Eldar Topic

[Ace of Swords]

I think shees became this good at chasing compared to retail becaue they cannot do special attack anymore on retreat, meaning that they will just pump on the unit all of their damage which as everyone knows is increased on retreating units, yes a special attack on retreat could wipe you a model or two but in definitive it would slow down the banshees and they would not be able to reach the escaping model

[Vinyl41]

whait what ?!?!? no melee special on reetreat ? why were they removed in the first place ? anyway this needs to be reverted to fix shees more or less ^_^

[Kvek]

whait what ?!?!? no melee special on reetreat ? why were they removed in the first place ? anyway this needs to be reverted to fix shees more or less ^_^

I don't think this is a problem. I hate specials on retreat. +It wouldn't nerf only the shees but all other melee units

[Vinyl41]

what other potent chaser units have special that might hinder that retreat kill potential ? uhm shees and sluggas 2 units that we all hate ;]
just admit guys that some mod changes didnt rly workout that well

[Caeltos]

Actually, the melee specials on retreat is quite a significant thing. It adds a good chunk of layers that makes outcomes random, and some of them can be downright decisive. To revert this change only to change the performance for banshees alone, is without a doubt in my mind, the dumbest proposition I've bare witness to.

Commanders performing a special attack on a lonesome squad-member who's retreating, can be the turning point from each end of the spectrum. The way it functions now is alot more predictable for each player. If they fail to realise there's a threat that might snatch from the rear, they should be far more conservative with their play & useage of units, rather rely on sheer luck to come out on top. It's ridicilous.

Almost every single melee unit in the game is effected quite substantially by the melee skill enhancement on retreat. But the thing with Banshees are alot more singled out as an issue, but it's down to mechanics of the race and the functionality, not the whole-arc of the mechanic change that was made.

The Banshees are argueably, one of the fastest melee chasers in the game, with ontop of great assets available to them that enhances it as well. The fine-tunement of the retreat-killing can be "eased" out, without hindering their whole-say performance. And that was done through reducing their damage output on retreating units.

However, some people have just a thing for hating on Eldar, and the matchup in general, and wish Eldar would crumble and rot away for all what's worth, and there's a great deal of exagguration. One thing to take into consideration when working with anything revolving within the balance department is to simply understand that, there's a genuine lack of self-improvement within the players themselves. There's the Dunning Kruger effect, and this is what seperates alot of players from one another in which they will firmly accept they missplayed the scenario, and they should rework on their gameplay/mechanics, whereas others will simply scapegoat and put the blame elsewhere, be that through "OP Eldar" // "balance is crap" , etc etc; when the reality of itself is that the player put himself in a bad spot, and thus he is punished for it.

Not realising the fault of your own missplays, is where you stop developing and evolving as a player, both in terms of your strategies and your overall gameplay. It literally comes to an halt. If you dwell into the minds of the more expertise players within any respective (e)sport, you'll hear they'll firmly know there was a lack of execution, or they need to spice up their strategies in order to beat the opposition.

By changing the stragies in order to deal with a threat, shifts the metagame as well, once the solution has been discovered, and it's becoming more of a general-used strategies, the opposition will fall into the same respective category as the other opposition. They will wish ill upon the other matchup, and demand nerfs, but all of this is very linear in the terms of balance development in itself, since it's just a single matchup issue. The most example of this is the Eldar VS Space Marine, which has been in a continous flux ever since the game was released, with little to no consideration of all the other multiple of matchups. Thus, the whole balance in itself in the majority of matchups become skewed and underdeveloped, and it crumbles on itself.

With this being said, and I would have wished to continue on- but I'll savor it for another time. I strongly believe there's genuine lack of interest in the metaforming of the strategies in general. For the most part, the players with the innovation to create & shape strategies have already dissapeared from the game, and what we're left with is more or less a singular and simplistic structure of balance, within the construct of very basic cookie-cutter builds, and the unorthodox (but possible strong builds, yet undiscovered) become left obselete, and may suffer(or be presented as a even stronger potential meta build) based on feedback from a very simplistic perspective on things.

So what I'm saying is. This is the time & period of the game where I'll let all the changes of the latest patches settle in. There won't be a new patch coming anytime soon with any substantial amount of balance changes. If you're having an issue with a specific strategy, or a matchup in general, it's best to try to adress the issue you're having, by being vocal about and asking for opinions about how to deal with. And this is quite a broad thing, since it'll evolve capping routines, builds, gearing up & putting priority on investment, and being able to incorporate all of these into adaption, since some of these as I've mentioned, will require fine-tuning depending on how the match goes.

Balance complaints as a whole, should and always will be a last resort thing. And it's best to be as elaborate and constructive on the matter. And it requires a hell of alot of feedback from multiple of matchups, not just a singular one. Since any proposition based on a singular matchup is going be extremely bias, and might jeopardise the balance as a whole. (Make 10 matchups suffer to ease 1 issue as an example)

TL;DR version (If you're that lazy)
- Be innovative, develop strategies. (Builds, caps, routines, timings, all that shit)
- Be vocal of a unit issue, ask for help - there's no shame in that
- QQ as a last resort, espicially if you don't have anything useful to say.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

banshees killing on retreat doesn't require flanking. as long as they are in charge range they can kill anything on retreat, bar maybe an autarch who i think is speed 6, given enough distance. simplistically speaking, the last thing to retreat dies unless you have knockback. i simply don't think any unit should be able to chase a retreating unit across half the map while landing hits. a charge cooldown of something between 5 and 10 seconds lets banshees get kills on retreat but prevents entire map chases and has minimal effect on everything.

[Caeltos]

Increasing the charge cooldown effects their effiency in a prolonged skirmish where they need to function as gap-closers. If they're unable to do so, they'll take additional damage, and thus become less cost efficient in return for their combat effiency.

It's the complete opposite of minimal effect, it has an extreme magnitude of impact on their performance in the mid-late game skirmishes, and makes kiting an extremely effective tool to deny their effiency to close the gap.

[FiSH]

so you are telling me your entire army retreated and a full health banshee squad chased the whole way? and the banshees just charged at you head first without flanking and you didn't do something before retreating?
http://ntx.cz/zdroje/74/meme-really.jpg

[Nuclear Arbitor]

they would only need a one or two second pause in their charge after 5-10 seconds so yes, i do believe it would have minimal impact; certainly compared to other options.

sort of. i was involved in a battle with one player when the eldar player moved up towards me and i was forced to retreat. one unit, idr which, was chased from the middle of argus to the gates at the bases (a little outside suppression range but that's not the issue) before being killed. the units health isn't really the important part here, what's more important is the distance traveled which was about a third of the map. and no, i didn't save a replay.

[Ace of Swords]

Maybe the issue doesn't directly reside in the banshees?

Maybe after a certain distance retreat speed should increase even more?

Because surely it's not intended that shees can follow and hit quite often units that have 'charged' their retreating speed for half the map, but we cannot nerf their speed so maybe buff retreating?

[PanKiller]

Buff retreating would be best option . Thus not affecting any melee based style at all .

[Codex]

But the problem with buffing retreat speed is that you will fundamentally alter how punishing unnecessary retreats are, and makes "panic mass retreating" less bad to do. We have to consider the implications of this before executing such a change.

[PanKiller]

How is punishing bad retreating any ballanced? Games should be win on the battlefield not on the retreat abuse . If u cant bleed models on retreat then u will genbash/cap the map and result will be similar >> winning .

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

Increasing the charge cooldown effects their effiency in a prolonged skirmish where they need to function as gap-closers. If they're unable to do so, they'll take additional damage, and thus become less cost efficient in return for their combat effiency.

In other case, i would agree with you. But not here.

Banshees have a base 5.5 speed + 0.5 from the Exarch. That's only 6 speed by themselves, usually enough to a quick focus. But, hey, there is more. They have a +3 speed with a 50% ranged damage reduction received with the Exarch for 10 seconds (with a 35 seconds cooldown), which evades some damage that they could received changing the melee focus. And if this not enough, they have a AOE suppression ability.

And this without mentioning any of the Eldar's buffs.

So, with all this tools, not sure how a little cooldown on his charge is going to reduce soo much their efficiency.

And another one thing: there is not supposed that the Eldar are not good on prolonged skirmishes?

It's the complete opposite of minimal effect, it has an extreme magnitude of impact on their performance in the mid-late game skirmishes, and makes kiting an extremely effective tool to deny their effiency to close the gap.

Wot? This is a joke? Kitting a Banshee squad? With their 5.5 + 0.5 speed, +3 from Fleet of Foot and with their shout? How?

Seriously, Banshees (and a bit the Sluggas) are the only melee squads for their design which can charge against a retreating squad and not only use them as public transport to travel half map at retreating speed, but catch, do melee attacks them and kill models.

[Vinyl41]

well im impressed that cael actually wrote such a huge wall of text to tell me that im a noob and that i should gtfo and l2p
anyway its good to see that there are some other people that agree with my point of view - read the post above pls
oh and on a side note i think there was a chat with relic balance team ( maybe BC even ) in chaos rising or retri about removing that melee special procs from retreating units and well if i rememeber correctly even relic admited that shees would go over the top if they did so

[Asmon]

You guys are so funny with this chasing through the whole map thing.

If your enemy has shees, you must build counters. FYI shees' counters are suppression and knockback.

Now if shees are able to chase a unit of yours for a long time, it raises an issue that is not about how good are shees at chasing (besides, what they do, is do-able for any unit with a 6 base speed and a melee charge) but rather about how much time do you need to wake up and prevent them from hunting down your units, with an appropriate counter.

Therefore, if a unit does get chased by shees, ask yourself these questions: where are your counters? why can't them deny shees the chase? If they are too far from the action, it's a mistake. If they are themselves retreating, your opponent has simply played better.

How is punishing bad retreating any ballanced? Games should be win on the battlefield not on the retreat abuse . If u cant bleed models on retreat then u will genbash/cap the map and result will be similar >> winning .

If you can retreat faster it also means you'll be back sooner on the field, thus denying your opponent captures and harassment. It is so obvious I hardly believe it needs to be said.

[Ace of Swords]

But the problem with buffing retreat speed is that you will fundamentally alter how punishing unnecessary retreats are, and makes "panic mass retreating" less bad to do. We have to consider the implications of this before executing such a change.

Well as of now retreating speed has a linear scale, i don't know the true numbers so this is just gonna be a an imaginative example, like i said banshees and even other units should not be able to follow for half of the map while retreating so:

Let's say that now you gain +0.1 speed each second while retreating, and this keeps going still you stop retreating, now the idea would be that after gaining let's say 1,5 speed from that moment you will keep gaining +0,5 each second instead of 0,1.

[Raffa]

Banshees are fine. Learn the counters

[Caeltos]

Changing the whole effect of retreating to ease up the damage, solely based on banshees is again, not an ideal solution. You would notice a drop off on punishes on retreating units, effectively giving a subsantial of bonus requisition/power from avoided losses.

well im impressed that cael actually wrote such a huge wall of text to tell me that im a noob and that i should gtfo and l2p

If you actually had any sort of reading comprehension, you wouldn't be saying something like this. If you believe I was degrading your sense of skills, then you're mistaken, because I didn't do so. Even the proffesionals in regardless of sports seek guidance and advice, there's no shame in it. If you disregard the advice to ask for help if you're having issues with something, and absolutely believe you played flawlessly, when there's fairly numerous events which could have avoided the terrible conflict which ended up in a loss in a fight, the Dunnig-Kruger effect is applicapable.

If you're unfamiliar with what it means, I'll give you the short run down;

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.[1]
Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University conclude, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others".[2]

oh and on a side note i think there was a chat with relic balance team ( maybe BC even ) in chaos rising or retri about removing that melee special procs from retreating units and well if i rememeber correctly even relic admited that shees would go over the top if they did so

Actually, it was a hot-topic even way before that. The problem is there was alot of other missunderstanding, since there was no mention of ability_knockback/weapon_knockback effects that effected retreating units back then. However, given the circumstances in the modification with the effects of knockback on retreating units, it's not that big of an issue anymore, since most of the issues of the retreating mechanics have been fine-tuned to be more reliant and less abuseable.

Different circumstances, different outcomes. It's like comparing a tomatoe with a potatoe. I conducted some minor interviews myself with TASK3R when he was still around, and some with bC and other misc. people, and most of the mechanics were also left in the game, since it was intergrated as a part of the system for such a long time. You wouldn't want to throw in another 1.3.2 patch again (TioW) that completely shifts the gameplay for the majority of players, it's a risky patch to say the least, despite being possible a good outcome.

With the changes in itself, it would require a compilation in return with alot of misc. fine-tuning & tweaking. (As evidently shown in our complete changelog) to find a more suitable performance, without making a complete wonk-around in terms of overall gameplay. (Similiar playstyle/builds are still existant, and are less alienated) but with some mechanics and changes that shift the gameplay, it changes alot of the gameplay as a whole in return, resulting in alot of metagame effects, and thus in result- the balance as a whole is put at risk. Thus, in order to ensure safety and preperation for this, you must put other units in line with corresponding potential issues that can arise with the new gameplay dynamics, (more changes > people interpret it fairly linear and get scared of large-chunks)

Relic also said they wanted to do baby-steps. (In other words, small patches, but quantities of them, eventho there was need for quality over quantity). There are certainly benefits for doing so as well.

- Continous patch support shows there's love for the game's development
(Which results in people coming back to try the new patch)
- Less work, more preperation for the "bigger" babysteps

However, the babystep method also makes certain issues, such as minor tunements for each existing race, but some changes can have a magnitiude of effect, resulting in other factions being put behind. I think the most recent & evident case of this is the Catachan one. And as a result of baby-step patches, the prepared & future patch development became shafted. More or less, resulting in a "Half-finished" finalized patchnote. In our mod-development cycle, we've had several of these occasions as well, but there's always continued support to work out the issue.


TL;DR version:
1. You didn't read my post & throws a stupid assumption based on some odd voice in your head. Yeah, I don't like that shit. Who would have guessed? It's like being thrown under the bus when I paid for your meal. Great sorts of appriciation, fills me with great joy to continue to work on this mod.

Maybe next patch I'll just nerf whatever beats me. Because if it wins- it's too good. But if I win, it's balanced. KKthxbye, HolyHammer logic.

I wonder why there's a certain lack of post on other threads for other races, when there's plenty of people who main them. I'm sure their great expertise on their corresponding race would be great. But yeah, in reality- they won't talk about their main race, just the ones that they don't like. Since they don't want their main race to get shafted. The bias is a beautiful thing to behold indeed.

[PanKiller]

Maybe because for over 5 years have been the most universal and effective ( and easy pick ) race in the dow 2 history? Sorry but i never heard so much complaining about eldar in dow 1 , dow 2 just make them too good , too much rewarding and micro based .

[Caeltos]

Maybe because for over 5 years have been the most universal and effective ( and easy pick ) race in the dow 2 history? Sorry but i never heard so much complaining about eldar in dow 1 , dow 2 just make them too good , too much rewarding and micro based .

Obviously, you were not around for quite a while. The Blind hate in this thread is obnoxious. Eldar had close to no chance in hell against "good" tyranids, in-matter of fact, tyranids has probably been the most dominant race purely in terms of competetive play, but we can always disregard them for reasons unknown to me.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

no one plays them

[PanKiller]

But eldars never been in the bad spot while other races been ,.

[Raffa]

well im impressed that cael actually wrote such a huge wall of text to tell me that im a noob and that i should gtfo and l2p

He didn't, but it's true anyway.

Stop complaining about Eldar. The only thing that even possibly be changed is gayts, especially for farseer who can use 85 red to put one anywhere.

Really people should get to a certain skill level before complaining about balance.

@Nuclear

Umm wtf are you talking about?

[Caeltos]

He was referring to the tyranids.

[Raffa]

I know. Point being people play nids, maybe not as much as other races, but they're certainly played.

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

Obviously, you were not around for quite a while. The Blind hate in this thread is obnoxious.

Hate is think that Eldar gates at 50 red is OP? They gives awesome map control (without mentioning the gates buffs, that could be good in some circunstances) to a race which at the moment have good base speed and "Fleet on foot" or Teleport in half roster? In any other race, you have to spend at least 2 different resources to have some map control (Req/energy/pop/red).

Hate is think that Haywire grenade could have a nerf, because now eldar have a wide variety of AV options? We are not talking about remove the snare or the disable effect, but the damage one.

Hate is think that the Banshees could have a little charge to evade the almost endless retreat chasing? (yeees, of course, they have their counters)

In part you have right, because some opinions seems to be created by the hate against eldar or have not been thought out in depth... But others are very moderated and can be useful to the balance.

Eldar had close to no chance in hell against "good" tyranids, in-matter of fact, tyranids has probably been the most dominant race purely in terms of competetive play, but we can always disregard them for reasons unknown to me.

Yes, because we aren't bitching against the Capillary Towers, which are at the moment the opposite of what you planned in the beginning, for example.

[Caeltos]

Yes, because we aren't bitching against the Capillary Towers, which are at the moment the opposite of what you planned in the beginning, for example.

Actually, they are used exactly as they were orginally planned. The miss-useage was simply due to exploitations and bugs.

[PanKiller]

Still nobody asked for infastation and they should never have place in the mod .

[KanKrusha]

... But people did want a more swarmy and interesting way of playing tyrannids.

The following is in response to the comment that players should have a certain skill before being allowed to comment on balance

In the case if banshees the balance problem, if there is one, is greatly exacerbated if you are a weaker player vs a stronger player. The skill level too prevent a banshee flank is quite high IMO as it requires quite a lot of anticipation and "off-scren" awareness.

If you learn from your first couple of encounters the banshees will have leveled and it is very hard to deal with level 3 or 4 banshees when you are behind in tech.

I am not saying there is not a balance issue (double negative ftw) just that if there is a skill imbalance, or even some early bad luck, then the issues with banshees become magnified.

Its a very unpleasant experience, hence, what seems like eldar hate.