Spotters and Catachans

Issues dealing with gameplay balance.
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Sex - Murder - Art
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Spotters and Catachans

Postby Sex - Murder - Art » Wed 17 Apr, 2019 10:31 pm

I have some issues with these units.

First of all, Catachans Ol' Unreliable ability. IG already has the best anti-set up unit in T1, and yet they ahve another awsome counter for that matter? Why they have 2 very had counters for the same purpose? You can't see SM having another thing as effective as ASM in T1 vs set up teams. Or Eldar don't have a better ASM counter different from Banshees. I hope you get the picture.

Now that we have Spotters, Ol' Unreliable is just breaking IG play. It is almost impossible to use any kind of set up teams against them, since anything they purchase can counter them.

When it comes to Spotters, they cost waaaaaayyyy too cheap for what they offer. They are able to deal with 2 set up teams ALL ALONE, and yet they cost soo cheap, is just wrong. They are too easy to purchase, and offer too much for their cost.

My suggestions would be :

- Remove Ol' Unreliable from Catachans. Rework them as only an anti melee unit.
- Lower the cost of Catachans.

- Increase Spotters cost, should be at least 40 power for that they can do.
- Or, just make Mortar and Smoke Shells share the same cooldown, so they won't perform this much for their cost.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Antandron » Thu 18 Apr, 2019 9:09 am

Sex - Murder - Art wrote:My suggestions would be :

- Remove Ol' Unreliable from Catachans. Rework them as only an anti melee unit.
- Lower the cost of Catachans.

- Increase Spotters cost, should be at least 40 power for that they can do.
- Or, just make Mortar and Smoke Shells share the same cooldown, so they won't perform this much for their cost.


I would like to see an energy bar on Spotters with the abilities adding to 120e to prevent the abilities being spammed one after the other when an engagement starts. This would make energy drain weapons a bit more useful.

Then, give Spotters detection (40) for an extra 50req, so that IG players don't feel forced to buy Catachans for detection. Catachans could have detection reduced to 30 as a form of soft detection with an accompanying cost decrease of 10req.

Lastly, remove detection from Sentinels so that they can actually be damaged by mines.

GM 2for1 is still bullshit like all 2for1.

One thing I thought of was removing the +20hp/s repair for GM at the start because it is this that makes Sentinels so difficult to deal with in early T1. Instead of costing 35req/model they could start at 30req/model with an 8 model squad for 240req. Now Sentinels are sufficiently weakened since this reduces their synergy with GM slightly. To compensate, the GM Sargeant would add 1 model (30req) plus himself (40req) plus an ability to enhance repair to 15hp/s for 5e/s for maybe 10power for a total cost of 70/10. One gripe I have with IG is that they don't need much power in T1 since their GM Sargeants are only 85/0 (which is itself a mystery to me), leading to the predictable T2>Chimera>Bash strategy.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby saltychipmunk » Thu 18 Apr, 2019 6:16 pm

If you remove their ability to spam disruption like that.. what good are they? Their entire gimmick seems to be constant long range disruption .. which is an inherently exploitable and problematic gimmick too have .

Honestly, just remove them. There has to be a unit from the lore that would make more sense .
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Oddnerd » Thu 18 Apr, 2019 11:16 pm

I agree with your basic premise, but I think you're overstating the strength of spotters and ol' reliable.

Spotters don't deal with 2 setup teams all alone - they disable them but other units still need to kill the SUT or make them retreat. An ASM unit can successively disable 2 SUTs and has the melee damage and tankiness to force off one of them, while taking a lot of fire from enemy ranged units. Aside from their abilities, spotters are worthless in combat. I think it would be nuts to make them cost the same amount of power as an ASM.

I agree that ol' reliable and mortar shell are redundant; Is that a bad thing though? IG do not have T1 jump troops, infiltration, or a sniper (minus the LG and INQ upgrades), so I can see why they might need an additional form of anti-SUT. The only thing about ol' reliable I hate is the fact that it is great in ranged blob fights, mindlessly so. I'd be cool with it being a strictly anti-SUT thing, or having a small aoe so it only disrupts a single unit and still works on garrisons but cannot be used to win ranged blob fights (since mortar shell already fills that role).

If the loss of ol' reliable was to happen, I would say that increasing the cost of spotters would be a particularly bad idea, since more IG T1 builds will need to buy both spotters and catachans, since the two units will have less redundancy in their functions.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Broodwich » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 12:01 am

I think an increase in energy cost for ol reliable wouldn't be such a bad thing. It's low cost and 30 second cooldown means you can use it to open engagements, and then get another shot in at the end for retreat kills, all while still being able to use shotgun blast as anti melee

Otherwise, like odd said, spotters don't deal with SUT themselves. However, it would be nice to decrease the kb of the early mortar shell as it seriously fucks armies up
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Element » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 12:59 am

I don't know about removing O'l Reliable, because I.G. until recently with the addition of the artillery spooter unit had no real anti- setup team capabilities without them. Removing the ability makes the squad to some great degree just not even worth having in the roster, why would you buy a nerfed scout squad? The problem is as someone suggested before. Both squads do exactly the same thing. Except the Artillery spotter can counter 2 S.U.T.'s at the same time. that being said, catachans deal with melee units better than spotters do and agruguably scale much better into later tiers do to their actual battle field potential where as artillery spotter's main purpose is just sole disruption without any actual real damage with their 15 dps per model? which is absolutely pathetic in the longrun with only 3 models being in the squad, of which only 2 I think, actually have lasguns?

If anything, just address the cost economics of the spotter unit/tinker with it stats/upgrades- Abilities etc... then look to other matters of what are removing abilities/units from the game.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Nurland » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 7:15 am

Spotters are the unit that actually scales and you want in your army later on. Catas fall off pretty hard past early-mid T2

Anyhow. Catas are a melee counter and some general utility to your army, spotters are anti ranged blob or anti setup. They do have some overlap but I don't feel like it is very massive.

Ol' Unreliable does only soft counter set ups since it does damage but it also pushes them away so they can reset up in peace.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby PianoMan » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 8:15 am

catas bleed a lot, scale poorly and the only reason you buy them is because you have to, not because they're so strong but when you play super low level games and counter entire blobs with 1 aoe ability you'll obviously think they're super strong
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Sex - Murder - Art » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 9:10 am

PianoMan wrote:catas bleed a lot, scale poorly and the only reason you buy them is because you have to, not because they're so strong but when you play super low level games and counter entire blobs with 1 aoe ability you'll obviously think they're super strong


I don't think they are too strong, and I don't care how they scale later on. I just want to change that IG can counter set up teams with 2 options so easly. Almost anything they purchase can hard counter them. Where is the choice? Where is the punishment for a bad choice? There isn't.

In the other hand, I also agree that removing O'l Reliable is a tall thing to ask. Its just annoying to know that IG can deal with set up teams with pretty much any T 1.5 units they can purchase. If I can't beat them in ranged combat (which is obious and easy to do as IG) I have to go for melee, and any IG player from mid to pro can do this very easly

SM, Chaos and maybe Orks can find their way out, but it is almost impossible for Tyranids to do anything at this stage. You can't dominate in ranged, and you can't get close in melee, what am I supposed to do then?

I can accept giving an energy cost to Spotters abilities (should be above 55 or at least 60). Being able to deal with 2 set up teams with only 30 power cost is stupid anyway. But it still annoying that Catachans are a pocket anti-everything squad. Maybe we can talk about a rework later.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby PianoMan » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 9:42 am

ig shit on pretty much everything in t1, that's their thing so you should care about how they scale :l
both spotters and catachans give you holes for later-in game and catachans definitely aren't a reliable counter to setup teams
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Nurland » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 12:24 pm

Spotters are the only hard counter to set ups they have. Everything else is soft.

And yes. IG T1 is very oppressive. Not sure if it needs further nerfs and if it needed nerfs, what the nerfs were. Catas are most def not on the list of units that need nerfs.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby saltychipmunk » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 1:39 pm

Nurland wrote:Spotters are the only hard counter to set ups they have. Everything else is soft.

And yes. IG T1 is very oppressive. Not sure if it needs further nerfs and if it needed nerfs, what the nerfs were. Catas are most def not on the list of units that need nerfs.


The problem is that they are way more than a simple hard counter to setups. They tend to be able to shut down ranged armies in general unless there is a TON of space. And sure in a 1v1 environment where units are spread out and there is space to spare they are more manageable. But this is flat out not the case in team games at all. More often than not the maps themselves force blobbing Something the spotters easily allow ig players to do while almost totally shutting down anyone else who does it.

You play any lane map , which tends to be the ones that are played, it is exceptionally easy to just cover half to most of a lane in smoke and disruptive shells.

And they do all of this in total safety, they arent jump units that have to land into an army to pressure a setup, they arent a sniper that has to setup and tear down before they can pressure setups .

point -> click -> near instant disruption.

It is way too easy to control fights with them.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby SarDauk » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 1:55 pm

saltychipmunk wrote:The problem is that they are way more than a simple hard counter to setups. They tend to be able to shut down ranged armies in general unless there is a TON of space. And sure in a 1v1 environment where units are spread out and there is space to spare they are more manageable. But this is flat out not the case in team games at all. More often than not the maps themselves force blobbing Something the spotters easily allow ig players to do while almost totally shutting down anyone else who does it.You play any lane map , which tends to be the ones that are played, it is exceptionally easy to just cover half to most of a lane in smoke and disruptive shells.


And it's perfectly fine, since spotters are the only thing IG has (with manticore) to counter a range blob in team game and if you go for them, you don't have the anti melee from the catachans.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby saltychipmunk » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 2:41 pm

SarDauk wrote:
saltychipmunk wrote:The problem is that they are way more than a simple hard counter to setups. They tend to be able to shut down ranged armies in general unless there is a TON of space. And sure in a 1v1 environment where units are spread out and there is space to spare they are more manageable. But this is flat out not the case in team games at all. More often than not the maps themselves force blobbing Something the spotters easily allow ig players to do while almost totally shutting down anyone else who does it.You play any lane map , which tends to be the ones that are played, it is exceptionally easy to just cover half to most of a lane in smoke and disruptive shells.


And it's perfectly fine, since spotters are the only thing IG has (with manticore) to counter a range blob in team game and if you go for them, you don't have the anti melee from the catachans.



Actually pretty much every time i see spotters it is always paired with cats. Cats are not that expensive. And because of how effective spotters are at shutting down other ranged armies it is pretty damn obvious what people would try to do to counter an ig blob with spotters in it.

I also question this idea of "spotters are the only thing ig has to counter blobs".. how the heck did ig deal with them in vanilla then? Did they just roll over and die? Now I will admit the last time i played IG vanilla was a long.. long time ago indeed. but i cant remember ranged blobs being that large of an issue for me back then.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby SarDauk » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 2:47 pm

saltychipmunk wrote:I also question this idea of "spotters are the only thing ig has to counter blobs".. how the heck did ig deal with them in vanilla then? Did they just roll over and die? Now I will admit the last time i played IG vanilla was a long.. long time ago indeed. but i cant remember ranged blobs being that large of an issue for me back then.


Exactly. In vanilla you are just crushed by blobs of orks or CSM or Apo.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby saltychipmunk » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 3:01 pm

SarDauk wrote:
saltychipmunk wrote:I also question this idea of "spotters are the only thing ig has to counter blobs".. how the heck did ig deal with them in vanilla then? Did they just roll over and die? Now I will admit the last time i played IG vanilla was a long.. long time ago indeed. but i cant remember ranged blobs being that large of an issue for me back then.


Exactly. In vanilla you are just crushed by blobs of orks or CSM or Apo.



I dont remember that ever being a problem though. On the contrary I recall ig blobs being way more dangerous.. especially the ones that use the ranged buff from the lord general . Heck the only thing I remember while playing ig in vanilla was that the ai on the setup teams was broken to the point that the unit was unusable.

double cat cheese ball builds were super common and super powerful. and ole reliable in vanilla did a shockingly large amount of damage.. used it to wipe out retreating infantry squads all the time.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Sex - Murder - Art » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 5:06 pm

SarDauk wrote:And it's perfectly fine, since spotters are the only thing IG has (with manticore) to counter a range blob in team game and if you go for them, you don't have the anti melee from the catachans.


Right, because you don't have your Sentinal, which is like IG meta 101. Or your heroes abilities, or your HWT.

There is also another problem here which stated above, the Smoke Shell is too cheesy. Maybe you didn't notice, but that thing is a pocket Commisar Flare, for free! And they can do this from a very safe distance, without any risk.

You guys may consider ASM as a true hard counter for set up teams, while IG still has to kill the enemy after Shell drops. But here is the thing; jumping with ASM has its own risk. You may meet Banshees, Sluggaz, etc. There is a risk, you may have a reward or a punishment. Same for infiltration tactics to counter set up teams.

In case of Spotters, those bastards have no risk at all! Distrup enemy set up team? Done! From miles away, without any risk. Wanna shut down a whole army? Done! From miles away, without any risk. This is just too cheap for their cost.

I think I made a mistake about Catachans, the problem was more about Spotters, or just how easy for IG to counter set up teams & ranged blobs.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Atlas » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 6:26 pm

I would be curious to hear the thread's feelings on Rangers then :lol:
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Nurland » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 6:31 pm

In vanilla IG had sents with free stomp straight away and catas with more dps, less bleed and better Ol' (un)reliable.

IG also had one of the best T2 but it was super req intensive.

Anyhow spotter nerfs might be due. Not sure what/how but they are extremely good if you have enough to follow them up.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Oddnerd » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 7:57 pm

I'd be up for maybe reducing the spotter mortar radius until later tiers. It seems like if the IG player puts the marker anywhere near an infantry unit, the mortar is undodgeable by most models.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Torpid » Fri 19 Apr, 2019 8:59 pm

Oddnerd wrote:I'd be up for maybe reducing the spotter mortar radius until later tiers. It seems like if the IG player puts the marker anywhere near an infantry unit, the mortar is undodgeable by most models.


If there is a need for a nerf, which I don't think there is, this idea is one I'd be down for.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby saltychipmunk » Mon 22 Apr, 2019 12:01 pm

Atlas wrote:I would be curious to hear the thread's feelings on Rangers then :lol:


Snipers are annoying , they will always be annoying. But they are also setup units. Setup units have pretty well established weaknesses. Rangers only have one disruptive ability as well.

And you can argue that said ability is not as dangerous as the abilities spotters get. One can push models toward your blob for easy damage and model kills , one can allow whole army to out range another.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby Atlas » Mon 22 Apr, 2019 5:12 pm

saltychipmunk wrote:Snipers are annoying , they will always be annoying. But they are also setup units. Setup units have pretty well established weaknesses. Rangers only have one disruptive ability as well.

And you can argue that said ability is not as dangerous as the abilities spotters get. One can push models toward your blob for easy damage and model kills , one can allow whole army to out range another.


Rangers have been better Spotters since before Spotters even existed. Even now, when we've hit them with 1,000 nerf bats, we're still nerfing them for good reason. That "one disruptive ability" seems to ignore that it's a pretty damn good ability and also tends to ignore the whole other part of what Rangers do.

Can you imagine what Spotters would look like if they had grenades and maybe the most famous retreat chasers in the game on the same t1 roster? Mental. Anyway, I bring up the comparison to Rangers because that is a unit that used to ACTUALLY take on two setup teams alone and is honestly very guilty of all the charges that are being thrown around here about Spotters.

Also ngl, but I don't see the point in categorizing Rangers as a setup team either. They are setup teams only in the most literal sense of the term. Even if we go that route, we might as well even call that a wash since Spotters are stuck in their casting animation for a comparable amount of time when they cast their abilities. Clearly, you should take advantage of the "established weakness" of a unit that holds still when casting their long range abilities I guess.
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Re: Spotters and Catachans

Postby saltychipmunk » Mon 22 Apr, 2019 7:05 pm

Atlas wrote:Rangers have been better Spotters since before Spotters even existed. Even now, when we've hit them with 1,000 nerf bats, we're still nerfing them for good reason. That "one disruptive ability" seems to ignore that it's a pretty damn good ability and also tends to ignore the whole other part of what Rangers do.

Can you imagine what Spotters would look like if they had grenades and maybe the most famous retreat chasers in the game on the same t1 roster? Mental. Anyway, I bring up the comparison to Rangers because that is a unit that used to ACTUALLY take on two setup teams alone and is honestly very guilty of all the charges that are being thrown around here about Spotters.

Also ngl, but I don't see the point in categorizing Rangers as a setup team either. They are setup teams only in the most literal sense of the term. Even if we go that route, we might as well even call that a wash since Spotters are stuck in their casting animation for a comparable amount of time when they cast their abilities. Clearly, you should take advantage of the "established weakness" of a unit that holds still when casting their long range abilities I guess.



Well , too clarify my issue is not necessarily how many setup teams rangers or spotters counter. It is an issue but its honestly not the real problem i have with spotters.

My issue is that their abilities enable them to control more than just a variable number of setup teams. you throw that artillery even one infantry squad .. and it will blast half of them 10 -20 feet into the guard line and virtually guarantee if not model losses - a retreat to prevent said model losses. And if you tough out that blast .. they can just follow i up with a smoke grenade that shuts down your whole range army unless again... you have a ton of space.

also

spotters are stuck in their casting animation for a comparable amount of time when they cast their abilities


You mean that ability that they can cast while at the back of their ig blob because its range is massive? That same ability that triggers the setup rather than needing to setup to trigger the ability?

That would be like letting a plasma devastator squad charge up a shot while they are setting up and having that shot track a target up until they fire. I don't know about you .. but if p-devs had that kind of "setup" they would be used to do all sorts of broken things.


Heck the more i think about it, maybe the spotters should have it the other way around, they have to setup before they can use their abilities. Either that or increase the time it takes to call in the artillery / make impossible to use both at once

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