Extra boys or big shootas?

[Roady]

What do you think is better upgrading for more boys or big shootas?

For your squad you can spend

35 req: for 9.4-11.6 extra damage and add 333hp (not forgetting cc damage too!).
(or at higher tier, 35 req : 12-20.9 damage and 416hp)

or

40 req, 10 power: for 8.8-9.7 extra damage and range increase of 10 for 1 squad member.
(or at higher tier, 40 req, 10 power: for 8.1-11.1 damage and 10 range increase).

Is it me or are the damage values for big shootas a bit lack-luster? Is a range upgrade of 10 really worth that much?

Unlike SM, CSM & SOB where upgrading to heavy weapons is like increasing the firepower of the squad by 3-5 members throughout the tiers.

Now i know orks are pretty balenced as they are and this will never get remedied but still big shootas seem redundant to me.

[ImmortalChaos]

Big shoota mass can no longer compete with HB mass, yes, however it is still extremely valuble to get some BS in T1.5 and outrange other races for a while. Its not overwhelming like it used to be, bet certainly can be used to get a edge on the early game fighting.

[SpArTy]

Oh its still overwhelming, see Dr Ork :|

[Roady]

So is it still better than another boy?

Is it match-up dependant at all? Is there anytime when one is better than the other?

[ImmortalChaos]

Id certainly think some races (tau FWs and DE scourge come to mind) have units that will absolutely trash shootas with big shootas, however they should fair very well against races like necrons, SM, and CSM. SoB I dont really know, I think seraphims might be problematic, and IG have grenades which outrange even big shootas.

[Hawillis]

BS pwn unless your getting shot at.
Consider your situation and reinforce accordingly.

[Mgee]

big shootas are usually a good idea if youre able to get the first shots in or quickly tie up their own firing line

[White_Pointer]

Big Shootas are still useful in tier 1.5, for one major reason. They still arrive earlier than most other heavy weapons. All you need is a banner and a PoG. The problem with getting another squad of boyz is, assuming you are at 25 pop and are currently maxing out your ork pop, you'll need to hand over another 170 req (yeah banners have had a price hike in SS) before you can build another squad. Whereas, if you already have your PoG, equip your existing squads with big shootas and increase their firepower.


Id certainly think some races (tau FWs and DE scourge come to mind) have units that will absolutely trash shootas with big shootas,

Against Tau you definitely shouldn't go for BS unless they go kroot heavy. Against DE though, I find BS are actually quite effective in tier 1/1.5 as long as you have some sluggas or stormboyz around for tie-up. Scourges are tier 2, so hopefully you should have something better than BS to tackle them when they arrive! :)

White_Pointer

[Arcinatus]

Against Tau you definitely shouldn't go for BS unless they go kroot heavy.

why not? wouldnt having 1 squad or so with a few big shootas supporting yer sluggas / stormies be a good thing? :0

[White_Pointer]

why not? wouldnt having 1 squad or so with a few big shootas supporting yer sluggas / stormies be a good thing? :0

Not really. You might want to attach a BM to a shoota squad to teleport around and chase the TC, but I find the money you'd be spending on big shootas better invested in stormboyz against Tau. Once you have a couple of stormboy squads chasing his FW around and you have some excess money then sure, buy some BS's if you still have a shoota squad left. In general though FW's will eat shootas with or without BS for breakfast. Although, I guess sticking them on melee stance to tie-up then switching to ranged to chase them while firing is also an option.

White_Pointer

[Arcinatus]

ahhh ok, nevermind then XD

[Dak3n]

I think going either extra boyz or bigshootas depends on which race you are facing and if you did a banner or gen BO at the start and also depends on your playstyle and micro.

Usualy if i start with a banner BO with orks and build a shootaboy squad i usualy reinforce it to the max to increase their duarabilty, so they can deal reasonable damage when harassing and so its easier to micro just the 1 squad.

However if i do a gen BO i usualy wont be able to reinforce straight my shootaboyz straight away so usualy after a harass i put down another banner and i usualy can afford to put down the PoG straight after an immediately begin upgrading to bigshootas.

Next its down to preference and i personally prefer to have smaller squads so it enables me to have more big shootas within my ork pop with the advatage or the extra range and damage ie 4 squads or 4 shootaboyz with maximum of 12 bigshootas instead of 2 squads of 8 shootaboyz with max of 6 bigshootas, however smaller squad size means they die pretty easy if your micro isnt good.

Having a larger squad but less squads is much easier to micro and it also doesnt put your tech as far behind and is also good at diguising the fact that your massing bigshootas when you could be teching instead against races like ig and sm who may delay their own tech in getting counters such as grenades or scout snipers.

[Morifen]

keep in mind that big shoota is the only heavy weapon of its type (heavy bolter) that can fire on the move

[mlai]

LOL, with the FOTM nerf that BS received in SS, it might as well not have FOTM. They still cost 40/10 like SM/CSM HBs, which is ridiculous.

Now that WBs are ridiculously expensive, I always go gen BO at the start. You can't sustain a reasonable increase in number of WBs if yougo WB build, unless it's a puny map and you're set to rush. If you don't build a gen at minute 0, orkz will always be behind in tech.

[Xanthian]

It's not quite that dire, mlai.

And I'm miffed at why you think BS are useless vs fire warriors, pointer. Lead with your teleporting squad, put all the following shootas on attack-melee with the fire warriors, and profit. Assuming any of his squads break or get double tied by the slugga squad splitting its targets, you can now hit q on a shoota squad and enjoy free shooting, with a single big shoota usually responsible for wiping out an extra retreating fire warrior just purely on range alone. You don't strictly have to build more than the first stormboy squad vs tau that's used to make the initial pass over the attack area to clear out any snares with their jetpacks. (And you never reinforce that suicide squad.) Or at least, that's been the tactic that's worked best for me. Stormboy tie-up vs tau always has me struggling to pay for the expensive jetpack sluggas and banners at the same time, while they struggle to kill any retreating squads who are moving and have no answer for kroot, who will be leaping soon to shed them off their ranged units anyway.

However, having said that, I can definitely see an argument now for teching to nob leaders and not bothering with big shootas except as an afterthought to have to avoid putting down yet more banners. Shoota boys themselves will ultimately struggle with almost anything that isn't lightly armored low-tier infantry. And BS aren't really useful any longer than shootas themselves.


Big shoota mass can no longer compete with HB mass

When could it ever?

I mean, honestly?? MAYBE in heavy cover with a mek forcefield, 'eavy armor upgrade, nob leaders, and blastier. But certainly not for cost. And even then it was more you being in cover and your enemy not that won it, rather than your ranged units.


keep in mind that big shoota is the only heavy weapon of its type (heavy bolter) that can fire on the move

Keep in mind that the SM flamer has similar damage values across the board, can hit multiple targets, and comes out at the same time. It can also fire on the move. A LOT better than the big shoota.

Also, keep in mind that orks have no other ranged units to fill the dancing role, that shoota boys are a lot more fragile than units that get heavy bolters, and that true heavy bolters do a lot more damage for identical cost. The only real similarity they share with heavy bolters is that they're a lot better at killing guardsmen, shoota boys and guardians than they are at killing heavy bolter infantry. Note, orks also don't have a dedicated dancing heavy weapon option to kill heavy infantry with either (plasma). (And they unilaterally suck on the move now with absolutely everything other than sub-par flamers.)

You can understand why people are aggravated by the value just not being there, even if the unit can potentially be sometimes useful. Especially considering the fact it's instantly obsolete once tier 2 hits the field.

If you're arguing that perhaps big shootas shouldn't fire on the move at all, then they need a *serious* buff to put them on par with other bolters. Perhaps a second blastier research in t2 that only affects big shootas (and maybe shoota boys)? They'd actually probably need a second buff and then some, purely because of the durability issue. And then you have to stop consider the total annihilation you could wreak once you hit trukks, with their own big shootas, fitting in two squads of shoota boys each, potentially with juice, flying across the map with turbo boost, and you start to see why orks can't get good things like real bolters. :p On the issues of trukks and shootas alone, I find myself using shootas in tier 3 more than flash gits now, because you can stick two in a trukk, and the nob leader deals a lot more damage to tie-up. They're also much more pop-efficient and sustain the same mob bonus per member, plus two trukks flying around = 4 mobile juices.

[mlai]

It's not quite that dire, mlai.
I'm really feeling the 170 req per WB (which has nerfed dps). Without a gen first, you don't get LP2's fast enough, which means you don't build WBs fast enough.


You don't strictly have to build more than the first stormboy squad vs tau
I'm of the opinion that you need as many SB squads as you can manage vs Tau and Eldar. Sluggas + Shootas just don't cut it for me.

How awesome would it be if Big Shootas can get back their DoW FotM % with the Blastier upgrade? :D~~~

[Xanthian]

Eldar are a different story. Fleet of foot necessitates stormboys.

But sluggas are vastly superior to stormboys at running around listening posts getting shot at, faster than the fire warriors trying to escape them can move (charge bonus ftw). They sure as hell deal more damage than a stormboy would on the move too, with the fast reload on a shoota and the flamer option on sluggas.

You can cut off a retreat with stormboys and smash them with guns from the front and choppy from behind, true, but every time you engage/disengage, you lose almost a full squad, if you reinforced it, and I have never been able to recover that cost with the stormboys being moved around LPs and kroot. (a jump behind the fire warriors lands in a snare, fire warriors move two inches, then annihilate the stormboys, and kroot massacre the shootas who I didn't build enough of because I was massing stormboys...)

[ImmortalChaos]

Why the hell is every ork player bitching about the WB price increase? It went up by 5 req. Most other races had their T2 cost increased by something along the lines of 50/25 and a handful of seconds. Orks were also slowed so as not to create dirty imbah.

[Xanthian]

Ok, then I guess orks were "dirty imbah" in Winter Assault.

Because they weren't sped up at all between WA and DC, when everyone else was, and they were fine in DC.

The real issue causing the aggravation stems from the fact that to have a tier 1, orks need a gen, the mek, the pile of guns (it's NOT optional for tier 2, unlike every other army, even if you wanted to tech without it), and 1-2 banners. That, right there, has more cost associated with it than most armies have for tier 2, period. Add an extra 1-2 banners and the fact you can't offset ork tech with energy before they even hit tier 2, and unless you can force an army to fight around your wb2s you're still trailing way behind.

Fine, nerf big shootas and ork harass, don't replace the only weapon orks had on the move with anything, and nerf banners while you're at it -- how about orks get a fast tech option or an energy offset on banners then? (I know I'd be happier with 150/30 per banner than 170/0, because it's nigh impossible to spend the energy from a single gen in tier 1 to begin with, and nigh impossible to have a tier 1 without the gen.)

Or, here's a thought, if banners are meant to be too expensive to protect lp2's with, can we get a durability upgrade on lp2's? Those paper-thin structures that we need to pay for to get requisition, that are more than twice as fragile as any other race and have no redeeming features? No other army had a price hike on turrets, and the vanilla shoota boys themselves still can't stand up to any real ranged units. Note also, banner damage was nerfed rather seriously.

I'm not saying orks are useless, far from it, they're the closest thing left to a turret rush right now. But the nerfs to the ork tier 1 were to the core of tier 1, and they addressed neither the obsoleteness of the unit outside tier 1, nor the problem of banners already being a stupid liability in late tiers in the first place, all to fix an early big shoota rush that would have been best pushed back a banner instead. And now it's painfully obvious that there's a lack of damage on the move in the army, along with the fact that other armies seem to be able to field more units while teching due to cheaper tech that isn't 100% requisition.

[ImmortalChaos]

Orks were the single best race other than tau and cron in DC.

[White_Pointer]

Orks were the single best race other than tau and cron in DC.

Agreed, though I think they'd have competition from Chaos as well. Orks were a funny race actually as IG vs Orks was one of the most balanced matchups in the game but Orks also stood a pretty solid chance against Necs. Kinda strange really :P

White_Pointer

[mlai]

Orks were the single best race other than tau and cron in DC.
In DC? More like Crons > Chaos > the rest > IG.

[Chris]

Agreed, though I think they'd have competition from Chaos as well. Orks were a funny race actually as IG vs Orks was one of the most balanced matchups in the game but Orks also stood a pretty solid chance against Necs. Kinda strange really :P

IG were one of the only races who could simultaneously mass enough infantry to challenge Ork map control and also have a tier 1.5 answer to big shootas in the form of grenade launchers. Unfortunately I think the BS nerf and GL range fix will tip this matchup in IGs favour quite significantly.

[ImmortalChaos]

In DC? More like Crons > Chaos > the rest > IG.
More like Necs >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tau > Ork >>>>>>>>>>> the rest.

[mlai]

If Chaos didn't do its job for you in DC, you need to L2P.

[random guy]

Also gitz got nerfed they no longer have the 2nd range upgrade which makes them lil bit less effective

[Xanthian]

Also gitz got nerfed they no longer have the 2nd range upgrade which makes them lil bit less effective

Yeah, gits had nothing to do with ork superiority in tier 3 except for scrub matches. And that's not the nerf that hurt, either. Gits taking up both slots of a trukk. Now THERE'S the nerf that has stopped me using them altogether.

"Ohnoes, my scouts are tying up his gits, however will I survive?"; there wasn't really anything gits could do that big shootas couldn't, other than take out vehicles; which was nerfed in DC 1.2 already.

Now, shootas are immeasurably better than gits for transport abuse and such, I'm finding myself exploiting slower tech with transport abusing ahead of tier 3 teching, after which the only changes to my tactics involve juice and even more stormboys (they're better than nobs in tier 3, now). I seem to be ignoring gits altogether as a unit now, since double transport duty + two juices per trukk allow my squad to be effective longer and harder to counter than a morale-vulnerable, fragile, overpriced unit that's worse in melee than shootas with a pk nob leader, not to mention ALL of the metrics per pop and per cost favour shoota boys heavily. It also means that shootas can shoot, chase, shoot, chase, shoot, chase, and ignore the fotm nerf, whereas one git squad per trukk is just excessively bad (if the trukk goes down or the git squad has its morale broken, there's not a whole lot of point to the unit). Essentially, have a look at what two shoota squads can do better than one git squad, have a look at the cost:effectiveness metrics, and factor in mob bonuses, and gits are just allaround worse.

Basically, unlike other elites, gits are not more cost effective than shootas. The reason for this used to be juice + transports + av-versatility + fast tech putting them in reach ahead of mass transported shootas, but now that they effectively lost most of those, juice can't make them into a good unit in my eyes. Supported in a shootout, gits are fine (and don't even need juice). As a harass unit or being the backbone of your army in tier 3? Not so much. (They still suck up almost a third of your pop, however.) Shootas can fill this role now if used properly, and don't strictly need the support since two trukks full will supply their own mob bonus and then some. (And they'll even benefit from the damage bonuses to boot.)

[Chris]

That post is filled with irony. Gitz had nothing to do with Ork superiority except in "scrub" matches? That sounds like something a scrub would say. Srcubby McScrubberson.

Yeah on paper Gitz arn't so great, kind of like Oblits. However, you should never underestimate the power of a unit that simply requires 1 right click reinforce to be 100% combat effective. Even with multiple boyz huts, producing fresh BS squads and maintaining them isn't as efficient in terms of speed/time which IMO is much more important in tier 3-4 when you're easily pushing a +110/+90 economy. Once you're in tier 3+ with money to burn you don't need the hassle of reinforcing squad leaders, heavy weapons etc. etc. That's why so many tier 3 games turn into elite meatgrinders.

[Xanthian]

Yeah on paper Gitz arn't so great, kind of like Oblits.

That's hardly fair. The only unit gits are better at taking out than oblits is builders, oblits are viable AV for example, and oblits are more than twice as durable, along with guaranteed morale immunity and teleporters. Note that oblits can teleport onto the field too. The only real upper hand I see is that gits can run faster. Oblits are also much better use of relative pop.

The weaknesses of gits (morale, health) were circumvented by transports and juice. Now I don't find the footprint of one squad per huge ass trukk to be desirable, nor the fact that I only have one mobile juice squad per trukk to use as I see fit, gits are nothing but a big "break me" morale bullseye.

Flash gits themselves really only stand up in a straight shootout where juice is involved, and if you stick juice on a shoota squad, you end up with the same result only the shoota squad is much more efficient use of pop and supplies its own mob bonus. And again, the transport issue. I understand a quick tech to tier 3 for go-go-gits was over the top, especially for things like a tacmass to try to deal with, but right now the transport issue alone is preventing me from using the squad at all. (I'm not advocating that the footprint of the trukk change, btw, nor the turning radius. That's the balancing factor for its insane move speed and bolters, and I'm still not sure it's completely balanced.)

Essentially, if gits are going to remain the "fragile dedicated anti-infantry counter that can't be transported", they need to be able to do their role without taking juice away from the rest of the army or gain something like grenades to prevent being tied up since they suck up a whole third of the pop cap (which in and of itself in tier 3 is a bane, not a boon, since orks are typically outnumbered at this stage). Otherwise, bring back some of that vehicle damage, imo, so that the wasted pop can at least be regained in some sort of versatility. Or at least fix them so they project the same mob bonus that nobs do. There's just too many limits as they currently stand.

Or, just ignore me. As I continue to ignore tier 4, gits, fighta bommas, and the second nob squad.

Edit: except for the mek. He can potentially make a git squad a great proposition with his teleport, I'm just not sure I want to take it away from nobs in doing so, and every time I've tried previously, I've found myself wishing I had the mek in melee instead, projecting the forcefield over the other melee units and just generally sync killing his way along.