[DC 1.11]Chaos Issues

[grendizer]

The problem about DP is that it was a horrible decision from relic to make it the new chaos unit. Was so difficult to make a new chaos vehicle? He can be danced to death like other cc exclusive units. Make it an upgarde for the CL, keeping the CL abilities. And not a 400/400 upgrade, that's just sick for what the DP is.

[Blakey85]

Err...maybe 300/300? That's still alot and i need my CL there for it to happen. Agian i always see him munch up infantry squeds real nice,but he just sucks agianst tanks and the like,i'd better off with a defiler.

[Ruonim]

Barserker rush is imba. Make 2 cultis force labor to build temple,3 cultist to cap points. Up HQ and own .So fast tech up.

[Blakey85]

-_- I lost my faith in this community. THERE IS A FREAKING THREAD ABOUT TECH SPEED STOP RUINING THE GOD DAMN CHAOS THREAD WITH YOUR MINDLESS RANTING!.

[Zallis]

YAY! Hurray for Ruonim and mindless ranting! My faith in human stupidity is restored!

I agree to the DP buff to vehicle damage. He takes a helluva long time to even kill a Land Speed, which is quite sad.

And, of course, DP as a permanent upgrade for the CL. Don't need to research it again after he dies.

[Blakey85]

Nah not an upgrade that increased the DP vs vehicles,just buff his normal stats . He's pityfull agianst them..

Blah i had a whop ass game today with chaos. I was pwning the SM with my foshizel skills and got a DP out. He sure goes down fast to some heroes >_>. Still won but blah,i wonder what would have happened if he poped some GKs out. Anyway i was going the defiler routh anyway.

[Jaimas]

I use the Daemon Prince a LOT. I admit to having a wholly godless love of him as a unit, and I have to say he's pretty UP. This is not to say he does not have his upsides, however. He regens damn fast, which gives him damn good survivability, and his ability can be quite useful against enemies who mass too close.

Personally, I think I speak for everyone when I say he needs to keep Symbol of Chaos.

He needs to be a very strong commander unit that is almost an Uber but not really. He's close to that role already, I say it'll just take a few short pokes to drive him the right direction. Some damage adjustments here or there and maybe some more slight tweaks (cost for instance), and he's solid.

[ImmortalChaos]

IMO he will be fine if he keeps the all the CLs abilities and is a "buy once" upgrade.

[Blakey85]

A big bad wolf everytime the CL decides to fall down and die is not balanced. You'd have to rebuy it. Ahh i can hear the comparison to the nightbringer coming..

[SubakuGaara]

Well I think the idea is you pay 400/400 for the daemon prince upgrade once. Then for each new chaos lord you buy he gets to tranform (irreversibly) to the daemon prince once (just like right now). In essence, the cost of the daemon prince after the 400/400 would be the cost of buying a new chaos lord which is 260/55. Its not an overly terrible proposition; but not an overly great one either.

[ImmortalChaos]

He still costs quite a bit himself- Its not anything like the NB who can transform several times in one life.

If its that bad then the 400/400 might need some reduction however.

EDIT: The CL is 220 req not 260.

I would also consider making him so that once the DP upgrade is purchased and he has tranformed once, rebuilding him from him results in a new DP, not a new CL who can fight untill he has 50 HP and then transform.

[Blakey85]

I'd say 300/300 is in order,but then some jerk will spam " Zerk rush OP. All you need is 2 heretics capping and 1 cultist to build! Nerf them! Chaos imba." -_-. That and the others guys just afriad of chaos cause it can give up a good fight.

[Jaimas]

I'd say 300/300 is in order,but then some jerk will spam " Zerk rush OP. All you need is 2 heretics capping and 1 cultist to build! Nerf them! Chaos imba." -_-. That and the others guys just afriad of chaos cause it can give up a good fight.

The sad part is that that is COMPLETELY true.

[Blakey85]

What is? The zerk rush? Yeah...although it is counterable.

[ImmortalChaos]

Chaos doesnt give a "good" fight, it gives a better one. IMO they are mostly just benefitting from grat early T2 units (that dont need upgrading) and the uber fast T2 tech time.

With a reasonable tech rate around the races chaos will not be so powerful by teching super fast. Hell, if they tech reasonably I am all for buffing them on some areas.

[Blakey85]

Blah,yeah ok -_- play chaos then,i'm done defending them,orks and what ever. What race beisde IG ain't considered freaking OP?

Anyway,I thought that goes without saying but i guess i was expecting too much.

[ImmortalChaos]

Stop attacking people... Provide a counter point sure, but if you dont have a good one, dont attack us. Honestly every race (including IG) has some kind of imbalanced unit/abilitys. There is no such thing as balance; only degrees of imba.

FYI I play random so any comments made by me (however completely stupid, if that is the [uncommon :D] case) are completely unbiased.

[Blakey85]

-_- I doubt you actully play random but rather pick a race..what do you do when you roll up tau or necron? Anyway,that's what i do.I just favor ork and chaos more for the mass melle goodness.
I'm tired of people bashing chaos to be honest,it's not that great. The only thing that makes chaos kinda good now is zerks. They needs a interduction with the freaking nerf bat yet agian. That's all!. Chaos economy ain't imba for fuck's sake. You get some shitty cultists that can't kill nothing to cap. Yeah they cheap but that's only an issue cause of the fast tech option we have now. Yet people bitch bitch bitch till it becomes a trend. Blah!

[Jaimas]

Chaos are far from overpowered, which is exactly the point Blakey was trying to make, man. People bitch about Zerker rush Ad Nauseum, but Zerks cost a lot, and are utterly hosed by one building or vehicle. It's not broken, it's just strong.

Now Cultist GL Spam? You may have a point on that one, for OPness.

[Blakey85]

Zerks don't cost too much...i do think they're too good. I mean compare them to other melle stuff...maybe it's due to the fact that they don't scale at all,dunno.
I was refering to cultists as in people bitch about the chaos economy which is too good,but there is a price - Weakling cultists. Spong bob gay pants freaking bitch slaps them. I mean next to the word useless in the dictionery you'd find their picture blah!.

P.S. MTV After midnight as the worst music selection in the world..boring -_-.

[SirNick]

Cultists DO get the +100 HP from Purge the Weak, you know.

That's 260 HP on a 20-req platform. That's amazing for cost.

Plus that gives them Berzerk Fury to use with those super Grenades or Plasma Guns.

[Blakey85]

Well sure,at tier 2-3 they might be "ok" (and that's an hard thing to say) but at tier 1- early 2 they suck balls,which is basiclly when i do use them. Why would i bother with them unlesss i need detectors? Be a guest and post your OMGPWN replay of owning with cultists though Nick,i can't wait.

[Earthworm]

Well sure,at tier 2-3 they might be "ok" (and that's an hard thing to say) but at tier 1- early 2 they suck balls,which is basiclly when i do use them. Why would i bother with them unlesss i need detectors? Be a guest and post your OMGPWN replay of owning with cultists though Nick,i can't wait.

cultist GL dont have a setup time + they are infiltrated.....that is OP.Give their GL a significant setup time and I wont say another word against them.As for zerkers....they are not IMBA as a unit..they come out way too quickly.Maybe make them require the chaos armoury(like ASMs)...and that should do it.

And Blakey...I would love to see you defend other IMBAs of other races as well *cough* Tau *cough* ...but I guess you love only orcs and chaos...... ;)

[Blakey85]

Hahaha setup time on cultists grenades...that's funny man ;) Thanks,i was kinda bored waiting for a reply there. Blah,260 of cultist armor having a GL is paper thin. They only become cost effective when they are infiltrited,without it they horribly die. I agree that massed invisable stuff is kinda strong (Devilfish,CSM spam,necron jedi mind tricks) but that's life >_<. Bring up some detectors and you're done. I got a nice replay with serv doing that or i can spawn one of my own if you gimme some time.

[magicalcarpet]

For the good of Chaos balance, I suggest the DP be the VERY last issue on the agenda. You buff him too much, it's a Greater Knarloc but faster and cheaper, you dom't buff him, people complain about him like the moment. He's difficult.

PS: don't bag Cultists, they're awesome. Though I'd like to their GL get fixed and I don't think that they should get 5 plasma rifles.. BUT they are two cap IIRC, so that would be the only argument for their 5 HW.

EDIT: Also, I would call IG the closest to balanced as every unit has a clear purpose and performs it, not being too effiecient or too crap.. in most cases.

[Earthworm]

Hahaha setup time on cultists grenades...that's funny man

correct me if I am wrong...but dont guardsman GLs have setup time?? I am not saying infiltration is IMBA..it is not.....just the infiltrated GLs with massive AOE and disruption.A small setup time would do wonders...but then again......watever.

[Blakey85]

It doesn't have a huge area...good distruption though and when massed gives whop ass damge. No i'm pretty sure it don't have a setup time,yet my IG is real rusty so don't take my word for it.

Edit - Yeah they cost 2 cap magic.Don't you think it's ok they get 5 plasma gns on a 160 body for that? ( how much can you trust your AC not to die anyway >_<).

[magicalcarpet]

No, it has an AOE of 4 I'm pretty sure. The Bassy has 5, the GM GL has 1.5. IG GL do have a set-up time.

[Blakey85]

Difference being 1.5 AoE while the GM are way more cost effective by that time..but so be it.
http://wiki.reliccommunity.com/Cultist_Squad
http://wiki.reliccommunity.com/Guardsmen_Squad

Myth busted! Join us next week to see if a forum whiner can swin in a cement pool. Till then i'm outy.

[magicalcarpet]

I assume you mean with 'by that time' T2, have you never heard of T1 GL? Or are you assuming they're only useful if Infiltrated?

EDIT: And if you're referring to me as a forum whiner, my favourite team is IG, though I do play random.

It's not as if I'm proposing nerfs to a team that will never affect me.

[SirNick]

Here's links to two quick replays I found over at DoWSanctuary of Cultist Grenade use. Entertaining, to say the least. Not the highest level of play, but it's still smart Chaos usage, I'd say.

There's another one that I swear was in the Battle Archives here that showcased a no-Temple build with Cult GLs versus a Vespid rush. Alas.

Cultist GLs > Necrons
http://dowsanctuary.com/index.php?showtopic=23641&hl=

Cultist GLs > Eldar
http://dowsanctuary.com/index.php?showtopic=23089&hl=

They're dated in November, so keep that in mind for your replay sorting purposes. Also, you'll need a DoWSanctuary account to view.

Also, part of the thing about Cultist GLs compared to Guardsmen is that IG Grenades tend to concentrate on a single target, and have that smaller AoE too. Cultist grenade launchers spread out quite a bit and can splatter a whole squad on their butt. Cultist GLs also have the property of slowing down the targets that they hit.

The setup time makes a huge difference in Cultist GLs in that they could dance backwards, hit "Q" to fire, keep dancing, "Q," dance, "Q," ad infinitum. Same thing with IG GLs in 1.41. That's why they added the setup time to IG, to prevent that kind of dancing.

[Deaths Abyss]

Yep, cultists nades is IMBA. Even commanders suffer from it.

[W0lf]

Cultist grenades are a one trick pony like zerk tech or ls tech...

[Blakey85]

Yeah what he said. Anyway,whenever a guy tried doing a cultists grenades rush against me i just got a free win after i got what i needed out...so i dunno.
If you focus on cultists they can be pretty mean...but as chaos you dont need to so blah and that's way way off that 160 feather weight you got in tier 1,and that's what people bitch about.

[Hirmetrium]

I've already plotted a suggestion. Cultists do not scale like guardsmen, have worse tier 2 weapons which don't scale in damage, slower reinforcement rate/weapon build rate and are not particularly useful compared to other units, nor are they complimented by commanders and have very good ranged firepower from their remaining squad members, and lower squad size after tier 2.

I do not want to see cultist grenades nerfed to useless. Oh wait, your going to tell me their not.

Their like rhinos. their amazingly useful - but compared to other units, its just not worth building or buying them. So do we nerf rhinos because smoke is so amazingly useful and makes armies near invincible? no.

Giving up a chaos temple's investment is A HUGE risk. It means at tier 2 you wont have bezerkers without a very large lump investment, and you won't have raptors to harass with at the game start. Nor will you have AC's, which require a temple to be built.

[Blakey85]

Yeah hirmi..i see what you mean. You forget the screwy plasma though. Agian,i have no problem with cultist cause unlike the other nabs here in the forum,i don't want them to scale much,as they do now and as they should! They die out in tier 2...why keep amassing them for god's sake? Leave them as they are,just don't bitch about them for god's sake. (not you hirmi..i mean people who post about "Chaos uber economy" and made up stuff like that).

[SubakuGaara]

true. Essentially after the first 3 cultists I build, I won't build another again, except for detection in a tough situation or as a quick fix for requisition capping problems. I really don't see any real problem with them.

And I don't even see how people survive without building the temple first. If you get attacked, you may be able to fight back with the cultists, and you may even survive to tier 2, but then what? Machine pit? Temple? I dunno:noway: ... its just weird to me and very unsound, but who knows. I guess it works...

[Blakey85]

There is none. There is that this rumor where chaos economy is WTF OWNAGE,but i already stated that you get cultists...which can't even considered a troop selection at those tiers.

Edit - I can pull off a pretty mean cultist rush,but it ain't that great..belive. Stuff like FS can ruin that with 1 spell,among the plenty of stuff that can do it.

[SubakuGaara]

Chaos economy is good as in cheap? Or as in powered up? I don't get it...what exactly are people saying about chaos' economy?

[Deaths Abyss]

90 req LP's and the races non reliance on power which means berzerkers are easy to mass because their power costs mean nothing.

That ain't my opnion BTW. Just what i've heard.

[Blakey85]

It is my opinion,but it's a problem with the fast teching,not chaos. Like stated,anyone that doesn't know how to counter that by now is an utter noob. I'm not going to argue about that anymore.

[SubakuGaara]

Hmm... is 90 req lp really a big deal?

The non reliance on power I think is overrated.

[Blakey85]

Yeah,we're earning like 40 req for some reason. I mean that's 4/5 1 csm member >_<.

[tygereye]

For the good of Chaos balance, I suggest the DP be the VERY last issue on the agenda. You buff him too much, it's a Greater Knarloc but faster and cheaper, you dom't buff him, people complain about him like the moment. He's difficult.


I say that the DP should be the first issue in the agenda. BTW how can it be cheaper than a greater Knarloc when you have to sacrifice a 220/50 CL to get it?

Seriously guys how can you think that the DP is nearly ok? I highly suspect that most of you saying that didn't ever tried to use it : he's horrible for cost. I think that the DP has only 2 main advantages :

1- It makes the not so great BT look awesome (having 14000 HP for a 400/400+ an AC cost when the DP has a ridiculous 5000 HP for a 400/400 + the chaos lord cost)
2- when you make him you can humiliate your enemy if you manage to beat him after spending 620/450 in such a big pussy.

About the DP having no real counter in T3 (like stated in a post earlier) that's totaly untrue , attach any CC commander to a descent CC squad and you'll totaly pawn the DP (if you want a good laugh attach a FC to a GK squad).

The DP is T3 so it shouldn't be as good as other ubbers for cost. But that weaker is overkill. Add to that that you lose most of your CL upgrades when morphing into a DP (and the CL plasma ranged attack) while you gain something like a huge +10% CC DPS and only +2500 HP compared to a fully upgraded CL. And you'll understand why the first advice I would give to a new chaos player is : don't ever ever make a DP, keep your 400/400 to tech to chaos projectile instead.

[SubakuGaara]

The DP is T3 so it shouldn't be as good as other ubbers for cost. But that weaker is overkill. Add to that that you lose most of your CL upgrades when morphing into a DP (and the CL plasma ranged attack) while you gain something like a huge +10% CC DPS compared to a fully upgraded CL. And you'll understand why the first advice I would give to a new chaos player is : don't ever ever make a DP, keep your 400/400 to tech to chaos projectile instead.

Hmm not exactly. Here's the real truth, you actually are getting what you pay for (for the large part, not entirely). You shell out 400/400 for the prince. YOu shell out the 220/55 for the chaos lord. You can only say I'm shelling out 620/55 for the daemon prince if you immediately transform your chaos lord into him. If you instead choose to use the chaos lord to fight as most people do, and then right before he dies transform him as most people do, then actually you only spent 400/400 on the daemon prince. The chaos lord died; you got your 220/55 worth of chaos lord action.



You state that the daemon prince is only 10 percent stronger than the chaos lord. Not quite. Check the stats. He also seems to have a wider area of effect. In all manner of ways he is a serious upgrade. The question then becomes, is the 400/400 the real value of the daemon prince?

I think not. His HP is low, too low for survivability in tier 3. And he's not very effective; his DPS is good but units that are single melee units just aren't in this game. In my mind, his real cost is about 300/200, a little more than a possessed squad in terms of req and power.

You are right though. If you ave 400/400 to throw around, go for the projectiles upgrade or get you a possessed and oblits out, and use the remaining power to upgrade your req rate. Daemon prince just doesn't perform at 400/400 level.

[Blakey85]

Err what sabuka said. DP is nice and all,and that's not even close to being +10%,it's way more. His area of effect on that sword is freaking mean. Paow - 3 squeds sent flying. I said he's great agianst infantry,but his AV needs some loving.
If he gets that you'd be sure to use him to munch up stuff like IG that has no walkers and you can stomp on their army >_<.


That said,I really think 300/300. I mean that's tier upgrade cost...i'm losing the CL for that aswell,which is added to cost. I mean it adds up like 500/350 or something. That's alot.

[SubakuGaara]

Yes his AV and building damages are a little low, especially compared to the bloodthirster. He just isn't worth the price. For 300/300 he needs to keep the symbol of chaos as well has have some sort of fear aura or damage dealing aura (he does look pretty creepy with that long neck of his his). But as he stands, I'd say he's just a little better than a 4 or 5 man possessed squad. Thus, 300/200 is my selling price.

[Blakey85]

...don't go overboard. 5000 k of deamon_high armor with a regenration of 4(6?) is pretty mean. And agian,can't compare it to the BT,he's not a uber. I just see him fight stuff like FPs and it looks like he's trying to bust open the windshield with a big fluffy rabbit. What the hell,is he trying to bore the FP to death? MAKE SOME INPUT ON IT.

Symbol of chaos which is what? 10% damge buff to surronding stuff might be kept...i don't think he needs,deserves anything else. 300/300 is the right price if they want to change it from 400/400. Agian,he's a big bad basterd...you need special stuff to kill him. And he'll butt rape 4/5 PSM,but that's not a fight >_<.

[SubakuGaara]

I dunno... I'm kinda partial to my possessed. If you add the dps totals from 5 possessed, they will mimic that of the daemon prince in like every category. A 4 man possessed squads costs 220/100 I think. I say add the extra 100/100 for the daemon prince and you're done.

And what do you mean he doesn't need anything? I mean he has that long neck and its soooo creepy! I'm sure they can do something with that!

[Blakey85]

Lol...well i always wanted my DP to spit out flames just like PSM do,he can even have the damge of 1 PSM flamer just freaking do it. I mean he's the deamon prince! Prince deamon,yet he acts like a walker. Even the ubers get some nasty ability or massive firepower...but he just swings his shiny sword.

DP has way more armor,hp and damge over the PSM. And he doesn't lose that every time 1/5 of his HP gets down. The Psm do. Agian,you can go any routh you want to. That's why i love chaos. I have like 5 ways to play it,it's fun ;)

[SubakuGaara]

5 possessed even without the upgrade will match the DPS of the prince. 5 possessed also have 4500 HP and thats pretty close to the princes. I dunno, 300/200 seems like a good price to me. A little more than 5 possessed. tell you what. I'll throw in an extra 25 power for that crappy daemon roar ability* to make it 300/225. What do you say?

*its ok but
1)doesn't affect squads with morale immunity (ie ork mobs, or eldar with avatar around)
2)the range is pitiful and there is no residual effect (ie, the damage from a burna bomb is felt less and less as you go away from it with the prince, you either get hit or you don't and more than often you are just out of range). I like to see it do residual morale damage to squads not directly hit.

[ImmortalChaos]

the damage from a burna bomb is felt less and less as you go away from it
This is not true. IIRC the game mechanic does not even support this. The only way to do it would to be to have multiple blasts with different diametres(think earth caste strike).

[Blakey85]

Well he has deamon high,and they have deamon med,that's a big difference in some cases. Agian,like i said,Everytime 1 member dies they lose a fare amount of firepower,yet the DP remains effective. We really shouldn't be arguing on 50 power more or less,cause i don't see any of this happening. I'm just shooting breeze.

[SubakuGaara]

I think in the burna bomb thread, they discussed that the damage felt by the burna bomb lessens as the distance the unit is from the epicenter increases. That is what I'm talking about. WIth the daemon roar, its all or nothing, unlike the burna bomb. Either the squad is broken, or the squad takes no morale damage; there's no area of diminished effect.

[Blakey85]

Moral rapeage ain't that great in those tiers anyway...it's just some falvour for that guy. Agian i rather they chuck it and give him fire breath that demorilizes.

[ImmortalChaos]

I think in the burna bomb thread, they discussed that the damage felt by the burna bomb lessens as the distance the unit is from the epicenter increases.
They did discuss it. :err: They prooved it false. The damage done has a huge min/max damage gap, so everything near it takes different ammounts of damage, but it is quite random. The unit farthest away can easily take twice the damage as a unit right in thr middle.

[Garumsh-Zott]

They did discuss it. :err: They prooved it false. The damage done has a huge min/max damage gap, so everything near it takes different ammounts of damage, but it is quite random. The unit farthest away can easily take twice the damage as a unit right in thr middle.

Actually this isn't nescessarily true. It could still lessen the damage on range but in the dread example the Dread which was at a bigger distance got almost max damage for its diameter while the closer ones got close to min damage for their distance to the blast. Without further labbing we still don't know for sure. Sorry for going off-topic

[W0lf]

DPs sucks.. thats no suprise as so does the blood thirster...

and he cant be better then the bloodthirster :P

face it.. dp + bt suck.. i havnt once built ether in a auto game and im doing well enough ;)

[Hirmetrium]

their both a huge waste in resources. the DP is a pretty laughable top off to the pretty good chaos tier 3. for the 400/400 of a DP, you can go tier 4 and keep your chaos lord. For the price of a DP you can get PSM/Oblits out, both of which are better.

Chaos econ is strong because FL allows you to get LPs up quickly, and the power costs are not too big for troops/research. What most players fail to see is that chaos buildings cost considerably more than other races. the barracks for example is 300 req, the tech upgrade is 300, and armoury 200. a low generator cost also compliments this.

[ImmortalChaos]

The BT is never really a waste IMO, exept perhaps if you use him against SM who happens to have ATs+GKs around...

[Hirmetrium]

yeah, I though that too. the BT is generally ok, but nothing special.

[ImmortalChaos]

Honestly none of the ubers are really amazing, and ATs+GKs spank most of them in the arse. The boggest thing is that if you can get your uber before their T4, there's pretty much nothing to counter it (again, bar those damn anti ubers SM has). The DP can also work like that, its just that hes a little low on HPs.

[tygereye]

Honestly none of the ubers are really amazing, and ATs+GKs spank most of them in the arse. The boggest thing is that if you can get your uber before their T4, there's pretty much nothing to counter it (again, bar those damn anti ubers SM has). The DP can also work like that, its just that hes a little low on HPs.

As I said attached CC commanders easily counter the DP. I should have add CC walkers too. CC walkers pawn the DP for cost. So that makes 2 counters for each race against the DP not bad don't you think?


Hmm not exactly. Here's the real truth, you actually are getting what you pay for (for the large part, not entirely). You shell out 400/400 for the prince. YOu shell out the 220/55 for the chaos lord. You can only say I'm shelling out 620/55 for the daemon prince if you immediately transform your chaos lord into him. If you instead choose to use the chaos lord to fight as most people do, and then right before he dies transform him as most people do, then actually you only spent 400/400 on the daemon prince. The chaos lord died; you got your 220/55 worth of chaos lord action.

What you say is true, but the sad part of it is that I would still prefer to buy my CL again once he's dead rather than morphing him into a DP once he's nearly dead. Cause with the cost of a DP you could nearly buy 3 times your CL after he's dead. A far better investment than a DP I would say due to the ability of the CL to attach to a squad, to the symbol of chaos...

[ImmortalChaos]

I did mention the DP is somewhat UP, but the BT is definately not. Honestly the only thing about the BT that is bad is his decay, and with his jumps and good micro he will never be out of combat.

Interesting idea: Keep the BTs decay as it, but give him a much faster regen while in combat.

[W0lf]

thats a good idea immortal. oh and after using the BT for the first time in a long time... he took down 3 and 3/4 dreads in CC before dying.. (1 @ a time of course)

i conclude he dont suck ^^

[LordBOB5]

he took down 3 and 3/4 dreads in CC before dying.. Really!?
Truly not bad, but do you think SM only gets 4 Dreads against a BT?
I support Immortals idea about the BT health regen

[ImmortalChaos]

4 dreds cost way moer then the BT... hell 2 dreds will put more hurt on your wallet.

BT: 465/410
2 Dreds = 340/610

With 3 dreds the SM is paying much, much more than the BT.

[W0lf]

thats why i said he no longer sucks imho :D

[magicalcarpet]

He's just situational, like most things.

[Jaimas]

The Baneblade Rocks. It's a great Uber. The Monolith is insanely powerful and equally good. The Eldar Avatar amps production rate and gives 10 vehicle cap, making it a must-have.

The Gnarloc is Meh. The Land Raider is all right. The Squiggy is reasonable, but far too prone to getting locked in.

The only one of these which doesn't quite pull his weight is the Thirster, and this is primarily because he degenerates.

Anyway.

Recently, a thread (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=136551&page=1&pp=15) on the main board reminded me of a severe beef I've had with Chaos since Winter Assault. One that has yet to be accounted for.

In WA, Chaos lost every single special and heavy weapon they had except Heavy bolters. Moreover, until the very end of the WA patching cycle, no attempt was made to give any back.

Why the hell were they removed in the first place? One can drop the "omg they're too much like tacs" argument, but that falls flat due to fundamental unit statistics, available tactics, and play styles. You can say "they're too much like tacs," but this ignores how both races play, and ignores their roles in their respective armies.

First of all, let's bear in mind that the CSM squad was a flexible unit and, at best, was a soft counter. In this respect, they were like Tacs, however, to understand how they fit into the metagame, one has to look at the rest of the tech tree.

Space Marines have a flexible, effective force with tons of unit choices and tactical options. It thus makes perfect sense for them to have flexible units like Tacs.

Chaos isn't as flexible, but its units are indeed quite multirole. Between the Defiler, Pred, and Obliterator, Chaos is all about the soft counter. For this reason, CSM special weapons fit the bill perfectly.

Now factor in problems with Chaos across the board. Insufficient AV at higher tiers, poor unit tactical capability, and though I loath admitting it because I love it so much, broken infiltration.

Most of these could be fixed by scrapping CSM infiltrate, giving CSMs back their goddamn weapon options, and setting up their availability better. Leave Flamers and HBs at tier 1, with toned-down Plasma tier-2, and Missiles Tier-3.

Oh, and give the Raptors back their Plasma guns whilst at it, making them a tier-3 upgrade need be, with fixed damage values.

Makes sense to me. And probably others. Your thoughts?

Oh, and anyone saying "CSM will be too much like tacs" in response to this (and meaning it) whilst missing the above points will be utterly ignored. ¬¬

[W0lf]

Actually it is purely because they are too much like sm.

chaos with all their old heavy weapons would just be csm mass + heros vs sm mass + heros.

im perfectly happy with them as they are and i play chaos tons.


Oh, and give the Raptors back their Plasma guns whilst at it, making them a tier-3 upgrade need be, with fixed damage values.

imba. thats like giving sm plasma tacs asm jump packs. it was broken before, its not broken now,. if it aint broke dont fix it.

Jaimes i see where ur comming from but what uve listed isnt really broken.

[Earthworm]

Yep...I agree with wolf on this one.....CSMs with infiltration and plasma/HB is essential for Chaos considering their limited AV options.

Now you will ask me whats AI got to do with AV...well...Chaos compensate good AV to insanely good AI.Chaos are good at AI(being their strenght) while weak at AV(being their weakness).

Considering chaos plasma comin at tier 3 all races will have enough vehicles to exploit the weak AV "weakness".

In short chaos plasma is fine along with the infiltration......and I play SM a lot and have never encountered any problem with chaos till now.....except for zerkers.

[Garumsh-Zott]

I don't think that infiltrated CSM's are really a nescessity. Let's compare them to Orks. Both races have shitty vehicles(so I won't compare them) and strong AI.

Both get weak CC cappers. Cultists can infiltrate and are detectors but sluggas are free at T3. Unfortunately cultists get an imba grenade launcher which has no setup time and a huge AoE. Although their capper should be stronger imo because Orks get buiding guns.

Their T1 troops are mainly shooty units and a CC jumptroopper for harrasing(which comes at 1.5 for orks). Those shooty mainstay units scale into 1.5 and T2 with (CC)leaders and AI HW's (heavy bolters and big shootas).

In T2 both get a good CC mainstay unit(zerkers and nobs) as well as an infantry AV unit which are both rather small in unit size. The nobs scale better but are hard capped at 2. Tb's are cloaked, horrors cannot be reinforced but deepstrike. Since we leave vehicles and secondary commanders out of this here comes T3.

In T3 the T1 shooties in their former setup are largely obsolete. To counter this Ork get shooty T3 elites(2) while Chaos gets 1 shooty T3 elite(and a T3 CC elite to scale their CC better) and the T1 mainstays scale with a new heavy weapon(plasma). And that's pretty much it.

Conclusion:
So imo the whole reasoning behind CSM having infiltrate is that horrors are not reinforcable(but deepstrike) while Tb's are reinforcable(and infiltrate). And giving the mainstay unit infiltration instead of just making horrors reinforcable is overcompensating the problem.


Note: This comparisons are based on the assumptions that:
1. Stormies are as useful as raptors(which they are not)
2. Chaos vehicles are comparable to ork vecs(which they imo are although orks get a little more variety)
3. The commanders are comparable in strength(they imo are, DP or not)
4. The ubers are equally useful(which IS the case imo, albeit only due to the fact that squiggy pathing is making him extremely micro-intensive)
5.Orks are balanced

Edit: Oh and I also assume that teching for both races is equally fast which is not the case but an unrelated issue

[Earthworm]

Orks have a much better late game than Chaos.....much much better considering killer kans + FLASH GITZ(gitz oh nooos) + power klaw nobz + mad dok with burna bomb,juice and healing.......I would still defend CSMs as they are even if horrors were made reinforcable

[Jaimas]

actually it is purely because they are too much like sm.

chaos with all their old heavy weapons would just be csm mass + heros vs sm mass + heros.

First of all, Wolf, let me say that by backing your argument, you at least raise a valid point. However, there are 3 problems with the argument you just laid down:

1. it ignores the metagame issues plaguing Chaos, including the various tech and mechanical differences. They are, at least in theory, similar, but in practice, utilizing Tacs and CSMs are actually quite different, and it's not merely because of Infiltration. Unit statistics and abilities are quite different as well.

2. CSM + Hero massing already happens now anyway, and it started happening again the second HBs became viable once again and CSMs actually became a usable unit unit again. The argument that giving the HWs back to CSMs is somehow going to lead to CSM massing dominating the field is moot, primarily because of the difference in how CSM and SM field armies.

3. The current CSM Metagame is exactly the problem most people are having with CSMs. Don't get me wrong, I love CSMs in their current incarnation and it's a huge step in the right direction compared to the horse crap we had in WA. The clincher is Chaos Infiltration, which is widely believed to be game-breakingly imbalanced against some matchups - and though I utterly despise admitting it, I'm inclined to agree that it's quite problematic. Most fixes don't address CSM Infiltration at all, and indeed, it's the one big Imba in Chaos' favor. Admittedly, it's not half as borked as Tau or Necron Imbalances, but the issue remains that it's a problem. The reintegration of special weapons would mean a more than adequate compensation for the loss of the infiltration benefits, I think.


imba. thats like giving sm plasma tacs asm jump packs. it was broken before, its not broken now,. if it aint broke dont fix it.

Jaimes i see where ur comming from but what uve listed isnt really broken.

All right, you clearly did not read what I said about this elsewhere, and so because that stems from my own idiocy, I'll forgive that much. The big difference between Raptors and ASMs, aside from the fact that ASMs have immensely higher health, more jumps, and higher ranged damage, is that ASMs have Meltabombs.

Conversely, Raptors got special weapons. This was fine and dandy back in the days of vanilla, and it wasn't until the end of WA's patch cycle that we even got back flamers for them.

The idea for Plasma isn't to give them the broken, current-chaos incarnation "I-do-more-damage-than-an-obliterator" Plasma gun. I'm talking a balanced, "the-shit-has-been-nerfed-out-of-it-to-make-it-balanced" Plasma gun. It's to give Raptors a weapon to increase tactical advantage by giving the option to make 'em shootier. And guess what - even with these, ASMs are the better choice with more jumps, higher ranged damage, more and better morale and health, and Meltabombs.

Earthworm brings up an excellent point as well: Chaos has very limited AV options, which dramatically hamstrings them against more vehicle-spammy races. Chaos has: A summoned unit which does great damage, but cannot reinforce and does jack-all to infantry units, a walker vehicle which is comparitively fragile and only good in CC, a Tank which kicks ass but needs an HP buff desperately, and a hardcapped-1 elite with borked damage values against heavy armor that also loses to the likes of SM Scouts in melee.

This is to say nothing about their AB damages, which are equally lackluster.

[Slyfe]

Orks have a much better late game than Chaos.....much much better considering killer kans + FLASH GITZ(gitz oh nooos) + power klaw nobz + mad dok with burna bomb,juice and healing.......I would still defend CSMs as they are even if horrors were made reinforcable



Gitz and Bomb are getting nerfed and Chaos tier 3 is nothing ti scoff at, all you did was list whats available to Orcs in tier 3 without mentioning what Chaos gets.. CSM plasma, Demon Prince, Oblits, Possesed... And Chaos vehicles really arnt as bad as you make them out to be.. could defilers use a buff of some kind....sure...but they are by no means useless. Preds while currently underpowered for cost in tier 2 have the uncanny ability to turn into sick dps vs all tier 4 tanks that are already fielded. I think this whole Orc comparison is off topic and worthless debating.

Chaos issues... not "lets compare chaos to imba".

I like the diversity between SM and Chaos. No one wants two identical races and accuracy penalties are not enough to make CSM with HW's unique.

Also Chaos AV isnt all that lacking..Defilers and Preds can do below average to average AV damage, after tier 4 Preds deal insane damage to just about everything. Oblits (who might be getting AV buff in patch), Possesed, Horrors, CSM Plasma, Demon Prince.... Just my take on the situation, but it seems thier are plenty of options.

[Earthworm]

The big difference between Raptors and ASMs, aside from the fact that ASMs have immensely higher health, more jumps, and higher ranged damage, is that ASMs have Meltabombs.

Conversely, Raptors got special weapons. This was fine and dandy back in the days of vanilla, and it wasn't until the end of WA's patch cycle that we even got back flamers for them.

Raptors with HWs????? They already have the flamer which is really good but plasma????Raptors work really well as it is right now and in some situations even better than the ASMs.So giving them plasma would......NO!!!! Raptors are fine as they are right now....and CSM plasma+ infiltration is the only thing that chaos has IMHO to compete with other races which have a strong late tier game(Tau,SM,Eldar etc etc...)

[Energizer Bunny]

Why the hell were they removed in the first place? One can drop the "omg they're too much like tacs" argument, but that falls flat due to fundamental unit statistics, available tactics, and play styles. You can say "they're too much like tacs," but this ignores how both races play, and ignores their roles in their respective armies.

Whether justifiable or not I think it is generally agreed that Relic made a concious decision to differentiate Chaos from SM by making them a much more melee oriented race. The introduction of the Zerker that came with WA was an ideal opportunity, and reducing their ranged options was no doubt intended to hasten Chaos players towards close range solutions.

With regards to how it stands now.... I had a huge arguement about this about 30 pages ago, but to distill my opinions:

- Vehicles: (defiler particularly) too weak and in need of buffs
- CSM HB's: Arrive too early
- CSM Plasma: Utterly insane DPS. Insane.
- Cloaking: Got to go. I can live with the guns, but the cloaking is too much. If that stays then the guns need a nerf.

[Jaimas]

.....Earthworm, did you even read what I said about it? Give them fucking 6DPS for all I care, just give them something that can shoot.

Christ, someone mentions Chaos and Plasma in the same sentence, and everyone flies off the handle without reading the post. :wtf2:

They can position themselves beautifully, and can jump only ONCE. It'd be nice if there was some point behind putting them in a good tactical location once again, since as it stands, Raptors are underpowered for cost, especially in higher tiers.

[LordBOB5]

As for Raptors usefulnes past Tier1: are they effected by the Furious Charge upgrade?
What's with the Speed Fiend upgrade?? IMO It's almost useless, noone uses it because... well no use :-\
I would recommend make Speed Fiend an upgrade like the GreyKnight's charge ability. Edit: Make Speed Fiend require T2 but not the Armory
If Zerkers will be moved past armory Chaos will need some better CC options in Tier2. (if he desides to tech Tier3, and doesn't want to spend on armory)

Ps.: I skipped this CSM role thing. It's just too risky to say anything about them, without testing them. Leave CSM for the beta patch testers.

[ImmortalChaos]

I agree with most of the points Jaimas has been making.

Infiltation HAS to go. Main troops that can cloak and fire is just sick and wrong. It wasnt so bad in WA and DOW because all the infiltration allowed them to do was set up neat ambushes, but back then detectors were more common (though somewhat less numerous) and much, much tougher. Right now, against a CSM massing chaos, once the game hits T2 you NEED durable or infiltrated deteciton... And if the chaos player beings some cultists for the grenades slowing effect, you are out of luck if you're trying to cloak your own detector. If you cant detect the mass of CSM, you lose. If you can... Well its still almost as powerful as a TSM mass.

About the heavy weapons, here's how I would do things:
Extra heavy weapons bumped to T2 and cost reduced to 75/75.

Flamers available in T1.5 for chaos marines and raptors.
This is basically the current raptor flamer- low physical damage but high morale damage.

Missle launchers available in T2 with the armoury.
These missle launchers would have ~70% accuracy, a 2.5 reload time, and ~25 DPS to vehicle low and med, and about ~10 DPS to vehicle high. Very low DPS (~5 dps) to infantry, and OK (~10) DPS to buildings.

Plasma is available in T2 with the armoury.
Cost increased to 40/15.
Damage reduced as much as 80% against most infantry targets.
Assuming the FoTM gets stronger this will make plasma worth the extra cost over the HBs.

PTW changes:
PTW costs 175/100 and takes 70 seconds.
The fear aura is only active when the AC is alive.
Each member of a CSM squad gains 110 HP from the fear aura (totals 485)
As long as the AC is alive the squad has +100 morale and +1 morale regen.
Fear aura doubles the damage done by the HB and missle launcher and increases the flamers morale damage by 50%.
Fear aura increases the damage done by CSM bolters by 20%.

"But now CSM are too much like TSM!"
Not quite-
Tactical marines remain the better of the 2 when it comes to direct firepower, CSM are faster and better in melee (due to the unchanged charge upgrade). This actually makes CSM more vesitile than TSM in some situations.

While the upgrades of TSM are a one time, permanent upgrade to ever member of the squad, CSM can be "deteched" by killing the AC. CSM are fully fuctional T2 troops like TSM, and although their AC is by far stronger than a sergant, if he dies, the entire squad is weakened drastically.

CSM heavy weapons too similar to SM ones?
Again, nope. While the weapons have the same names, the similarities pretty much end there after this.

Flamers: The TSM flamer is actually more about damage than morale- It deals double the damage of a bolter and does more damage than plasma or HBs if you can fit 2 models under the AoE. CSM flamers will actually do very little damage, but VERY high morale damage. They will be able to break armies with weaker morale very quickly.

Missles: The TSM missle launcher has a double the reload time, yet nearly double the damage per hit. It also does not need any upgrades to be fully effective and it at full stregnth the moment it is equipped. The CSM missle launcher (with the nifty auto loading thing) shoots much faster and with worse accuracy, and does less damage per hit. They also need PTW to be as competant as TSM missles. The faster reload-less damage missles of chaos can be an advantage and a disadvantage- While you are less likely to waste shots on an already finished vehicle, you are not as capable of doing hit and runs on anything, and killing vehicles on the first volley (with a few squads of course) becomes impossible.

[LordBOB5]

Infiltation HAS to go.
Missle launchers available in T2 with the armoury.
With this I accept the removal of infiltration. Makes up for their lack of AV.
The Infiltrated detecting Cultists with GL will be still a kick in the ass :p

[ImmortalChaos]

Exactly- You can still go for an all infiltration army via cultists. Remember, their plasma guns are damn worth their cheaper cost, and the fear aura gives them better HP than GM IIRC.

[Slyfe]

And we should rename them "SpikeArmoredSpaceMarines" Chaos has Horrors for AV...They need a buff...after that there will be no lack of AV. Take into account all the fixes and modifications that are most likely going to be implemented. Chaos already has more than a few options for almost every situation. They dont need to be cookiecutter molds of thier SM counterparts.

The only counter argument to the two races become too similar is that Chaos mechanics are different...they dont have the accuracy, and they move alittle faster....Thats not enough. Thts not even close to enough for chaos to have its own racial identity.

I think we should keep thigns as they are, and tweak from here. not scrap new ideas because you liked older ones better. Chaos is more unique now than its ever been before. I refuse to agree with making them SM clones all over again.

[ImmortalChaos]

I also heatily agree with Jaimas about ignoring anyone who brings up the "but they will be too similar to TSM!" argument without any proper evidance. Bring up a good reason why CSM being as diverse as tacs, yet maintaining key differnces while the rest of the army is COMPLETELY differnt from that of SM will make them into "smurfs with spikes".

[a1ph4riu5]

Raptors aren't affected by Furious Charge, but they get Purge the Weak to scale them pretty well into tier 2. That said, they cost 240 per squad... so it's not worth using them in tier 2 unless you already bought them in tier 1. If you're in tier 2 already, you can buy Berzerkers for 200, and they even reinforce for 10 req cheaper than Raptors, although they use 5 power each time.

So Raptors are not ever going to be worth buying over Berzerkers in tier 2, when Berzerkers are both better and cheaper, so long as they both fill the same role. Give them a different role in tier 2, that Berzerkers can't do better, like Jaimas' suggestion of fast fire support, and they could become worth building in certain matchups. And it might make them worth their heavy price tag.

Also, Raptor Plasma Guns were not considered overpowered in the old game, as far as I can remember. If anything, they were considered to be a bad investment, for the same reason that Raptor Flamers are. You're putting a few heavy weapons on a CC unit, so only a few of them will be doing any meaningful damage. It would require clever switching between CC and ranged stances to get the best out of them, or they could be used as a dancing counter if fire-on-the-move gets changed back. But really, I can't see them being overpowered, so long as they didn't have crazy go nuts damage. People seem to look at more options and think it equals a stronger race, but it just means more ways of playing.

For example, Chaos got Berzerkers as a new unit in WA, so Chaos lost a lot of options "to make up for it". But really, I don't think that needed to happen. You could easily play around with the costs and pop cap of the units (which they did do with the latter eventually), so that you can't have the uber melee and uber ranged at the same time, unless you spend way more than your opponent. Anyway, that's my opinion.

Edit: heck, there's been a whole page of discussion since I started posting. Was replying to the previous page.

[tygereye]

About raptors I would be for making their flamer DPS upgraded by HW upgrade like it does for the CSM HBs instead of giving them plasma. I hear you screaming imba already but :

1- SM flamers are upgraded by targetting upgrade so raptors flamers should be treated the same
2- Raptors flamers are expensive : 50/10 so you shouldn't loose DPS compared to CC when you equip them.
3- HW upgrade is a bit too much right now giving 100% more DPS to HBs, +75% would be better I would say.

Finally maybe that speed fiend should allow one more jump to raptors by replenishing their jump bar by 1/3 when used for example. Not sure about this one it has to be tested.

[Slyfe]

I also heatily agree with Jaimas about ignoring anyone who brings up the "but they will be too similar to TSM!" argument without any proper evidance. Bring up a good reason why CSM being as diverse as tacs, yet maintaining key differnces while the rest of the army is COMPLETELY differnt from that of SM will make them into "smurfs with spikes".

What key differences are you referring to... your going to take thier infiltration away and give them the SM HW's...Besides thier increased movment and less accuracy, these two units are the exact same.

I fail to see how one moving just slightly faster than the other makes a squad unique. Im open to new idea's so please just enlighten me.

[LordBOB5]

Maybe CSM will be "similar" to TSM, but not Chaos will be similar to SM and that's the point!

[ImmortalChaos]

IMO, the speed fiends reaserch should give raps the 2 jumps per bar as well as decreasing the cost of raptors for 65 req to 55. Raps are more expensive than ASM in T1 because they come out so much faster, however In T1.5 onwards they are overpriced.

EDIT:
You definately phrased this wrong Bob:

Maybe CSM will be "similar" to TSM, but not Chaos will be similar to SM and that's the point!

You mean CSM will be "similar" to TSM, but Chaos will not be similar to SM and that's the point! And it IS the point. back in DoW every freaking unit SM and CSM had were clones bar daemons and vehicles. Right now we would have 1 unit that is similar, but still nowhere near the clones they were in DoW.

In DOW:
CSM and TSM had the exact same HP, bolter damage, armoury, HWs, T1 upgrades, leaders, T2 upgrades, and very similar heros with abilities that were almost identical. The only thing that stopped them from being the exact same race altogether is that chaos was spikey, had berzerk fusy, and just a little bit worse at... everything.

With the changes I proposed they would have completely different upgrade systems, different heavy weapon times, different heavy weapon uses, different runnning speed, different armoury, very different leader, different melee capabilities, more defined heroes AND different abilities.

[Slyfe]

I understand Chaos will have a different background than SM regardless of these changes... my point is more in playstyle than racial identity your right about that.

But give csm HW's and remove thier infiltration and your basically (from a gameplay point of view) playing Gothic SM. No need for horrors anymore, we'll just upgrade our missiles.

My argument is ATM Chaos has a completly unique playstyle, and i feel its a huge step in the right direction. I feel the proper elements we should focus on are balancing UP and OP aspects of what we currently have instead of saying "forget this lets go back to what we were".

[Deaths Abyss]

I disagree with any major overhaul of chaos. We have a nearly balanced race which is the strongest in the game. Chaos AV is not weak. maybe in comparision to its AI output but its really about the same as everyone else. Horrors are a good AV option atm, even with the FotM penalty. Cheap, DS, damage output inline with similar units and nice range.

[tygereye]

I agree that infiltration is a great add to CSM and give them a unique flavor. The only thing is that I think that their HW are a bit too damaging for an invisible unit. So with a small nerf to HBs (+75% DPS from HW upgrade instead of +100%) and plasma (lowered to somewhat the level of oblits AI dmgs) they will be fine. Plasma should be a bit more expensive also, at least as expensive as SM plasma.

[ImmortalChaos]

This is not a major overhaul. The only differnce is that chaos will be LESS linear a race- If you went for CSM in T1, you are FORCED to get a sac circle in order to even dream of AV- If you skipped the armoury in favour of a quicker tech, you won't be boned for AV as you can have horrors. With more versitile CSM, chaos will be able to get a machine pit without knowing that they will have no AV and any vehicles will screw them over.

[Slyfe]

Are you proposing we give SM an infantry unit from thier sacred altar thats a good AV specialist? SM has missiles...and..... well missiles for AV. Why does Chaos need to have so many more options than the races your supposedly comparing it to.

Tell me Dreads, ill tell you Defilers... They may not do it as well but they DO do it. After Horrors are buffed they should be = to SM missiles.

[Deaths Abyss]

So basically give CSM their HW back, get rid of infiltration and don't discard berzerk fury is not a major overhaul? Sounds major to me. Don't fix whats not broken.

[ImmortalChaos]

Horrors are in no need of a buff... they have 5 DPS on tabkbustas and the best armour and HP of any AV unit. DS is nothing to take lightly either.

SM has skull probes for AV alongside missles. With good use of skull probes you can pretty much use any soft AV counter as a great counter to any vehicle. The FC and chaplin (and mabey even a few powerfists) can kill most vehicles in the time 1-2 skull probes can stun it. There is also melta bombs is the probe micro is too much for you.

EDIT: CSM infiltration is so broken its not funny. Main units SHOULD NOT CLOAK!

[SubakuGaara]

Chaos econ is strong because FL allows you to get LPs up quickly, and the power costs are not too big for troops/research. What most players fail to see is that chaos buildings cost considerably more than other races. the barracks for example is 300 req, the tech upgrade is 300, and armoury 200. a low generator cost also compliments this.

People think too much of force labor. Its useful in the beginning to get a fast rax up. Problem is heretics don't recover from it. So how many buildings can I actually put up quickly with force labor? Depends on how many new heretics I'm building. Watch 1v1 replays and you'll see that good players who keep their heretics alive only get to force labor a few buildings. For the most part its not so useful outside of the initial barracks and first 2 lps. Now if heretics could regenerate, that'd be a whole different story.


What you say is true, but the sad part of it is that I would still prefer to buy my CL again once he's dead rather than morphing him into a DP once he's nearly dead. Cause with the cost of a DP you could nearly buy 3 times your CL after he's dead. A far better investment than a DP I would say due to the ability of the CL to attach to a squad, to the symbol of chaos...
Right, but sometimes that extra force that is the daemon prince can be devastating, especially since there is no time spent getting him to the battle. I'm not so sure if the investment is as bad as you say. DP has quite a bit more HP (more than 2x I believe) than CL and does considerably more damage.


As for Raptors usefulnes past Tier1: are they effected by the Furious Charge upgrade?
What's with the Speed Fiend upgrade?? IMO It's almost useless, noone uses it because... well no use :-\
I would recommend make Speed Fiend an upgrade like the GreyKnight's charge ability. Edit: Make Speed Fiend require T2 but not the Armory
Yes! I agree! But one problem! What does that do the berzerker?



Infiltation HAS to go. Main troops that can cloak and fire is just sick and wrong.

I have to disagree. Infiltrate is not as bad as you make it seem and the solution is really very simple. First let me say the two proposed solutions
1) universal increase in infiltrate reset timer for all units. That is the time it takes for an infiltrated unit to re-infiltrate after being removed from the presence of a detector. Essentially makes it so that even if your detector dies under fire, the csm squad will remain spotted for longer.

or

2) universal addition of a detection hero unit to all races in tier 2.

I prefer the first seeing as the second almost already exists anyway.

Detectors are fragile yes, but you only need them to detect for a bit and run; there is a reset time on infiltrate. Good micro is all thats needed and smart building. There are also things like mines and strategically placed turrets and heroes. Vs eldar, as soon as the seers are out, cloaking is nullifed. Against, ork I don't even bother buying it. There are hard counters and hard counters are acceptable. Also, cloaked csms do almost nothing to vehicles. 3 full csm hb squads take like 4 minutes to kill a dread. We believe hard counters exist and should be used? I don't even think CSMs need a hard counter or anything out of the ordinary to be handled. If you know they're coming you can prepare; they're not so impossibly strong that even with preparation you will die. Knowing cloaking is coming is just like knowing you will be deepstriked with a couple of dreads. Yes its a hassle but you get over it and prepare. Besides, it not like the necron cloak thing is imbalanced.





About raptors I would be for making their flamer DPS upgraded by HW upgrade like it does for the CSM HBs instead of giving them plasma.


Nobody hates the raptor flamer. it works fine. Problem is raptors are soft and and expensive and we don't want to shell out for them AND the flamer. You want to see raptors becomes useful in tier 2? Make HW upgrade make the 4 raptor flamers free. I know it sounds weird? Free flamers? But think about it? Flamers to be effective have to be in ranged stance. Other wise, they get put away and the raptor charges in melee. Raptors already cost more than berzerks and do the job less well. So basically that upgrade makes them more viable as a flamer option. But there may be imbalance issues...



Extra heavy weapons bumped to T2 and cost reduced to 75/75

Disagree (or possibly agree). Here's why. T1 upgrade is available but is
1)dangerous to go after (armory+temple+ power plant= all req gone. Almost nothing to fight for map control)
2)time consuming in tier 1 (armory+temple+power plant= all req gone+half dead heretics+possible a cultist and maybe a req point)
3)very very expensive in tier 1 (armory+temple+power plant= all req gone)

So its there, but its so hard to use its not viable. Moving it to t2 is ok as that is the place where it is most viable, but it takes away an early t1 chaos strategy and removes all needs to buy a tier 1 armory; sometime I want that early raptor flamer.


Plasma is available in T2
Screwing with the plasma? Why? We have HBs. Is something wrong with tier 3 plasma?

[Deaths Abyss]

I was talking about Chaos diversity been broken. My bad.

[ImmortalChaos]

IMO heretics could use a 0.5 HP/sec regen.

If micro is all it takes to reveil some CSM for a while, micro is all it takes for the CSM to chase and kill the detector- And let me remind you again, even when the CSM are detected they are still good enough to slap many T2 ranged units in the ass. CSM are in NO NEED of infiltation- They have 475 HP when upgraded with PTW and the champion has over 1300 HP of heavy_high armour. Why do they need to cloak?

[SubakuGaara]

Why do they need to cloak? Because CSMs actually are quite fragile.

1)CSM bolter range is 25 and stays that way even in tier 3. It also does paltry DPS to all targets (9.9 to heavy med. max is 10 DPS to inf med I think). SM bolter does about 50 percent more DPS to H Med. Even with plasma they typically get outranged and in tier 3 most races have detecting hero. (HBs to me really are a better buy)
2)CSMs REALLY DO break faster because of the large squad size (go look up how morale works and how morale damage is distributed. Larger squads break faster. Smaller squads are less suceptible) and no morale upgrade. Shoot at them for a bit and they break.
3)CSM DPS drops more hapzardly than other races. For eg, one csm plasma holder does the 6x DPS damage to H med than a normal CSM holder. If he dies, the squad dps drops dramatically. Most races don't suffer from such a ridiculous handicap. Lose 2 csm plasma holders in random fire and that squad is doing near nothing damage in comparison to what its dealing.
4)Possessed+oblits will match up meagerly to most tier 3 opponents. 2 gitz+4 nobz+1 mega armored nobz is a tough fight. 3 WS+1 seercouncil+ 3 wraith lords is a tough fight. And so on. Don't get me wrong. Possessed and oblits are great vs those below them. But vs other tier 3 hardcapped, they break even or typically will lose. This puts more pressure on the other units, primarily the CSMs to perform. On the other hand, sluggas have little pressure to perform and same for say dark reapers.

In essence, CSMs need something to even the table, especially since they are chaos's primary ranged unit. Once a detector arrives that they can't quickly gun down, the cloaking becomes a non factor and CSMs will avoid firefights.

[ImmortalChaos]

OK, I'm not listening to that. 475 HP is FRAGILE? Bull. HBs have 35 range and plasma guns 30 BTW, and since any player worth his salt is going to be feilding small CSM squads with HWs I dont think you will see them in 25 range very often.

[vlad]

CSM are fraigle when you get used to that they take no damage, and woosh a detector arrives. Any non-elite inf unit falls to concentrated fire, and cloacked CSM are prime targets when you get to see them.

[ImmortalChaos]

They feel fragile when they are detected but they are no more fragile than tactical marines and are much tougher than GM.


1)CSM bolter range is 25 and stays that way even in tier 3. It also does paltry DPS to all targets (9.9 to heavy med. max is 10 DPS to inf med I think). SM bolter does about 50 percent more DPS to H Med. Even with plasma they typically get outranged and in tier 3 most races have detecting hero. (HBs to me really are a better buy)
Tac marines have 25 range on their bolters too, and they arent "fragile". Besides, like I said, good players will be using HB squads and effectively have 35 range. The PTW buff I suggested will bring CSM bolter damage to very close to TSM bolter damage, and charge means they are better in melee.


2)CSMs REALLY DO break faster because of the large squad size (go look up how morale works and how morale damage is distributed. Larger squads break faster. Smaller squads are less suceptible) and no morale upgrade. Shoot at them for a bit and they break.
They hardly have weak morale. Look at GM for example. Also, again large squads wont be doing much when you are using 5 man squads with 4 HBs and the AC. My PTW buff also includes better morale.


3)CSM DPS drops more hapzardly than other races. For eg, one csm plasma holder does the 6x DPS damage to H med than a normal CSM holder. If he dies, the squad dps drops dramatically. Most races don't suffer from such a ridiculous handicap. Lose 2 csm plasma holders in random fire and that squad is doing near nothing damage in comparison to what its dealing.
This is a pretty bad example because plasma is horrendously overpowered. If you take their HB as an example it is no worse than losing a tac marine with plasma/HB or a GM with plasma.


4)Possessed+oblits will match up meagerly to most tier 3 opponents. 2 gitz+4 nobz+1 mega armored nobz is a tough fight. 3 WS+1 seercouncil+ 3 wraith lords is a tough fight. And so on. Don't get me wrong. Possessed and oblits are great vs those below them. But vs other tier 3 hardcapped, they break even or typically will lose. This puts more pressure on the other units, primarily the CSMs to perform. On the other hand, sluggas have little pressure to perform and same for say dark reapers.
Nobs are not elite units. Warp spiders/SC are overpowered. PSM/oblits slap termies/asstermies all over the place. It is arguable the CSMs elites are too strong, not too weak. You say they will break? They are both fearless.


In essence, CSMs need something to even the table, especially since they are chaos's primary ranged unit. Once a detector arrives that they can't quickly gun down, the cloaking becomes a non factor and CSMs will avoid firefights.
In essance, CSM will be fine without cloaking with a PTW changes and HWs. Hell they would be fine without cloaking now... :soul:

[tygereye]

Right, but sometimes that extra force that is the daemon prince can be devastating, especially since there is no time spent getting him to the battle. I'm not so sure if the investment is as bad as you say. DP has quite a bit more HP (more than 2x I believe) than CL and does considerably more damage.


Subakku You exgarerate the DP DPS by saying that it is much better than a fully upgraded CL (with both commander upgrades and the symbol of chaos). Their DPS against infantry are very close. What is a bit tricky is that the DP is better against normal vehicules and structures while the CL is better against ubbers. The DP has a small advantage but nothing that justifies his high cost. I prefer to use my much cheaper Lord against infantry and ubbers than my overpriced DP against structures and vehicules

[ImmortalChaos]

On the topic of the CL: If you take his slow poison into account than he actually does more damage VS a lot of targets.

Suggestion for the DP: Keep slow poison, keep auspex, keep sybol of chaos, basically keep everything the CL had before, just change his armour type, HP, damage, and... size! ;)

[vlad]

One thing i heard in defense of CSM inf army is necron inf army. You should not defend OP with IMBA.....I found the currents inf system broken. Leave inf for CSM then, but the whole idea of thin air firing HB rounds with flashy-flashy fire and still remaining totally invisible is stupid IMHO. Make firing inflitrated units targettable, with a hitting penalty for them, around 10-20%. Like the fotm penalty. but its for the units that are firing at infed units, not the unit that is moving.

[War-Reborn]

His cost is only an issue in auto, in large maps or QS he's a solid addition, but the cost does need reworking it is to high, also a ranged attack with no fom allowing him to shoot an engage would go a way to making him a good unit to get in all game types, rather than just high money or large team games

As for possed and oblits slapping termies, thats a joke while in a one on one they may well be better, fact is being able to ds both squads together, the far better lastabilty of shooter terms an the stun ability on ass terms make them hugely more versatile units

[ImmortalChaos]

10 flamers of doom anyone? PSM willl break entire armies with their flamers, then proceed to own stuff up in melee instead of stuning it and scratching it to death. Oblits DS was faster than termies and do amazing damage/cost. PSM dont even need to DS with their speed.

[Jaimas]

CSMs have 475 HP. That's hardly bad. But I digress.

Suba, you are missing the key point of the people who are claiming CSM cloaking is imbalanced are saying. Let's take a gander over at some other threads for a second.

In the "Guardian Scaling" thread, CSM Cloaking is the crux of most of the argument for buffing GUs. In the Tau discussion thread, CSM Cloaking is widely acknowledged to be the bane of Tau infantry, capable of defeating even the otherwise-almighty Imbatox spam.

Don't give me this crap that CSM cloaking isn't an issue - it is, and it's been discussed ad nauseum, and in more threads than I'd care to count.

A few races have less trouble with Infiltration. Necrons have great detectors; so does IG and SM. Stuffman and I had a match that showed this well (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=135411). This does not mean that the ability is not a huge problem.

http://209.85.12.231/1483/55/emo/gasthrower.gif

[SubakuGaara]

Subaku You exgarerate the DP DPS by saying that it is much better than a fully upgraded CL (with both commander upgrades and the symbol of chaos). Their DPS against infantry are very close. What is a bit tricky is that the DP is better against normal vehicules and structures while the CL is better against ubbers. The DP has a small advantage but nothing that justifies his high cost. I prefer to use my much cheaper Lord against infantry and ubbers than my overpriced DP against structures and vehicules

Exaggerate? Not exactly. He does significantly more damage to vehicles and buildings and even to infantry. CL's average damage to infantry is abotu 190. Daemon princes average is about 230 and it feels like he hurts more units at once. Anyway, the real cost of the daemon prince, when it comes down to just power and requisition is about 300 power. Here's the logic

For this argument, we are not going to count the chaos lord who transforms into the daemon prince. I assume that if you bought him, you fought him to near the brink of death and then hit the transform button. In essence you got your 220/55 worth of action out of him and so you can't say he cost you.

Now lets also assume that the daemon prince does exactly the same damage as the chaos lord in all the categories. We know he has about 2x the HP of 2 fully upgraded chaos lord. For the purpose of this argument, that is the only difference between the Daemon Prince and the chaos lord. So what is the cost of buying one chaos lord who has 2x the HP of a normal chaos lord vs buying 2 chaos lords consecutively? Well its about 300 power. The daemon prince costs 400/400. 2 chaos lords consecutively cost 440/110. Roughly comes out to about 300 power being the difference.Do you understand?

Now consider the advantages of buying one chaos lord with 2x the HP as opposed to buying them separately. He can fight for longer and you don't have to spend time replacing them and then walking him all the way from your temple back to the battle. Moreover, the first chaos lord who transformed into the prince will probably have softened up a few targets before he was forced to transform. Now consider that the Daemon prince does more damage to infantry in general and that he wrecks buildings and vehicles much better. Now consider that he breaks morale much better (and I'm not talking about daemon roar). The daemon prince has one specific special attack that sends squads flying and leaves them broken.

Don't get me wrong; the daemon prince isn't a great buy. His real cost is 300 power, but thats assuming I had to build 3 chaos lords and they all died! That is comparing this situation:

1chaos lord+ 1 daemon prince is 300 power more than 1 chaos lord+ building and resending 1chaos lord+ building and resending 1 chaos lord.

If I only needed 2 chaos lords, then I wasted a lot of req and power! But he's not a terrible buy as he wrecks buildings and vehicles and just in general will attract a lot of attention to himself. Plus he does do more damage and is a good anti-morale guy.

But yes, he is overpriced.


...
I'm going to have to disagree. Well hear me out. You make a lot of comparisons to the space marines, which is fine, but we should be sure to remember there are other races too.

Now I do feel that tacs are tougher than CSMs. Like I said, the mechanics of the game make larger squads take more morale damage than smaller squads. CSMs are one of the largest squads in the game. They have 350 morale and it stays that way forever (with the ASP CHAMP). SMs however get the 100+ morale boost from a sergeant and get the 150 boost to the squads base morale from the upgraded. I'm not sure why you chose guardsmen as a comparison. Even gretchins initially have more morale than they do. GMs are bloody ridiculous to me as a unit.

Individual HP is rather low too. Every ranged unit that comes out of a barrack (outside of the ork shoota and the pathfinder) has more HP than they. Firewarriors in the end are tougher than they. So are reapers who have more HP than them. So do necron warriors (who end with like 1000 I think). So yeah, they're fragile little things. Go look for yourself. Find a ranged unit that comes out of a barrack of sorts that has less HP than a CSM squad member. I don't think you will find one, but I may be wrong. Maybe guardsmen? LOL

DPS drops affect the CSMs more. Heavy weapons will always be more important to CSMs than to SMs regardless of squad size for two reasons. The first reason is because SM standard bolter fire does 50 percent more damage than standard CSM bolter. The second reason is that SMs get more HWs decreasing the importance of each individual heavy weapon holder; decreasing the contribution percentage wise to the squads total DPS. But regardless of what squad size you choose (outside of 4 man squads), CSMs will always suffer greater DPS drops (both in terms of percentage and in terms of actual DPS; it also is true with the chaos Heavy bolter. You can play around with the numbers to see for yourself.

I said break even in terms of oblits and PSMs, as in nullify or balance out the presence of the other tier 3 elites but not excessively. Oblits may beat termies, but not by much. In fact I don't think they do at all. Heres why.

Oblit DPS to terminator squad= 154
Terminator squad dps to oblit= 280 (assuming those assault cannons have been bought). Without cannons = 205

Oblit HP= 5500
Terminator HP= 7984

I don't see how oblits can win... but thats just what the numbers say.

You don't think nobz with power claws and heavy high armor are elites? I definitely think so. Well what about 2 of them? And a mega armored nobz? Anyway, what I'm getting at is this: PSMs and Oblits handle stuff below them quite well, but against tier 3 hardcapped units, they do a meager job; I'm not saying failing or sucking, but not exceeding at it. I think this fact puts more pressure on the CSMs to perform just like shoddy vehicles like the defiler and the lack of av outside of the horror puts more pressure on them to perform. HWs are nice but chaos HWs are only like 10-15 percent better than SMs. Cloaking is a nice addition, but I don't see it as overpowered, especially if that race has a nice and stable detector like quick building probes and good detecting commanders and turrets. (for the life of me, I don't understand how SM players in automatch handle eldar and their cloaked rangers; they don't have a tier 1 detector out side of the probe which needs and armory)

But you never responded to what I really wanted a response for. How about just increasing the reset timer on all cloaked units? That way even if a detector dies, they cloaked unit will remain revealed for longer. I'm thinking 20s is a good number.

[ImmortalChaos]

Did you even read my post?

Oh, tactical marines are definately tougher than chaos marines. Definately. The 13 HP tacs have on CSMs is a game breaker...
(My sugestion closes that gap to 3 HP)

Good players use SMALL squads of CSMs with all heavy weapons equiped, so your points about weak morale due to large squads is moot. The large squads are an advantage later on when resourse isnt as important as squeezing every last bit of units into your cap. (PTW already gives +50 morale and brings their morale regen to 1.5/sec... My suggestion is simply boosting that morale bonus to 100)

TSM bolters do 11 DPS to heavy_med, and 14 DPS after targetters. CSM bolters do 10 DPS. 4 DPS isnt that big a deal, really. Losing a HW is no worse for chaos than any other race. Remember that with my PTW change CSM bolters would do 12 DPS, closing that DPS gap to 2 DPS. Again, since good players use 4 man squads to incrase the HW/cost ratio, that point is pretty moot untill the late game.

Oblits will lose to termis 1 on 1; however elites are less often dueling it out than supporting the rest of the army.

Termies are first of all more expensive than oblits.
3 Oblits cost 240/75 for the (3/5 full) squad and 80/25 for reinforcements. A full squad is 400/125
4 Termies cost 240/100 for the (1/2 full) squad and 50/10 for reinforcements. A full squad is 440/140. Add in 2 heavy weapons and that's 580/220.

And when you compare their DPS to infantry_med (the most common infantry type):
5 oblits are: 304.9 DPS
8 terms are: 271.2 DPS
8 terms+2assault cannons are: 362.6 DPS

The termies pay 180/95 more for 60 DPS to heavy_med... However oblits make termis cry when it comes to buildings/vehicles and have more range.

Nobs with klawz are insanely expensive, and generally melee based elits are quite redundant without some kind of mobility (speed, DS) and nobs with their horrid pathing are even more redundant.

Compare PSM to IGs elites, or taus, or necrons... They are far from weak.

[Deaths Abyss]

Terminators have to get into range to use all their weapons and besides you can tie them up with cultists:)

CSM are not fragile in the slightest. Their HP is inline with other units of the same role. Then they have abilities like bezerk fury, invisibility and frags on top of that. Then you combine this with the insane damage of plasma and Furyed HB's and you have a great unit better than TSM.

[Garumsh-Zott]

You don't think nobz with power claws and heavy high armor are elites? I definitely think so. Well what about 2 of them?

Nobz currently don't get a better armor class and if the addition of some heavy weapons for scaling purposes makes a T3 elite now I declare CSM T3 elite. :p And without the claws their damage is not better than zerks. (BTW a lot of ork players would gladly scrap the claws if it would mean that nobs aren't hardcapped anymore.)



(for the life of me, I don't understand how SM players in automatch handle eldar and their cloaked rangers;

yeah or cultists with grenade launchers

[ImmortalChaos]

I was thinking that the bugged fort upgrade affects the fort itself rather than the nobs but I couldnt quite remember. Thanks for clearing that up. Also note, their damage without klawz isnt even as good as raptors.

[SubakuGaara]

Even with a smaller squad, they have less morale. And don't get to instantly refill it with a special ability.

Tacs have more Hp even though its just a bit more. However if you look outside of the space marines and start looking at the ranged units other races field, you see SMs and CSMs alike both get dwarfed in terms of toughness. Overall, if you list out all ranged units that are non hardcapped, csms are near the bottom in toughness.

Also, regardless of the squad size, as long as its more than 4, losing a CSM heavy weapon holder hurts more than losing an SM heavy weapon holder. Also if you look outside of the two races, you see this to be a handicap. The loss of any single necron warrior is not that bad to a necron squad. The loss of an single CSM plasma holder will hurt the squads DPS considerably. Again, a CSM plasma holder does 6x the damage of a single non heavy weapon holder. A Hb guy does like 5x the damage. That is considerable. However each necron member is equal and so the loss of any 1 necron warrior is no less harmful than the loss of the other. This is not true for CSMs. If I lose two HWs, regardless of squad size, I probably have to retreat that squad for a bit.

Again, my argument is that possessed+oblits nullify other tier 3 hard caps. They don't completely over power them and then assist CSMs. This puts pressure on them to perform. SMs on the other hand not only will win their tier 3 battle vs CSM, but also have those really nice vehicles as well as slew of incredible spells and abilities (orbital bombard, smite, psychic inquistion which makes corruption look like childsplay, etc). That puts less pressure on the SMs to perform. Looking outside the two races, this is also true. Warp spiders, gitz, make it so reapers and sluggas and shootas don't have great pressure to perform. Warp spiders and gitz will very well overpower the other tier 3 units they face.

Show me a ranged unit that comes out of a barrack which has less HP than the CSM.

So lets list them out (ignoring tier 3 hardcaps). Looking at initial vs final HP
SM 390 v 488
CSM 375 v 475
Horror 610
Reaper 450 v 518
Firedragon 500 v 844
Guardsmen 160v 235 I think?
Heavyweapons team 650? (I think when they entrench it goes up to 1000 and they get like heavy high armor)
Karskin 350 v 437?
Firewarrior 340 v 574 with heavy high armor (10 percent from upgrade+ 200 from ethereal being alive)
XV88 Crisis 2700
XV88 Broadside 950
Shas Ui bodyguard 700? (not sure if ethereal will affect them. If so, add 200 HP)
Necron warrior 530v 1145
Immortals 400
Shoota boy 235 v 415

I left off pathfinders because... well they're pathfinders.

So yeah, IG gets the shaft with weak infantry, but thats the idea right? They are just normal folk and not genetically enhanced; they are supposed to be weak. Outside of IG, well CSMs are near the bottom ring. I think its tough to make a case and say they are not rather weak individually. At least in terms of HP, they are. Morale wise, I think they get seriously outmatched too. For example, immortals have 700 morale per squad.

Who has more pressure to perform out of shoota boys, immortals, SMs and CSMs? Not the immortal. They have those 1145 HP necrons to assist. Not the shoota, who is basically the ork version of the raptor (tier 1 and done). Not SM who have rocking vehicles and spells. The choice is obvious.

[ImmortalChaos]

Show me a ranged unit that comes out of a barrack which has less HP than the CSM.
Shoota boyz, guardsmen, fire warriors, and dark reapers(for cost).

Lol, CSM are the 3rd BEST unit in terms of HP, and only because necron warriors are horridly imbalanced, and the gap between tham and tacs is (OMFG!) 13 HP.

Come T2, CSM have better HP/cost than:
Shoota boyz, guardsmen, fire warriors, and dark reapers are still worse than DRs in hp/cost.
HWTs are much worse.
FD are worse, though they have a better armour type.
Stormboys and tankbustas are worse.
Pathfinders and broadsides(better armour type here though) are worse.
Harlies are worse.
Necron immortals are worse (the severity kinda depends on how you translate the economy)
Come T3, kasrkin and flash gitz are worse.

Eye opener for you: CSM are one of the toughest units in the game. Why do they need cloaking again?


Also, regardless of the squad size, as long as its more than 4, losing a CSM heavy weapon holder hurts more than losing an SM heavy weapon holder. Also if you look outside of the two races, you see this to be a handicap. The loss of any single necron warrior is not that bad to a necron squad. The loss of an single CSM plasma holder will hurt the squads DPS considerably. Again, a CSM plasma holder does 6x the damage of a single non heavy weapon holder. A Hb guy does like 5x the damage. That is considerable. However each necron member is equal and so the loss of any 1 necron warrior is no less harmful than the loss of the other. This is not true for CSMs. If I lose two HWs, regardless of squad size, I probably have to retreat that squad for a bit.
MOOT POINT. Every squad in the game suffers just as badly from this. A plasma gun does 6x the damage because it is imbalanced anyways. Too strong! 70-80 DPS on your unhardcapped cloaking troops is disgusting.


Again, my argument is that possessed+oblits nullify other tier 3 hard caps. They don't completely over power them and then assist CSMs. This puts pressure on them to perform. SMs on the other hand not only will win their tier 3 battle vs CSM, but also have those really nice vehicles as well as slew of incredible spells and abilities (orbital bombard, smite, psychic inquistion which makes corruption look like childsplay, etc). That puts less pressure on the SMs to perform. Looking outside the two races, this is also true. Warp spiders, gitz, make it so reapers and sluggas and shootas don't have great pressure to perform. Warp spiders and gitz will very well overpower the other tier 3 units they face.
CSM outperform just about ALL T3 infantry with plasma, so all oblitz/PSM need to do is nullify.

Warp spiders are imbalanced, so moot point, and gitz hardly outperform PSM/oblitz.

[SubakuGaara]

CSM are one of the toughest units in the game
No they are not. Look at the HP for all the ranged units in the game outside of tier 3 hard caps. CSM are near the very bottom (if you discount the purposely fully weak IG where almost every infantry unit is weaker than the CSM. IG is one race. The other races are much tougher). SMs are nearly as weak. Immortals and shoota boys are weird and kinda should be overlooked. The reaper is weird too. Once tier 2 starts, you don't see em anymore. Shoots are the same. Immortals are badass av who will be surrounded by free 1000+Hp warriors.


MOOT POINT. Every squad in the game suffers just as badly from this. A plasma gun does 6x the damage because it is imbalanced anyways. Too strong! 70-80 DPS on your unhardcapped cloaking troops is disgusting.

Just the opposite, only SMs and CSMs suffer from this. Most squads lose DPS in a linear fashion to losing a unit as all the units are equal. That is good. CSMs (and SMs to a lesser extent) lose DPS in bunches as certain members die. This is simply because the bulk of the damage comes from a few select members. That is bad! Its analagous to fighting against an all vehicle force, and losing your two predators. Yes you still have like CSMs left, but those preds were doing the bulk of the damage. If I could have it, I'd prefer that they just took the DPS for the total CSM HW squad, and allowed upgrades so that each member did the same amount of damage. In the same way, I'd much prefer to have the CSMs and preds each do the same amount, so I don't have to run away when the preds die and will know my CSMs will continue to contribute just as significantly. Its annoying to have 8 CSMs firing and know its not hurting because there like 1 HW guy in that 8 and he's the only one really doing any damage.



CSM outperform just about ALL T3 infantry with plasma


The way to measure performance is to measure HP difference to damage output differences (ie, if I do 50 percent more damage than you, the only way the battle will be even is if you have 50 percent more HP). Trust me its not that bad. CSms pack a punch, but die easy.

[ImmortalChaos]

No they are not. Look at the HP for all the ranged units in the game outside of tier 3 hard caps. CSM are near the very bottom (if you discount the purposely fully weak IG where almost every infantry unit is weaker than the CSM. IG is one race. The other races are much tougher). The closest is the reaper, and once tier 2 comes, you will not see them again.

What the hell, honestly. Did you skip my entire post bar that scentance? I listed half the infantry in the game, all of which with much less HP/cost than CSM. read. My. Post.


The way to measure performance is to measure HP difference to damage output differences (ie, if I do 50 percent more damage than you, the only way the battle will be even is if you have 50 percent more HP). Trust me its not that bad. CSms pack a punch, but die easy.
Mabey if you were playing in a vacuum on planet bowling ball.

Get a clue or stop posting.

[SubakuGaara]

I read your post. i feel you didn't read mine. I said look at the HP of the ranged units that come out of barracks (its not fair to talk about guards vs csms or scouts vs csms). Then I listed them out for you, showing initial Hp vs final tier 3 HP with all upgrades applied.

Then I said throw out IG where every infantry member is weaker than a CSM member.

If you do that, then CSMs are near the bottom, having more HP than only the immortal and the shoota boy. SMs are next and by a close 13 HP. Then it gets to reapers who have 40+ HP and then it starts getting away from them considerably. Tau have 100 HP more and have heavy high armor and have like 45 range I think. So I don't see it how CSMs are anything but weak. They are at the bottom along with SMs.
CSMs pack a punch but have less support. Again, SMs have better spells and vehicles. So do tau, necron, IG, eldar, etc. Orks vehicles are so so and are compensated with the mega armored nobz and two sets of elites. CSms don't get that benefit. They rarely have vehicle support and possessed and oblits at best nullify opposing tier 3. So it will come down to CSms vs the other ranged units where the fight is.... well Hp vs damage output...

[ImmortalChaos]

1) I didnt notice the edit
2) You didnt take cost into comparison... Thats the biggest mistake you can make.

Take cost into account, and the only units with better hp/cost than CSMs are:

Nobs
Hard capped elites
TSM (BARELY)
Some of eldars infantry with all their upgrades.

[SubakuGaara]

true true... costis important
But I will say in terms of reapers, 1 reaper squad (tier 3) does about half+ the damage of 1 full CSM plasma squad (to hmed class) and costs about a little less than half that full CSM squad. I haven't compared 6 reapers to say, 4 csm plasmas+1 asp champ+ I regular csm member.

but yes cost is important. you are right

[ImmortalChaos]

And you're not even looking at the AC who has more than 1100 HP and heavy_high armour...

I repeat:

CSM. Are. Not. Fragile.

Do CSM need infiltration if they're fragile? Mabey. Are CSM fragile? Refer to above. Do CSM need infiltration if they are not fragile? Undoubtably, no.

Do CSM need infiltration? Answer the quesiton.

[Deaths Abyss]

Again, SMs have better spells Chaos has the best spell abilities in this game. Sorc with DB and chains combined with zerks and bezerk fury+frags on CSM with cloak. Speed fiends on raptors.

[ImmortalChaos]

Actually, I would probably agree that SM beats chaos in terms of spells.

IMO, corruption should be doing the damage of let it burn at least.

[SubakuGaara]

Chaos has the best spell abilities in this game
Yes chains rocks. Everytime I use it I get a big smile on my face from ear to ear because I know the trapped unit is dead. Berzerk fury is good too. But really thats it. Doombolt is underperforming and corruption is too. If a squad is fully hit by corruption for all 15 seconds, it takes like 200 damage or something. Compare that to say the psychic inquisition which does like 1600 damage if it fully hits. Or orbital bombard, or smite. Chaos really has no nuke spell...and frankly I kinda like it that way.


...
Well, I was looking at individual squad members. yes the asp champ is tough, but he's one champ. Most champs or exarchs or whatever are tough too. The reason why he is phenomenally tough is because chaos's HP upgrade depends on him being alive. If he dies, CSms lose 100 HP each. He's just like the ethereal, except he actually has to get out there and fight, instead of just watching builders build stuff. You have to understand, the developers for some reason decided that to make CSM different they weren't going to upgrade the units directly but instead play around with the different battle factors. Kinda lousy for balancing things. I personally find having to have an ASP champ just to get the HP upgrade is a handicap, just like having to buy heavy weapons and lose them in battle.

Does chaos need infiltration? I would say no. Its like asking is Sm needs orbital bombard. Or if orks need tha mob bonus. Do they really need it? For both, you can get by without them. A good chaos player can get by without it. Often I win games without a single csm squad, with good berzerk and horror action. I also win games without a single defiler, but it doesn't mean the defiler is fine as it is. The CSM infiltrate is a nice feature. It gives Chaos distinction. Without it, against certain races I'd have to work my ass off just to get a winning advantage; with it, its a little easier.

A good example is vs IG. Against them I always get infiltrate first. Reason is IG buildings are tough, berzerks don't do a good job vs them, and I need to be able to shoot at them with Hws without being shot back. If infiltrate was removed, boy, I'd have a tough time and have to tech to tier 3 and who knows what'll happen.
But infiltrate isn't universal. vs ork its useless and and so on. I like it. You ask someone, whats the deal with sm? People say, they have rocking vehicles and spells. You ask someone, whats the deal with ork, they say ork mass and send tons of infantry at you and they are cool. You ask someone, hey whats the deal with chaos, as it is they say, they cloak man... if you take away cloaking,... well what will they say then? LOL.... and again, I think simply increasing the reset timer on infiltrate would go a long way. Right now its on like 5 seconds. I suggest 20.

[ImmortalChaos]

With it, you will have an easier time winning than the opponent; that is imbalance in its most basic form right there.

Oh, and IMO defilers are pretty much fine as is, bar perhaps the range on the autocannon. Here a (fairly high level) replay of a chaos player beating WHORDES of free sluggaz+gitz+burna bombs with little other than oblitz some CSM and defiler spam.
http://dowsanctuary.com/index.php?showtopic=26932&st=0

[SubakuGaara]

increase reset time on infiltration to 20 seconds wouldn't solve a lot of problems? that is after your detector dies, the cloaked csm squad is still visible for 20 seconds and then will recloak?

I've seen an IG guy do the same with basilisks and a HW teams. ork sluggas are free for a reason. Issue with defiler is its tier 2, barely performs when in tier 2 against other tier 2 units and is expected to perform in tier 3?... I just don't see how. The power investment is too much. Vs vehicles a horror squad can hold me and my bzerks handle infantry well enough.

Jaimas I am completely in line with your statements. You are right 100 percent. But the fact that some races have trouble with cloaking and some don't actually indicates balance. Compare it to say the whirlwind where all races have trouble, or the deepstrike+orbital bombard , or the heavy tau tier 1 firepower. Those three things are overpowering to ALL races.

My suggestion is two fold. One or the other
1)increase reset timer on infiltration to 20 seconds. that is after your detector dies, the cloaked unit remains visble for 20 seconds and them will recloak. (it takes like 20 -30 seconds to rebuild most detectors)

2)make it so that all races have a universal tier 2 detecting hero

again, I prefer #1 because #2 is almost already in place. Outside of tau and eldar, every race has this (maybe not necron, but is solar flare tier 2? and what about the scarab?)

[ImmortalChaos]

Watch the replay. They do perform quite well against T3 infantry.

[SubakuGaara]

Defilers struggles versus any sort of AV unit or vs any sort of vehicle. I've seen grav tanks take them down. In chaos mirror matches, I love watching a long horror just rip destroy a defiler. Its fun and sad at the same time. But back to the infiltrate issue.

How about increasing the reset time to about 20 seconds? Don't you think that will solve the issue?

[ImmortalChaos]

While that would probably solve it in some cases, it would make it very redundant. Any one who had a detector nearby would have little to no trouble beating the chaos with superior forces (however you WOULD need superior forces) however, if you had no detectors nearby you could find yourself with a very strong army getting killed of by a chaos with half your army taking easy shots at you.

Really I think there is no middle ground here- Just get rid of it. It's really an unnesisary thing. It is not making chaos unique, its making them imbalanced.

[Jaimas]

Does chaos need infiltration? I would say no. Its like asking is Sm needs orbital bombard. Or if orks need tha mob bonus. Do they really need it? For both, you can get by without them. A good chaos player can get by without it. Often I win games without a single csm squad, with good berzerk and horror action. I also win games without a single defiler, but it doesn't mean the defiler is fine as it is. The CSM infiltrate is a nice feature. It gives Chaos distinction. Without it, against certain races I'd have to work my ass off just to get a winning advantage; with it, its a little easier.

This is the exact logic that led to Chaos' incarnation in WA, which, in turn, brings us full circle.

The overwhelming opinion, across all boards, is that CSM Cloaking has got to go. There is simply too much pull for it, and if the "nerf the CSMs to hell so cloaking is fine" route is taken, we'll see a repeat of WA, in which they are simply not used.

Increasing the recharge after being revealed won't work. CSMs will still horribly rape whatever cloak-detector you're moving to detect them, and your opponents will have absolutely nothing they can do about it. Don't believe me? I had a match with my friend Mouse this evening, during which, he played, as per usual, as Tau. My ability to exploit cloaked CSMs cost him the match, and I went nice and goddamned slow so he could field whatever the hell he wanted. I'll be posting the replay later tonight, provided my 56K holds out.

This is exactly why I actually find myself agreeing with Immortal (for once). If cloaking is lost, Chaos could (finally) get a good, hard dose of utility, and the fix he mentioned provides just that.

[SubakuGaara]

While that would probably solve it in some cases, it would make it very redundant. Any one who had a detector nearby would have little to no trouble beating the chaos with superior forces (however you WOULD need superior forces) however, if you had no detectors nearby you could find yourself with a very strong army getting killed of by a chaos with half your army taking easy shots at you.

But that is the whole point of infiltrate! To force you to need detection. This has been true in every single RTS with cloaking or stealth and etc. If you didn't have detection, you get shot up. Things like Infiltrate and jumping/teleport are added to RTSs just to give another dimension to them. Infiltrated units become sort of a third class of unit and is popular in RTSs because it opens up strategy options. Look what the ranger has done for eldar harassment.

When people say things like chaos HBs outrange the detection range, that is a legitimate concern. It is unfair that just to spot chaos, you have to run into HB fire, especially when detectors tend to be weak. That actually is legitimate to me; not incredibly imbalanced, but a legitimate claim that needs addressing. Simply saying, I had no detectors and got shot up because I couldn't fire back isn't imbalance. Its just bad strategy especially when you know you will be facing a lot of cloaked units. Charging at a cloaked enemy without detection is like charging at a mostly vehicle force with no AV. If you are unprepared, you will get slaughtered.

Imbalance however will lie if, for example it was impossible to prepare adequately. With chaos vs vehicles, I personally think they have a hard time and really can't prepare adequately. I'm not alone in that notion and thats why we say the game is imbalanced. How about with cloaking? Is it impossible to adequately prepare for cloaking? Well it depends on the race and truly for some races its tough. But is cloaking overall imbalanced? Does it give chaos an unfair advantage over all the races? I think not. Orks do just fine. So do SMs and IG. Necrons seem to do just fine as well to an extent.

@jaimas
Increasing the reset timer, makes it so that after detector dies, CSM is revealed for longer. Lets say we set it to 15 seconds. Your detector has just died in battle. Count to 15 right now. 1 mississippi, two mississippi, and so on. That is a long time for a csm to be revealed, as opposed to the 3-4 secs it is right now. 15 sec is a huge response time. In that time, the core of the army will get to fight back and shoot at said army as normal. In that time you can rebuild your detector (ie pathfinder takes 24 sec to build) or choose to retreat and come back with more detection.Personally, if you send just one detector, thats kinda bad strategy. Its like sending one av vs 4 tanks. At least send 1 detector per 2 csm squads. And again, only really 2 or 3 races have a hard time. The rest will do just fine with a little preparation. Preparing for cloaking is like preparing for vehicles.

[ImmortalChaos]

CSM dont need to force you to need detection.


Simply saying, I had no detectors and got shot up because I couldn't fire back isn't imbalance. Its just bad strategy especially when you know you will be facing a lot of cloaked units. Charging at a cloaked enemy without detection is like charging at a mostly vehicle force with no AV. If you are unprepared, you will get slaughtered.
Vehicles arent as capable of slaughtering their counter as cloaking CSM are.

If you are unprepared VS cloaking CSM, ok, you will lose. But even if you are prepared, even if you take them down to half and take no losses yourself (incredably hard because you units are no better than theirs without the cloaking) once your detectors are dead, its good and simple: you lose.

Imagine if tactical marines oculd cloak if they decided not to get missles. Hell, thats exactly what CSM are now. (Oh, bar 13 HP and 4 dps)

[SubakuGaara]

Vehicles can slaughter infantry counters to them if used properly. If you don't micro your firedragons around my defiler and let them get caught in melee, the defiler will still win. Does that mean its unfair that the counter to the defiler still gets owned? No.

CSMs kill the detectors. You are absolutely right. Once your detectors are dead, you have a problem. Just like once your av is dead you have a problem. If you kill half the CSm squad but lose your detection, you are introuble. Just like if you kill half a large vehicle force and lose your av, you are in trouble.The solution is the same. Either stand and take more damage than you are dealing (in the case of the cloaking you can still shoot at buildings and non cloaked units), retreat, or get more detection. I don't see the imbalance especially since for most races, a solid detecting unit exists in tier 2 with more than 1000+ HP. Only 2 races really have problems, and even then I think those problems are meager considering you can micro and somewhat protect them.

Cloaking is a good addition to RTSs. It typically adds another dimenstion to it and opens up strategy options. Again, look at what the ranger has done for eldar opening play.

[ImmortalChaos]

Cloaking is definately a good addition to RTS; it was definately not, however, a good addition to CSMs.

Vehicles go down to massed arms; I can kill a landspeeder easily with a T1 mass (unfortunately I'm likely to be dealing with many more than 1) but I cant even fart in the CSM's general direction. Also note, vehicles dont scale in from T1. Vehicles also cant obtain 56 DPS heavy bolters for 40/10.

Like I said, CSM dont need infiltration. If one likes like infiltration so much, larn to use cultists. They get 5 plasma guns @ 20 DPS anyways. I repeat, main, competant troops should not cloak.

[Nobunaga]

The problem is that CSM (unlike every other cloaked unit in the game) suffer no disadvantage for it. No other cloaked unit is capable of fighting back once detected. The difficulty with SS for example is detecting them. Once they're seen they're dead. Basically CSM get 2 lives. It doesn't help that the second life is so cheap.

[Jaimas]

When people say things like chaos HBs outrange the detection range, that is a legitimate concern. It is unfair that just to spot chaos, you have to run into HB fire, especially when detectors tend to be weak. That actually is legitimate to me; not incredibly imbalanced, but a legitimate claim that needs addressing. Simply saying, I had no detectors and got shot up because I couldn't fire back isn't imbalance. Its just bad strategy especially when you know you will be facing a lot of cloaked units. Charging at a cloaked enemy without detection is like charging at a mostly vehicle force with no AV. If you are unprepared, you will get slaughtered.

Actually, if you have numerical supremacy and a little bit of moxie, you can deal with an errant tank that arrives too early, and deal with it a hell of a lot easier than a cloaked unit when you've no detectors on hand. This is especially easy when you consider that most early T-2 vehicles can, indeed, be brought down by massed AI Fire.

If you're gonna say cloaking is the same thing - dealable if you don't have a detector on hand - then I'm sorry - that's an argument as hollow as a Thousand Sons Rubric Marine.

[SubakuGaara]

Yeah , but detectors are cheap. Its not like you can't get them out because they are busting the bank. AV options however aren't always cheap... it also depends on whats being cloaked and how much. Simple cloaked csms without hws won't reall hurt you. You may fine it beneficial to simply keep on killing, like knocking out the armory and the power plants and then taking off. Its all about balance and strategy and assessing the situation. When you are outmatched, run. When you aren't stay. You are not always outmatched if you don't have a detector and you should almost always be able to build one and send it...

again, how about increasing the time of re infiltrate? it will also protect detectors by increasing the value of the "spot and run to the back" tactic since the revealed unit will stay that way for longer.

[ImmortalChaos]

No, no, no! How many times do we need to tell you?

Look, we have shown you the facts prooven you wrong, then you resort to what looks like "your strategy is off" and ask for your solution again... Why would the answe have changed?

[SubakuGaara]

what facts prove me wrong?

[ImmortalChaos]

The fact that CSM are just as good if not better than any other unit in the game in terms of HP and better in terms of DPS and therefore are in no need of an ability as powerful as infiltration.

[SubakuGaara]

I listed out every ranged unit in the game that comes out of barracks. It is unfair to compare CSMs to say scouts right?

So lets list them out again (ignoring tier 3 hardcaps). Looking at initial vs final HP
SM 390 v 488
CSM 375 v 475
Horror 610
Reaper 450 v 518
Firedragon 500 v 844
Guardsmen 160v 235 I think?
Heavyweapons team 650? (I think when they entrench it goes up to 1000 and they get like heavy high armor)
Karskin 350 v 437?
Firewarrior 340 v 574 with heavy high armor (10 percent from upgrade+ 200 from ethereal being alive)
XV88 Crisis 2700
XV88 Broadside 950
Shas Ui bodyguard 700? (not sure if ethereal will affect them. If so, add 200 HP)
Necron warrior 530v 1145
Immortals 400
Shoota boy 235 v 415

Throw out IG because they are designed to be weaker than CSM being not genetically enhanced and all. So look at the rest. In terms of lowest hp it is
1)immortal
2)shoota boy
3)CSM
4)SM
5)reaper
6)firewarrior (with heavy high armor)
7)etc

Difference between CSM and SM is about 13 hp. Difference between CSM and reaper is 43. Difference between CSM and firewarrior is 99HP. From there it starts getting kinda crazy. Difference between CSM and Necron warrior is over 500+. CSM and firedragon is 400+ and so on. That doesn't even include the tier 3 hard capped who they will indeed face. If you made a total listing of all the units in the game which come out of barracks by HP, csm would be in bottom 5 of the combat units (assuming you throw out IG infantry who are weak by design; they hide in buildings etc). So do CSMs have low HP? It appears so when you list out all the ranged infantry in the game that come out of barracks.

You said smart players use small squad sizes. That makes CSMs even weaker. It means 6 man reaper will be facing 6 man CSM squad instead of 10 man CSM squad right? Or 4 man CSM vs 4 man reaper? Then they will lose even more surely. In lower numbers they are even easier to kill as HP advantages are even more present then. (Look at the initial CSM Hp vs the initial Reaper HP! I don't know why eldar just doesn't rush them)

Look at the lowest 5 ranged infantry from barracks excluding IG units: immortals, shoota, csm, sm, reaper, fire warrior. Who has the most pressure to perform? Who is more core to their army? Immortals are av and not core. Shootas disappear after tier 1. SMs are core, but have vehicle support like crazy in addition to relatively the same heavy weapons that CSM gets. Reapers disapper after tier 1 because of Warp spider. Fire warriors are core and are quite durable with 574 hp and heavy high armor and 45 range.

So I don't see it how the CSM infantry is tough. They drop like flies under fire and break quite easily. The HP alone indicates that. Plus each CSm is handicapped by having more or less an "ethereal" in the form of an ASP champ, upon whom their HP total relies. Kill him, which may well happen since he only has about 2x the HP of a normal CSM, and the rest of the members lose 100 HP. Not have enough time to build him because you're grabbing HW upgrades, and you're sending super super weak CSMs... So explain to me, just how CSMs are "tough" units to kill?

[ImmortalChaos]

FFS! Again, you listed every units HP. Great. Now I know that something that costs twice the CSM does has slightly more HP. Oh wow, CSM are low on HPs! ZOMG THEY NEED INFILTRATION!

Compare everything in the game to everything and it means nothing untill you factor in the cost.

[SubakuGaara]

Fine, then show me how CSMs are cost effective for their HP. It may be a valid point, or it may not be. Until you actually show it though, its just speculation right? I actually showed you they have low HP. I listed the data. Now you should show me, how they are cost effective. Again, you may have a valid point, but also you may not have one. You have to list the evidence however.

[ImmortalChaos]

Assuming everything is fully upgraded:

CSM have 950HP/100req. (970HP/100req with my suggestion)

TSM have 976HP/100req.

Dark reaperss have 825HP/100req.

Fire warriors have 533 HP/100req with the kauyon upgrade, which is effectively 693HP/100req of CSM's armour type.

Flash gitz have 641HP/100req+43power

Guardsmen have 1050 HP/100req (on reinforcement costs) Its around half of that with the starting costs included, and its such a craptastic armour type they're probably much worse than fire warriors.

Rangers have 925HP/100req.

Tankbustas have 720HP/100req+20power.

A great unit to compare CSMs to, space marine scouts have 820 HPs/100req.

The heavy weapons team has 260HP/100req/20power.

Broadsides have 937HP/100req/50power.

If everything isnt fully upgraded (T1/2) CSM usually perform better. Eldar only do this well because they have a set of upgrades for each teir.

[SubakuGaara]

I dont understand the data you present. I think you're trying to compare HP to cost, but none of it makes any sense. Can you explain the conditions? Are you including heavy weapons? What are you comparing?

I also see immediately that you compare CSMs to ranged infantry that do not come out of barracks of some sorts.

[ImmortalChaos]

2 CSM cost 100 req... So do 2.5 rangers. In a direct comparison of HP/ (/ means "per" if you dont follow that) 100 req+some odd power.

When one includes heavy weapons CSM do go pretty far down in terms of HP, but their damage/cost skyrockets. For referance, note that SMs and scouts both suffer from the same problem and they do fine. Or that CSM were perfectly fine in WA when cloaking wasnt omgbbqwin.

EDIT: Actually every unit in that list is trained from the races equivalent of a barraks.

[SubakuGaara]

Ok, makes a bit more sense but is still very confusing. I'm not sure what you're doing with flash gitz and a few other units. Heavy weapons team makes no sense at all...Please list as such:

Price per squad member+squad member HP (initial v final)+ DPS of Squad member to hmed if applicable (AV units won't can't be compared by hmed damage right?). Its a lot of data but unless we have all that at once, good comparisons can't be made right?

In this format

Cost per member (power+req) / HP (initial v Final) / DPS to hmed (initial v final)*


*or just final if necessary

[Nobunaga]

100 req is 2/5 of a HWT. So he's listed 2/5 of the HWT's health and power cost as well.

The point he's making is that for cost CSM have more Hp than most comparable units. I don't have the DPS but can we simply assume that with plasma CSM are very cost effective (since the Lua guys tell us it's imba) and say that CSM are quite cost effective without infiltrate.

[magicalcarpet]

HWT makes perfect sense.. it has shit life and high cost. Though the way it was set out, doesn't show the damage.

It has 650 life and costs 250/50.

250x=100. x = 0.4 (what you have to do to get in terms of 100 req)
0.4 x 650 = 260 health for 100 req

Though I don't really know what all these statistics prove.. I think it's easier to leave complex stats out of this because you come across things like range and whatnot. Not to mention morale.. everybody goes on about GM damage/cost ratio but just remember that that never sees full potential in practice because they break morale if an owl hoots.

Basically, Immortal is just forcing it into health per 100 req spent. None of these stats are particularly useful IMO.

[Hirmetrium]

(since the Lua guys tell us it's imba) IM telling you its imba. I don't need nick and his overpowered LUA skills to tell me plasma > all. even YOU know how powerful plasma is, especially when combined with infiltration. Its possibly the most ridiculous combo in the game. at least HB have a setup and deal less damage.

[Jaimas]

Welcome back, Hirm. Did you have a pleasant hiatus? :agree:

Anyway.

The long and short of what Immortal was getting at (which was largely lost on many in a flood of incomprehensible stats), is that CSM are far from "fragile," which Suba claimed they were, on many occasions.

Chaos Plasma is retard strong. The only weapon close to those OMGWTFLOL damage values are the likes of some T3 ranged specialists. Even HBs are quite devastating when on CSMs as a platform. When the new Infiltrate is factored in, these troops are pure, unadulterated IMBA, though it pains me to say it.

But there is one benefit. If ditching Chaos Infiltrate means we can finally get some special weapons back, then damnit all, I'm on board hell or high water. I don't think I need to remind you all how pissed this community was with the loss of them in the first place.

[SubakuGaara]

Not quite yes Jaimas. CSMs do have low HP and by quite a bit. I listed them out and that seems very apparent. The question is the cost; are they cheap enough to justify such a low HP. Later when I get to work, I'll get the numbers out.

Essentially what I'll try to prove is that for the damage a relative CSM squad will put out, the Chaos user is appropriately paying for, that is the req/power he spends to get out x size CSM Hb squad is comparable to the DPS other races get from investing that same amount of power into their own races units. To be clearer, lets say I send 100 req to get 100 DPS from my CSM, I will try and show that an eldar can spend 100 req and get close to 100 DPS from say his reaper. If that turns out to be true, then CSMs would indeed be a bad buy because of the reaper having more HP. And so on. Do you guys understand? But we haven't done it yet, so in maybe 30 minutes or so I'll get the numbers going.

Again, look its a valid point that cost may play into it, but until someone actually shows that somehow CSMs are an exceptionally good buy, you can't say anything about imbalance. I'm trying to take the opposite position and say they are a bad buy. I started with the low HP and it turned out I was right. Outside of IG's ranged units, CSMs are near the bottom, only having more HP than the Shoota boy and the immortal. Well thats not enough, you have to show the differential in HPs because it may be possible that the top HP unit and the bottom Hp unit are only separated by a small amount. So i did, SMs are closest, and then the reaper by 43, and then the firewarriror by 99 and then it starts getting kinda crazy.

So in terms of HP, each individual CSM warrior is kinda flimsy. There is just no way you can argue they are not flimsy, at least in terms of HP. Maybe in terms of cost, but not in terms of strict HP (and morale. They're morale is very low). So now I will try and match the cost in a form that is easily readable and understandable.

[Garumsh-Zott]

So in terms of HP, each individual CSM warrior is kinda flimsy. There is just no way you can argue they are not flimsy, at least in terms of HP.



Not a single ork ranged inf ( no not even gitz) and almost no ig troops ( no not even kasrkin) have as much hp as CSM. They are anything but fragile.

[Deaths Abyss]

HP doesnt fucking matter when we have 8 types of armour that go onto infantry. CSM are not weak. If you play against them you find that very fast.

Sub you are dodgin the main issue here which is a high damage, durable unit with many abilities is complete IMBA. Factor in the fact that even with these abilities, they cost around the same as tacs(who gain none of the benefits of CSM but CSM still gain a lot of the benefits of tacs, rhinos with smoke for example, frags is another). CSM dps needs a nerf somewhere or maybe you could actually make the unit fragile when you research infilitration.

[SubakuGaara]

Ok. Here goes. It is actually rather difficult to compare cost to hp and dps. For squads without heavy weapons upgrades, its easy, but when you have squads with heavy weapons upgrades it becomes hard. For example, a lone CSM is rather weak. A lone plasma csm does 6x the damage he normal does. Squads also differ in total amounts of heavy weapons they can carry and all sorts of things. Anyway, the way I've gone about it I think is quite fair. Here are the assumptions behind the stats

1)we will ignore all troops that do not come out of barracks
2) we will ignore all tier 3 hard cap units (gitz, oblits, crisis, etc)
3) we will ignore all melee units. Melee units will deal more damage to CSMs (as well as all the ranged units listed) than CSMs will deal back. For example, kroot have lower HP but will defeat CSMs in melee in equal numbers. Or berzerkers take out necron warriors who have almost 2x the HP. Berzerkers deal near 4x the damage in melee. Comparing Melee unit's HP to CSM Hp is ineffective. So please don't argue with them.
4) we will also ignore the ranger who is a morale specialist. The ranger is a very unique unit. There is nothing else quite like it.
5) we will ignore IG units because they are given low HP on purpose to fit the literature. IG guardsmen for example have less HP and scarabs and other builder units and less morale. For the record though, the low Hp is compensated with decent damage. Each guardsman grenade does tier 3 CSM plasma type damage, as well as splash and knockdown effects. But comparing IG hp is statistically ineffective.

I think you will find the assumptions fair. The goal is to compare CSMs to the other ranged units more or less in their class. The goal is to see if CSMs are a good buy or a bad buy.

Cost per 6 man squad/ HP per 6 man squad/ DPS to hmed per 6 man Squad

Initial status means no upgrade. Final status means all applicable upgrades applied.
6 man squads don't include the cost or HP added by leader or exarch or nobz. 6 man squad does include the benefits from leader such as morale or HP boosts. 6 man squads were chosen because of the heavy weapons problem. The most number of heavy weapons equipped by a ranged squad is 5. This makes the statistics closer to reality by choosing 6 man squads. It is a small squad size and allows the max number of Heavy weapons. The stats are still a little screwed in terms of bias to heavy weapons concerning the ork shoota boy, but other than that I think its good to go.

For squads with a 6 man squad, it is simply the cost of the inital set you buy plus the cost of each additional man at the reinforcement price. I tell you this because some squads may max out at 5. That is the fair way to calculate the cost of adding that 6th man. Just pretend you reinforced one more.


So far I'm not sure what to make of it. It kinda seems like in effectiveness, CSMs are right in the middle...
Effectiveness is damage output difference(%) vs Hp difference (%). Reapers are a horrible buy... but other than that a lot of parity it seems...

Ok. Decided to separate into two states, initial v final

Initial state


cost/hp/dps to hmed

SM
290 req/ 2340 / 67.8

CSM
290 req/ 2250 / 59.4

Horror
300/60 / 3660 HP/ DPS to Hmed not applicable


Reaper
420/ 2700/ 79.2

Firedragon
330/60 / 3000hp / DPS to hmed not applicable


Firewarrior
420/ 2040/ 105 DPS

Broadside
480/240/ 4500 heavy high/ 337.8 DPS

Shas Ui bodyguard (cost is difficult as they are free and come full in 4/4 squads)
0/0 / 5400 HP heavy high / 134.19 DPS/ 300 morale

Necron warrior
105 power/ 3180/ 59.4

Immortal
205 power/ 2400 HP/ DPS to Hmed no applicable 700 morale

Shoota boy
210 req/ 1410 HP / 49.2 / 450 morale

TSM (1 normal+5 plasma)
490/75/ 2340 / 254.7 DPS to hmed/

CSM (2 normal+4 HBs)
450/40 / 2250 / 244.2 dps to Hmed/

Shoota Boy (3 normal + 3 big shoota)
330/30 / 1410 HP / 174 DPs

Final state

SM
290 req/ 2968/ 85.2/


CSM
290 req/ 2850/ 59.4


Horror
300/60 / 3660 HP/ DPS to Hmed not applicable

Reaper
420/ 3582/ 155.4/


Firedragon
330/60 / 4692 / DPS to hmed not applicable

Firewarrior
420/ 3444 Heavy high/ 141.6 DPS to hmed

Broadside
480/240/ 5700 heavy high/ 337.8 DPS

Shas Ui bodyguard (cost is difficult as they are free and come full in 4/4 squads)
0/0 / 5400 HP heavy high / 134.19 DPS/

Necron warrior
105 power/ 6870/ 108 DPS/

Immortal
205 power/ 2400 HP/ DPS to Hmed no applicable

Shoota boy
210 req/ 2490 HP/ 100DPS/

TSM (1 normal+5 plasma)
490/75/ 2968/ 254.7 DPSto hmed


CSM (2 normal+4 HBs)
450/40 / 2850/ 244.2 dps to Hmed/

CSM (2 normal+4Hbs)
450/40 /2850 HP/ 289 DPS to med



Shoota Boy (3 normal + 3 big shoota)
330/30 / 2490 HP/ 174 DPs to hmed

Parity? Seems like a lot of parity within those troops when you look at HP vs cost vs DPS. For example, ork shootas do about half the dps for half the cost and have half the hp as a csm 6 man squad. I'm still looking over the numbers. I also seem good parity between CSM plasma and SM plasma values. What really has to be done is damage output difference (%)/ hp difference (%)/cost differenct (%) from CSM base values...

[Jaimas]

Suba, I'm sorry, but if they're fragile, Hirm's an Adeptus Sororita.

Chaos Space Marines out-HP all of the following units in unit-to-unit HP (counting after PtW, which brings CSM HP to 475):
Tau:
Fire Warriors (Before and After Metallurgy) - 340/374
Kroot (Until tons of corpses get eaten) - 310 (Plus bonuses from Shaper and Corpse-Eating
Stealthsuits - 250

Eldar
Guardians (Before and after Armor Upgrades) - 210/263/329
Rangers (Before and after Armor Upgrades) - 280/322/320
Banshees (Until Second Armor Upgrade) - 350/402/523

Imperial Guard
All IG commanders except the Priest - 375 (Priest has 500)
Guardsman Squad (Before/After WotE and Armor) - 160/185/231 (assuming WotE Exploit)
Kasrkin (W/Commando Armor) - 350/480
Imperial General (Before Uncanny Valor) - 435/535 (WTF)

Orks
Slugga Boyz (Before and after Armor Upgrades) - 250/332/443
Shoota Boyz (Before and after Armor Upgrades) - 235/313/416
Stormboyz (Before and after Armor Upgrades) - 220/293/390
Flash Gitz - 450

Yeah. That's real fragile. :screwy:

[SubakuGaara]

Melee units are ignored for a good reason. Goal is to compare ranged to range. Please read point number three in starting assumptions. It explains why you leave out eldar banshees for example. Banshees in melee will crush even warp spiders if allowed to melee.

Firewarriors get 200+ Hp from ethereal

IG units are ignored due to game and literature design

guardians don't come out of barracks. I don't think I have to explain why scouts and guards and other similar units are being left out. Ranger is a weird specialist for morale not really HP. Only 1 of them anyway.

Nothing else if left from those exceptions you listed...


So far I see a lot of parity and its a bit confusing. It does seem like HWs give a decisive edge against the reaper, but other than that, CSMs and SMs with HWs are not really better or worse buys than anything else...

What I'd really like to do is hold cost constant and see DPS to hp values, but the problem is with heavy weapons not adding to hp. You also can't ask, well what does 100 req buy you becase HWs aren't people...they really screw it up. You also can't just average the dps contributed by the HP as it is not reflective of reality. If you bought one csm and one csm plasma guy. The average is about 37 dps each which is misleading...I don't want to take averages that aren't reflective of reality.

[a1ph4riu5]

It's kinda silly to only look at direct matchups between CSM and other ranged units, when determining whether they're "fragile", or not. Why are you looking at DPS? The only thing you should be looking at is hitpoints and armour class. If an enemy unit had a really high damage output against heavy med, but lower hitpoints and armour class, that doesn't make them more survivable, because that unit is in it's ideal situation (a straight shootout vs CSM).

The original argument was about infiltration right? The suggestion being that once they are detected, CSM die fast. Well whether they are fragile or not doesn't hinge on which is a better unit in a straight shootout, it hinges on how much damage they can take while running away. Basically, whether they are more or less likely to survive a bad situation than another given unit. So back to that imaginary unit... if it gets into a similar bad situation and has to retreat, it will lose more squad members than CSM against practically all weapons. That's what makes CSM survivable, their individual hitpoints and armour class per squad member.

That said, there is a degree of parity across races with their CSM-equivalents, like Reapers, Firewarriors and the like. But that's because those units are survivable too. Stuff like Shoota Boyz aren't though, even if they get similar hitpoints *for cost*. Cost really doesn't matter if the whole squad dies. Just staying alive longer under fire from any conceivable weapon in the game is what makes something survivable.

One more thing... I really don't understand your reasoning for excluding melee units from any comparison. Like I said, being fragile or not has nothing to do with a straight fight, even if most melee units would defeat CSM. The point is that those melee units will have to run away sometimes and then it's perfectly fair to compare them to CSM in terms of survivabilty. Hell, Nobs, Berzerkers and the like are obviously going to do better under fire, so you're missing out on an opportunity for some unfavourable comparisons with CSM. :P

[SubakuGaara]

Thanks for the response alpha

Ok. Here's why I exclude melee units. Lets look at the kroot vs CSM match up. CSMs have more Hp, but kroots are a melee unit. If they engage in melee, kroot will win because CSMs are not a melee unit; they are a ranged unit. This applies universally. For example, kroots will knock out even oblits and warp spiders in melee. So its hard to numerically compare melee and ranged units just interms of numbers. I could list CSM ranged dps and kroot ranged dps but thats not reflective of how they would really fight. I could list csm melee dps and kroot ranged dps but again, not reflective. We already know that in this game dedicated melee units can beat any dedicated ranged unit 1v1. Why waste time and effort using stats to show that again? Thus I choose to just leave out melee and look at ranged vs ranged, because if the ranged get tied up in melee with a melee specialist, they lose automatically.

The reason why we can only look at all out fire fights is because of the games fire on the move penalties which are quite heavy. Once someone starts to run away, you have to fire on the move and your total DPS drops dramatically. Units that run away will typically get away with minimal harm unless if they're slow footed.

The concern with infiltrate is whether it is needed or not. Now the obvious answer is no. In reality, no single upgrade or skill or ability is needed in this game. Nothing is needed in this game, absolutely nothing. Asking if anything is needed is a bad question; the answer will always be no. It is better to ask if something is merited. To me its a question of whether or not CSMs merit the infiltrate skill. The way to go about it is to see what would happen if infiltrate never existed in the first place. How would CSms fair then in a world where they don't have infiltrate? Well, it seems CSMs fair ok. Just ok, maybe a little better than ok depending on squad size, but ifyou're looking at 6 vs 6, for the cost and effectiveness, CSMs are right in the middle. So inorder for CSMs to merit infiltrate, you have to look outside. What else is working with the CSMs? What else is working with the SMs? The reaper? The firewarrior? Well, I personally feel CSMs get the least support. Thats why they merit the infiltrate. Its not that they suck hard. They are ok, just ok. They just don't have the strong support that other races can field. So they merit having an ability to even things out. That ability happens to be infiltrate. At least thats my opinion.

(decided best way to compare units is to compare two ratios. HP/Cost to DPs/Cost and then maybe average the two... I think that might work to give a single number that is accurately reflective of effectiveness right?)

[ImmortalChaos]

We are getting nowehere...

Suba, for fucks sake, changing the word form needed to merited still doesnt change the fact that CSM are not fragile. Non-fragile units have no need or merit or whatever the hell you're going to call it for infiltration.

[fuggles]

You know, if I were fixing it, I would perhaps look at corruption and maybe have that as a power which you can cast on a squad or area to cause stealth as one's rubbish and one's too good.

Fragile...pah. I'll show you who's fragile when your warlocks have melted.

[ImmortalChaos]

Thats actually not a bad idea... Perhaps give the sorc a T3 ability that lets him cloak a single squad of CSMs untill the CSMs die or the sorc himself dies. I would still perfer PTW buffs and heavy weapons, however.

[fuggles]

Ok, the DP gives a passive PTW bonus ala the avatar. Birds 2 - Stones 1

[a1ph4riu5]

Personally, I wouldn't like to see infiltrate gone either, just back to the way it used to work, for most units. It did add another tactical aspect to the game, the new system, but it would be better reserved for the true "fragile" units. Stealth Suits, SM Scouts, Cultists... "glass cannons" I guess.

I agree that CSM don't have the same kind of support within the Chaos race, that comparable units from other races do. Also agreed that their strong reliance on their core infantry is why they get stuff like Infiltrate and Furious Charge. But the current system of Infiltrate is overpowered with CSM, simply because of how solid a unit they are without Infiltrate, how fast they can mass Heavy Bolters, the range and damage of Heavy Bolters compared to the range and hitpoints of detector units, etc.

So I think the best solution is to split Infiltrate into two groups: units that can infiltrate while shooting and those that can't. Then you wouldn't have to take away infiltrate from CSM, plus you could reduce the cost of the infiltration research for Chaos, since they are the main reason it's so expensive. Also, it would probably be a good idea for non-firing infiltrators to be completely invisible, like they used to be... another thing that would distinguish the two types. The old system was never useless, it was just overlooked because it was difficult to use under the old detection system.

As for comparing unit survivability, I think the best way to do that would be an average "time to death", after calculating the time it takes for a unit to be completely destroyed vs every ranged and melee weapon in the game. Then do that for all the units you want to compare to CSM. Kinda time consuming I would think, and it's unlikely to come up with any unforseen conclusions. Elite units and heavy melee units would be the best, followed by the heavy ranged units (CSM), followed by everything else.

[SubakuGaara]

Detection issues exist with 2 races only. 2 races isn't enough to say infiltrate is imbalanced. The fact that 5 of the other races really don't have a problem actually indicates balance and not imbalance. CHaos v chaos has no issue with it. Chaos v SM is fine. Chaos v IG is fine. And so on... it basically boils down to the tau and the eldar. Outside of those two races, everyone else doesn't really have a huge problem with it.

CSMs have low Hp and by quite a bit when compared to other ranged units in terms of HP alone. Low Hp is my definition of fragile. When cost is accounted for, there is parity amongst all ranged units in terms of performance and effectivess (except for dark reapers which perform poorly across the board). CSMs don't outperform by much or underperform by much the necron or SMs or even shoota boys when you include cost. That is the meaning of parity. It apparently is somewhat true in this game.

Melee vs Ranged is a matchup that cannot be compared on paper. If the fight was all melee the melee wins. If the fight were ranged, the ranged wins. You'd have to define really strict parameters such as distance between units, the type of terrain (some terrain slows speed dramatically) etc. Thats why melee units cannot be used in this comparison and were specifically left out. It may be true that some melee units have lower HP than CSMs, but we cannot compare their fragility to CSM fragility because it depends too highly on the starting condition. Saying kroot have less HP than CSMs doesn't prove that kroot are less fragile; if the numbers are equal, who wins that matchup depends on the starting conditions. Kroot have to be compared to other melee units. Saying Shoot boys have less HP than CSMs does indeed prove Shoota boys are more fragile. If the numbers are equal, who wins that matchup will always be CSMs assuming there are no outside influences. Ranged units can be compared because the parameters will always be the same.

Warlocks and guardians melt under fire. So do scarabs, so do heretics, so do scouts, so do guardsmen. These are all units that don't come out of barracks. they are all weak. To say imbalance exists because a tier 0 unit are expected to melt under heavy fire. Thus tier 0 units have been ignored and left out. By the way, a lone scarab initially has the same HP total as warlocks at 250HP. Its not that the CSM HWs are excessively strong, but your detector is excessively weak. Your warlock would melt if you simply breathed on him. His quick death doesn't really prove anything.

If I'm angering you, I want to say sorry. I'm not trying to anger anyone. I just want to get to a clear picture of why something is fine or not fine. Warlock and pathfinders dying under fire doesn't really mean anything to me. They die at the hands of everyone with similar speed, regardless of whether the unit if infiltrated or not. The issue about the sight though if a legitimate one.

Personally, I think the solutions are quite simple
1) ensure every race has a tier 2 detecting hero
2) increase reset timer on re-infiltration to 15-20 seconds
3) allow infiltrated units to be revealed with artillery fire
4) infiltrated units are only infiltrated and can only fire standing still

Any combination of the four would go a long way to helping out.

[ImmortalChaos]

Honestly, lets just throw in a lab. A basic test of non infiltrated CSMs fighting other ranged units in equal cost. I can almost assure you the CSM will come out on top against most T2 units for equal cost, and in T3 their plasma will probably let them stand offf against T3 elites.

I bet 4 CSM with HBs and the AC could beat 4 TSM with ACs and the sergant. Or even just 5 TSM with HBs.

[SubakuGaara]

In the CSM v TSM match up, it is really probably a toss up. I assume we're not accounting for things like morale or berzerk fury or like the AC dying first and so on. Anyway, even if the CSM squad won I don't think they'd win by much. This is actually quite true across the board. There is considerable parity within the units of that class, even more so than I used to previously think. CSMs don't perform too much better or too much worse than anyone else.

I have played Chaos mirror matches and I don't have much problems. I get a sorc out there and some cultists and things go ok. I also don't find my infiltration tobe that great an advantage against other races. It is typically the 3rd upgrade I buy especially since its the highest costing upgrade for CSMs.

Immortal, I want to ask you. In a nutshell, what is the real problem with the CSM being cloaked? What is stopping you from simply detecting them? And is this detection problem a universal one? Does everyone suffer from not being able to adequately detect cloaked CSMs?

[Chris]

What is stopping you from simply detecting them?

The fact that you can't detect them without putting your detectors in range.

[SubakuGaara]

An excellent legitimate concern. I agree 100 percent with that one. Especially when I have 35 range HBs and his has to get his 30 sight warlocks close enough to spot my CSMs.

Increase sight (not weapon range) of all detectors to 40?

[4Servant]

rapier and me labbed this once

4 csm + 4hb + sarge vs 4 sm + 4 hb csm + sarge 8/10 csm win

They wont win when sm focus on all hb dudes first and the csm does not.

5 csm + sarge + 4 hb vs 5 sm + sarge + 5 hb (angry used) csm come out on top 7/10

5 csm + sarge + 4 plasma vs 5 sm + sarge + 5 hb (angry used) 9/10 plasma comes out on top.
The time when plasma doesn't get out on top is when they focus sarge first and the sm kills all plasma rines first gg no re random targeting.

Seriously I was supprised especualy by lab 2 that they won that so many times but its because of the sarge wich got 1300 termie armor against 1000 heavy_med and cause of the fact that hb with angry. without angry sm wins in lab 2 but their tacs cost alot more due more upgrades and more HW.

[SubakuGaara]

DPS drop effect in action. Random deaths of key personnel in CSM squads can hurt considerably more than others. Chaos suffers from this effect the most. It can be extremely key, but is basically a randomized phenomena.

[ImmortalChaos]

You can also lose a member who doesnt have a HW and benefit by not losing as much DPS. Honestly that point is so moot I dont even want to argue. Its an advantage as much as a disadvantage and every other race that uses HWs suffers/benefits from it.

Note Sabu, the CSM are beating superior numbers os SM in servants examples... Why they need any form of infiltration when they can BEAT (yes BEAT) SM is beyond me.

[magicalcarpet]

DPS drop effect in action. Random deaths of key personnel in CSM squads can hurt considerably more than others. Chaos suffers from this effect the most. It can be extremely key, but is basically a randomized phenomena

GM?!

Anyway, the only reason they suffer large DPS drop is because of the insanely strong HW in the first place :P

[SubakuGaara]

Its an advantage as much as a disadvantage and every other race that uses HWs suffers/benefits from it.
What other race uses heavy weapons besides those two?



Note Sabu, the CSM are beating superior numbers os SM in servants examples... Why they need any form of infiltration when they can BEAT (yes BEAT) SM is beyond me.
Dread crushing defiler+horror combo, 2 annihilators crushing 2 upgraded predators, the landraider running amok, terminators killing oblits, the Gks+ force commander knocking out my daemon prince and uber, whirlwind knocking my primarily infantry army all over the place; it goes on and on. Yes, chaos may barely win that particular battle, but they will lose every other matchup against the space marines.

[magicalcarpet]

Subaku, think about it.

CSM, SM, IG, Ork ALL use HW.. I guess if platforms get changed then you could argue that as Eldar HW.

IG have their HW on like.. a 200 life platform.. and the squads get only 4 HW. I think they suffer the biggest DPS drop.

[fuggles]

Anyone else find cultists having the ability to cloak and detect odd?

[SubakuGaara]

Oh right... IG does use heavy weapons. ork really don't... i mean shoota boys get phased out very quickly and you can't count the flamer on those little slugga boys. Maybe the power claw?...

Anyway, I'm agree that infiltrate on the CSM is quite powerful. Look to tell the truth, I don't think its infiltration that needs adjusting but the detection. What kind of detector is the warlock with 250 hp? A lousy one. Eldar wouldn't have that problem if there was a tier 2 upgrade that gave warlocks 1000 HP. And eldar certainly don't have a problem as soon as the seer council comes out; once the council is out, my infiltration becomes a moot point. Or if the tau would just fix it so that there was tier 2 upgrade that lets the tau commander detect. I think the problem doesn't lie in that CSMs are cloaked; I think the problem lies in that detection as it stands is quite lousy.

Also there is one final problem. Seems like the rule is each race gets 2 cloaked units. If CSMs can't get cloaking, what unit will? Cultists are one. Whats the other one? Raptors? Berzerks? Possessed? Oblits? One of the leaders? Perhaps a cloaked tank would please you? Actually I'm sort of inclined to a cloaked daemon prince myself. CSMs have to be the one with the cloaking. Just fix the detection issue...

I mean really,

[Cyberbob]

For me to be happy with CSMs remaining infiltrated, I'd have to see their plasma get whacked fairly hard by the nerfhammer.

I'd much rather Jaimas' idea of removing their infiltration altogether and giving them back missile launchers, though (as well as nerfing their plasma).

[Jaimas]

Well, I signed onto Immortal's idea, to rip out infiltrate and give Chaos their Specials and Heavies back, albeit with fixed damage values and such.

[Rocsflight]

Cloaked Units
Space Marines:
Scouts with research.
Skull Probe

Eldar:
Eldar Rangers with research.
Webway Gate shroud with research.

Imperial Guard:
Vindicare Assassin

Chaos:
Chaos Space Marine Squad with research.
Cultist Squad with research.

Ork:
Gretchin with research.
Tankbustaz

Necron:
Necron Lord and nearby units with Veil of Darkness equipped.

Tau:
Devilfish Troop Carrier
XV15 Stealth Team

Seems like the majority gets one combat unit cloaked, then some noncombat unit cloaked Subaku(the races with two combat units being Chaos as-is and Tau, although a Devilfish doesn't have all that much firepower[it is consistent though]). We'll give you an infiltrated Tainted Auspex(which probably should be infiltrated, and might be useful that way).

[SubakuGaara]

F#$&$!$~ with the tainted auspex!

There is a good reason why chaos can't get all the heavy weapons back. Ok. TSMs get them because they have to do everything. Chaos however has the horror. Why have the horror if CSMs can also fire rockets? Giving CSMs both the flamer and rocket back phases out raptor and horror. Those two units get totally phased out. Raptor already loses melee position to the berzerker. Now he will lose morale position too? What will be the point of horrors then?

Look hows this. Keep the infiltrate. Fix the detection. Increase detection sight range and infiltrate reset timer. Give detectors more HP. Its the simplest way to get it done.

[Cyberbob]

10 bucks says he won't be happy with that.

I'm seriously having trouble coming to terms with your views, Subaku. You've been presented with the facts many times over, yet you either ignore them or come up with some bullshit pretense for dismissing them.


-Edit-

I'd like my winnings in cash, thanks ;)

[SubakuGaara]

Relax cyberbob, I hear the claims and so far the only legitimate ones to me are that detector range is less than CSM firing range and that detector HP is so low that its impossible to consistently detect (seeing as the reset timer is so short).

For the first I say yes, that is a problem. The range is unfairly low. So fix it by boosting it.

For the second, i say yes, that is somewhat a problem. A couple of the races (eldar and tau) have exceedingly weak detectors and it is unfair to them. So fix it for them; give them more durable detectors; for gods sake, the warlock has the same HP as a builder scarab; of course he dies quickly. The rest however don't really have much of a problem. Ork have tough detecting leaders and lots of waagh banners. IG scanner works well as well as the numerous psykers and the command squad. The space marines multiple infiltrated probes make it so you can't kill all the probes. Necron seem to get by ok (though I sometimes question how)

I've heard people say CSMs are super strong. I questioned that. In terms of HP, when you look at ranged units, CSMs are near the very bottom. If you include cost and damage, there is considerable parity amongst ranged units even with heavy weapons.

I don't think I'm giving off stupid pretenses for disagreeing. Again I'm not trying to anger anyone; I don't have that sort of nature in me. I'm a nice guy and I just want the truth to come out. I really don't care if CSMs have infiltrate or not. Like I said, I win without it a lot and sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn't. I just realize that with things like nerfing, they are a slippery slope. If you get rid of one thing, it becomes a little easier to get rid of the next and so on, each time with a little less justification. That is indeed troublesome.

The thing about completely dumping cloaking for more heavy weapons is a preference. I understand. Its a preference and its a fine one. If you want to replace cloaking for something else because of preference that is fine. That happens and if you did nobody would complain.

But if you're going to get rid of something under some justification, then that justification should actually make sense. I mean, with all the other imbalances such as the whirlwind or the bugged crisis, every race suffers from it. With the cloaking, just two races have it bad. I just want a little more justification than "my 250 hp guardian dies too quickly". You'd have to show me that every race suffers greatly at the hands of the CSM cloak, the same way every race suffers at the hands of the burna bomb, the whirlwind, the crisis, and other known problems. Thats really it. So please try and see where I'm coming from. I'm really trying to see where you are coming from.

[magicalcarpet]

If we make detection radius bigger for everybody + tougher detectors, we run the risk of making infiltration obsolete. I mean, look at freaking Scarabs.

Infiltration is supposed to be a problem, just not unstoppable.

[a1ph4riu5]

CSM aren't super strong and I don't believe that anybody said that they were. People here have simply contested your suggestion that they are fragile. They're not fragile, they have above average hitpoints, so close to SM Tactical Squads that you might as well consider them as having the same hitpoints. Again, would you call SM Tactical Squads fragile?

Your assertion that they are fragile is based on "not counting" all tier 0 squads, even though units such as Guardsmen and Slugga Boyz can function as frontline units with scaling upgrades. And again, your reasoning for ignoring all melee units doesn't make sense. You may not be able to compare ranged and melee units within the same role, since they have different roles, but you *can* compare how many hitpoints they have. This comparison of hitpoints/armour type and how long it will take both units to be killed by a given weapon has nothing to do with the two units actually fighting each other!

We have established already, by your own admission, that CSM can take on their opposite numbers perfectly well without infiltration. Can you not see that being able to dish out damage while taking none back is not a huge advantage? The game is supposed to be balanced, in that, if something has an advantage over the opponent, there will also be a disadvantage that can be exploited. In the case of most units using the new infiltration system, the disadvantage is that the units themselves have low hitpoints and armour type and wouldn't survive a straight fight without being infiltrated. Also, you must spend a fair amount on these weak units and if you find your infiltration is properly countered by detectors, you won't have the req to spend on a force that can take on the enemy in the open. With CSM, you spend on ordinary frontline troops in tier 1, that can take on pretty much any other tier 1 unit, and also scale into tier 2 as frontline troops there too. So the disadvantage of spending on lots of Scouts/Cultists etc, it's just not a problem with CSM. When you buy a detector, you're not countering infiltrated CSM, because they're still just as difficult to defeat as other tier 2 ranged units. All you're doing is removing the unfair advantage they had before.

And you're not angering me, although you might be angering other people, who knows. I just think most of what you're saying is wrong, that's all.

[ImmortalChaos]

Sabu, you are still ignoreing that CSM are superior to TSM with heavy weapons, and therefore are in no need of cloaking.

Have a counterpoint for that? Because everything you type is wasted untill you can muster one up.

[SubakuGaara]

There is nothing to ignore. It has been openly said that CSMs are indeed superior to TSMs. CSMs are superior to TSMs but by a small amount. Crunch the numbers any way you want, you won't be able to show that CSMs are vastly superior to TSMs. On the other hand, you can easily show with numbers or actual replays or labs that chaos vehicles, elites, and ubers are inferior to space marine counterparts by a large amount. Look at the defiler v dread matchup, the predator v annihilator match up, the presence of the whirlwhind and etc. CSMs may be better infantry than their space marine counterparts, but its hard to argue that the rest of the chaos army matches up well with the rest of the SM army.

Defiler v dread
Predator v annihilator
Possessed v Assault terminator
Oblits v Terminators
Land raider v bloodthirster
Whirlwind v Defiler artillery
Hell fire dread v defiler ranged AI attack
Assault marines v raptors
horrors v Tacs with rockets
Sorc+Chaos lord v any combination of SM heros
Chaos spells and special abilities v SM spells and special abilities

Those are a lot of the possible matchups, some of them being extremely key, and SMs win a lot of them. SMs just do the job well elsewhere. They do lose the infantry matchup, but not by a significant amount.

Again, to me there is nothing wrong with the CSM. Its a fine unit. There is nothing wrong with the infiltrate. It works well in my mind. The detection is what seems faulty. Why not just try to fix the detection? Is it impossible to fix the detection? If you feel it is impossible to fix the detection, then openly state that and we can work from there. If it is impossible then yes, we should address removing the infiltrate all together. But if it is possible to simply fix the detection issues, why not just try and fix them? I believe the phrase is "you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water"?

[Cyberbob]

If we buff detection on a scale required to make CSM infiltration not totally imbalanced (that's a fairly major buff), we'll be making obsolete all the other (balanced) infiltrated units.

[SubakuGaara]

In reality we'd only be buffing two units right? The guardian warlock and the tau pathfinder. Aren't the other detectors fine?

[Jaimas]

Not really. Most detectors are relatively lackluster. Necrons and IG have the least trouble with Infiltration, and Tau certainly have it the worst, but that isn't to say Orks or other Chaos players (LOL, Irony) have it easy.

Pretty much every race has detector trouble; it's just a matter of degree.

[Nobunaga]

I'd disagree with that. I play IG and I still feel the detection is extremely dodgy. Why? Well the scanner only shows a very small area and it's visible to the other player. Chaos player just walks out of the circle and you're buggered. Psykers are piss weak and (tier 2) the CS isn't much better.

At any rate your objection seems to be that Chaos on the whole is weaker than SM. Wouldn't the better solution be to rein in the SM Imba rather than make one Chaos unit exceedingly OP? After all it's not as if SM only chaos have trouble. Unfortunately Tau and Necrons have completely obscured the mass of Sm issues.

Horrors do need a buff and will probably get one. The Annihilator does do too much AI damage and that needs to be looked at. The WW is totally insane as is Smite. If SM are carefully nerfed then Chaos will have no need for their uber CSM.

[SubakuGaara]

I honestly felt the ork have a solid platform with both heros and the numerous warbanners, but then again I'm speaking from a chaos point of view. I don't play as Ork; I can only reflect on how difficult it is for me to use infiltration against them.

Just a few more questions. Is the detection problem a matter of not enough sight or not enough toughness? And how do you feel about the performance of the current hero's that detect? Are they failing too?

Anyway, if detection really can't be fixed, then there is not much choice by to either crimp CSM infiltration severely or to get rid of it all together. The argument that detection simply can't be fixed may be a solid one when you really look at it. But just remember if you get rid of something, you'll probably have to replace it with something else.

Concerning SMs strength in the other categories, personally I find their slew of spells to be over the top. I have a particular replay where 4 berzerker squads and 2 csms with HBs lose to all three heros, a 4 man grey knight, and a TSM with just the sergeant upgrade. Basically smite+curses to slow you down+psychic inquisition = gg. I personally think its quite odd that the sorcerers corruption does far less damage than psychic inquisition. The sorcerer depite being good isn't fully functional. His teleport is broken with the ridiculous cooldown and super short range and his corruption spell is significantly underperforming; in essence, if a unit gets trapped for the full 15 seconds, they experience the same damage as a couple of grenades. He's still pretty good, but I just don't like things to be broken you know.

[ImmortalChaos]

We dont need to crunch the numbers any more, if something A is better than something B and something A has infiltration(and faster speed) while something B does not, something A (CSMs) seriously doesnt need infiltration.

[Cyberbob]

Agreed. We don't buff C (detectors) and screw up all the other infiltrated units in the game, just so CSM can keep their precious infiltration.

[Hirmetrium]

removing infiltration means that chaos lose the following however -
1. A fairly unique trait.
2. any possibly use of infiltration, whereas other races with the exception of SM have full use of it in many situations to gain powerful advantages.
3. A great weakening in the use of CSM against other chaos units. infiltration really made them shine and scale well - without it they will scale that much less.

Lets not forget the armoury and amount of research thats required to make CSM truely maxed out.

I think nerfing the weapons is the best step, so that their not so powerful as other weapons, but are powerful enough to make other units fear them.

Removing CSM infiltration isnt a favoured solution - not only are you seriously nerfing a unit, your removing a common racial trait thats useful to others and also making it put on an obsolete unit. Because people really build the 2cap cultists outside tier 1, right? when your infantry cap is limited and prescious as it is?

[Deaths Abyss]

Completely agree with Hirm. the problem is not whether CSM are fragile or not, its the fact they deal out huge amounts of damage and it simply overpowers detectors on the field.

Sub, comparing HP doesn't work because there is at least 8 different types of armour that can be used on infantry.

Also looking at match up between units is very bad for a discussion on balance. Your biasim comes across very badly as well.

Defiler v dread
Predator v annihilator
Possessed v Assault terminator
Oblits v Terminators
Land raider v bloodthirster
Whirlwind v Defiler artillery
Hell fire dread v defiler ranged AI attack
Assault marines v raptors
horrors v Tacs with rockets
Sorc+Chaos lord v any combination of SM heros
Chaos spells and special abilities v SM spells and special abilities For instance, you don't mention the Chaos pred is a great all rounder tank, possesed are a much better unit than AST because of their speed, morale bashing, fearless and base bashing abilities, Oblits kick termies ass because of their range, AV and AB, WW is IMBA, Defiler is a multi purpose vehicle, rocket tacs are the worst AV in the game, SM spells are generally IMBA or bugged. I notice you don't mention Bezerkers at all in any of your match ups. Chaos as a race compliments its other units really well. They are also cheaper in tier2 than SM and this enables them to get a very fast tier3 in.

Can we please just get down to nerfing CSM/HW dps to an approiate amount. Infact i'm pretty sure we discussed this way back.

[Old Painless]

CSM really dont need infiltration now that all the detectors are going to be getting shredded by heavy bolters before they even make the CSM visible, guardians being an excellent example. Even with shuriken plats, warlocks, the first armour upgrade AND a healing webgate next to them, CSM still eat them alive in 2 seconds flat. Then as soon as the detectors are dead no amount of other troops will kill them.

Thats as well as the 3 turrets, BL plats, exarched reapers and rangers that were shooting them too.

[SubakuGaara]

@death abys
Everything you said is correct. I just wanted to throw out those potential matchups to that guy who said CSM completely owns SM across the board. They obviously don't. It was meant to be biased.

@oldpainless
Warlocks have such low HP, I don't think you can blame the infiltrate or the strength of the heavy weapons for their quick death. A scout team if they wanted could drop one just as quickly. 250 HP is in line with that of the necron scarab. Warlock kinda seems like a ridiculous choice of a detector to me. They'd be better off if all the guardians could detect or if rangers could detect.

[Hirmetrium]

ok guys, do you think for one second relic would remove a new mechanic in the first patch?

and again, remember CSM only scale via heavy weapons. their normal bolters do no more damage than they did in tier 1 - unlike other races tier 1 infantry. eg, guardsmen scaled via excution, shootas via blastier.

if CSM HW damage was any lower, would you still want infiltration REMOVED?

[fuggles]

@Hirmetrium - I say to you FOTM nerf and they'd better remove it!

[a1ph4riu5]

Because people really build the 2cap cultists outside tier 1, right?

Not at the moment, when they have access to CSM infiltration, but if CSM lost infiltration (or at least reverted to the old infiltrate), you could give back Cultists their Aspiring Champion upgrades.

There would definitely be a use for infiltrated Cultists with heavy weapons, and a Champion with a Plasma Pistol + 1300 hitpoints of heavy_high armour, and the angry bonus. 2 cap would probably be deserved, because that's a stronger unit than Space Marine Scouts, IMO.

Edit: also, I would like to point out that CSM do scale in more ways than just Heavy Weapons. Furious Charge upgrades their CC damage by 25%, their movement speed by 20% and gives them a CC charge bonus. Why nobody uses this is beyond me. It basically means that ranged troops will be permanently tied up and will lose hands down in melee if they don't keep running. And unlike most CC troops, if you get a lone squad out of position you have a strong ranged attack to switch to (normal Bolters and a Plasma Pistol is not shabby).

If CSM lost infiltration, they are not going to run out of tricks to defeat enemy ranged units. Hell, they can already defeat most of them just with the angry bonus. But we might actually see people using Furious Charge for a change, and not just for the passive movement speed bonus. Essentially, CSM have Heavy Bolters and Frags/Chains to beat CC units and Furious Charge to beat ranged units. But they can still beat ranged units just with their Heavy Bolters, if they want to.

So what does anyone have to complain about?

[Hirmetrium]

even if CSM lose infiltration, cultists will suck. they do no ranged damage, so little melee damage they will be eatten alive and their heavy weapons are lackluster and affected badly by the slowdownincombat mechanic which is ONLY used for cultists, and really messed up, affected HW buildtime as well. cultist heavy builds are doomed to fail - because cultists dont do jack.they drop like flies to any concentrated firepower.

and your going to use TWO CAP to have that in tier 2? i dont think so, not when you have raptors, CSM, bezerkers and horrors to fill it out for you.

chaos is all about its infantry. you cant afford to be filling out your 20 precious cap with cultists, because you need it for building other infantry.

There isnt, and NEVER WILL BE a use for cultists outside tier 1.

angry bonus on normal cultist laspistols = rofl.

Even SM scouts do better, carrying better plasma guns, sniper rifles and even flamers, upgrading all their basic weapons.

cultists cant even tie up while infiltrated - hows that for useless?

IF CSM lost infiltration, it would be another useless upgrade to go on the pile of crap there already is in the game. the day I see CSM charge kroot will be a crazy day indeed. Frags are not quite as good as SM counterparts, so no need for those. Chains isnt a CSM spell - its a sorcerer spell. were talking unit for unit here.

Im pretty sure you will see CSM become obsolete VERY quickly. with Tacs having WOTE on them, shootas with juice, fire warriors with the most silly offscreen range in the game, and every other ranged unit, CSM are going to become crap. they dont have invincible skills. their just tacs that are much worse off, with far far far less support/healing/invincible spells.

While on that subject, why do so many races have invincible skills, yet chaos don't? we see IG, SM, orks, Necrons all with these skills, yet Eldar, Tau and Chaos are left out. Although one can argue that these races infantry are superior, and your just about to remove that advantage...

EDIT:
Heres a theoritical situation.
CSM lose infiltration, but maintain all weapons. lets now make a comparison.
CSM vs TSM -
-TSM have an extra weapon, just enough more HP and can be supported by apothicary, WOTE, FC damage skill, and have boosted normal damage from target finders, as well as an extra heavy weapon.
-CSM have 1 less weapon, no healing or invincible skills, slightly better damage, angry bonus, weaker morale(making flamers a very good option on TSM to quickly mess up the chaos offensive) and unboosted tier 1 damage. Same damage boost as FC from CL's SoC.
It doesn't take a genious of DPS and figuers to tell you that TSM would easily win this, through the use of many support skills and whatnot.

CSM vs Firewarrior - This matchup would be a joke. CSM would fall like flies, no matter what support they had.

CSM vs Necron Warriors - Again, the same thing happens as above. superior HP this time, with a mix of damage and 100% FOM.

CSM vs IG - this would be a very well balanced matchup. guardsmen have many skills to support, and chaos have very few but instead have raw power to kill the guardsmen quickly. this could go eitheir way, depending on the IG players micro, use of support skills like fanatism and execute, and what sort of HW he has(for example GL could disrupt many CSM, but do little damage).

CSM vs Shoota boyz - Juice, power of Waaaagggghhh and so on mean this could be very one sided to the shootas, but again chaos has the power of raw strength.

CSM vs Dark Reapers, Warp Spiders - WS have superior HP, firepower, morale and jump skill but as elite units can't be counted. Dark reapers have high damage output and range, but CSM safely win this one vs Dark reapers - not so sure against the WS.

As you can see, chaos have the advantage of high damage and HUGE disadvantage of no support skills. charging any of these with furious charge would guarentee instant death, because all of them are capable of high ranged damage.

In short, your theory that CSM would 'do fine against other ranged units' isn't really fair or true. whats more, why would I build CSM, when I can build bezerkers? who tie up, deal large volumes of damage and come to strenght much faster?

[a1ph4riu5]

You don't have to build only Cultists, you will have the cap for additional units after you purchase the Aspiring Champions. Besides Cultist Heavy Weapons are not at all shabby, considering how cheap the platform is. With the angry bonus used, you can bump up the Plasma Guns to the level of CSM Heavy Bolters, pre upgrade. Also, they won't drop like flies if they're infiltrated with another unit in front of them. Neither would they be that weak if they got their old Aspiring Champ back. I can definitely see a use for them. They're just overshadowed by CSM.

But I agree that the reinforce slower in combat mechanic unfairly penalises them. The game has changed so much since that was introduced, it's not needed anymore.

[Hirmetrium]

if detection is 'so well balanced' as everyone else is talking about, those infiltrated cultists dont have much chance.

I would like to see Cultist scaling back too. I admit I'm being very unfair debunking your valid arguement, but my point is when you have 20 cap, 2 cap is 10% of that gone - cap that is very precious, could be replaced by CSM with superior damage, bezerkers with tieup and damage, plus your standard config of PSM/oblits and your main antivehicle horrors. Since AC cap bonus was nerfed, its harder and harder to find any use at all for cultists.

[a1ph4riu5]

I just want to say again about Furious Charge, it's really a very good ability if you use it to tie up ranged troops. It has several advantages over Berzerkers, in that it is much more difficult to dance from, so your CSM will not be getting shot at after the initial charge... but also that you can switch to ranged stance and focus fire dying squads down. This works particularly well if you equip them with the Plasma Pistol and save your angry bonus just for doing this, rather than trying to use it in melee and missing out on most of the damage. You can use Chains to trap squads just the same as you can with Berzerkers.

But it also allows you to start out the game with CSM and then go with whatever upgrades you need to, either ranged or melee oriented. So if you manage to keep most of those squads alive, you get to use them right into tier 3, when they get equipped with Plasma Guns. Personally I think it beats building new squads each tier, but both will work. I really think that CSM with Furious Charge are superior to Berzerkers against ranged troops, even though Berzerkers do more damage. All you can do with Zerks is chase and chase, hoping to trap them, so they're a one trick pony... but CSM can switch stances cleverly. They don't have to be in melee all the time.

[Hirmetrium]

Well I've editted the first post again, including many many things dicussed. I suggest everyone rereads it, since I changed a lot of it.

[Jaimas]

My insights:

Cultists: In addition to myriad bug fixes across the board, I'll say it because no one else is: reduce their pop cost to one.
Late game Cultists are never built because they die like GMs when fired on, and reinforce even slower. Outside their limited special weapons, they deal dick for both ranged and melee damage, even with Fury on. To remain viable, they need that pop cost cut.

CSMs: We have two ways we can go. I'm willing to concede on some issues - so let's stick with the "try and keep infiltration viable" argument, which involves careful, methodic trims and changes here and there. A lot of people have suggested to tone down the AI to SM plasma values, but slightly increase it's AV damage so it can act as a soft vehicle counter. This is an idea I really, really, really like.
But this gave me a really, really good idea, like just right now. To further distinguish itself and make it even less SM-like, why not replace the in-game model with the Meltagun Eliphas gets? They use the same projectiles and animations, and with the changed damage values (basically same as SM plasma, but with ever-so-slightly better AV Damage), it's easy to just "say" it's a Meltagun, even if it is, under the model, a Plasma. I think that'd be cool and would please endless Fluff-lovers, even if it's little more than a Re-skin.
HBs I feel should be left alone, but I'll work with you dudes and say that the HW upgrade should be pushed back to tier-2. With that, you prevent HBs from becoming too strong too quick, and also slow down teching for those who are trying to power their way to cloaked HB Mass too hard.
Lastly, if this route is taken, I feel the biggest change to CSM Infiltrate should be detector changes among other races. By and large, I'm for making visual range = detector range, but cutting the visual ranges down a slight bit to make things more balanced. This means better, more capable spotters with better detection radiuses, and eliminates crap with like the Sanctioned Psyker, which I have been told has a detection range longer than its visual range. IG Sweeps should give no indication other than perhaps a brief icon. And so on.

That's all for now. Expect more from me when I'm sober.

:dance:

[Energizer Bunny]

The reason I always go for nerfing infilatration rather than nerfing the weapons is that I honestly believe that CSM infiltration is just a relic (no pun intended) from the WA days that the designers just didn't quite anticipate the power it would give Chaos under the new stealth system.

Nerfing the weapons as opposed to infiltration is a perfectly valid arguement. The only thing to bear in mind is that CSM are now the mainstay of the Chaos T3 army (since the hard cap introductions of DC) so you need those units to pack a punch. I don't want to see Chaos having to basically fight out T2/3 with a load of glorified stealth suits as their whole army. I would much prefer to have to meet the frightening damage of CSM plasma and HB's head on and be able to see/deal with it, rather then be tickled by a load of watered down HW's that I can't see.

That said, either option would present a solution and it is good to see there seems to be general concensus that whilst ok in a vacuum, the combination of stealth and the current HW's is a bit much.

[fuggles]

Why is it that eldar have to put up with warlocks as their detectors whilst chaos can use cultists- Surely the cultists ASP would make more sense?

Another suggestion - into the warp - the squad gets an ability which disables guns but allows them to move stealthily.

[SubakuGaara]

why not just let all guardians detect?

[Hirmetrium]

Yes fuggles, thats been added.

[ImmortalChaos]

I wouldn't mind if CSM cloaking used the old WA mechanic, but I've been told its impossible.

[Energizer Bunny]

I suspect that's correct. I imagine it's a case of all or nothing now. I wouldn't (and didn't) mind the old WA situation for CSM, but DC has outgrown them.

[Jaimas]

The bigger issue is that numerous units (stealthsuits come to mind) couldn't be represented correctly by the original stealth system. This was compounded by other units which due to having only temporary cloaking were far less effective than they should have been (Rangers and the Vindicare, par example).

No comments on my re-skinning idea? :(

[ImmortalChaos]

Meh, I want missles more! :p though, if one adds missles and flamers in T2/ T1, T3 plasma could be changed to "melta guns" that do AI damage as good as HBs with less range (mabey 25) yet was a soft AV weapon, that'd be cool.

[fuggles]

Sorry Hirmetrium! I've read the first page now :)

No takers for 'into the warp'? Oh well, that'll teach me to in inflict my eldar ways on people tabftabftabftabf.

For what it's worth I like the meltagun idea.

[ImmortalChaos]

Like I said, "into the warp" would be exactly like the old cloaking, going back to which is impossible I've been told.

[SubakuGaara]

Why not give the melta to the raptor so they can at least be useful past tier 1?

[ImmortalChaos]

Because then we're falling into the trap of giving a melee unit a ranged weapon.

[fuggles]

Wow, they've diddled the cloak code THAT much?!

I don't like being nobbled by an ENTIRELY cloaked army with grenades and plasma :(

[SubakuGaara]

Its already that way with the raptor flamer. To use it effectively you have to set the whole raptor squad to ranged. Other wise they charge in and melee as normal. Plus the ranged weapon would only be effective against vehicles and not infantry, to whom the melee applies. Raptors would become like the immortals, who melee infantry well, but only shoot well against vehicles.

[Hirmetrium]

meh, could work.

[GRIM Ripper]

im sorry i gotta disagree with the vehicle issues... defilers are great vehicles... not good ranged damage -- what are you smoking? AC does 70-80dps in most cases, and this is quite evident in game, not just some numbers pulled from the luas; only thing lacking is range. combined with BC for disruption and slow affect (plus an extra 100 damage per hit), youve got a hard hitting ranged platform in comparison to ANY vehicle pre T4. but this of course is extra sweet bc the defiler is also a melee walker. need some base bashing? switch to melee. need to tie up AV or a heavy ranged squad ? switch to melee. need to bash some vehicles? switch to melee. its got versatility, which is HIGHLY understated. sure the defiler wont win in much, if any 1v1 walker matchups, but thats not what its meant for. heck, even a killa kan cant beat a dread 1v1, does that mean it sucks? NO! defilers are by far the best anti infantry walker, and if you use it as such it pwns.

btw, preds also end up being one of the best (2nd to sentinels) AV vehicles as well bc they have solid damage (80dps combined i believe) and high durability. 1 pred > 2 trakks for ex and 2 trakks cost more and use up more cap. thats not to mention preds also have formidable AI damage as well, further amplified when on such a durable platform (most HPs of any nonwalker vehicle before T4).

maybe a buff here or there is warranted (cap 4 for preds and maybe a 200-300 HP buff for defiler), but nothing huge.

[SubakuGaara]

Right. Thats pretty much been the consensus.

[Ragnarok]

Defiler needs a ranged damage buff. (not like in vanilla, just a simple buff) and, AFAIK, killa kans win in a 1v1 vs a Dread.(thats why they are 4 cap me thinks)

and, the Sorcs 3rd ability(cant remember wut its name was) needs a little buff.

[GRIM Ripper]

no kans lose 1v1.

and im saying they only need something minor IF ANYTHING... in fact im leaning towards no change. in on the main page its saying preds need a damage buff, less cap, etc while defilers need a ranged damage buff, more HPs, and something else i think...

[Rocsflight]

How does the Killa Kan lose to a Defiler in 1v1?

Edit:Nevermind, read Ragnarok2504's post wrong.

[ImmortalChaos]

It just... does. The dred has damn high HP even though it has an inferiour armour type, and it also has huuuge dps compared to other walkers. The range of the defilers autocannon is the only problem IMO, not the damage.

[Earthworm]

The range of the defilers autocannon is the only problem IMO, not the damage.

yep increase it to 35 and I guess thats it........

Also this gave me a horrible and stupid idea to balance Chaos plasma....how about nerfing chaos plasma range to 25.Keep damage and infiltration as it is.That way detectors wont have a problem detecting them without dying and also that will compensate for the great damage.

[SubakuGaara]

Well, there is still the issue of the HB having 35 range. All you'd need is one to make the whole squad stop at 35 range.

[magicalcarpet]

Dreads win because of the insane DPS of two fists swinging.

[SubakuGaara]

Defiler autocannon should get range of 35. Would be nice if FOTM penalty was only 50 percent for autocannon too.

Dread is like number 3 most HP of all tanks in game (excluding ubers)
1)fire prism 6000+
2)pred annihilator 5200+
3)Dread 4750+

Its DPS isn't that bad really. Its the HP. That thing can really take a pounding.

[Garumsh-Zott]

You probably have to double the dps listed because he has 2 combat arms. Kan is actually tougher because of his armor class, but is simply outclassed when it comes to dps. When you add a ranged weapon to the dread the kan will win(love the synch kill).

[Earthworm]

Well, there is still the issue of the HB having 35 range. All you'd need is one to make the whole squad stop at 35 range.


Well Chaos HBs are fine as they are right now.....nerfing Chaos plasma range to 25 will balance everything out IMHO.If you want range go for HBs...if you want damage go for plasma.

[SubakuGaara]

In regards to the infiltrate, its the HB that causes real problems as its range is longer than most detectors sight. Considering that the HB is designed to kill the infantry classes most detectors are, this is a real problem and a legitimate imbalance. CSM plasma just needs a detector and you can fight back...

[SubakuGaara]

CHaos should get to hide its hereics inside HQ if no regen is given for hereitcs

[Azmodael]

A little regen could be given, but very very little. No other case got the special ability of heretics and noone forces you to use it anyway. How will the poor servitor/earth caste builder
feel...

[Blakey85]

I've told you a bazillion times,god i almost feel like spaming every curse word known to man,i mean how many time do i have to repeat this and yet you ignore?

Choas build time without Forced labor is a whoping 33%. Anyway it's lower then the stuipd 50% EVERY OTHER RACES WORKER HAS.

When you use forced labor it doubles to 66%. THAT"S ONLY 16% FASTER. THAT"S NOTHING.
What form of mega tactical advantage i achive by having my barracks built 2 seconds before the other guy? Plus eldar's barracks are the fastest if i'm not mistaken,so who are you to talk?

It's way more then a penelty rather then a benefit,what are you blind?

Big ass regen,that's what he needs.

[Rocsflight]

Blakey, do you have a link for this information?

[SubakuGaara]

Heretics are shit as workers in my opinion. Only useful for fast rax and then big liability. And I can't even hide them in an HQ or something.

[Hirmetrium]

No other case got the special ability I must say, the bonesingers teleport/tieup/webwayspam/insta kill first heretic after forced labour is far, far better than anything a heretic has. Its not like the heretic uses FL On all LP's. Your heretics normally have around less than half HP after the chaos barracks, thats not even enough to FL up a single LP.

Plus, the build time of the chaos temple without FL is HUGE. Its a known fact. not to mention its massive cost and poor HP for cost. its not even 100hp per 10req. its something like 70hp per 10req.

Forced labour is absolutely crippling after early game. most chaos players rebuild their heretics after they hit tier 2, because normally their first ones have been harassed by a single squad that killed them(which took about 0.1 seconds per heretic).

Personally I wouldn't change it, but its something that might want to be looked at in the future.

[SubakuGaara]

Why not allow heretics to jump into a HQ and give them a little regen as well? Its not like all my heretics are going to be hanging around HQs, but at least I know there's someplace I can put them? I mean, orks can do it despite having cloaked builders and buildings that shoot back , IG who have ridiculously tough builders can do it. Chaos NEEDS it more than those two.

How about taking of force labor's hp drain and instead putting in a cooldown for it?

[Azmodael]

What forces you to use FL? You can always build the normal way... a samll regen will be fine to help the poor heretics recover. Huge regen will make them use perma FL, which is OP-ed.

Oh, and btw a little maths. Lets say they build at 10hp/sec rate. With FL it is 13hp/sec. When both builders FL it is 13+1/2x13=13+7=20

Other pair builders build at rate 15hp/sec. This is exactly 33% faster anyway. With them damaiging themselves it is questionable wether to use, but if they have big-ass regen they will perma FL, enhancing chaos tech speed even more. And chaos teches the fastest of all races...

[LordBOB5]

And what if teching gets redesigned?
There's a huge thread about it and it's pretty convincing IMO.

[SubakuGaara]

NOt really sure if chaos techs faster than any other race seeing as SM has basically same tier structure. Perhaps what you really mean to say is chaos players feel they have to tech faster to get by. Berzerks nowadays are out at 2 min mark! I don't think it has to do with the strategy but rather the change in the pace of the game as of late. In a 20 min game, its not umcommon to see tier 3 hit at the 6 or 7 min mark.

BTW, how would force labor super speed up chaos tech? Most important thing to teching is resources and the wait time of upgrading HQ; you only build a few lps and typically have all them set up by end of tier 1. What force labor does is allow chaos to respond and grab territory quicker by allowing key structures to be laid down in seconds. SUddenly need your sac circle up because you see a grav tank? Bam its up. As for the tech speed, it wouldn't alter the overall teching rate though, especially seeing as often (as someone stated before, maybe hirm) cultists get rebuilt so often.

Remember even without the force labor drain on HP, chaos buiilder is by far the absolute weakest.

[Hirmetrium]

What forces you to use FL? For gods sake we have been through this.

Chaos early buildings apart from generators and LP's takes considerably longer to build than its counterparts. Ask Sir_Nick. He will tell you that the chaos temple itself is an extra 10-15seconds or so more buildtime than the SM one, which is longer than all other races. If you do not used forced labour, you will be under a serious setback. Chaos units are only effective if their out quickly - raptors for example. if you didn't FL, you raptors would turn up about after your being harassed, so you would lose cultists, heretics and whatnot before your raptors even get to the enemy base to counterharass.

Nobody is asking for HUGE regen. their asking for 0.5HP a sec, increased to 1HP a sec in taint.

Chaos does not tech the fastest. In fact, eldar does, since they do not need a barracks. This is a very common idiots misconception. Chaos techs the 2nd slowest I believe, and the only reason their tech is so powerful - is because they have a powerful unit avaible at the very start of tier 2. This means this unit is out very quickly, whereas other races need additional building/buildings.

I still think your making a mountain out of a molehill. FL is fine, but perhaps it needs a little tweaking. I will not suggest anything because I believe it is fine, but I can understand that the need for regen on a heretic.

[Energizer Bunny]

A little regen for heretics wouldn't hurt anything. Besides, I thought the whole 'I shoot your heretics with my scouts' thing died along with T1 in DC(?). Certainly not a tactic I use with any regularity anymore.

That said, as Lord Bob says if they slow teching in the next patch then the old weakness will come creeping back. Anybody who doesn't recognise FL is a complete doubled edged sword clearly never plays Chaos. They have possibly the worst build system of all the races.

[Chris]

Chaos does not tech the fastest. In fact, eldar does, since they do not need a barracks. This is a very common idiots misconception. Chaos techs the 2nd slowest I believe, and the only reason their tech is so powerful - is because they have a powerful unit avaible at the very start of tier 2. This means this unit is out very quickly, whereas other races need additional building/buildings.

Har har har no. Realistically chaos are one of the fastest teching races, raptors may be 'expensive' but a well executed harass pays for itself 10 times over. SM tech is cheaper but they normally end up spending a little bit more than chaos so it evens out.


A little regen for heretics wouldn't hurt anything. Besides, I thought the whole 'I shoot your heretics with my scouts' thing died along with T1 in DC(?). Certainly not a tactic I use with any regularity anymore.

That said, as Lord Bob says if they slow teching in the next patch then the old weakness will come creeping back. Anybody who doesn't recognise FL is a complete doubled edged sword clearly never plays Chaos. They have possibly the worst build system of all the races.


Died out in WA in my opinion. Ever since chaos was given a powerhouse economy and early raptors for counter harassment, killing a heretic or 2 just didn't make much of an impact. In the right circumstance it could still be a setback but I don't think it's a major weakness anymore. In DoW losing a heretic or 2 = well shit... GG. Now your raptors can kill an enemy builder or capper in trade and maybe even decap some points.


What form of mega tactical advantage i achive by having my barracks built 2 seconds before the other guy?

Erm if you double FL the chaos barracks it can go up in I think 18 seconds. That's a huge advantage. Chaos and eldar are the 2 races you can guarantee will double-build their barracks at the start, other races like SM or Ork often build a capper (sometimes 2) first, IG for example will never be able to build a techpriest first due to the build time.