Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

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Torpid
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Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Torpid » Thu 06 Jul, 2017 4:44 am

Currently if you have a barbed strangler warrior brood (BSWB) you can choose to buy the thorax swarm (TS) upgrade or the AG upgrade. Once you buy one, you cannot get the other. The AG transforms the squad. Changes stats a bit but you lose your barbed strangler (BS).

The TS upgrade merely acts as a buff - you get two new abilities, more hp, but you keep your BS.

Should you keep the BS when you get the TS upgrade? Or should it make you lose it like the AG upgrade does?

Curious to hear your thoughts so please share them.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Deflaktor » Thu 06 Jul, 2017 10:41 am

I like that it goes against the formula "one upgrade for a specific role" and thus adds some flavor. However, it feels like a no-brainer to get as there are no drawbacks. IMO, once you get the upgrade, the squad should fire its barbed strangler less frequently or lose its suppression. But losing suppression is probably going to far.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Adeptus Noobus » Thu 06 Jul, 2017 11:12 am

Thorax Swarm cost set at 75/25 and requires T2 to unlock. Upgrade is available to Default and Barbed Stranger Warrior variants.
Thorax Swarm upgrade adds a grenade icon to the squad.
Increases health from 990 to 1188. (20% increase)
Increases speed from 5.5 to 6.
Thorax Swarm grants the Dessicator Larvae and Electroshock Grub abilities.

Electroshock Grub

Launch electroshock grubs into a vehicle to hamper its circuitry. Inflicts 160 melta damage, reduces target vehicle’s speed and rotation rates by 60% for 15 seconds and disables weaponry for 4 seconds. Range 24, 40 second cooldown.

Dessicator Larvae
Erupt Dessicators in a radius of 20 around the Warrior Brood that persist on the ground for 15 seconds. Increases enemy damage taken by 20%. Doesn’t affect vehicles. 60 second cooldown.


Just to inform everybody of the buffs they are getting due to the upgrade.

In my oppinion the Dessicator would make more sense on a melee unit. So does the hp buff but I guess that was added so the WB can get close to the vehicle without getting shot up instantly.
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boss
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby boss » Thu 06 Jul, 2017 11:15 am

Well like I said before the thorax swarm was to help the barbed strangler scale into the mid and late game, it not a no brainer upgrade you lock out adrenal glands for your warriors which is a big deal your melee units won't scale very well with out it unless you go 2 warriors I really don't no why you want to be change this it fine.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Ace of Swords » Thu 06 Jul, 2017 2:13 pm

I actually wonder the other way around, barbed strangler is already good and has purpose, AG IS good and unlocks the use the of genestealers for LA/RA but generally becomes worse in late game, especially when tanks roll out and while thorax swarm + AG may be too strong but I think it's what nids could use to fill up their weakness and I've also always considered BS + TS a nonbo due to the range and the fact you want to keep the BS warriors out of trouble.

This also would come with some nerfs to the TS since it's already too strong a snare.
Last edited by Ace of Swords on Thu 06 Jul, 2017 10:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Floid » Thu 06 Jul, 2017 9:39 pm

I'm with Ace. Nowadays AGWB are useless in t3, and BSTS is a pretty vicious unit for every stage of the game. It can snare vehicles and suppress units, so orks are the perfect target ^^. I would suggest to move TS to AG warriors, for give them more presence in t3. melee synapse is not good enough when they explode like paper against almost every kind of damage of t2 and this means knockback and damage for your weak infantry. Or just stay like that with BSTS, but with less range and specially less damage.

Otherwise I would give time to players to adapt to the new role of the BSTS. For example, in the game we had in FW, on estia, Toilailee was obviously overextending his BattleWagon when he was trying to bash our west powerfarm, and because we had a chance to snare it, we had a chance to punish it. People needs to get used to it.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Oddnerd » Thu 06 Jul, 2017 9:56 pm

Couldn't we just let both forms of warrior squad have thorax swarm? The thorax swarm was only proposed in the first place because of the fervently anti-zoanthrope snare sentiment of 1v1 players. It is a great upgrade, but it still requires you to potentially over-expose your paper-thin warrior squad to fire.

I do agree that AGWB have become a very poor choice, since they have unimpressive damage and a major drawback in the form of reverse synapse, giving them the snare and/or dessicator larva option would potentially make them a viable choice again. You could even make desiccator larvae exclusive to AGWB, since that ability seems like something I would want to use to give myself an advantage in a melee fight.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby boss » Thu 06 Jul, 2017 10:19 pm

Well funny thing is the thorax swarm is getting nerf anyways the snare anyways
Electroshock Grubs snare time reduced from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.
Electroshock Grubs now have a 3 second timer before effects activate on enemy vehicles.
Electroshock Grubs no longer deactivate enemy vehicle weaponry.

I will say one other thing zoans are going to lose their focused warp blast which is going to be a huge nerf to nid av as it is, default warriors and venom brood are going to 1020 heath as well, also the nid snare need you to stay in it range the whole time or it won't go of unlike all the rest of the snares in this game tho I don't no how I feel about giving the thorax swarm to agwb
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Atlas » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 4:09 am

Let's not misrepresent here boss.

The snare time loss is hardly settled but the rest looks pretty solid. A leash would be added to the Grubs as well should those other changes be added as was mentioned twice already. As for the Zoans losing FWB, that was something that was talked about wayyyyy early and was shut down pretty fast.

Like, my god boss, these aren't even easy mistakes to make here :X
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby boss » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 7:32 am

Atlas wrote:Let's not misrepresent here boss.

The snare time loss is hardly settled but the rest looks pretty solid. A leash would be added to the Grubs as well should those other changes be added as was mentioned twice already. As for the Zoans losing FWB, that was something that was talked about wayyyyy early and was shut down pretty fast.

Like, my god boss, these aren't even easy mistakes to make here :X



Misrepresent maybe if you don't hide all the changes and put them on the forums then we might not have another psybolt ammunition strike squad problem.

The snare time loss will probably happen if not it will stay 15.

Zoans are still in a silly spot still the best av nid got how sad it that :(
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Atlas

Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Atlas » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 8:50 am

You seem to be confused. The issue is not you talking to the forum or anything. You should just be factually correct about what you're saying, lest they become confused about what changes we're talking about. That's a pretty low bar in my opinion.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby boss » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 9:40 am

The only thing I got wrong was the zoans but still they should be fix and will be but anyways let move this along.


I don't no what about giving both the variants of the warriors the thorax swarm it does buff the heath and movement speed of the unit so on adrenal glands warriors they tank a lot of shit as well as being faster mean we can always try but they be very strong.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby hiveminion » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 10:54 am

I think it's fine for BS Warriors to keep the snare and the BS, it's 50 power and the BS doesn't scale well anyway. I do feel that the debuff ability should be part of the AG upgrade, and should reduce enemy damage output instead of increasing damage taken. That would give melee Warriors a bit more survivability against power melee troops which always absolutely wreck them completely invalidating Genestealer countermeasures.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby 531st » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 2:01 pm

I kinda like AG+TS idea more. AoE and suppression weapons are always good unlike slow, vulnerable walking synapse bombs with mediocre heavy melee
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Phoenix » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 7:58 pm

hiveminion wrote:That would give melee Warriors a bit more survivability against power melee troops which always absolutely wreck them completely invalidating Genestealer countermeasures.

Warrior Brood is supposed to get wrecked by power melee squads. Usually you just use the Warrior leap knockback on the power melee squad, kite away with Warriors while staying in synapse range and then rape them with Genestealers...
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby hiveminion » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 8:16 pm

Phoenix wrote:Warrior Brood is supposed to get wrecked by power melee squads. Usually you just use the Warrior leap knockback on the power melee squad, kite away with Warriors while staying in synapse range and then rape them with Genestealers...


I feel that generally the damage you take going in and out is too much to prevent a model loss even with good micro.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Torpid » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 8:21 pm

hiveminion wrote:
Phoenix wrote:Warrior Brood is supposed to get wrecked by power melee squads. Usually you just use the Warrior leap knockback on the power melee squad, kite away with Warriors while staying in synapse range and then rape them with Genestealers...


I feel that generally the damage you take going in and out is too much to prevent a model loss even with good micro.


I think this may be one of those 3v3 vs 1v1 things. You will get focused down very fast in 3v3. And potentially a nother melee squad will run over to atk the warriors.

In 1v1 however AG warriors take fucking ages to kill as it is. And they certainly are not threatened by any power melee squad WHILST genestealers are nearby. Genes have that huge melee skill and speed so they flip over anything nearby in melee.

But this is slightly tangential.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Crewfinity » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 8:43 pm

To add to Torpid's last comment....

several people have mentioned AGWB's being fragile and having mediocre damage:
531st wrote:I kinda like AG+TS idea more. AoE and suppression weapons are always good unlike slow, vulnerable walking synapse bombs with mediocre heavy melee


Oddnerd wrote:Couldn't we just let both forms of warrior squad have thorax swarm? The thorax swarm was only proposed in the first place because of the fervently anti-zoanthrope snare sentiment of 1v1 players. It is a great upgrade, but it still requires you to potentially over-expose your paper-thin warrior squad to fire.

I do agree that AGWB have become a very poor choice, since they have unimpressive damage and a major drawback in the form of reverse synapse, giving them the snare and/or dessicator larva option would potentially make them a viable choice again. You could even make desiccator larvae exclusive to AGWB, since that ability seems like something I would want to use to give myself an advantage in a melee fight.


And that is simply not true, at least in a 1v1 context.

AGWB models have 495 Heavy Infantry health (1485 squad health) at level 1, which is even more than vanguard veteran models (they each have 450).
At speed 5.5 they're also not particularly slow, especially since you can buff their speed on demand with a capillary tower.
and their melee damage is actually quite scary. They start off with 30 heavy melee each (almost on par with Ogryns) so 90 heavy melee squad dps, but the reverse synapse that was added a couple of patches ago makes a huge difference:
With a single squad of ES hormagaunts/termagants within radius 32 they now have 34.5 heavy melee dps each (103.5 heavy melee dps total)
With 2 squads of ES hormagaunts/termagants within radius 32 they now have 39 heavy melee dps each (117 heavy melee dps total)
With 3 squads of ES hormagaunts/termagants within radius 32 they now have 43.5 heavy melee dps each (130.5 heavy melee dps total)

130.5 heavy melee dps is almost at Assault Terminator levels of damage (they have 150) so AGWB actually have the potential for very high melee damage.

While I can appreciate that they feel much more fragile in a team game context, I am concerned that any buffs to AGWB will push them to be overpowered in 1v1s. Additionally, Genestealers have received a bunch of buffs lately, which makes AGWB better simply due to existing synergies. buffs to AGWB will correspondingly cause Genestealer power level to increase as well, which is also not necessary imo.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Crewfinity » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 8:54 pm

One more point I'd like to make -

Giving AGWB the option to purchase the Thorax Swarm upgrade is even more hilariously overpowered than I originally realized.

Giving warriors an additional 20% health buff from TS on top of the 50% health buff from AG will put them at 594 HI health per model - that's almost as much health as a Nobz squad model (650).

It will also increase their speed to 6. as well as giving them a vehicle snare. On a unit with Heavy Melee damage.
And if that's not enough, the dessicator swarm ability increases damage recieved by enemies in a radius.

Please just picture how this would play out if you're rolling around with AGTSWB with genestealers.

Can you shoot them on approach?
Not really, they have speed 6 and 1782 HI health.

Hmmm okay well lets try to outmelee them then!
oh wait they have dessicator swarm, passive leap, and genestealer with melee synapse. good luck trying to get those synapse bombs....

Alright well lets try to counter them with a dreadnought then!
aaaaaand electroshock grubs >> 298.5 Heavy Melee dps from Genestealers and WB while your vehicle is snared.


please god no. just give this a little more thought. This would be an awful idea and would make nids T2 ridiculously broken. No heavy melee squad should have a vehicle snare.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Oddnerd » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 9:48 pm

I was thinking of making electroshock grub unique to the BS warriors, and making dessicator larvae a AG-only upgrade.

Since I only play nids on those rare 1v1 randoms I won't speak for 1v1 balance, only 3v3.
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Re: Should Thorax Swarm Warriors be allowed to use a Barbed Strangler?

Postby Torpid » Fri 07 Jul, 2017 11:50 pm

Yeah AG getting TS is downright silly - them getting dessicators, meh, it makes more sense than BSWB having it, but it is unnecessary as I do not think AG wars are bad.

Seriously. That is never happening. AG warriors are tanky enough as it is...

Why should a heavy melee squad get a melta bomb. A T2 AV squad?

On the topic of genestealers they will be losing their HM in T2.
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