Dawn of War Codex

1. It's easy to use. 1 PM shot and a follow up with the fist has a high chance of downing any transport in the game. The raptor's kb immunity all but guarantees they'll get a hit off. It also puts major pressure on tanks. Add in buffs like speed worship, sorc teleporting in and warping plagues, and it gets exceedingly harder to defend against it than it is to execute. Don't forget how good it is at killing heroes, subcommanders on retreat because the damage is loaded onto one hit.

2. You effectively get AV for free. Why? Because in the overwhelming majority of games, one will purchase a champion on the Raptors in any case. Not having a champion in a T2+ fight? Come on now. So you get this incredible AV + hero-sniping weapon on an upgrade that you are going to purchase anyway!


The key point and a general principle going forward. Does something take more micro to defend against than it does to execute? In a balanced game, it should take equal effort to attack and defend. Consider a frag nade. The attack and defense (dodge) are on par. Now consider how much micro it takes to jump in, point and click with this unit vs. defending from it. Your opponent has moved on to microing the rest of his army while you are stuck microing your transport or tank.

Did Chaos ever have AV problems before the raptor fist? Change it to power melee sword, let him keep the melta gun as a condolence, and thank the emperor that you didn't have to suffer this indecency another second.

I have to say I can't help but compare how horrendous the ASM are who pay 25 power for an inferior-at-melee leader and then have to pay an additional 20 power for melta bombs which in turn are inferior to the in-built AV of the raptor AC...

I get that SM can support ASM better than chaos support raptors but... I don't know.

The raptor AC is pretty nuts. I think if not making him power melee he should at least get a dps reduction. He's pretty OP atm really.

Could go back to having a Lighting Claw I suppose. Main issue with the Craptor Power Fist is the bursty nature of its damage imho.

The reason why raptors got the power first was cos they had no av scaling at all which makes them very hard to fit into builds, generally you want one of your t1 units to be able to get av or support av from jump troops
Stormboyz get there leader
Assault marines get there meta bomb
Raveners generally you see venom brood but they suck so.............

Take away the av then no reason to buy them, you be force to get havocs to get have some av ready or just buy pm all the time, also the nerf will only make them shit compare to blood letters

Why couldn't they come with LC by default and have to pay x amount to upgrade to the power fist to get that AV scaling, similar to ASM?

Cos unlike raptors asm only need to wait 2secs to do 200 damage and a snare from the melta bomb they don't have to waste time hitting the thing unlike raptors you do and only one guy does any real damage and that takes a while since is only heavy melee damage, having to upgrade you have to buff it alot to say the least and a waste of time.

Raptor Champion is fine. He may be nutz, but whats wrong with that? We alraedy have shitloads of nutz things in this game and you don't see them break the balance.

I agree the AC is too strong, especially for its cost. You're gonna want an additionnal member for your squad no matter his weapon. The additionnal ability he unlocks is very powerful. And those marines are so tanky you barely have to purchase him again.

I'd also say worship can support raptors just as well as SM can support ASM.

Most players buy raptors in t1 so it's not really relevant to compare them with others t2 choices. And it's only fair Chaos has to invest into something to counter transports, especially considering they have mark of khorne on devs which is aweome against everything, while most races have to get anti-vehicle-only devs.

i think a cost increase would make it much more acceptable. Either as a separate upgrade or more $$ for the leader

Separate upgrade. Leader losses are already semi RNG that can fuck you up hard.

This is like saying any leader that has heavy melee should pay as well and makes no sense at all.

Raptors are fine. Leader like other leaders can be sniped. And he costs fair enough. If raptors cost less than ASM in general, leader cost the same.

The only problem I have with the AC is how he gets both a solid AV package on top of his surprisingly strong AI ability (Daemonic Fury) and T2 scaling all for one price point.

On the flip side, he's a leader who can die, and I generally think Raptors preform worse then ASM in T1.

Raptors suck against horde enemies and they are somewhat fragile with "only" 350 hp.

Also AC can die sololy and do so more often then I like it.

Raptors don't suck against horde enemies though. This is just my experience though. They are good against Nids, IG and Orks. They are also good against Eldar and even SM to an extent. In mirrors I feel they are rather situational.

AC of Raptors can easily be killed off 1st and sometimes second so you gonna have to repurchase him alot it you are not very careful. He is strong for that reason cuz practically Raptors are nothing without him in T2 and he can be killed off adequately easy. I remember purchasing him 3 times cuz he always died first when the Raptors got shot just to keep my Raptors useful in the game so can we please lay off the things that maybe strong but not overpowered or overperforming and keep to the things that actually need careful balancing ?

You guys know that Chaos motto is basicially '' Cheaper and more killy, but fragile SM variants '' right? Raptor Champion being nutz compared to other jump units squad leaders is kinda normal imo.

Don't have much of a horse here, but if it was deemed OP a suggestion would be to have the melta gun and fist as an upgrade, with bolt pistol and sword as the default.

This has similarities with the vanguard and WS upgrades, but I think it's still unique enough to retain flavour.

Cheekie Monkie wrote:Don't have much of a horse here, but if it was deemed OP a suggestion would be to have the melta gun and fist as an upgrade, with bolt pistol and sword as the default.

This has similarities with the vanguard and WS upgrades, but I think it's still unique enough to retain flavour.

An upgrade (fist+pistol) for an upgrade (squadleader) ???

TE | NoSkill wrote:[quote="Cheekie Monkie"]Don't have much of a horse here, but if it was deemed OP a suggestion would be to have the melta gun and fist as an upgrade, with bolt pistol and sword as the default.

This has similarities with the vanguard and WS upgrades, but I think it's still unique enough to retain flavour.

An upgrade (fist+pistol) for an upgrade (squadleader) ???[/quote]Yes. They used to have demolishing strike locked behind a T3 leader upgrade in early Elite days. So it wouldn't be the first time for this kind of a thing.

TE | NoSkill wrote:

Cheekie Monkie wrote:Don't have much of a horse here, but if it was deemed OP a suggestion would be to have the melta gun and fist as an upgrade, with bolt pistol and sword as the default.

This has similarities with the vanguard and WS upgrades, but I think it's still unique enough to retain flavour.

An upgrade (fist+pistol) for an upgrade (squadleader) ???

There's scope to play around here, like tying the additional upgrade to a minor squad buff like a - 5 energy cost on the jump. This has similarities with the WS haywire upgrade in which both the squad and the leader is upgraded.

If it's a T3 upgrade it could even transform the squad ala Vanguard style. Makes a degree of sense since you could offer enduring scaling, die last leader mechanics, all of which are attractive for an T3 infantry option. Just more options and freedom to tweak their stats etc.