Tyranid AV and other issues

Issues dealing with gameplay balance.
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Cyris
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Cyris » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 3:12 am

boss wrote:
Aguxyz wrote:zoan snare should comeback just make the warp blast do like 100 dmg or something and see how it goes from there


Hmmmmmmmm with 100 damage and snare vehicles will have a hard time to do anything and with 20 second cooldown like I say before fwb should do no damage but snare with more cooldown and more cost


100% agree.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Tex » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 4:26 am

I haven't decided which way I lean on this argument yet, so I just want to gain some information instead.

Question.
1. Is ork AV okay enough that having no snare other than mekboy mines (which I haven't seen used in over a year) is justified? What is the key to this working and nid AV not working?

2. What in your mind (specific to nid players) is the difference between tankbustas and venom broods compositionally?

For comparison, bustas cost 300 req, have 850 infantry hp on 4 models, and do 16 damage per rocket. If a full volley hits (I believe these guys have an accuracy drawback though) then the burst is 16damage*3rockets*4models=192. On the other hand, venoms cost 300 req 15 power, have 990 heavy infantry hp on 3 models, and do 30 damage per hit. If a full volley hits then the burst is 30damage*3models*2shots=180.

Only glaring differences between these two units is that bustas have a long range artillery/utility ability that can snipe a vehicle, and venoms start with basic synapse and can be upgraded to be a huge ranged force multiplier with ranged synapse.
I understand synapses bombs are an issue, but bleed on bustas is also rampant. So, if I'm not missing something here, why are these guys suddenly under performing so badly?

Defeating vehicle play doesn't necessarily mean killing the vehicle does it?

3. If you always needed a zoanthrope to kill a vehicle, then what has honestly changed other than the vehicle is not guaranteed to be wiped? Can a tyranid player not position cautiously and force a vehicle to retreat or die by hitting it with FWB and venoms? Does the time spent in repairs not offer you an opportunity to a) pressure the repair unit(s) or b) grab map while the vehicle is in a critical state?

4. Which vehicles are the most problematic for nids?

5. Can you offer a brief synopses of what happens in each match up, especially ?

6. Is this largely an LA problem? Or is it across the board for nids?
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Oddnerd » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 5:26 am

1 - I would say the biggest difference is the burst potential. Lootas with the beamy deff gun have the highest base AV damage per shot in the game (and absolutely amazing infiltration for catching your opponent off guard), and instead of being a rapid fire weapon like venom cannons it does that all in whopping 240 dmg bursts.

2 - Tankbustas are better than venom brood warriors because they can be loaded into the cheapest transport vehicle in the game and can effectively skirmish a vehicle to death with a little bit of micro. The volley is also better for AV purposes - the venom brood synapse is nice for increasing overall ranged damaged of a nid blob, but it doesn't provide that important spike in AV damage that a well-placed volley does.

I'm not qualified to answer the other ones.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby boss » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 5:47 am

1. ork av is more than fine you got Beamy Deffgun long range and high damage but big burst that will be change abit next patch but still will be the same ish and then tanksbustas good damage but low ish range but burst damage but low heath but then you got waaaagh buff gobal from mek and wb damage debuff and less damage taken and one thing orks have that nids don't transport aka cheap truck plus tanksbustas which mean you can follow kill most vehicle.
2. tanksbustas and venom brood are very different cos 1 venoms a Synapse so then they die all of the models around them get hurt which is very annoying that's why venoms are at the back of anything not at the front so thay don't get shot tanksbustas can be where ever they want and not worry about it also venom cost power but that not a big deal. venom brood dps is over time like Purgation unlike tanksbustas can fire a round of and back of then come back in and fire of other round venom you just have to sit and fire and hope they don't die. venom don't get any buff unless
Catalyst which is very fucking risk to put it on a Synapse squad unlike tanksbustas just wagggh buff alone waaaagh banner and hero's buff then even warpath then truck way more thing you can buff them with. so I hope you can see now venom you don't want them taking any damage unless you have to and losing models hurts a lot hurts their dps to unlike tanksbustas you can lose models but then so long you lose the squad it not the end of the world.

3. Atm zoans fwb can just kill vehicle/transports when you get more then 2 zoans I don't no about you but this don't sound vary fair or balance to your opponent I would rather is snares and do no damage so he can have time to save it from your av unit I just give you the maths what fwb damage it 3 shot all transports on front or rear it only take 2 shots dread will lose 1/4 of their heath per 2 zoans so yea.

4 nids suffer vs all vehicles even a truck can cause big problems unless you get zoans to mass fwb them even a bc can do a lot of work dreads are a fucking pain in the ass melee ones a lot more vs. sorc you better win in t1 or good luck then their a mok dread raping you in your base and then warp out.

5.match up I get 2 zoans and hope they can fwb them to death but then I try to make sure I win in t1 cos that nids now win in t1 or do a lot to make sure this don't go to the mid or late cos then you lose for sure
and 6. la is not a problem he has no av but more about behide the line and just being a bitch. ht is better for vehicle yes but even ht can have problems he cant be everywhere he only one hero and cos now everyone play ht we must nerf ht good thinking torpid . ra don't need more av this is a race problem not a hero should not make up for av problems of the race hence why ht is the most played out the 3
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Black Relic » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 5:49 am

Personally I would Like Zon snare to came back but the slow diminish over time to offer some time where rippers can try and get into melee and further slow the enemy vehicle.

Or Focused Warp Blast is a Firing mode that is toggled on the Zon where he is extremely accurate vs vehicles (with long range) and does heavy damage to them (like 90) but is extremely inaccurate vs infantry. And then the Zon can switch back to doing AoE. However the switch between firing mode would be a good 10 or so seconds.

Personally Nids are like SM the required coordination with another unit to do well. So a small damage and snare on a vehicle would be a better way to go for me imo.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Atlas » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 7:37 am

Speaking not as a patch maker here, but just as another bro on this one.

The biggest gripe I have personally about all these changes is that literally every single one of them revolves entirely around the Zoan. No one has yet convinced me why it is a good thing that the Zoanthrope should literally be the end-all-be-all unit in the Nids roster. Just right now, the Zoanthrope:

1) Provides a good Regeneration and the Basic Synapse to the entire army.
2) Provides artillery and anti-blob support, especially for ranged blobs.
3) Due to psychic type damage, their blast is literally only "ineffective" vs vehicles. Psychic_pvp even gets 1.5x damage vs gens for all the sense that makes.
4) To deal with its main weapons' weakness, it USED to grant a range 60 snare that also did 100 explosive damage. Now it's 165 explosive that hits both SHI and vehicles but doesn't snare.

All of this is piled onto a T2 10 pop single entity (which therefore can't bleed) that is argued that it should cost anywhere from 400/40 to 400/60.

There's no other way to put this people - This. Is. Stupid.

Boss, Hive, and whatever other players that are advocating for Zoans just getting their snare back are completely missing the point of probably the biggest problem with Nids - their composition is so absolutely focused on Zoans that if you turned off god-mode on them the entire thing fakking falls apart. You just basically win T1 atm, pick up a zoan or whatever # of zoans you need (bonus points for creativity if you get a TG) and spam Carnifexes in T3.

I want to take a second to remind people that this thread is titled "Tyranid AV and other issues" but literally all talk about Tyranid AV has been entirely about Zoanthropes until Tex came in. It might as well have just been called "Zoanthrope and other issues" for what the content of the discussion on Tyranid AV has been composed of.

Let's just assume that we put the snare back on for 0 damage. Great, instead of Zoans just killing vehicles, it now snares them instead. Zoans are still an absolutely necessary unit in your compositions and it is still dumb. Arguing "this is less toxic than mass zoans to kill vehicles" is still just admitting that your solution still results in a toxic unit.

I'm really interested to see what kind of solutions you guys can come up with that can:

1) Make Zoans not utterly necessary to Nid builds to the point that people are stupid for not getting them.
2) Diversify Nid builds in general.
3) Solve Nid AV woes, whatever you technically define that as.

Because so far, the answer hasn't come easy. I really do liken this situation to OM, when after the removal of stupid PsyPurgs and infantry-sniping Lasrhinos, you have to deal with the inherent problems underneath regarding composition and roster coherence. It's no secret that Nids have been stupid strong for a long period of time both over retail and elite. Can we come up with something that DOESN'T involve just going back to that?

But whatever, ultimately I'm just one guy here and these patch notes are made by a lot of grouptalk. I'll abide by whatever is ultimately decided.

TL;DR Zoans do way too much stuff. Can we come up with something that doesn't make Zoanthropes a crutch unit? If there really is a problem with other units in the roster, I would personally like to hear something about how that can be corrected rather than about how we can add yet more functions onto the Zoanthrope.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Aguxyz » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 8:01 am

Move VC FEX to T2 Image
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby hiveminion » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 8:16 am

Ace of Swords wrote:
We were at a point where you either played LA or dropped out of the fucking 1v1 tournaments and the only person that could beat riku's LA was noisy with chaos after he played hundreds of games vs me,forest,darkhero and others in order to find a fucking way to reliably beat that piece of OP shit.

And I also clearly remember you were already playing this game and were in the community at that point so don't write such bullshit.


I recall Riku winning one MRT with LA. Was this 'hundreds-of-games' win streak by any chance during the brief period Tyranids had squad leaders? Because I will grant that they were ridiculously OP.

Tex wrote:Question.
1. Is ork AV okay enough that having no snare other than mekboy mines (which I haven't seen used in over a year) is justified? What is the key to this working and nid AV not working?


Since when do Stikbommas no longer stun vehicles? Since Nids rely more on melee AV than Orks (who have Lootas and tanks of their own, not to mention Bustas as dedicated AV whereas Venoms are support with decent AV slapped on), they are more dependent on snares to make their AV work.

Tex wrote:Defeating vehicle play doesn't necessarily mean killing the vehicle does it?


And snaring a vehicle doesn't mean killing it either. Without snares on the field your opponent's fast vehicles are pretty much free to engage until their health drops too low and then run off.

Tex wrote:4. Which vehicles are the most problematic for nids?


Falcons, Melee Walkers and Tanks.

Atlas wrote:The biggest gripe I have personally about all these changes is that literally every single one of them revolves entirely around the Zoan. No one has yet convinced me why it is a good thing that the Zoanthrope should literally be the end-all-be-all unit in the Nids roster. Just right now, the Zoanthrope:

1) Provides a good Regeneration and the Basic Synapse to the entire army.
2) Provides artillery and anti-blob support, especially for ranged blobs.
3) Due to psychic type damage, their blast is literally only "ineffective" vs vehicles. Psychic_pvp even gets 1.5x damage vs gens for all the sense that makes.
4) To deal with its main weapons' weakness, it USED to grant a range 60 snare that also did 100 explosive damage. Now it's 165 explosive that hits both SHI and vehicles but doesn't snare.

All of this is piled onto a T2 10 pop single entity (which therefore can't bleed) that is argued that it should cost anywhere from 400/40 to 400/60.

There's no other way to put this people - This. Is. Stupid.

Boss, Hive, and whatever other players that are advocating for Zoans just getting their snare back are completely missing the point of probably the biggest problem with Nids - their composition is so absolutely focused on Zoans that if you turned off god-mode on them the entire thing fakking falls apart. You just basically win T1 atm, pick up a zoan or whatever # of zoans you need (bonus points for creativity if you get a TG) and spam Carnifexes in T3.


You seriously think I do not realise that? Unless you are going to model some extra units for Nids we have the least variety of units to make do with.

Atlas wrote:I want to take a second to remind people that this thread is titled "Tyranid AV and other issues" but literally all talk about Tyranid AV has been entirely about Zoanthropes until Tex came in. It might as well have just been called "Zoanthrope and other issues" for what the content of the discussion on Tyranid AV has been composed of.


As you said, Tyranid AV in the past and currently centers around the Zoanthrope in one way or another.

Atlas wrote:Let's just assume that we put the snare back on for 0 damage. Great, instead of Zoans just killing vehicles, it now snares them instead. Zoans are still an absolutely necessary unit in your compositions and it is still dumb. Arguing "this is less toxic than mass zoans to kill vehicles" is still just admitting that your solution still results in a toxic unit.


No it does not.

You seem to prefer the current situation over the previous Zoanthrope even though at present Zoanthrope spam is more essential to deal with vehicles than it was before, where a single Zoan would do.

Aguxyz wrote:Move VC FEX to T2 Image


The hilarious thing is a VC Fex doesn't even counter a tank, because it obviously can't retreat and tanks are faster.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby boss » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 8:47 am

atlas their no other unit to give a long range snare for unless venom brood then their be op as fuck most race in the game need 2 source to deal with vehicle. like lets say asm Melta Bomb and miss tacs but then miss tacs suck or Librarian for Veil of Time and lasscon or chaos pm and Mark of Khorne Havocs for elder ws and Brightlance warthlord and I can go on and on nids only have venom and zoan for long range av/snare crying about this makes is silly yes its a key unit but then a key unit for sm is asm rb or dreads is this wrong no like orks are shootas a key unit yes is this wrong no their are unit is each match up for each race that are key but does that mean we should change them no and atlas I gone on about la already on how op as fuck he will be next patch ofc you didn't listen to me and I told you ht will be shit next patch but don't listen to me.

I don't want retail zoans but atm these zoans are cancer they should support your venom brood by their snare so thay can bring down their target not just fwb them to death
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby The Licking Boogyman » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 10:37 am

Whats the spore mines pupose, if they dont suppress anymore, they dont wipe squads anymore, thats gud, but seriously they dont counter or slow down melee blobs for nids in Tier 1 or be a threat they just do some little damage now. I know im not a gud nid player, though since i use spore mines as a Starter build i value spore mines as important. So a explanation, what purpose do spore mines serve.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Forestradio » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 1:21 pm

hiveminion wrote:I recall Riku winning one MRT with LA. Was this 'hundreds-of-games' win streak by any chance during the brief period Tyranids had squad leaders? Because I will grant that they were ridiculously OP.

No it was not, it was after that.

There is literally no denying this, the only players capable of competing with Dark Riku in tournament games with LA were 1) Noisy with chaos and 2) Toilailee with LG, everything else was a complete roflstomp, Riku had a 95%+ win ratio with LA and a ~65% win ratio with apo in at least five tournies and probably more,and this went on for many many patches.

So yes the LA was ridiculously overpowered on all levels back when there were actual competitive gaems going on.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Torpid » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 3:35 pm

Tex wrote:I haven't decided which way I lean on this argument yet, so I just want to gain some information instead.

Question.
1. Is ork AV okay enough that having no snare other than mekboy mines (which I haven't seen used in over a year) is justified? What is the key to this working and nid AV not working?

2. What in your mind (specific to nid players) is the difference between tankbustas and venom broods compositionally?

For comparison, bustas cost 300 req, have 850 infantry hp on 4 models, and do 16 damage per rocket. If a full volley hits (I believe these guys have an accuracy drawback though) then the burst is 16damage*3rockets*4models=192. On the other hand, venoms cost 300 req 15 power, have 990 heavy infantry hp on 3 models, and do 30 damage per hit. If a full volley hits then the burst is 30damage*3models*2shots=180.

Only glaring differences between these two units is that bustas have a long range artillery/utility ability that can snipe a vehicle, and venoms start with basic synapse and can be upgraded to be a huge ranged force multiplier with ranged synapse.
I understand synapses bombs are an issue, but bleed on bustas is also rampant. So, if I'm not missing something here, why are these guys suddenly under performing so badly?

Defeating vehicle play doesn't necessarily mean killing the vehicle does it?

3. If you always needed a zoanthrope to kill a vehicle, then what has honestly changed other than the vehicle is not guaranteed to be wiped? Can a tyranid player not position cautiously and force a vehicle to retreat or die by hitting it with FWB and venoms? Does the time spent in repairs not offer you an opportunity to a) pressure the repair unit(s) or b) grab map while the vehicle is in a critical state?

4. Which vehicles are the most problematic for nids?

5. Can you offer a brief synopses of what happens in each match up, especially ?

6. Is this largely an LA problem? Or is it across the board for nids?


1) Perfectly fine mostly thanks to beamy lootas which are getting a mild nerf next patch.

2) Again, if tankbustas were ork's only AV there would definitely be widespread complaints. But you only get tankbustas usually as your secondary AV purchase or if you are fighting a bloodcrusher/TG or some other kind of mobile melee threat. Transports and tanks you almost always go beamys to kill instead.

Also, tankbustas are clearly superior to the venom brood too. They don't have an accuracy penalty vs vehicles. And all 3 rockets shoot out instantly, the bursts from venoms take longer since it takes two shots for them to do that damage. Yes that's a burst, but it is noticeably worse vs moving vehicles. But... venoms buff your terms/ravs to compensate and they do bleed less.

To compensate for this tyranids have way more melee AV, plus rippers. This leads onto the next point.

3) You don't need to kill a vehicle to defeat vehicle play. Exactly. And this is why Hiveminion's ramblings about how you need a snare to kill vehicles misses the point. And that the VC fex doesn't counter tanks because it cannot chase them down and kill them... yet it heals on the field automatically, has more hp, does more dps and has utility with its melee prowess while also being able to snipe tanks using its ability... It's a pretty hard counter to a tank to say the least!

This leads into the concept of 'screening'. Whereby you constantly move a unit or group of units forwards and backwards around line of sight blockers and such towards a vehicle to keep it away from the bulk of your army or otherwise contributing to fights. This effectively makes the vehicle useless at the cost of a small section of your army and some micro. This is all fine since nids have more cost effective armies than most, faster and bigger ones. TGs are masters of screening, especially alongside rippers. And if a TG successfully negates the utility of a RB it is worth cost to cost given the differing ecos. You don't need to kill a vehicle to defeat vehicle play. Add in a zoan snare and suddenly the RB is useless unless guarding by an entire army as other one FWB during that TG screening phase and the RB is dead. Ridiculous.

4) The falcon is the most problematic because it is so fast! Which stops it from being killed with ease but at the same time unlike other transports it does AV so it cannot be 'screened' by TGs. Khorne dread is also a pain in the ass since it negates the nid heavy melee AV and can just charge right at the venom brood while the CS can tele in and tie it up too. Leaves you with very little to deal with it. Otherwise, melee walkers are pretty easy because the TG+venom can handle it alone pretty easily. But tanks are virtually impossible to kill unless you have TB fexes to screen them or VC fexes to kill them. The latter being fine of course as the nid eco means you should have one of those things or both by the time a tank comes out.

5) Fuck that - this post is long enough xD

6) I don't think it is an LA specific problem even if he does suffer the most from it. As said elsewhere heroes cannot be everywhere and a race shouldn't really rely on their hero to do all their AV, especially if he isn't dedicated towards that, although I suppose the venom cannon on the HT is dedicated in such a way these days since it truly does make him terrible vs infantry. Hence why it is pretty justified for it to be as good as it is.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Torpid » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 3:42 pm

The Licking Boogyman wrote:Whats the spore mines pupose, if they dont suppress anymore, they dont wipe squads anymore, thats gud, but seriously they dont counter or slow down melee blobs for nids in Tier 1 or be a threat they just do some little damage now. I know im not a gud nid player, though since i use spore mines as a Starter build i value spore mines as important. So a explanation, what purpose do spore mines serve.


Spore mines serve as a melee screen in T1. They will wipe units not being watched just as well. Do just as much damage intercepting retreat paths and still do enough damage to scare off any melee squad from engaging termagants/ravs in T1 for fear of them ending up dying in retreat path.

It only takes 3 explosions and you wipe squads. Add in a few ranged shots and it becomes 2. That means one explosion while they run into melee, shoot 'em, retreat ranged squad out and wipe them in retreat second explosion. So they will definitely still deter melee.

Why change it then? To stop them just strolling up to a ranged blob, popping and suddenly horms are devouring the ranged blob or even mines alone forcing off ranged units. That's wrong and not how they are meant to be used. They are designed for anti-garrison and anti-melee spam and they will work just fine at that role without suppression.

Nurland wrote:Can't really say much about the Zoan snare thingy but here are just some random thoughts that came to mind after reading notes etc.

- I honestly don't see a reason HT needs a speed nerf nor do I see a reason Crushing Claws should be 40 power (I mean with speed reduction it kinda makes sense but I don't think either of the changes sounds like a good one).

- Spore mines don't need the nerf I think. I think they are fine at their current state.

- Ravener buff is welcome. Their cost efficiency is pretty horrible now.

- Not sure if Aegis needed the double nerf.

- Not sure about Nob changes. No more reatarded hp pool late game but frenzy cost reduction + upgrade cost reductions are pretty significant. I suppose time will tell.

- LA wargear buffs were kinda needless apart from Feeder Tendrils. I think they were a bit overpriced at 35 power. Other stuff was fine price/performance wise.

- Drain life is too good in this patch. This change should nerf it properly. Dunno how I feel about the extra damage on retreat but the range is pretty darn short so...


The CC buff is directly correlated with the speed decrease. The speed decrease is a means of balancing the HT out with buffed ravs as he is the hero that most directly benefits from the buffed ravs. I wanted to nerf him without changing how he fundamentally functions so I felt like a speed reduction and minor hp reduction would be better than making wargear less effective/more expensive.

Spore mine nerf focuses their roles into anti garrison and anti melee.

fe_ wrote:I am not a top tier player and don't want to disrupt your arguing over nids being OP\UP. But I want to drop some of my observations here.
Tyranid AV is fine from my perspective, apart from a couple things:
1) Tarrantula turrets can baselock you in t1/t2, especially true for team games.
2) Heavy turret is almost unkillable.
3) Banewolf dropped onto my powerfarm makes me cry.

As it was mentioned before, spore mines are weak vs garrisons. In some cases they do not even do damage to troops inside (if the building is big enough), sometimes they just can't do enough damage to smoke a unit out (true for heroes or even tacs\csm). Playing green tooth gorge (and some 2v2 maps) is a pain for me because of that. Would it be gamebreaking if tyranid heroes would be able to purchase some wargear to deal with garrisons? I am talking bioplasma for HT, some kind of upgraded flesh hook, pooling models out of the windows, for LA, you got the idea. Seismic Roar, Toxic Burst and Toxic Miasma are not very effective, because radius is tiny. Just a wild thought, I know it's hard to implement and balance.

On the same topic, i can't see how removing suppression from sporemines will work, I got a strong feeling that mass melee from your opponent will be much more painfull in t1. Because there will be nothing to stop 3 sluggas and WB from killing sporemines in melee, taking damage from one detonation, or even just moving through them to chope your fragile stuff. Unless, of course, you're playing HT.


1) Turrets in general, yeah. Las-turret spam is pretty ridiculous too. No tricks like eldar have. Perhaps spore mines could get an additional ability that does extra damage to building_defence (turrets/beacons/shrines) to help in that regard.

2) It is. Especially with the plasma cannon - it can easily solo a venom brood then. Best bed is swarming it with melee but that can be risky and very costly. Not really much that can be done about that though tbh. It's just one of those things. Lacking long ranged anti-vehicle artillery or AV weapons and basically all your squads being weak to executioner weaponry sucks.

3) But we already made the bane wolf slower xD

Bane wolf is the bane of nids to be fair. It's a nightmare to kill. Fortunately it doesn't do AV so the TG is solid against it and with the new melee ravs... You can engulf IG in melee quite easily. Works far better than trying to out-shoot them, especially with BW support.

On the spore mines not hurting garrisons properly. Yeah. It's an issue. and not one with a clear solution either. Giving heroes anti-garrison wargear is pretty lame as it is and I don't think it would fit very well with what they have as options atm or into the nid eco. It's a tough onee.

Spore mines doing their current level of damage should be more than enough to scare off melee and if a melee squad merely melees the mines themselves well, the allied ranged nids should shoot them down and the melee squads risks getting blown up on once more. The whole point though is to make them less good vs ranged units. Perhaps we could change the suppression to a snare. Thereby not weakening them vs melee but weakening them vs ranged stuff.
Last edited by Torpid on Mon 13 Feb, 2017 3:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Broodwich » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 3:51 pm

Possible solution: give venom an additional upgrade that increases range, does a light snare (ala rippers) and removes synapse benefits. This makes them more a dedicated source of av and less a part of ranged blob of doom

May require a bit of tweaking for the right numbers
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Torpid » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 3:58 pm

Broodwich wrote:Possible solution: give venom an additional upgrade that increases range, does a light snare (ala rippers) and removes synapse benefits. This makes them more a dedicated source of av and less a part of ranged blob of doom

May require a bit of tweaking for the right numbers


It's an option for 2.7.

Another thing considered was giving warriors a dedicated AV variant using the barbed strangler model that would snare vehicles. Giving it to the warriors instead of the venoms is beneficial since we see warriors far less these days, especially in T1. It gives nids scaling T1 AV potential and also benefits the RA/LA more than the HT as they rely on BSWBs in their T1 a lot more as he focuses more on ravs.

These topics are more complicated though and so they will have to wait until 2.7

For now I am thinking along the lines of capping zoans at 2 per player and making FWB do DoT, perhaps 180 or so over 6 seconds, that obviously cannot stack.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby hiveminion » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 5:03 pm

Torpid wrote:3) You don't need to kill a vehicle to defeat vehicle play. Exactly. And this is why Hiveminion's ramblings about how you need a snare to kill vehicles misses the point. And that the VC fex doesn't counter tanks because it cannot chase them down and kill them... yet it heals on the field automatically, has more hp, does more dps and has utility with its melee prowess while also being able to snipe tanks using its ability... It's a pretty hard counter to a tank to say the least!


My 'ramblings' have been more concise, and devoid of hyperbole and ridiculization, than your own posts.

My point is not and has not been that you need a snare to kill vehicles. My point is that with mediocre and mostly melee-based AV the only way for Tyranids to credibly threaten and therefore counter vehicle play is with a snare. If you know there is nothing on the field that can catch your Predator you can pretty much roll it around the map uncontested knowing all you have to do is drive it back home when its health starts to drop too fast.

This is the very reason the VC Fex is not a counter to tanks as you claim, because a tank never picks a straight fight with it. Once the Carnifex is out of position or suddenly unsupported, the tank just moves in for the kill. Conversely, if a tank is out of position or unsupported against a Tyranid player, there is almost no risk of punishment for this mistake as it just drives off at speed 7.

I'd like to add that I like and would support your idea to introduce snaring to the BSWB. I would not be in favor of capping Zoanthropes at 2 until then.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby boss » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 5:53 pm

the bswb snare will be a short one at best nids will still need some sort of slow for long range vehicle or fast moving one vc fex takes way to long to get out in time.

black relic idea
Or Focused Warp Blast is a Firing mode that is toggled on the Zon where he is extremely accurate vs vehicles (with long range) and does heavy damage to them (like 90) but is extremely inaccurate vs infantry. And then the Zon can switch back to doing AoE. However the switch between firing mode would be a good 10 or so seconds.


but let say instead on heavy damage to vehicle just slow them and do less damage to infantry a lot less like what you did to the vc fex Bio-Plasma . the damage over time zoans wont make any sense they would still do able to snipe vehicles and we don't want that . surely
this is more then fine to do you trade infantry damage for a slow with the bswb snare as well this should cover nids av problems.

Tho the ht nerf the heath one is more than fine but I already told you the speed nerf will kill the ht in 1s and their no need to lower the cost of Crushing Claw

and I still like to no the reason why la is getting theses buffs

1.buff toxic miasma why 100 20 just why
2. Toxic Cysts hp regen increased why
3 stalk global why only 50 red you will be able to spam that plus now toxic miasma 100 20 = la level 3 before t2
4 even feeder tendrils I don't think need to cost less their cost a lot put when the la heath buff he will be able to tank more plus with stalk
5 corrosive claw buffs the snare good but their no need to lessen the cost tho
6 only pheromones changes are a really nerf and even so their should maybe cost more idk on that tho
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Crewfinity » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 6:43 pm

everybody seems to be complaining that all the heavy melee that nids have is useless... I'd just like to say that i've been doing some dirty things with Genestealer flanks :)

when you have venom brood with the main army screening them out, sure you cant catch a vehicle with your infantry. but if you force the vehicle to reposition, you can set up some great ambushes with your genestealers! If you drop a capillary tower and pop Adrenal rush, all of a sudden you have a bunch of speed 9.5 genestealers with a shitload of heavy melee ;)

add in the fact that they can infiltrate, and you can focus on a vehicle-countering strategy that revolves around engaging the army and forcing off support units, and then forcing the vehicle to reposition and finishing off with genestealers. While other factions can 'bait in' a vehicle to where their AV is, snare it and then kill it, nids have to play a more active role, in which they force it into an ambush with genestealers or rippers by using their main army to zone them out. its a much more 'in your face' strategy, which works well with the aggressive and map control orientation of the faction.

I've been able to use this to great effect to counter vehicles of all sorts, at least in 1v1s. With Kdreads or other melee walkers, you can deal a ton of damage with genestealers and warrior brood models if they try to chase after your venom brood. if they try to focus on the warriors, kite them away while the venom brood and genestealers punish it. warrior brood themselves shouldn't be overlooked, too. if they have a bunch of gants or gaunts around them, they can deal up to Assault Terminator level damage with the reverse synapse bonuses.

transports definitely seem to be harder to deal with than walkers, but here is where i have had more success with genestealer ambushes. since falcons got their speed decreased, genes can easily outrun any transport for a short while, enabling you to set up vehicle kills when they're not expecting it. it requires some more patience and preparation, but it can work.

relevant match:
https://www.dawnofwar.info/esl/match/26928408
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby boss » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 7:00 pm

Genestealers don't counter kdread or any melee dreads what you on about with out melee Synapse that is already a stupid plan you can keep them in the back and wait to deal with the changing dread but then all he has to do is foce fire your venom brood of just tie them up then what mass retreat also is genestealers bleed you like shit and if you really are sending gens vs melee dread I like to no how you get in t3 with the bleed
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Forestradio » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 7:34 pm

So, to sum up this thread:

1) Nids were never op in elite

2) Genestealers counter Khorne Dreadnoughts

I must have crossed into some kind of alternate timeline.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby fe_ » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 7:45 pm

Forestradio wrote:So, to sum up this thread:

2) Genestealers counter Khorne Dreadnoughts

I must have crossed into some kind of alternate timeline.


Genestealers do not counter kdreads. Genes + venom brood + AGWB can, that's what Crewfinity said.

Crewfinity wrote: With Kdreads or other melee walkers, you can deal a ton of damage with genestealers and warrior brood models if they try to chase after your venom brood. if they try to focus on the warriors, kite them away while the venom brood and genestealers punish it. warrior brood themselves shouldn't be overlooked, too. if they have a bunch of gants or gaunts around them, they can deal up to Assault Terminator level damage with the reverse synapse bonuses.


But great way to sum up this tread, very helpful and insightful!
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby boss » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 8:08 pm

venom brood are the only unit that can damage melee dread genestealers barely damage them with Melee Resistance Aura and sending in Adrenal Glands Warrior to fight dread hope you like Synapse Backlash and like I say all then he has to do is tie up the venom brood then what also i lol about that Adrenal Glands Warrior can do Assault Terminator level damage with the reverse synapse bonuses does that mean that to deal with dread i need 10 gants squad. it squad that increases their damage not number per add on

also this is what happened when players who don't no the race or ever player them or even done 1s with them start thinking they no what Balance
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Crewfinity » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 8:39 pm

boss wrote:venom brood are the only unit that can damage melee dread genestealers barely damage them with Melee Resistance Aura and sending in Adrenal Glands Warrior to fight dread hope you like Synapse Backlash and like I say all then he has to do is tie up the venom brood then what


read the context :P
you can't fight melee dreads with a single source of AV of course, but multiple sources can combine quite effectively. if you have AG warriors, genestealers, and venom brood, for example:

if you send in all three units to attack the dread, it has a couple of options.
it can go after your venom brood, in which case your heavy melee has free rein to attack it while you kite away with the venom brood.
it can pop the blood frenzy and start wailing on your melee units, in which case you can kite them back towards your lines (since it cannot be controlled) with your higher speed units, and attack it with venom brood. you can kite away whichever unit it is going after and attack with the other two.

dps against vehicles:
venom brood - 12 dps each * 3 = 36 squad dps
genestealers - 34.75 dps each * .5 damage modifier *.6 melee resist = 10.425 dps * 6 = 62.55 dps. if you pop adrenal rush that *1.2 = 75.06 dps

genestealers will actually deal more to a dread than venom brood does, if both are going at full squad numbers :P

boss wrote:also i lol about that Adrenal Glands Warrior can do Assault Terminator level damage with the reverse synapse bonuses does that mean that to deal with dread i need 10 gants squad. it squad that increases their damage not number per add on


actually I'm pretty sure reverse synapse is done by model, not by squad. from the codex:

Reverse Synapse
Warrior Brood Adrenal Gland damage is amplified based on the self-owned Hormagaunts, Termagants, and Rippers in close proximity to them. Each Termagants/Hormagaunt/Ripper within synapse radius increases Warrior Brood damage by 1.5%, to a maximum increase of 50%. Requires Adrenal Gland upgrade. Radius 32. Passive ability.

so you only need 3 squads of smaller nids (2 termas, hormas) with endless swarm, and your warriors will be dealing 45% more damage.
They start with 30 heavy melee dps each (hammernators have 50 dps for reference), so 90 squad dps
with 1 squad of 10 gants around them they deal 34.5 dps
with 2 squads they deal 39 dps, and with 3 squads they deal 43.5 dps. that's not insignificant at all.

boss wrote:also this is what happened when players who don't no the race or ever player them or even done 1s with them start thinking they no what Balance


I literally played a 1v1 with nids against Kdreads and posted the replay in my earlier post, so this isnt just theorycrafting, I'm trying to outline some other possibilities or options for discussion... maybe this is what happens when nid players who are used to being able to a-move against vehicles with zoans can't adapt their strategy or innovate based on changes -___-
Atlas

Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Atlas » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 8:52 pm

boss wrote:1.buff toxic miasma why 100 20 just why
2. Toxic Cysts hp regen increased why
3 stalk global why only 50 red you will be able to spam that plus now toxic miasma 100 20 = la level 3 before t2

[certain sections omitted for brevity]

Image
I'm being a bit facetious here, but "just why" doesn't really offer anything useful to the discussion. Item 3's feedback here is far more useful and convincing than Items 1 and 2. I'm going to infer then that the reason toxic miasma being 100/20 is bad is because it stacks with the stalk global now.

I'll go ahead and do the ol' line-by-line of this stuff.

hiveminion wrote:As you said, Tyranid AV in the past and currently centers around the Zoanthrope in one way or another. [brevity] ....You seem to prefer the current situation over the previous Zoanthrope even though at present Zoanthrope spam is more essential to deal with vehicles than it was before, where a single Zoan would do.

My position on this debate is that I would be fine with fixing Nid AV, however that is ultimately defined. Just as long as it doesn't involve making the Zoanthrope absolutely necessary to do it. Genes/Venoms, Venoms/TG, even just 1 t2 unit paired with something like the BSWB snare thing should be viable and far more acceptable to me. Let's get off the Zoan-crack and really fix the issues with this race instead of moving from one flavor of broken Zoans to another.
boss wrote: [brevity] ... and I can go on and on nids only have venom and zoan for long range av/snare crying about this makes is silly yes its a key unit but then a key unit for sm is asm rb or dreads is this wrong no like orks are shootas a key unit yes is this wrong no their are unit is each match up for each race that are key but does that mean we should change them.

The difference is that for SM AV you're not required to get missile tacs and asm bombs. You could do it with Libby/Devs. Or Libby/Missile Tacs. Or Devs/Dread. Or ASM/Dread. Even with shootas, I've seen ork players win competitive games without shootas. Reference Mathis build and that last Crewfinity game I saw where he went full-melee. Diversity good! Everything on one unit to prop up an internally unsound race bad!
Broodwich wrote:Possible solution: give venom an additional upgrade that increases range, does a light snare (ala rippers) and removes synapse benefits. This makes them more a dedicated source of av and less a part of ranged blob of doom.

This is more of what I was hoping for from this thread. Just let the cards hit the table imo, and let's see if we can figure something out. Whatever your opinion on Broodwich's proposal, it's something new that doesn't already have a track record of being dumb.
Torpid wrote:Another thing considered was giving warriors a dedicated AV variant using the barbed strangler model that would snare vehicles. Giving it to the warriors instead of the venoms is beneficial since we see warriors far less these days, especially in T1. It gives nids scaling T1 AV potential and also benefits the RA/LA more than the HT as they rely on BSWBs in their T1 a lot more as he focuses more on ravs.[brevity]

Second verse, same as the first here. Alright, this option gives some transitional AV, cool. Something fresh that might help, awesome.
hiveminion wrote:My point is that with mediocre and mostly melee-based AV the only way for Tyranids to credibly threaten and therefore counter vehicle play is with a snare. ... I'd like to add that I like and would support your idea to introduce snaring to the BSWB. ...

Alright, so the key is the snare and not the Zoanthrope right? Ok, I think a productive conversation can be had on the snare then, and possible implementations. Is the addition of a snare the answer to Nids AV? I don't know. But it's something.

Ultimately though, my first point still stands imo:
These topics are more complicated though and so they will have to wait until 2.7
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby boss » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 9:06 pm

great so many thing I got to answer I start with atlas

boss wrote:
1.buff toxic miasma why 100 20 just why is does good damage and debuff already their no need to lessen the cost
2. Toxic Cysts hp regen increased why this only cost 100 20 power is already good as it is
3 stalk global why only 50 red you will be able to spam that plus now toxic miasma 100 20 = la level 3 before t2 stalk already a good global at it is buff your la buy 25% damage their no need to lessen the cost

ht also don't need to lose speed the heath nerf alone will be good but lose speed it will make him on most maps just unplayable other then small also don't reduce Crushing Claw cost it the highest dps in the game
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Atlas

Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Atlas » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 9:08 pm

Awesome, this is making more progress now. Ty!
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby hiveminion » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 9:11 pm

You should not dismiss people demanding explanations for balance changes, after all you want consensus on changes and a consensus is useless unless people can make an informed opinion.

I would like to redirect you to my original post which did not imply Nid AV should be centered around the Zoanthrope, although it always has been and currently is now. However, considering your desire for consensus and a quick, easy solution to current Nid AV problems, the Zoanthrope became inevitably the only available option.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Crewfinity » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 9:19 pm

boss wrote:great so many thing I got to answer I start with atlas

boss wrote:
1.buff toxic miasma why 100 20 just why is does good damage and debuff already their no need to lessen the cost
2. Toxic Cysts hp regen increased why this only cost 100 20 power is already good as it is
3 stalk global why only 50 red you will be able to spam that plus now toxic miasma 100 20 = la level 3 before t2 stalk already a good global at it is buff your la buy 25% damage their no need to lessen the cost

ht also don't need to lose speed the heath nerf alone will be good but lose speed it will make him on most maps just unplayable other then small also don't reduce Crushing Claw cost it the highest dps in the game


I agree with all three points on the LA, those wargears/global already perform quite well imo with no additional changes needed. if they get buffed as such i think they will overperform a lot. same as drain life was a good wargear that didnt necessarily see a ton of use, they were not bad to start with and didnt need any buffs. especially with cheap wargears in the 100/20 range even small buffs will have a big impact since they can potentially be first power purchases and have a big impact from very early stages of the game.

toxic miasma already does a bunch of damage (65 melee dps plus 20 damage over time per attack) along with a great passive (25% speed and damage debuff is no joke) and i think its totally reasonable at 100/25

toxic cysts is a dirt-cheap upgrade that increases health by 100, and comes with an awesome ability that deals 100 AOE damage and heals the lictor for 100 health over 10 seconds. health increases on LA are a big deal since his high damage and retreat wiping potential are offset by being realtively fragile. increasing the health regen here to give him another 50 health (which can be used every 40 seconds) makes it much harder to exploit this weakness, so in general health buffs to the LA should be viewed with suspicion. on a 100/20 upgrade it just seems like a bit much for on-demand crowd control as well as a big self-heal.

reserving opinion on HT changes because i dont play with/against it enough to form an educated opinion.
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby boss » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 9:28 pm

now crew time to be bashed :)

your oppent would have to be stupid to send a lone dread to fight your whole Amy unless he Sorcerer 8-) and like I say genestealers don't do much to melee dread and you should never send AG warriors near dread cos Synapse Backlash so only your venom brood can do much to them now you have 42 pop cap of warriors 15 both and genestealers 12 vs 15 pop sm dread melee now let say he has asm 20 pop with Sergeant their sole job it to stop the venom from firing at your dread which thay will do now what you going to do you got melee dread running at you got venom being stop by asm and still got a full heath dread to deal with that charging at you going to send gens at the dread now no

literally played a 1v1 with nids against Kdreads and posted the replay in my earlier post, so this isnt just theorycrafting, I'm trying to outline some other possibilities or options for discussion... maybe this is what happens when nid players who are used to being able to a-move against vehicles with zoans can't adapt their strategy or innovate based on changes -___-


nid players what nids players their only me and destoffel and fe and maybe floid left that play nid in 1s saying that nids are amove these days is rich coming from an om main and wb main very rich :o
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Re: Tyranid AV and other issues

Postby Crewfinity » Mon 13 Feb, 2017 10:59 pm

boss wrote:your oppent would have to be stupid to send a lone dread to fight your whole Amy unless he Sorcerer 8-) and like I say genestealers don't do much to melee dread and you should never send AG warriors near dread cos Synapse Backlash so only your venom brood can do much to them now you have 42 pop cap of warriors 15 both and genestealers 12 vs 15 pop sm dread melee now let say he has asm 20 pop with Sergeant their sole job it to stop the venom from firing at your dread which thay will do now what you going to do you got melee dread running at you got venom being stop by asm and still got a full heath dread to deal with that charging at you going to send gens at the dread now no


i mean this is an RTS, that's where positioning and micro come into play. you have the necessary tools to counter a walker, your opponent will try to stop you from doing so, you have to counter his moves. its not like this is exclusive to nids, asm make life difficult for most AV units. I wont spend too much time theorycrafting because its not very useful, but you have clear tools to counter ASM trying to tie up your venom brood. you should have double crippling poison and a shitload of melee damage to force them off if they try to jump your ranged blob. if a melee dread is trying to chase your AG warriors to get synapse bombs, that means your other AV can start dealing damage while it chases them. obviously you dont want your warriors taking hits from a dreadnought, but dreadnoughts are slow and you can kite them easily (SM dread is speed 4.5, warriors are speed 5.5 and a tower makes them 6.5).

if you wanna talk population lets look at that...

nids with hormas (8), double terma (16), venoms(15), warriors(15), and genes(12) - 66 pop
sm with double scouts (24), tacs (20), asm (20), and dread(15) - 79 pop

might be a little less for SM depending on sargeant purchases but in general nids dont have much to complain about with pop costs -__-

In general, all I'm trying to say is that nids are not limited to only ranged AV, even against melee walkers. they used to rely heavily on ranged AV by using a combination of snaring zoans and venom brood as steady dps. now they no longer have the snare (although zoans have higher spike AV now), but they have access to a shitload of heavy melee with the recent genestealer changes and less recent reverse synapse changes to AG warriors. I'm not saying that they will solo khorne dreads, but nid heavy melee is quite fast (especially with tower support) and shouldn't be overlooked as a source of AV, particularly against walkers without melee resist. you may not be able to snare them and chase down the slowed vehicle with venom brood anymore, but you can chase damaged walkers with your heavy melee units or try to ambush transports with infiltrated genestealers.

the rest of my earlier comment was facetious for the most part but its annoying to hear all these complaints about how nids need their snare back and not a word about why genestealers are having a hard time pulling their weight in the nids AV roster. if a snare were to go back in with current state genes, there would be absolutely no way to keep vehicles alive against nids.

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