Drastically reduce the killing potential of grenades?

[Oddnerd]

If you've faced builds that have 2 or more units with a frag/photon grenade you know how it works - if they miss a grenade it is 60 energy lost, which they can regenerate in a short time... however, if you aren't paying attention for even a single second you could lose an entire unit. It seems like grenades provide a much wider margin of error for those using them than they do for those trying to avoid them.

If grenade damage was significantly reduced, they could still be used to soften up blobs and to provide much-needed crowd control on SUTs, but you would no longer see melee units being wiped because their attack animations prevented them from moving away in time, or entire units from being destroyed just because the player wasn't paying attention to the target unit for 1 second.

As a side note, could grenades be given a minimum cast distance so they can't be used as a counter-melee spell? Its unfair that a melee unit can be completely shut down by a nade dropped at the foot of the enemy unit - I've done it plenty of times and it requires almost no skill to do.

EDIT - Yeah I know, L2P scrub, thanks great advice.

[Adeptus Noobus]

I think we already had this exact same discussion. I can't be bothered to look for the thread though. Especially the last part was addressed there.

[Ace of Swords]

Yes, let's make even less skill intensive than what it already is.

If you fuck up you deserve to be punished plain and simple.

[Deflaktor]

As a side note, could grenades be given a minimum cast distance so they can't be used as a counter-melee spell? Its unfair that a melee unit can be completely shut down by a nade dropped at the foot of the enemy unit - I've done it plenty of times and it requires almost no skill to do.

This makes sense but Its too late for such a change I think. It has been like this since day 1 and changing it would have a too large impact on balance.

[Oddnerd]

Yes, let's make even less skill intensive than what it already is.

If you fuck up you deserve to be punished plain and simple.

If you want to talk about "deserving", I don't think anyone deserves to be able to smoke an entire melee unit with a nade spike. I've done it, and it has almost no learning curve and takes a lot less skill to use than it does to avoid (especially since units typically won't abort melee attack animations in the time needed to escape, while a grenade can be aborted before a certain point). The only way to avoid it is to have your melee unit do a back-and-forth dance with the grenade unit until one backs off or until the grenade unit throws a terrible grenade. But I guess it boosts muh apm, so it must be a good mechanic.

I think we already had this exact same discussion. I can't be bothered to look for the thread though. Especially the last part was addressed there.

I believe you mean this one here: https://www.dawnofwar.info/forum/viewto ... e+distance

I'm gonna give it a read. When you say addressed I assume it means derided and not really well explained, but I could be proven wrong.


EDIT - It was everything I expected and more. Lots of people saying if you get hit by grenade you deserve it, but not a lot of people saying that if you can't keep your ranged units safe from melee units, then you deserve to be punished. Typical.

[Adeptus Noobus]

Yes, that is the one I meant.

The only way to avoid it is to have your melee unit do a back-and-forth dance with the grenade unit until one backs off or until the grenade unit throws a terrible grenade.

Well that is called "dancing" and "baiting" which is a skill you develop over time and a very legit way to counter/avoid point-blank grenades. Not only you are dumping a lot of micro into your melee unit, he is too if he is constantly baiting you into the grenade.

[Oddnerd]

You say that shotgun, scout speed, fleet of foot and range are enough. The game designers disagreed and felt that extra options were necessary.

I just had to point this one out for the lulz. He is basing an argument on the notion that Relic knows how to balance games.

The only way to avoid it is to have your melee unit do a back-and-forth dance with the grenade unit until one backs off or until the grenade unit throws a terrible grenade.

Well that is called "dancing" and "baiting" which is a skill you develop over time and a very legit way to counter/avoid point-blank grenades. Not only you are dumping a lot of micro into your melee unit, he is too if he is constantly baiting you into the grenade.

I'm familiar with dancing and baiting - it is why I brought up the margin of error for the 2 players. In this situation, a mistake made by the guy throwing the grenade typically costs him 60 energy; a mistake made by the guy with the melee unit frequently means a squad wipe or at least gruesome losses. (EDIT - I should also mention I think this is just a shitty gameplay experience in general)

Considering that SM and Eldar have plenty of ways to CC melee (War Shout, Explosive Shot, ASM jump, Kinetic Shot, suppression teams, counter-melee heroes, or even straight up gunning them down with ranged units) I don't see why they deserve to also have a spell that means a death sentence for a melee unit that makes the mistake of beginning an attack animation.

EDIT - Lots of good points on the 2nd page of that thread.

Reminder: IST nades currently work this way! They have also been nerf/buffed from the normal nade stats with lower damage but a 0 fuse time.

If you want to see a real world example of what some people are talking about in this thread, try them out. As I said before, I personally prefer it and would like all grenades to work this way (though the damage is still too low imo). It makes the nade less valuable against melee who have already closed, but better at hitting enemies as they come it, though juking is still an option on both the attacker and defender. It causes them to wipe squads less often, but more consistently put out damage.

I firmly believe they are living example of a way to make all nades less toxic for the game while still allowing for careful play and counter play. It also makes more sense to a viewer, as the nades don't teleport anymore.

tbh i wouldn't mind adding a small minimum distance now that i think about it. the only things about nades that bug me are when i'm actually able to get into melee with them, and then they spike their feet and retreat. even if you notice as soon as their energy drops a lot of the time your melee squad is all piled in and doesn't move out of the way fast enough.

I'm fine with grenades being a melee deterrent but it feels like they should be a deterrent to approach, rather than punishing melee units that get close enough to engage them. maybe like a minimum distance of 3 or something? IST minimum is 5 for reference.

The suicide bomber nature of nade spiking is just awkward and weird. Using a nade to disrupt a melee unit on the way in feels so much more correct, looks better, and 100% still allows play and counter play and counter-counter play. It just isn't based on watching energy bars It also allows for nade damage to be lower (since it's less all-or-nothing), which leads to less squad wiping which I believe is a meta goal of Caels.

In any case, I 0% expect this to change, it's been in the game for ages. I don't agree with all the arguments for or against that have been made in this thread, but I'm geeraly of the opinion that it's been a proven experiment with IST. It's healthier for the game, more "realistic" (if that's a thing) and still allows skill checks on both sides.

[Ace of Swords]

Yes, let's make even less skill intensive than what it already is.

If you fuck up you deserve to be punished plain and simple.

If you want to talk about "deserving", I don't think anyone deserves to be able to smoke an entire melee unit with a nade spike. I've done it, and it has almost no learning curve and takes a lot less skill to use than it does to avoid (especially since units typically won't abort melee attack animations in the time needed to escape, while a grenade can be aborted before a certain point). The only way to avoid it is to have your melee unit do a back-and-forth dance with the grenade unit until one backs off or until the grenade unit throws a terrible grenade. But I guess it boosts muh apm, so it must be a good mechanic.

I think we already had this exact same discussion. I can't be bothered to look for the thread though. Especially the last part was addressed there.

I believe you mean this one here: https://www.dawnofwar.info/forum/viewto ... e+distance

I'm gonna give it a read. When you say addressed I assume it means derided and not really well explained, but I could be proven wrong.


EDIT - It was everything I expected and more. Lots of people saying if you get hit by grenade you deserve it, but not a lot of people saying that if you can't keep your ranged units safe from melee units, then you deserve to be punished. Typical.

Yes they do, if they mindless run into nades it's their damn fault and this comes from someone that regularly uses asm vs eldar builds with 2/3 DAs and it's easy enough to use their melee close-in jump to bait the nade, for every melee unit with a melee charge it's even easier due to the increased speed it doesn't get closer to a l2p issue than this, spiking well and avoid getting baited means also playing well, the mind games I've had to do with noisy and adila in these cases are a lot.

[Forestradio]

Nades are also used to flush out garrisons and force retreats on setups without their current damage they can't do that at all...

[Oddnerd]

Nades are also used to flush out garrisons and force retreats on setups without their current damage they can't do that at all...

I definitely agree that clearing garrisons should be a primary function of grenades, and if all grenades were changed to be more like IST nades then they probably wouldn't perform that function well - point well taken. As a side note however - would you say they should be able outright force a retreat on SUTs? Couldn't softening them up and CCing them be a more reasonable expectation (meaning you would typically have to follow it up with ranged damage or bum rushing them with melee)?

If we forget outright damage reduction, wouldn't implementing a minimum cast range address the problem of low-skill squad wiping while still allowing nades to perform their perfectly valid functions of flushing garrisons and forcing off HWTs?

EDIT - I see that in the codex each damage type has a vs. cover modifier... if T1 grenades had damage nerfs could they still be viable against garrisons by increasing this modifier?

[Adila]

Alright I cant shup up on this one.
Grenades do have a decent cd timer which you can use as your advantage, baiting out nades or just dodging them isnt that hard if you have some
experience or simply just pay attention to the unit itself which has the nade, you have a few seconds to react because the energy bar of the squad drops
if they are about to throw a nade, if you are to slow for that there is still the actual throw animation. You also cannot be srs on counting nades as * melee* counter, meleecharges make it even easier not harder to avoid, just for your clarification.
If you are walking into them like a idiot its your fault and you more then deserve to eat the dmg. Even most of the unfair setup for the nades got nerfed
quite allot already, to pull them of your opponent has to use the combo correctly which even 90% of the ppl fail to do perfectly in the first place.
For example a kinetic shot into a nade, AND I am talking about a decent opponent not a brain afk idiot walking into everything regardless. Even in the lower elo it cant be that hard to move your sqaud with a simple mouseclick into another direction.
On setupteams you need to flank them in the first place to do that, there is again enough time to repositon and avoid the dmg,try to play vs 2-3 setupteams with your 2 nadesquads, you wont come out on top on that with just nades,even if you hit your nade perfectly a full hp sqaud wont die to that, you dont even have to retreat after the spike if you do it right. Perfect example is mathis with the 3-4 slug openings, you wont achieve shit with nades vs that comp, becuase surprise nades are not a melee counter. You have simply to pay attention whats actually happening on the field, and nades are your last worry if you do that, if you cant then simply get better at the game.

[Torpid]

Alright I cant shup up on this one.
Grenades do have a decent cd timer which you can use as your advantage, baiting out nades or just dodging them isnt that hard if you have some
experience or simply just pay attention to the unit itself which has the nade, you have a few seconds to react because the energy bar of the squad drops
if they are about to throw a nade, if you are to slow for that there is still the actual throw animation. You also cannot be srs on counting nades as * melee* counter, meleecharges make it even easier not harder to avoid, just for your clarification.
If you are walking into them like a idiot its your fault and you more then deserve to eat the dmg. Even most of the unfair setup for the nades got nerfed
quite allot already, to pull them of your opponent has to use the combo correctly which even 90% of the ppl fail to do perfectly in the first place.
For example a kinetic shot into a nade, AND I am talking about a decent opponent not a brain afk idiot walking into everything regardless. Even in the lower elo it cant be that hard to move your sqaud with a simple mouseclick into another direction.
On setupteams you need to flank them in the first place to do that, there is again enough time to repositon and avoid the dmg,try to play vs 2-3 setupteams with your 2 nadesquads, you wont come out on top on that with just nades,even if you hit your nade perfectly a full hp sqaud wont die to that, you dont even have to retreat after the spike if you do it right. Perfect example is mathis with the 3-4 slug openings, you wont achieve shit with nades vs that comp, becuase surprise nades are not a melee counter. You have simply to pay attention whats actually happening on the field, and nades are your last worry if you do that, if you cant then simply get better at the game.

+1

[Oddnerd]

Ok I get it, people are gonna pretend melee units getting stuck in combat by their animations long enough to prevent them dodging a nade spike doesn't happen.

I'll fuck off now.

[Black Relic]

Honestly if the grenade damage type could be changed to be considered range damage then this animation abuse crap wouldn't hurt as much. It is the only reason way grenades on melee units work even half the time. Its much less of being attentive but about abusing the fuck out of the engine and how the game works.

I agree that if someone isn't paying attention they should get hit by grenades, but if they get wiped from an animation then that's fucked and needs to be changed since the player with the melee squad cannot react properly.

If the units that are performing an melee animation they are "in melee" and most units take 50% less range damage when in melee then it would help this abusing the game a lot less. I mean the squad would still take a lot of damage and most likely will be forced off instantly but it would help against any massive salt from cheeky wipes.

[Toilailee]

Ok I get it, people are gonna pretend melee units getting stuck in combat by their animations long enough to prevent them dodging a nade spike doesn't happen.

I'll fuck off now.

That's mainly a specific problem for hormagaunts and to a lesser extend asm, stormboyz etc units that have a leap animation which makes baiting nades and dodging them at melee range difficult. With hormas in particular yes I see the problem but with normal melee charge units like sluggas and heretics not really.

[The Licking Boogyman]

Im not sure but i dont like that da sometimes dont care about suppression Teams and Nade them From the Front and killing the squad. Atleast in Tier 1 its Problematic with not having enough DPS to melt 2-3 da down. Not sure if that happend to one of you guys ... And no they just charged in without cover otherwise nades are fine in my opinion.

[Adeptus Noobus]

Im not sure but i dont like that da sometimes dont care about suppression Teams and Nade them From the Front and killing the squad. Atleast in Tier 1 its Problematic with not having enough DPS to melt 2-3 da down. Not sure if that happend to one of you guys ... And no they just charged in without cover otherwise nades are fine in my opinion.

Git gut
In all seriousness though, Embolden breaks suppression.

[The Licking Boogyman]

They are supressed m8 just They get to fast in Nade range before they get supressed :/

[Adeptus Noobus]

Embolden, check it out and learn what it does

[The Licking Boogyman]

... M8 in Tier 1 da dont get embolden and i said they are supressed and no i meant they dont break suppression when they Nade me in this Kind of situations so PLZ dont tell me what embolden is :/ sry if you misunderstood it

[Adeptus Noobus]

Well that is true. Didn't see the part about T1. It takes some time for the courage to be depleted. That is how they get into range.

[Oddnerd]

Eldar do struggle somewhat against suppression in T1, because their anti-suppression options involve disabling the team temporarily, rather than having a jump troop landing right on top of them and engaging them the way Storms/ASM/Raptors do.

[Ace of Swords]

Eldar do struggle somewhat against suppression in T1, because their anti-suppression options involve disabling the team temporarily, rather than having a jump troop landing right on top of them and engaging them the way Storms/ASM/Raptors do.

Eldar do struggle somewhat against suppression in T1

WHAT THE FUCK

[Atlas]

Ace plz.

But I agree with the sentiment. Eldar have a ton of tools even in T1 to deal with setup teams, especially with the Rangers rework otw. Just because DA Exarchs are op doesn't mean that Aspect of Avenger suddenly stopped being good.

[The Great Kenny]

You know, since they made the dire avengers have 100 hp but instead making their dire avenger aspect gear get the 20% hp back..... That thing became a must buy. It should have costed 25 power instead of 15, it gives survivability, deployable perfect cover, and did i forget to say, anti HW squad combo? (Fleet o' foot n' nades), at this point i agree whit oddnerd. Nades have been overperforming in various aspects since vanilla.

[Dullahan]

Grenades micro and counterplay is one of the best parts of the game.

The one thing they should add, which is an idea from CoH2, is that suppressed units have their throwable range reduced signficiantly. It would nerf the ol fleet of foot + grenade combo and similar moves (and allow a bit more counterplay to grenades in the form of on demand suppression abilities) without fundamentally changing how grenades work.

[The Licking Boogyman]

^ no more kamikaze da

[Black Relic]

I plus on that one. Would make splitting vs set ups a must in some cases more so than it is now.