negated. Speed just causes people to mess up because they can't react quick enough or we'll enough because of the slight panic that comes from units swarming very quickly towards you..

But I definitely have no argumentation against the Tzeentch worship being very strong for the reasons you stated. Personal feeling based on valid reasoning as to why you believe that is the strongest is always welcome from me and supported, and that goes for anyone

Wargear
As for the wargear on the P.C. I'd say that was a bit harsh. The strength of the plague champ unlike some other commanders usually does not come from taking one armor or weapon piece in each category but utilizing all of them. In addition the wargear for the plague champion is much different from that of the other 2 chaos commanders. To all extents and purposes he plays much more like a support modifier to your units around him. He has the most wargear upgrades of any commander in regards to counter Initiation. Actually they are all counter Initiation.

Taking that into account, you are absolutely correct in regards to him not being a capable hero if he didn't have them ( turret and worship). He's a bunker commander, which is giver further emphasis due to his lack of speed. That's the main difference between him and the techmarine. (Healing vs Speed) and (taking into account this they are relatively balanced, while they are somewhat rather locked into the same position) Having a more agile army vs a slower compact sturdy one.

Plague Cloud
I think we're just going to outright disagree on this one Torpid because this global (Imo) tends to on average outperform even better than the empireal abyss global.

This combo (if you haven't tried it out before/ you can pull off the whole thing (varies against quality of opponents)) is actually quite game breaking

Skewer ability> lay down cloud (unseen) throw the blight grenade> activate the ability on chosen plague marine squad when they are in range to encapture your opponents army> follow the blob with cloud >Support the cloud with ranged fire....

I dont know if you've ever been in control of 2 armies before but..I'm pretty sure the game seems like there is an imbalance of players on both sides xD

Your Insertion and the segment below
No criticism needed to be given because your arguments are valid and I'm not going to say that you shouldn't feel how you feel based off your experiences

Alaternative proposals
I like the first one, that's not too drastic

The second one is fine I suppose, though I'm still on the not sure if it is needed side.. Usually when blood letters are getting healed they aren't necessarily in combat because they usually jump into combat taking them out of worship range, So I'm not sure if there has been felt problems of the blood letters not getting healed up enough in between engagements or not to be able to make a statement of approval or opposal on that one. As for the blood crusher and termis... some what in the same position but you wouldn't be posting on it if you didn't have a reason for it


I suppose someone else would have to converse with you on those topics regarding bloodletters, terminator, and blood rusher worship regen Torpid. I just haven't really put in any attention for any of those but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be.

On a side note
I like the direction your taking the thread, G.L. with the rest of your argumentation, I believe I have given all I can in regards to knowledge with this topic, so I'd rather step down in that of introduction of uncharted waters

[Crewfinity]

What if instead of increasing the worship regen rate as you go up tiers, you tie it to the level of the heretics?

This system works pretty well with Tyranids, as the zoanthrope gives a 3.5/5.25/7.875/11.8125 multiplier to the health regen of friendly units as it increases levels. nurgle tics worship could function similarly. (although i do think that an 11x multiplier to health regen seems crazy fucking high... but that's nids for you i suppose.)

Speed and infiltration both scale very well, but as the game progresses and more damage dealers hit the field, health regen isn't as valuable. tying the regen values to the heretics level could help with this scaling, as well as rewarding keeping your heretics alive(and leveling) throughout the game.

[PhatE]

What if instead of increasing the worship regen rate as you go up tiers, you tie it to the level of the heretics?

This system works pretty well with Tyranids, as the zoanthrope gives a 3.5/5.25/7.875/11.8125 multiplier to the health regen of friendly units as it increases levels. nurgle tics worship could function similarly. (although i do think that an 11x multiplier to health regen seems crazy fucking high... but that's nids for you i suppose.)

Speed and infiltration both scale very well, but as the game progresses and more damage dealers hit the field, health regen isn't as valuable. tying the regen values to the heretics level could help with this scaling, as well as rewarding keeping your heretics alive(and leveling) throughout the game.

This is the only suggestion that I've taken a liking to. Preservation of tics should be rewarded.

Buffing it from the beginning of the game makes it far stronger than it needs to be and healing vehicles is something I'm strongly against. Deamons I have no quarrel with in getting the extra HP regen bonus but having it heal armour as well is something that would be insanely hard to fight given how strong the PC and chaos can become later on.

[Dark Riku]

Nurgle worship already heals vehicles Phate.

[PhatE]

I see. I'll take your word for it.

I suppose it was never was substantial enough for it to be noticeable nor did PC players just worship instead of repair.

Obviously for the repair/heal rate.

[Vapor]

gotta say I like the idea of worship scaling w/ heretic level

I mean it makes sense for the healing effect to be stronger late-game, and this is the only way to do that without adding scaling based on tier (which is usually avoided in dow2)

[BaptismByLoli]

Nurgle Worship with and without shrines are fine but seeing worship scale with Heretic Level is really something very interesting. I wouldn't even mind seeing it implemented to both encourage and reward good heretic play/conservation.

[Tsototar]

I actually think scaled increase with heretic levels sounds fair and reasonable.

There! See? I'm not a crazed Eldar species-ist

[BaptismByLoli]

I don't remember saying 'scaled increased' nor how it may or may not be balanced. Stop putting words into my mouth.

What I had in mind was making Level 1 Heretic worship work -25% as effective as it is currently while level 4 Worship is +25% as effective or somewhere along those lines.

[Torpid]

I don't remember saying 'scaled increased' nor how it may or may not be balanced. Stop putting words into my mouth.

What I had in mind was making Level 1 Heretic worship work -25% as effective as it is currently while level 4 Worship is +25% as effective or somewhere along those lines.

That would be a great way to make nurgle worship completely obsolete.

[BaptismByLoli]

How so?
Because of level 1 Heretic penalties?

[Tsototar]

gotta say I like the idea of worship scaling w/ heretic level

I like this and it doesn't seem game breaking.

[Torpid]

How so?
Because of level 1 Heretic penalties?

Because nurgle worship sucks right now in T2/T3 as it is. It's only really useful in T1 with dual CSM/noise marines since the heal doesn't even affect tics in combat and havocs are too fragile for it to be useful, the PC is a single entity so it barely affects him and raptors are rarely used defensively as AC tics do that better.

You want to make it worse in T1 for a marginal benefit in T2/T3. 25% is tiny. It only heals 3.5hp/s now, a 25% increase (which requires level 4 tics which is super hard to get, especially melee tics since they barely get any exp in melee after T1!) would make it a 4.375hp/s heal. That's still worse than the retail value of 5hp/s and that 5hp/s was still pretty bad for CSM with AC in T2 and would inevitably not be very useful for the high hp, low model terminator squads that chaos has in elite, or the plague marines with their three models now.

[BaptismByLoli]

The more you know
So let's say having their worship scale with their level was to be used, what kind of numbers would you think will be most reasonable?

Out of curiosity, the amount of Health their worship regenerates does not affect the amount of health a Nurgle Shrine would regenerate right?