lot to unpack there, but i would first recommend reading the change log.
Dullahan wrote:They cost 230 req, yet do as much damage as shoota boyz and move as fast as guardians who both cost 270.
With sergeant they also become kiting machines with 6 movement speed, which is faster even than Eldar for some retarded reason. They also reinforce 2 for 1 and have a grenade that is thrown way faster than any other grenade in the game with zero wind up.
The t2 acolyte stupidly increases the entire squad's damage output by 25%, gives health regen to anything nearby and he comes with around 42 DPS in melee himself because his damage aura buffs his own damage. (Making GK IST the best ranged squad in melee by far, on par with tac marines or CSM against guardians/guardsmen etc) Oh right, and they get the retarded suppression break/damage reduction ability that also increases durability.
All for a grand total of 230 + 75/15 + 90/25 = 395/40
Oh and their plasma guns come with a suppression ability for some retarded reason. If you have 2-3 squads you can chain suppress squads like Nobs/ogryns, which is normally something other units like plasma tacs/guardsmen need other supporting units for.
Go ahead and compare that to any similar unit in vanilla. (Guardsmen, shootas, guardians) Some of the traditionally most cost effective units in the games pale in comparison to GK IST when it comes to passive abilities, active abilities and overall cost to upgrade. It's like whoever designed this shit couldn't possibly NOT give three passive buffs and a new ability with every fucking upgrade to their waifu faction
IST are currently broken and are set to get fixed with the next patch.
They no longer get a speed boost with the sergeant.
The acolyte no longer increases squad damage by 25%.
acolyte no longer gives AOE health regen to friendly units.
acolyte no longer has the melee weapon, he's identical to the sergeant.
Dullahan wrote: For example, Strike squad has a psybolt ammunition upgrade that massively increases their ranged DPS to Warp spider territory at around 19 DPS per model. It's like when Tzeentch marines were first added in CR and they did crazy ranged DPS except worse because it's more DPS than inferno bolters + they are way better in melee combat than CSM are once they get icon of tzeentch. (It's also only 65/15 to upgrade, inferno bolters are double the price)
strike squad ranged damage was massively nerfed this patch. They now deal 12.24 dps, which is increased to 14.69 with psybolt ammo. (default CSM deal 13.42 dps, and EW CSM deal 16.1 dps). Nowhere near 19 dps, and nowhere near TCSM level of damage.
Dullahan wrote:Every single GK unit is like this. Last time I was here it was Inquistorial Operatives that were broken as shit, combining things like catachan's no damage fall off shotguns with scouts high movement speed and cloaking like they didn't even understand why the original game was designed the way it was. The whole point of catachan's not having damage fall off was because they couldn't kite like scouts could against melee units, combining the two resulted in absolute retardation. Speaking of cost effective upgrades, they have a 75/15 upgrade (keep in mind, to buy them initially is only 250/30) that gives them cloaking and a huge support ability that basically lets GK just shoot suppression teams to death (or anything else really) AND they can cancel the fucking retreat a few seconds after initiating it for ZERO penalty. (Unlike guardsmen, who get this in t2 and kill a model to do it.) OH AND CANCELING THE RETREAT GIVES THEM SUPER HEALTH REGENERATION WHICH STACKS WITH THE REGEN AURA OF IST.
no more regen auro from IST first of all.
second of all ops have been very heavily nerfed since when they were introduced. they deal much less damage than they used to and have a worse firing pattern. The catachan comparison seems weird since they have 2 high damage abilities and power melee damage. a better comparison would be scouts.
Fully upgraded scouts are 410/55, speed 6.5, and have 670 health with 10 hp/s passive regen and a die last leader. they have a grenade and 14.67 dps shotguns (drops off to 10.27 at longer range) that have 50% fire on the move, as well as the shotgun blast and repair abilities.
Upgraded ops are 325/45, speed 6.5, and have 720 health. they have the fallback ability that gives them 12 hp/s regen for 10 seconds, they have a stun nade and 11.54 dps shotguns (at all ranged) with no fire on the move at all.
ops are cheaper but that's more or less fine since scouts tend to be more expensive than similar standalone units (see scout snipers vs rangers). having a unit early on that you can upgrade is almost always better than having to buy a new unit (KCSM vs purifiers).
Dullahan wrote:GK also pays the exact same upkeep as other factions despite their units costing less and performing better. Whatever unit was copy and pasted to make them shares the upkeep of the unit in GK. I.e strike squad has same upkeep as tacs, stormtroopers and operatives have same upkeep as shootas. If anything GK should be more expensive to justify how strong they are, but they aren't.
why should strikes be more upkeep than tacs? why should stormtroopers be more upkeep than shootas? if their units cost less but have the same upkeep as more expensive units, isnt that worse for GK....? that's like saying CSM should be more upkeep than tacs. wtf?
Dullahan wrote:Damage numbers in elite mod only continue to skyrocket higher. GK is the worst example of this, since nothing they have is remotely in line with vanilla DPS numbers. Strike squad's do more damage than both other marine variants at ranged, despite also being tankier and beefier in melee with overpowered special attacks that STILL haven't been toned down after years. (360 degree AOE with a ton of knockback makes them absurdly good, especially against horms/sluggas.)
strikes do LESS damage at ranged than both other marine variants.
strike squad specials got changed this patch, they no longer deal 360 degree knockback, they are now like ASM specials. if you look closely at that replay, you can see that the sluggas all ran in front of the model who did the special, so they took the full force of the attack. its not a 360 degree special it just has high damage in the arc. in the first slugga engagement they got 3 or 4 specials on the SS without any specials from the marines. could easily have gone the same way in the second engagement.
strike squad melee damage and special attacks are also set to get nerfed further in the upcoming hotfix.
TL;DR read the fucking release notes