Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Issues dealing with gameplay balance.
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Oddnerd
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Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Oddnerd » Thu 09 Jun, 2016 12:40 am

Hi all,

I've noticed CPMs showing up in chaos builds a lot more, often in conjunction with PMs and the PC with the powersword and one of his armour upgrades. I find these nurgle blobs extremely frustrating to face - they have a huge amount of HP, amazing regen, they have amazing anti-infantry melee/ranged damage and ranged av damage, and on death each model explodes... healing friendly models and damaging foes. As a primary IG player, I have found ways to deal with these blobs (although it typically comes at modest cost to my own army); however, I have seen several very high level players using other races who suffer horrendous losses against these guys, even with many more resources worth of units (ex - an axe apo, sterns w hellfire rounds, another tac, and an asm vs PC with sword and a CPM) and, in my opinion as an observer, in spite of much better micro on the part of the non-chaos players.

What does everyone think of CPMs in terms of balance at the moment? I know I mentioned PMs as well, but it seems like the CPMs are the most hard to deal with out of the two. I wasn't even sure if I should post this in the balance or strategy section, since its common for people to see a balance problem when they have a strategy problem. It just feels as though a Nurgle blob requires comparatively little skill to beat armies that are much stronger/well micromanaged.
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Deuce Bigalow
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Deuce Bigalow » Wed 15 Jun, 2016 4:31 pm

I am kind of surprised this hasn't gotten more attention.

1. 2250 HP at level 1
2. Health regen (4.6 hp per model per second at level 1)
3. Slow Aura
4. Explosion on death (heals friendly and damages enemy)
5. Nurgle's Rot
6. Further regen from worship/shrines
7. No upgrades required
8. Cost 480/30/175

You could swing away with the nerf bat on these guys and still have a very potent unit afterwards. What does that say about their current state?

Suggestions: At the very least, we could make their ability not affect all nearby enemies, but rather only those killed by the CPM.

Additionally, we could tone down their regen or health and up the power cost (50 maybe?).
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egewithin
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby egewithin » Wed 15 Jun, 2016 5:19 pm

I am not sure that they are over performing but has a BIG problem.

-They can solo every kind of melee infantry units exept for melee Termies. They can beat down ranged Termies however because they have no melee resistance. Eldar has no options but a Wraithlord. Tyranids can't beat them without T3 monsters, IG needs anti-melee and without Inquisitor support that is impossible to do good enough.

-They have +25%(?) more health than normal Plague Marines. That is an issue. They are too tanky with good health regen. They can tank every kind of damage untill they force of the enemy melee squad without loosing a model.

-You need to focus fire with your all army to force them from the field. While the rest of Chaos army can easly strike you down.

My suggestion is to decrease their health to normal Plague Marines level and give them a small charge.
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Ace of Swords
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Ace of Swords » Wed 15 Jun, 2016 5:31 pm

increase model count to 4, leave hp as it, increase cost to 50 power, decrease healt regen dramatically, there may need to sightly decrease their movement speed as well, they were conceptually a counter initiation unit but right now you can charge an entire army and that will not suffice to force them off while the rest of the chaos army lands on your ass un touched.
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Crewfinity
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Crewfinity » Wed 15 Jun, 2016 5:52 pm

Honestly I find normal Plague Marines to be more annoying than Chosen Plague Marines.

-CPM are more rare to see since they're commander-specific.
-They're slow as shit so they're easy to kite and bleed on approach.
-yeah they're balls OP in melee, but if you're trying to engage the PC in melee you're fucked anyway.
-Seriously who uses melee vs PC?

Whereas PM's are soft anti-all, due to their high health, DoT, AV snare, heal on explosion, and health regen. they dont need to be in melee to contribute to fights, and their DoT is good at bleeding down normal infantry as well as commanders.


not saying I disagree with the nerfs you propose, but i would rather see PM nerfs than CPM nerfs if it comes to that :P
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Deuce Bigalow
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Deuce Bigalow » Wed 15 Jun, 2016 6:36 pm

Also I heard somewhere that their damage over time is heavy melee. Can someone confirm or deny? I don't see it in the codex..

If it is heavy melee that can be taken away for sure. There is no need for them to be any sort of anti-vehicle (even soft).
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Oddnerd
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Oddnerd » Wed 15 Jun, 2016 6:39 pm

Deuce Bigalow wrote:Also I heard somewhere that their damage over time is heavy melee. Can someone confirm or deny? I don't see it in the codex..

If it is heavy melee that can be taken away for sure. There is no need for them to be any sort of anti-vehicle (even soft).

I think that may be the case, I've seen them peel off a significant amount of HP from vehicles, possibly from accumulating stacks of their DOT.
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Nurland » Wed 15 Jun, 2016 7:03 pm

The DoT is heavy melee.
#noobcodex
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Adeptus Noobus
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Adeptus Noobus » Wed 15 Jun, 2016 7:37 pm

Their damage is not only heavy melee but stacks indefinitely as well.
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BbBoS
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby BbBoS » Wed 15 Jun, 2016 7:43 pm

Regular Plague Marines are more of a balance problem compared to Chosens.

Chosens are move speed 4, they cannot "charge" into melee combat, if they do they will be mowed down. And with 4 move speed they can be kited hard, or you can move your army elsewhere on the map with your opponent waiting for his CPM to catch up.

I would like to see them go to 4 models as well, with 1600, keeping their health regen, along with req cost going down to 450 and power getting increased. I don't agree with Ace's suggestion of reducing their move speed since they are already so slow.
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Phoenix » Wed 15 Jun, 2016 7:50 pm

Deuce Bigalow wrote:Also I heard somewhere that their damage over time is heavy melee. Can someone confirm or deny? I don't see it in the codex..

Taken from the codex:

Summon a squad of Chosen Plague Marines to serve in battle. Each of the Chosen is equipped with a Plague Knife that deals 20 power melee damage, as well as 5 melee heavy damage over time on hit. The squad can also release Nurgle's Rot, causing the afflicted to become zombies upon death. Cooldown 180 seconds.
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Oddnerd
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Oddnerd » Fri 17 Jun, 2016 4:26 pm

I understand why people point bring up regular PM as a balance issue... I think that as well. I've just found that adding CPM to a nurgle blob takes them to a new level of OP. A PM blob has good ranged damage output and can deter low hp melee units with their death explosion, but aside from the PC they don't do much melee dmg. Once you have CPM you now have a perfect melee deterrent that can wreck HI and can even use its accumulating DOT to damage any walkers that made it into cc with the blob.
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Forestradio
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Forestradio » Fri 17 Jun, 2016 4:32 pm

Oddnerd wrote:I have seen several very high level players using other races who suffer horrendous losses against these guys, even with many more resources worth of units (ex - an axe apo, sterns w hellfire rounds, another tac, and an asm vs PC with sword and a CPM) and, in my opinion as an observer, in spite of much better micro on the part of the non-chaos players

PogChamp I'm finally gosu enough to be mentioned anonymously in a balance discussion :twisted:
Though tbh you should have mentioned that 1v1 between Ace and BbBos where the chosen rekt everything and shrugged off terminator fire.

And yeah they are op, start with changing the DoT to melee_pvp instead (to remove the AV potential they have and also weaken the DoT vs single entities) and also the power cost should go up along with the req going down slightly. BbBos' suggestions also look good, considering he's the best player who uses them consistently.

Current chosens are insanely hard to deal with as nid/ork and sm, while also removing ogryns from IG build orders against the pc.
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Black Relic » Mon 20 Jun, 2016 10:01 pm

A good start to fixing this imo is to remove the 15% damage increase on units that are hit by the Chosen Plague Marines death explosion. Went looking into their rbf and found it there. Instead of the an ability that causes dead units to cause zombies, how about when the plague marine dies a debuff on affected units (units hit by death explosion) that last for 10 seconds that causes them to them turn zombie when they die. So its no longer and activated ability. Id like to see those go first a see what happens then. Although they might need an increase in their death explosion after all this though. A good number would be 15 + 5% of a unit's max health damage from 25 imo.
"...With every strike of his sword, with every word of his speech, does he reaffirm the ideals of our honored master..." -From the Teachings of Roboute Guilliman as laid down in the Apocrypha of Skaros. Space Marines Codex pg. 54
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Crewfinity
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Crewfinity » Sun 26 Jun, 2016 9:33 pm

never mind what i said earlier CPM are bullshit -___-
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Oddnerd
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Re: Chosen Plague Marines Balance

Postby Oddnerd » Mon 27 Jun, 2016 2:01 am

Crewfinity wrote:never mind what i said earlier CPM are bullshit -___-


lel, it was only a matter of time, everyone has a horror story about those guys.

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