[SS 1.0] Revelling in Commander nostalgia

[Zany Reaper]

Whilst not exactly a balance issue, the following trait doesn't apply to all race's commanders, so I thought that I'd bring this up.

Remember back in the old Dawn of war, when commanders scaled well into Tier 4, and always did decent damage to super-units of other races (apart from the farseer, but her weapons were still hard-countered)?

What happened to all this since new commanders were added to the game? It seems that half of the new commanders beyond Winter assault lack this feature. Furthurmore, we're seeing that as some commanders gain different weapons, this nifty feature is gradually ebbing away...
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Here's an example - The good old Manreaper/Accursed crozius of the Chaos lord, whose dps are mentioned HERE. (http://wiki.reliccommunity.com/Chaos_Lord)

This obviously deals a great amount of damage to vehicle & monster_high armour classes, making him a decent counter to super units. The same also applies to the Chaos sorcerer.

Now take a look at Sisters of Battle Cannoness profile HERE. (http://wiki.reliccommunity.com/Canoness)

I know that SoB commanders are supposed to be weaker than most others, but her damage to vehicle_high isn't anything that special (though her monster_high damage is a lot better, albeit still lower than the Chaos lord). The confessor follows a similar pattern...

The Eldar Seer council (http://wiki.reliccommunity.com/Seer_Council), also classed as a commander unit has absolutely no capability of this whatsoever. I know it's a squad, but still...

To end with, both the DE Archon squad & IG command squad deal substandard damages to these armour types too. Whilst both are obviously squads, where one would have to fully re-inforce them, the cost just ain't that great vs super units compared to lone commanders, in both cases, particularly for the Archon.

Furthurmore, both IG & DE secondary commanders don't deal that much damage to both either. This includes the assassin too.
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There's the aspect of damage dealt back to commanders by super units too.

The old-day monster super-units indeed deal roughly 50-60 dps to commanders. The Squiggoth deals this in melee, but about double that in range. However, the squiggoth when against a commander in full-blown melee should not be using its ranged weapons, despite its poor pathfinding.

The Tau Greater knarloc also deals 70dps as well, which's better than the Bloodthirster and the Eldar Avatar. This is still acceptable however as the Greater knarloc in all situations is easier to kill, having at best 3300 HP less than the Bloodthister (at worst, 6000HP).

However, the Space marine Land raider deals much more nowadays, at a total of about 120 dps to commanders (thanks to the 85 dps from the heavy bolter, mainly).

After that, we have the Necron monolith, whose particle whip & gauss flux arc deals practically unbiased damage to commanders - so they take more punishment (about 140 dps on average if 2 flux guns & particle whip is focussed, otherwise 84 dps with just 2 flux guns when in melee). It doesn't help that the particle whip can potentially keep a commander from actually attacking the monolith in the first place either.

With the 2 SS races, it's even worse. The DE Dais of destruction deals not only over 100 dps to commanders, but can dance them very easily too. Dark scythe deals its full complement of 1500 damage (minimum) to commanders, instagibbing the Tau commander and many secondary commanders.

The SoB Living saint however tops it off with 144 dps to commanders, making a total mockery of our precious heroes, and that doesn't include the Flame of Ardent ability too.
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Conclusion:

I reckon we ought to ressurect the high damage to commanders & give it to all races. Obviously, the commander squads will need some sort of compromise, but this' one great feature that I would hate to see go when DOW2 comes round.

Furthurmore, DE & IG are at some sort of disadvantage when it comes to super units vs commanders, having to rely on their elites instead. Tau technically are also in this situation, but their own super-unit deals a reasonable amount of damage back (as do hammerheads).

Damage to commanders by super units should also be made more uniform, particularly in the cases of the ranged super units, and SoB Living saint.

So, what do you think?

[ViS]

Eldar already have Brightlance plats. Their entire army basic functions as a giant hard counter to EVERYTHING.

[D-coy]

Yes, it would be a good idea.

I have one question though. Did you check the damage of ubers/super units VS commander armour? Just asking because if I recall correctly, commanders are effective vs ubers only because they last longer, not mainly because they deal that much more damage to them. All in all, it might be a good idea to look at ubers DPS vs comms.

Cheers

[Zany Reaper]

D-coy - Yeah, you're right. I've edited the 1st post.

ViS - This was probably the case in old DOW too seeing as the farseer has always done meagre damage to super-units. I wish it wasn't the case though.

[santiago4ever]

I am not sure if this qualifies as a balance issue thread. You have failed to convince me of any imbalances to fix so far. The assassin does quite good damage against monster_high, especially while using the scope ability. The Command Squad does not to that shabby damage in melee either, especially considering the psykers CoTMS against vehicle_high and the priests invul ability, which is also the reason why the mini-commander priests does crap damage to superunits. Spammed invulnerability units going for your superunits = no fun. Also the Ogryn squad with priest attached will make a good job at killing superunits.

The cannoness doesn't really have THAT bad damage output with the brazier of holy fire, certainly not when you look at the side-effects:

25% chance to disable abilities for 3 s.
50% chance to disable movement for 2 s.
50% chance to disable combat abilities for 4 s.

which kinda makes up for her somewhat lower damage output.

Confessor also has decent damage in melee against superunits, maybe not on-par with the heroes of old... But it's a secondary support commander, and a caster to boot...

The dark scythe ability damage is a confirmed bug.

You might have a point that some races has trouble countering superunits but I'm not at all convinced yet.

[Orgad_E]

that is a nice idea but it would require new balancing for most of the races.

[Zany Reaper]

TBH, I think that a lot more of the problems come into the campaign weapons...

What I'm more concerned about is how it's devolved from Vanilla. I'm pretty sure that for example, the Daemonhammer did 100% damage to vehicle_high, but now its somewhat rather lower than before.

In the campaign, particularly with the Chaos lord, his weapons also deal nowt to these things.

santiago4ever - Suppose you're right about the status ailments, so that sorta makes up for the damage reductions. What about the wierd & non-uniform damage dealt by super-units to commanders though? The SoB living saint does three times the damage to commanders than the Avatar & Bloodthirster, yet is only slightly easier to kill (overall, seeing as she dies twice). The Monolith, Land Raider & Dais of destruction also do masses of damage with their basic weaponry too. The Dais of destruction is of particular concern as it can outrun most commanders with incredible ease.

Commanders ATM take on more of a supportive role against super-units when these stun abilities are taken into account, provided that these anomalous super units don't kill them quickly enough.
Also remember that the Archon squad has no such status ailments either, putting him at a major disadvantage. The IG command squad isn't quite as bad due to fanactasism, but without status ailments, super units can simply just run away...

Orgad_E - Not really, just damage reductions to commanders from the above mentioned super-units are what's mainly needed, along with possible status ailments to those that don't already have them (apart from the Tau commander).

[ImmortalChaos]

On top of Santi's argument, what is the point in making all the commander units the same? These units are diverse and fill different roles. Why try to cram everything up into the same roles just because they're tagged as a commander or a super-unit?

[santiago4ever]

Zany: You cannot just make a blanket comparison of all the superunits and their damages to different unit kinds, or their durability. You have to look at what other units a race has available, what abilities can be used, how good its economy could be expected to be, how it fares in the early tiers and so on and so on.

So some super units are better than others at countering commander units? In what matchups is this a problem and does it impact the balance of that matchup late-game?

And as IC hinted, just because units are of the same class doesn't mean that they have to have the same functionality

[White_Pointer]

However, the Space marine Land raider deals much more nowadays, at a total of about 120 dps to commanders (thanks to the 85 dps from the heavy bolter, mainly).

Don't forget the Landraider was a lot less powerful in the original DoW, and you could build up to 4 of them. It's only since WA that it's been buffed and capped at 1 like the other relic units.

White_Pointer

[Zany Reaper]

I thought that in general, one of the roles of commanders was to be able to tackle super units, no? Or has it been decided that they'll just be made redundant in later tiers, as some primary commanders are.

[Rotlung]

I've always seen them as support units that either serves as tanks or fulfil other specialised roles.

The old races feature the Force Commander (especially well-equipped Space Marine), Chaos Lord (probably the Chaos equivalent, being once a Space Marine), and the Warboss (mega unit), so it's no wonder that these units would stand up fairly well against super units. I don't see a reason why the Command Squad (a bunch of fairly ordinary men with some equipment better than that used by guardsmen), Necron Lord(was never meant to take on large units on his own, instead relying on his supporting mass of Necron firepower. What's so... heroic about the NL anyway :p), Tau Commander ('nuff said) and Archon (same about command squad. These guys relish in suffering, but super units don't really look at the word 'suffer' with much respect...) should be good against super units (they still could be, but I wouldn't consider it necessary).

I don't know about the Canonness. Maybe because she's not a really enhanced commander in the way the Force Commander is, and is thus able to hold her own fairly well but still falter against say an Avatar?

It would be nice the super units didn't kill commanders as if they were ordinary infantry units. I'm not expecting a Force Commander alone to stand up to the full weaponry of a Land Raider and still survive for a minute...

[Zany Reaper]

The imbalance really is the damage dealt to commanders by certain super-units. I put the thing about the commanders dealing high damage to super-units really just because I liked that feature, but it's not as important (balance-wise) as the other point.

The Tau commander really is the only commander that doesn't deserve to have a special 'hard-countered' damage against super-units, because he's a ranged unit that has an easier time dancing/being ignored by most super-units. I still think it sucks that you have to rely on your Tier 3/4 tanks & elite units to kill monsters though. Hammerhead gunships in particular do a pretty decent amount of damage to monster_high.