Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Issues dealing with gameplay balance.
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Telos
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Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby Telos » 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.
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Gordian Vorenthul
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby Gordian Vorenthul » Tue 06 Jul, 2021 10:34 am

I only like the MoN Dread idea, others are just kekw
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Telos
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby Telos » Tue 06 Jul, 2021 2:52 pm

Gordian Vorenthul wrote:I only like the MoN Dread idea, others are just kekw


I only ever claimed they were ideas. Maybe "good" with some tweaks, but you're probably right.
LOCALgHOST
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby LOCALgHOST » Wed 07 Jul, 2021 7:11 am

the main things in ur suggestions that the units can be fielded faster, and it breaks a lot in the 1v1 balance, even if it's not full strenght dread - its a DREAD. it's no prob to live until upgrade cause you ALREADY got dread/wl etc. and rushing tech now will be more rewardable. which means no way to comeback if u got bashed and late in tech.

and about tyra changes - too much broken things will be after patch like unstoppable rippers, t2 reinforcing lictor? seriously? with lone hunter lictor on one side of the map and the reinforcing one on the other?

MoN nice idea seeems to me.

and marks upgrade time is ok - not much nor less. and about dread scaling? hmmm maybe in 3v3 it seems not ok but god - try to use MoK + MoT dread combined where Khorne tanks and eats damage under DR ability and MoT snipes vechicles and landraiders or suppresses enemy infantry from behind

and about Kommando play - it's tier 3 unit with great abilities which produces great combo - a reward for skilled players. if u remove it, will be less attractive

and moving ability to gitz - now it's 3v3 cancer - spammin gitz or kommando squads. both becomes imba in numbers. both deny use of vechicles, and it will be more if gitz get that, i think.
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Asmon
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby Asmon » Wed 07 Jul, 2021 7:56 pm

I agree that those cost reductions for walkers would break a lot of things. And TG with 1500 vehicle armour? Seriously? Do you realize that's more hp than a dread? That you can field at once when you reach T2 if you're HT.

WG with no courage damage would be quite useless vs infantry, it's already hard enough to use them effectively against anything that's not IG.

Overall I think most of your ideas are not thought through.
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby LOCALgHOST » Thu 08 Jul, 2021 1:30 pm

ye i just read the TG section. man if u don't know how to use unit, it doesnt mean it's bad. TG got his place now. it's cheap, fast and supertanky. and u can buy 2 of them easily :)
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Telos
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby Telos » Wed 14 Jul, 2021 7:23 am

Yes, you're all right. The ideas I've laid out probably aren't the best.

The goal really was to generate discussion to help units that don't seem to see much play. None of these units are bad by any stretch. But a lot of them see very niche application although they're not necessarily a niche unit like AV is.

Walkers have a very small niche where they'll see play but aren't otherwise a great choice over an obvious meta unit. It just seems a bit stale that most games revolve around getting your meta units out first and then continuing on without much strategic variety. It'd be cool if building a something like a whirlwind could be more of a good idea and less of a meme.
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Gordian Vorenthul
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby Gordian Vorenthul » Wed 14 Jul, 2021 8:44 am

LOCALgHOST wrote:ye i just read the TG section. man if u don't know how to use unit, it doesnt mean it's bad. TG got his place now. it's cheap, fast and supertanky. and u can buy 2 of them easily :)


Eh, honestly i can see him work only if you buy 2 of them, which is a lot of investment for such an underwhelming unit. TG alone if engage goes wrong he just dies.
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boss
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby boss » Wed 14 Jul, 2021 4:54 pm

I guess this post was mainly around 3v3s and how each of these units work with in them, walkers melee walkers for sure how very small use in 3v3 since it's mostly just range vs range and then you have 3 times the av from players and it's just meh It's just how teamgames work not much can change for these units without breaking 1v1 or 2v2s even.

Tyrant guards are mostly fine i find even in teamgames, they are the more likely to survive unlike dreads and have ways to increase survivability just by having synapse around it. Would argue genestealers are much more useless in 3v3s than a tg.
Do like the the Zoanthrope change idea tho.
Forums great more stuff to talk about.
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TE | NoSkill
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby TE | NoSkill » Tue 02 Nov, 2021 10:18 am

Space marine dread is certainly more viable in T3 then Chaos dread....
LOCALgHOST
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby LOCALgHOST » Tue 02 Nov, 2021 5:46 pm

LOL NONSENSE!

both chaos dreads are good. Khorne is veeeeeeery tanky and Tzeench hardcounters tanks and helps with infantry blobs.

only if you talk about VD which is good
Last edited by LOCALgHOST on Tue 02 Nov, 2021 5:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
LOCALgHOST
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby LOCALgHOST » Tue 02 Nov, 2021 5:49 pm

Telos wrote:Yes, you're all right. The ideas I've laid out probably aren't the best.

The goal really was to generate discussion to help units that don't seem to see much play. None of these units are bad by any stretch. But a lot of them see very niche application although they're not necessarily a niche unit like AV is.

Walkers have a very small niche where they'll see play but aren't otherwise a great choice over an obvious meta unit. It just seems a bit stale that most games revolve around getting your meta units out first and then continuing on without much strategic variety. It'd be cool if building a something like a whirlwind could be more of a good idea and less of a meme.


walkers are good anti melee, and chaos default is anti all with aoe. i like to build chaos dread in teams

the one thing i miss about chaos dread - attack ground - like havocs do
Paranoid Kamikaze
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby Paranoid Kamikaze » Tue 02 Nov, 2021 10:18 pm

Chaos Dread is fine with Khorne or Tzee worship. Don't think Nurgle worship really does anything for it though.

Wraithlord has more speed and a Brightlance upgrade that is awesome.

Deff Dread is cheap and has an ability to help it be mobile.

Space Marine Dread has nothing to support it outside of Libby Force Barrier or TM global. Is the worst Dread. Needs something to help it.
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby initialmink » Wed 03 Nov, 2021 1:02 pm

Paranoid Kamikaze wrote:Chaos Dread is fine with Khorne or Tzee worship. Don't think Nurgle worship really does anything for it though.

Wraithlord has more speed and a Brightlance upgrade that is awesome.

Deff Dread is cheap and has an ability to help it be mobile.

Space Marine Dread has nothing to support it outside of Libby Force Barrier or TM global. Is the worst Dread. Needs something to help it.




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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby Faultron » Mon 22 Nov, 2021 8:28 pm

Wraithlord MS buff 8-)
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Re: Would be nice if little utilized units got some love

Postby LOCALgHOST » Thu 25 Nov, 2021 9:12 am

Faultron wrote:Wraithlord MS buff 8-)


150 thounsands of heavy melee damage and brightlance 4K per hit.

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