Would be nice if little utilized units got some love
Posted: Tue 06 Jul, 2021 8:43 am
It seems that a lot of builds are pretty much "locked in" in terms of being the most competitive.
Many units, as a result, rarely if ever see competitive play. It'd be nice if some unit costs/stats/abilities/upgrades were slightly reworked to make them more appealing for some cases.
Primarily, I think it would be better to reduce the cost of rarely used units and move some of their stats to upgrades. The idea is to increase strategic options by buffing little used units. These ideas aren't necessarily the best ones, but I'd like to see some changes to units that don't see much play to spice up the meta.
Here are a few ideas:
Space Marines
Dreadnought - reduce cost to 360/100, reduce Inspire to 15% dmg buff/15% suppression resist, reduce HP to 1000, increase DAoT cost to 180/50 and HP bonus to 500
Whirlwind - reduce missile spread, remove knockback, add demoralize effect where enemy units have their damage and accuracy debuffed when hit, add a missile barrage upgrade (same as terminators) that deals knockback with a 60s cooldown.
The dreadnought is very good but very niche and doesn't scale great into late game. It would be more appealing if it were slightly cheaper and stats moved to DAoT. The whirlwind is a bigger problem, it's either too good or completely useless with its lottery missiles. Reducing the scatter but removing knockback with a demoralize affect might give it more utility. Even more so with a missile barrage upgrade with CD, so it can still fulfill the niche of artillery knockback unit without completely shutting down the enemy army.
Orks
Stikkbommaz - reduce cost to 260/20, remove stunbomb, add stunbomb upgrade for 50/10
Flash Gitz - remove Kommando ability "luv da dakka" and give it to Flash Gitz. Kommandos already have tons of utility, and Flash Gitz decidedly less so, outside of massive damage with blasters
Stikkbommaz are a fun little unit that never seems to see play. Maybe moving the stunbombs to an upgrade with a lower cost might make them more appealing. Flash Gitz don't really have much purpose unless you plan to mass blasters, why not more the kommando "luv da dakka" ability to them? It would also make the infiltrated kommando into luv da dakka into roks much less abusive.
Eldar
Wraithlord - reduce cost to 375/90, reduce HP to 900, increase Wraithbone cost to 175/50 and give it a 300 HP with passive health regen
Wraithguard - reduce cost to 350/50, remove suppression, increase Wraithbone cost to 150/40 and have it grant suppression
The wraithlord and wraithguard are less great options for Eldar in t2 over a falcon or warp spiders/autarch. Reduce their costs and move some of their abilities to upgrades. Eldar will often have access to suppression/knockback from T1 anyway.
Tyranids
Tyrant Guard - reduce HP to 1500, give it vehicle armor, remove shield wall and make it an upgrade for 100/40 that also increases HP by 500
Zoanthrope - give them Symbiosis by default, remove focused warp blast and make it an upgrade for 100/25, make focused warp blast a toggle attack and reduce it's damage and have it slow enemy vehicles. Add reverse synapse to Zoanthropes, when surrounded by 16/13/10/7 non-synapse creatures the Zoanthropes speed is increased by 1.5 (required number of surrounding units goes down with level)
Spore mines - Remove infection spread to other squads, add ground burn effect on death that deals 25 flame damage within radius 12 for 8s
Rippers - reduce health per model to 20, change size to tiny, give them knockback immunity while under synapse
Lictor - move to T2, remove flesh hooks ability, infiltrate now drains energy, give T2 upgrade of Pheromones for 90/30 that increases tyranid movement speed and allows them to reinforce for 10s. Move flesh hooks to a T3 upgrade for 130/40 (reduce flesh hooks pull distance to 10, give it a stun), or just remove the flesh hooks ability entirely, it's really cancer.
Nids have a lot of problems in the late game and have serious issues with garrisons, turrets, suppression, and knockback. They have no way of preventing suppression or knockback unless they're naturally immune, and melee builds are shut down by garrisons. The thing is, they have tools for all of these, but those tools are not great options. In T2 you want genestealers or venom brood to deal with vehicles. Otherwise you want to try to hit T3 to start rolling out fexes. Everything else lacks impact.
The TG is too slow and cumbersome to reliably penetrate ranged fire and suppression walls to let other units get in, if it uses its charge to get in then it will die if the battle goes south with no escape. Its super_heavy_inf armor also means that the enemy doesn't necessarily need anti-vehicle to counter it, going plasma or relying on melee superiority units will deal with it in short order while still countering other nid threats. Giving it vehicle armor would at least force your opponent to get AV to deal with it. It's not really comparable to the bloodcrusher that can be repaired, worshipped and supported with abilities to escape.
Then there are zoanthropes. On paper, they're an incredible unit, but in practice they're a huge liability. They simply lack the ability to escape jump/teleporting/infiltrated melee infantry and will even die to concentrated range fire while in retreat. Giving them a vehicle snare toggled ability would make them far more useful, it'd also give nids an alternative AV option besides Venom brood. Increasing their speed within the nid blob would give them a greater chance to escape ranged troops long enough for nid support to help them, rather than the enemy just ignoring the blob until the zoan is dead and using the backlask to escape.
Spore mine changes would help nids counter garrisons and turrets, which can effectively cheese them out of the game depending on the map. Detonating is still preferable given the increased damage, but at least if they manage to get next to a garrison or turret they can force units out or destroy it unless the enemy dedicates more effort to killing them before they get close.
Rippers are supposed to be an annoying unit to help nids tie up ranged assets and close in with melee or outtrade with their own range. But more often than not, they die to focused fire before they can have any sort of impact. Making their size tiny would give them a better chance to get into melee and lower hp means they would die almost immediately when they do, but at least they'd fulfill their purpose.
Nids also lack any form of infield reinforcement besides a spawning pool or pheromone Lictor Alpha. Granting them a T2 hero that can act as a scout and give reinforcement would give nids a lot more options and fill a niche that they're severely lacking in. The lictor is also a pretty useful unit in combat and would be far less cancerous without flesh hooks.
Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Dreadnought - give a new Mark of Nurgle Upgrade that gives it 300 HP melee resist and a short range bile spewer that's effective against infantry and buildings. Allow the Chaos dred to purchase different upgrades in T3 for the same cost each time. Increase the upgrade time of marks.
It'd be cool if Chaos Lord and Sorc could get unique T2 units as well, like dual axe-wielding Khorne Champions or Tzeentch horrors, but that's probably too much work.
The Chaos dred does see some play, but it's not a great option since it doesn't scale very well into late game. Allowing it to change upgrades in T3 would open up a lot of strategic flexibility, and the fact that it can't move while upgrading means it can't do broken shit like chase a vehicle with MoK while upgrading to MoT and vice versa with infantry.
Imperial Guard
Manticore - reduce missile damage from 120 to 100, reduce range from 150 to 120 (storm eagle increases this back to 150), give the manticore a short range stun grenade or if that's not possible a smoke grenade upgrade that reduces the range and speed of enemy squads for a cost of 90/30 . It should have a long cooldown like 90s+ to prevent abuse. While the artillery strike ability is on cooldown, increase the speed of the manti by 1.
The manticore is another good unit that rarely sees competitive play because of similar survivability issues to the Zoanthrope, but also problems of being too good if buffed like the Whirlwind. Reduce its range and damage to encourage players to invest in storm eagle, but also give it an escape mechanic so the investment doesn't feel like a waste if a player uses it well.
I know these forums aren't very active anymore, so a lot of this post is just my wishlist. Still, if the mods are at least partly inspired to make some changes to these units I think it'd be a move in the fun direction.
Many units, as a result, rarely if ever see competitive play. It'd be nice if some unit costs/stats/abilities/upgrades were slightly reworked to make them more appealing for some cases.
Primarily, I think it would be better to reduce the cost of rarely used units and move some of their stats to upgrades. The idea is to increase strategic options by buffing little used units. These ideas aren't necessarily the best ones, but I'd like to see some changes to units that don't see much play to spice up the meta.
Here are a few ideas:
Space Marines
Dreadnought - reduce cost to 360/100, reduce Inspire to 15% dmg buff/15% suppression resist, reduce HP to 1000, increase DAoT cost to 180/50 and HP bonus to 500
Whirlwind - reduce missile spread, remove knockback, add demoralize effect where enemy units have their damage and accuracy debuffed when hit, add a missile barrage upgrade (same as terminators) that deals knockback with a 60s cooldown.
The dreadnought is very good but very niche and doesn't scale great into late game. It would be more appealing if it were slightly cheaper and stats moved to DAoT. The whirlwind is a bigger problem, it's either too good or completely useless with its lottery missiles. Reducing the scatter but removing knockback with a demoralize affect might give it more utility. Even more so with a missile barrage upgrade with CD, so it can still fulfill the niche of artillery knockback unit without completely shutting down the enemy army.
Orks
Stikkbommaz - reduce cost to 260/20, remove stunbomb, add stunbomb upgrade for 50/10
Flash Gitz - remove Kommando ability "luv da dakka" and give it to Flash Gitz. Kommandos already have tons of utility, and Flash Gitz decidedly less so, outside of massive damage with blasters
Stikkbommaz are a fun little unit that never seems to see play. Maybe moving the stunbombs to an upgrade with a lower cost might make them more appealing. Flash Gitz don't really have much purpose unless you plan to mass blasters, why not more the kommando "luv da dakka" ability to them? It would also make the infiltrated kommando into luv da dakka into roks much less abusive.
Eldar
Wraithlord - reduce cost to 375/90, reduce HP to 900, increase Wraithbone cost to 175/50 and give it a 300 HP with passive health regen
Wraithguard - reduce cost to 350/50, remove suppression, increase Wraithbone cost to 150/40 and have it grant suppression
The wraithlord and wraithguard are less great options for Eldar in t2 over a falcon or warp spiders/autarch. Reduce their costs and move some of their abilities to upgrades. Eldar will often have access to suppression/knockback from T1 anyway.
Tyranids
Tyrant Guard - reduce HP to 1500, give it vehicle armor, remove shield wall and make it an upgrade for 100/40 that also increases HP by 500
Zoanthrope - give them Symbiosis by default, remove focused warp blast and make it an upgrade for 100/25, make focused warp blast a toggle attack and reduce it's damage and have it slow enemy vehicles. Add reverse synapse to Zoanthropes, when surrounded by 16/13/10/7 non-synapse creatures the Zoanthropes speed is increased by 1.5 (required number of surrounding units goes down with level)
Spore mines - Remove infection spread to other squads, add ground burn effect on death that deals 25 flame damage within radius 12 for 8s
Rippers - reduce health per model to 20, change size to tiny, give them knockback immunity while under synapse
Lictor - move to T2, remove flesh hooks ability, infiltrate now drains energy, give T2 upgrade of Pheromones for 90/30 that increases tyranid movement speed and allows them to reinforce for 10s. Move flesh hooks to a T3 upgrade for 130/40 (reduce flesh hooks pull distance to 10, give it a stun), or just remove the flesh hooks ability entirely, it's really cancer.
Nids have a lot of problems in the late game and have serious issues with garrisons, turrets, suppression, and knockback. They have no way of preventing suppression or knockback unless they're naturally immune, and melee builds are shut down by garrisons. The thing is, they have tools for all of these, but those tools are not great options. In T2 you want genestealers or venom brood to deal with vehicles. Otherwise you want to try to hit T3 to start rolling out fexes. Everything else lacks impact.
The TG is too slow and cumbersome to reliably penetrate ranged fire and suppression walls to let other units get in, if it uses its charge to get in then it will die if the battle goes south with no escape. Its super_heavy_inf armor also means that the enemy doesn't necessarily need anti-vehicle to counter it, going plasma or relying on melee superiority units will deal with it in short order while still countering other nid threats. Giving it vehicle armor would at least force your opponent to get AV to deal with it. It's not really comparable to the bloodcrusher that can be repaired, worshipped and supported with abilities to escape.
Then there are zoanthropes. On paper, they're an incredible unit, but in practice they're a huge liability. They simply lack the ability to escape jump/teleporting/infiltrated melee infantry and will even die to concentrated range fire while in retreat. Giving them a vehicle snare toggled ability would make them far more useful, it'd also give nids an alternative AV option besides Venom brood. Increasing their speed within the nid blob would give them a greater chance to escape ranged troops long enough for nid support to help them, rather than the enemy just ignoring the blob until the zoan is dead and using the backlask to escape.
Spore mine changes would help nids counter garrisons and turrets, which can effectively cheese them out of the game depending on the map. Detonating is still preferable given the increased damage, but at least if they manage to get next to a garrison or turret they can force units out or destroy it unless the enemy dedicates more effort to killing them before they get close.
Rippers are supposed to be an annoying unit to help nids tie up ranged assets and close in with melee or outtrade with their own range. But more often than not, they die to focused fire before they can have any sort of impact. Making their size tiny would give them a better chance to get into melee and lower hp means they would die almost immediately when they do, but at least they'd fulfill their purpose.
Nids also lack any form of infield reinforcement besides a spawning pool or pheromone Lictor Alpha. Granting them a T2 hero that can act as a scout and give reinforcement would give nids a lot more options and fill a niche that they're severely lacking in. The lictor is also a pretty useful unit in combat and would be far less cancerous without flesh hooks.
Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Dreadnought - give a new Mark of Nurgle Upgrade that gives it 300 HP melee resist and a short range bile spewer that's effective against infantry and buildings. Allow the Chaos dred to purchase different upgrades in T3 for the same cost each time. Increase the upgrade time of marks.
It'd be cool if Chaos Lord and Sorc could get unique T2 units as well, like dual axe-wielding Khorne Champions or Tzeentch horrors, but that's probably too much work.
The Chaos dred does see some play, but it's not a great option since it doesn't scale very well into late game. Allowing it to change upgrades in T3 would open up a lot of strategic flexibility, and the fact that it can't move while upgrading means it can't do broken shit like chase a vehicle with MoK while upgrading to MoT and vice versa with infantry.
Imperial Guard
Manticore - reduce missile damage from 120 to 100, reduce range from 150 to 120 (storm eagle increases this back to 150), give the manticore a short range stun grenade or if that's not possible a smoke grenade upgrade that reduces the range and speed of enemy squads for a cost of 90/30 . It should have a long cooldown like 90s+ to prevent abuse. While the artillery strike ability is on cooldown, increase the speed of the manti by 1.
The manticore is another good unit that rarely sees competitive play because of similar survivability issues to the Zoanthrope, but also problems of being too good if buffed like the Whirlwind. Reduce its range and damage to encourage players to invest in storm eagle, but also give it an escape mechanic so the investment doesn't feel like a waste if a player uses it well.
I know these forums aren't very active anymore, so a lot of this post is just my wishlist. Still, if the mods are at least partly inspired to make some changes to these units I think it'd be a move in the fun direction.