Bottom Tier Heroes

[MaxPower]

So Tex, any final words on the LG and FC?

[Tex]

Well, I'll start with the FC then.

In regards to the FC's weaknesses, I think I made very valid points that he is ultra reliant on ASM's and that even with the stormshield, ranged mass will give him an excruciating level of difficulty.

After my experiences with the FC though, I realized something very important about his t1, because previously I felt that most of his strength was found in t2 and t3. In the same way that the warboss is an excellent capper, so is the FC. With no wargear at all, the FC can take on almost anything in t1, and thus, he can be used as a lockdown unit quite handily. Freeing up the rest of my army to be a blob protected by shotgun scouts. It seems that t1 spending with the FC is better done in the form of globals than wargear as well. Again, very similar to the warboss.

Once I corrected my positioning and spending, (previously I was addicted to using the powersword and spamming blob buffs - in general, just buying wargear way too early on my FC) I started winning more frequently.
Then, as I increased my level of skill with the FC and learned more of his important timings in his more difficult matchups, I started winning most of the time.
Finally, as I felt truly confident with the FC, I have been able to win some very challenging games against the best current players.

So in closing on the FC, I feel like he is in a very similar position to the warboss in that:
1) He is seen as the least competitive hero of his race (very easy to use incorrectly)
2) Spending on wargear early is usually a mistake
3) Strong global, very spammable
4) Excellent capping unit (can't be countered with a single unit)

Because I was able to transform my win % with the FC from ~30% to ~75%, I can say that my earlier views of him were a bit skewed. I believe he is competitive, but I also believe that he is a type of hero where in a competitive game, he has an actual "correct" way to be played, versus heroes that can be played very diversely. With all that said though, he does still heavily rely on ASM's.

I'm also going to say it now, in the next patch, I believe the FC will be the best 1v1 hero.

[Crewfinity]

why do you say that? is it because of the changes to terminators? the new flesh over steel? I've always thought the FC was very powerful, but i'm curious what buffs you think are going to make him the best.

[Dark Riku]

I'm also going to say it now, in the next patch, I believe the FC will be the best 1v1 hero.

[Forestradio]

The ability of the Thunder Hammer to wipe stuff in retreat is stupidly good at the moment

[Bahamut]

The ability of the Thunder Hammer to wipe stuff in retreat is stupidly good at the moment

what in the name of?

How is the TH better at wiping retreating units than other melee weapons? because of the tracking special? 2 seconds for that special, will only do one on a retreating squad....

[Forestradio]

FTE, teleport onto squishy ranged squad (tics, termas, etc), battlecry, proc one special before they retreat, hit with another special while they are getting up and regaining unit cohesion, profit

[Bahamut]

Yeah, that's so OP it shouldn't be allowed in the game!

[Forestradio]

Never said it was OP, just that it's stupidly good.

[Tex]

why do you say that? is it because of the changes to terminators? the new flesh over steel? I've always thought the FC was very powerful, but i'm curious what buffs you think are going to make him the best.

Here are my reasons:
1) stormshield @ 20 power. The amount of early game pressure he will be able to apply is going to be outrageous. Your power farm will never be safe against the FC. He will be able to get a shotgun on his scouts and his shield by the time you can make a 30 power purchase.

2) Tracking FoS. Yes, putting all the pieces together will cost a lot of power, however, once the pieces are put together, I dare you to use vehicles against the FC. It's literally going to be like playing against a short clock as soon as he hits T2. Even without the teleporter, alacrity or VoT will both make him a major stun threat to vehicles.

3) Assault terminator hp regen got a massive boost. This is super important. Hammer terms will be much more resiliant in that you won't be able to wittle them down with a few things here and there and eventually be able to fight them. I anticipate that a commitment to fight the terminators will have to be made, and that's usually the last thing any race other than orks can afford to do (CDB).

4) The new drop pod. I think it's probably a tie between the FC and the TM for who benefits more from this change, but ultimately the FC gets a whole new world opened to him, whereas the TM simply gets an easier way to use red in early T2, especially if he doesn't get vehicles.
As I stated previously, I believe the FC to be ultra reliant on ASM's. Needing to get ASM's in most matchups means that I am very likely to not get 2 tacs. Having the ability to quickly drop a 2nd tac squad in tier 2 means that I can change an AV situation drastically without building a dev. I can get sternguards immediately for AI purposes, knowing that I will drop some more tacs in to supplement AI or AV capabilities.
W/E the case, I can feel great potential from this global change.

[Bahamut]

3) Assault terminator hp regen got a massive boost. This is super important.

No they won't. They're gonna go from HALF A HP per second to ONE AND A QUARTER HP per second, that regen is as negligible as it gets. Terminators are getting utterly nerfed for nothing in return.

The Drop pod change will be a double-edge sword, since u wont be able to use it to save your army and insta reinforce in the field

[Ace of Swords]

I agree, the termie change does nothing when on the field there are retarded units like dark reapers,flash gitz and doom, that literally delete the squad.

They are only going to be sightly stronger against piercing damage and that's it, they will be even worse against everything else considering their lowered dps, this goes for both variants.

[Bahamut]

Just to clarify further about the incoming changes to terminators

Each AT model will get THREE QUARTERS of ONE HP per second, that regen is so good it means a wooping amount of 45 hp regen PER MINUTE. so, yeah.. an extra 45 hp PER MINUTE is absolutely garbage, specially since that is coming with a 40% nerf on the call-in cooldown

For ranged termies the nerf is even bigger, you lose 10% dps and get a 40% increase in the call-in for the wooping amount of HALF A HP PER SECOND. so 10% dps for 30hp per minute. Chaos terminators are gonna get only ONE QUARTER HP PER SECOND, that translate to a big whooping FIFTEEN HP PER MINUTE.

Unless you wanna be biased through the roof and argue the unarguable, it's either completely negligible in the case of AT, or a plain nerf in the case of all other terminators.

The only ones that are getting an actual BIG FUCKING GIANT BUFF are plague champion terminators, since they'll get 13.5 hp/sec from nurgle worship

[Phoenix]

If i am not mistaken a Health Regeneration of 1.0 transfers to 10 hp/s so you might want to adjust your calculations there Bahamut.

[Lulgrim]

Base regeneration is 1:1 and the modifier is 10:1.

[Phoenix]

Ah thank you Lul, ignore my post then.

[Arbit]

IMO there's no point in calculating the HP regen for a single model. How often does a single termie get damaged? And calculating the difference in increased regen for a single model presents a skewed picture as well.

At 1 HP/sec per model or 3 HP/sec for the squad, that's 180 HP a minute, or if they manage to stay on the field for five minutes before needing to run home for HQ healing, that's 900 HP. Previously, it was half that.

For Asstermies at 1.25 HP/sec per model, it would be 225 HP/min for the squad, or 1,125 over 5 minutes for the squad. Previously, it was 40% of that. (hammertime termies only, LC will be the same as before)

For both that's roughly 20% of the squad's HP over 5 minutes. It's not incredible but it'll help. Regular termies are also getting a ~10% buff to their melee in addition to the 10% ranged nerf. Both of these are pretty minor adjustments that aren't going to change any unit matchups. They sure as hell didn't want to get in a shooting match with dark reapers before, and they still won't. They'll still do a good job of countering piercing ranged squads and bleed all types of light infantry fairly well. Assterm damage is untouched, the biggest change being either variant will not want to get into melee with a walker due to the melee resist (not keen on this change at all TBH). The cooldown increase... how many games do you call in multiple terminators? Like one in twenty? One in thirty? Even less frequently than that?

And if I'm reading the codex correctly, the apo healing aura operates as a 3x multiplier, so regular terms will be healing 540 HP/min, or 2,700 HP/5 min which is close to half their HP, plus they'll probably be getting apo heals

The changes strike me as fairly minor. It's a little frustrating because IMO they could do with a straight up (minor) buff as they've become less relevant with the addition of all the crazy ranged DPS units Elite has, but we're not quite experiencing the terminator apocalypse here.

[Ace of Swords]

For both that's roughly 20% of the squad's HP over 5 minutes.

So, it takes 1/4 of a medium game to make them regen 20% of their hp?

How is this gonna make them more survivable when now every race has something that removes that 20% in 5 seconds?

Alright next patch vps will drain slower, but how much that can prolong games?

And in the meanwhile ranged termies lose quite some dps.

[Crewfinity]

If I understand Lulgrim correctly, then that means that default Terminators will actually be regenerating 10 hp/s per model, since they're changing to 1.0, and the modifier is 10:1. this means 30 hp/s for the squad, which is 1800 hp/minute for the squad. soooo significantly less time than a quarter for a game to regain 20% health... more like a minute XD

[Lulgrim]

No, I said the opposite.

[Crewfinity]

derp. ignore me as well then...

[L0thar]

Well, don't worry about that guys, lots of people did that mistake (Caeltos included).

I'm really curious how the termies issue is going to be solved, because as Bahamut pointed out, the "improved" regen is totally worthless. At the same time, making it 10 hp/s faces some problems with Apo triple base healing rate...

The only ones that are getting an actual BIG FUCKING GIANT BUFF are plague champion terminators, since they'll get 13.5 hp/sec from nurgle worship

This is another thing I can't wrap my head around. Where did that additional 10 hp/s came from (the 3,5 are from nurgle worship). I know Caeltos wrote it like that in the patch thread, but I still don't know why is the worship gonna affect terminators differently than other units.

[jwsoul]

Whut! Why is it and this is no joke, why is it these are the 3 hero's who I play!!!!! Exclusively at the moment.... So effectively nerfing myself.

[Black Relic]

So termies that are almost immune to most small arms fire because of health regen. is useless? Termies will get back about 180 health per minute across the whole squad (rather than half of that) if I am not mistaken (which I could be).

The most, guardsmen, guardians, shootas etc, will do in ranged combat is halt the termies health regen. And health regen. as you should know helps with staying power, which is why plague marines are so good. The health regen. buff may not be all that useless in 1v1.

I already mentioned the regen. buff with Apotho support to Caeltos in a pm. He didn't answer back because I assumed its because he already knew this before he made the change. Although I am a bit worried about it.

And Chaos Termies need this type of buff imo regardless what it does to a single hero for a certain race (nurgle worship). But we will see what becomes of this health regen. change in game soon.

[Dark Riku]

You're worried about the apo regen but not about the PC regen(s)? XD
much bias, much wow.

[Black Relic]

Because Apotho's health regen. is passive. Termies get the regen. no matter what as long as they are in the radius of his aura along and let's not forget his other support abilites. Nurgle worship, you have to make cultist exposed and are prone to bleeding quick late game because they have to be stationary. And Nurgle worship isn't that easy to pull off on the move unless cultists are not under pressure. It will become difficult to dislodge especially with a shrine and PC mucus discharge.

Because of this health regen. buff termies are also getting a ranged damage decrease to help against defensive play.

And I main SM. So I am not that bias. It's just have an honest opinion.

p.s. you have to do much, such and then wow to unlock it's true potential lol

[Caeltos]

One thing to consider of course is that the Apothecary Heal is a % modifier rather than a flat amount. So it has the potency for greater strength in certain circumstances.

And I was wrong on alot of the health regeneration values, and they're not identical to what the changelog indicates no longer. They're being tested abit internally. It's not as massive as it was to be identified, but of course - the cd terminators are largely unchanged, so it's really more of a trade-off in smaller porportions in certain areas.