Using the Apoth

[Scottish Baron]

How do people use the apoth? What kind of wargear do you give him, and which of his abilities to you find most useful to your playing styles?

[Chronos525]

His final armor is really good. (Armor of the Apothecary? I forget the name.) The aoe healing is terrific to match with termis late game and the chance to automatically revive when he gets downed can be invaluable.

Against tyranids or orks, purification rites/vials really helps.

I tend to avoid combat stimulants. It seems really lackluster for an armor spot but maybe I'm just underestimating it.

The power axe is pretty badass but the apoth can't really take as much damage as FC can (mostly due to the iron halo/battlecry special move procs) so I tend to prefer the bolter if I want to upgrade his weapon.

[SteinerNein]

Combat stimulants. Power Axe.

You won't get to Armor of the Apothecarian in early game. You need to win before late game.

[Plyshkin]

Hmm... I usually always win in late game. It's awfully hard to get map control and win early game vs a good player, regardless the race :)

[SteinerNein]

By mid game I have AoA but at times switch between that and Stimulants depending on the situation.

At mid game is when you want to push out hard.

[HiveMind]

One of my favourite things to do is to win a skirmish with my tacmass and then capture the triple gen farm everyone puts right next to their base. I'll usually secure it with 3 Tactical squads and a Razorback for reinforcement. Something that I haven't done but sounds awesome is to do that with the Armour of the Apothecarion too. AoA and a Razorback turns any defensive position into an HQ, practically guaranteeing that you will win any fight. Since most people would want to take their gen farm back ASAP, they'll end up suiciding most of their army against your super wall of unstoppable Marines.

[Faceless Clock]

I usually go with the bolter. The knock-down is very useful for finishing off enemy commanders. The power axe is a better choice against a force commander, however.

In terms of armors, Armor Of The Apothecary is amazing.

Generally I use him as support firepower. His ability to heal is very useful in numerous situations, and makes already tough tac marines virtually unstoppable. With the apothecary, you want to get into a war of attrition, because that is a war you'll win.

[zer0ex]

i tend to use him as a front-liner...power axe, purification rites, and armor of purity. makes him pretty good for taking on any infantry or commander with support.

[SteinerNein]

Power Axe for some neat tricks you can do with it.

Purification Rites, Combat Stims.

Transition into Armor of the Apothecarion - no metal, all bio.

[TheJon]

Power Axe - Leeches mana, can hurt vehicles (slightly), and ground pounding moves to clear the area because its a power weapon. The Chainsword is cool because it leeches health but the axe does more damage and the mana is a huge help.

Armor of Purity - this is the first armor upgrade it halves the cooldown for your heal. This combined with the axe is a very nice combo.

Purification Rites - I always upgrade this...its perfect for crowd control. it heals the target ally and damages the units around that ally. Higher lvl = more damage.

with the axe, armor, and purification rites, i've cleared mobs of nids and orc, and devastated eldar.

[Saias]

Power Axe, Armour of Purity and Purification rites.
The Power Axe is necessary in ranked 3v3s because of all the lolhamhalo FCs running around and Purification + Purity massively buffs his heal/damage abilities.

[redscare]

Ok, I see the logic behind axe+purity+rites but... how do you keep him alive???

In a lot of scenarios is your army (couple of tacs+apoth+scouts) vs a similar enemy army with a melee commander that has higher damage and probably a shield. They focus fire your apoth and he drops like a fly heal or not :'(

With the bolter you can keep it among your troops where he cannot be focus-fired so easily, but with the axe...

How exactly do you use him? Do you wait till someone melees your ranged army and then use the axe? Do you always use him with some ASM and charge together in melee?

I'm in dire need of advice, cos I like him a lot but I suck badly with him in 1vs1.

[Sithdemon]

I personally go with the bolter, armor of purity, and improved medical equipment.

I tend to keep him with my 2 x tac ML, and let my 2 x ASM mix it up front. scouts for a grenade here and there, and helping with a little knockdown from a shottie. It's all about keeping the heals up, and out lasting the enemy, focus fire when you can, and just keep an eye on when you can heal next, because a well time heal to the right unit and change alot around, especially after your apoth has leveled up a bit and heal actually does a fair bit.

Armor of the apothicarian if I don't have anything else to spend it on, but I usually go most games without needing it.

[SteinerNein]

Armor of Purity gets out dated too fast by Combat Stims =/

[zer0ex]

i dunno, having the lower cool down is so useful, especially when combined with purification rites. say you get stuck in with yer ASM, and they're eating things up, but quickly get swarmed. quick heal, and BAM! they're back up with HP and did some damage to that swarm. and you can do it again pretty fast.

combat stims are kinda hit and miss with me. sure the extra damage is nice, but i like faster healing or AoE healing...

[Fat_Bloke]

My personal favourite set up is Sanguine Chainsword, Armour of Apothocarian and improved medical equipment. Pair him up with some assault marines, the chainsword keeps the apothacary alive and the amount of damage the assault rines can do as a result of staying in combat for an almost limitless period (due to you using all heal powers on the assaults and not the apoth) does get awesomely fun.

[SteinerNein]

@ zer0ex

When you reach critical mass with tac squads you transition into AoA because there is no use for combat stims at that high DPS out put.

However, when you're still stuck with one tac squad you'll want to squeeze out the extra DPS. 75% is not a joke and means that a warrior squad will almost be dead by the time it reaches you in melee and any shoot out will invariably result in your success.

DPS until you can have enough to survive. Having one or two tac squads does not necessarily entail survivability.

[redscare]

I still need advice. I'd really like to get the hang of using apoth + stims but stims are T2 so... WTF do you do on T1??? At least with FC you can win some skirmishes and get a couple of points. But with apoth?? You lose vs everyone else, and 1heal (initial skirmishes don't last much) with apoth lvl 1 is not going to change that.

Any help/hint/tip for 1vs1 will be greatly appreciated :)

Oh, btw, I tried stims in 3vs3. A ML-tac squad almost one-shotted a deff dread. F*ing amazing! :D

[SteinerNein]

Tech fast?

[redscare]

Tech fast?

Thanks a lot, Captain Obvious :D But that means that your T1 is tacs+apoth (scouts are capping). WTF do you do against any other hero + his 500req worth of units? Or do you just avoid combat at all in T1? But in that case the already poor early map control SM has becomes even worse.

[SteinerNein]

Cap strength of 3 versus 4 or 5.

That's not bad actually. =p

Go for economy, hit points close to each other and with buildings - leave the others uncontested; focus on decapping but not necessarily capping. Consistency is what brings the most benefits hence you can actually actively deny them.

[redscare]

Ummm.... So... avoid combat by decapping their points and GTFO till you can bring more units to the party in T2 and get some wargear so our beloved apoth starts doing something. Sounds like a plan, I'll give it a try :)

Thx!

[BombrMan]

I'm surprised that no one uses the sanguine chainsword. Early on the axe is clearly better but once I get AoA I get the chainsword. I always go for the thing that makes his mana recharge faster in the 3rd slot. That way he can stay in CC for an insane period of time, if he dies he gets back up on his own most of the time, and I can use both healing abilities more freely since he gains life when in combat.

[xgErlend]

SteinerNein is 100% right.

My normal run with Apoth will give me a RB deployed at the 3:30sec mark. That's if I can keep the illusion of map contesting for long enough. IMO you need to do exactly what SN said. Guard the points that are close together. Make sure you fight places where you can get home without loosing your units. A good Apoth player should not loose units untill he can push and actually chooses to fight in Tier2. Just keep running around in Tier1 and try to contest as much as you can.
I will normally build a tach squad as the first thing I do. Then cap node, 3 gens, tier2, RB. Thats a normal build. Once I am Tier2 I can switch things up depending on my opponent.
Combat stims are a must in the early Tier2 engagements. A lot of people dont really know its there, and you will wreck punks with it! You still need to be carefull untill you get more of a firebase, but yeah. You will want to push HARD in Tier2 and try to retake as much as you can.

Against Bubbleboy with his skill-thunder... I still have not found a way to consistantly beat any decent (TS30+) SM who uses him and backs him with tachs.

All of you saying AOA and Sanguine. Um... when your channeling the AoE heal ability, your not attacking. You will have to turn off the AoE heal to use your attacks, and that includes your single target heal. You are rooted while AoA is activated. Besides... against any good player, like what RedScare is talking about, your Apoth is going to be a stain if he is melee. I normally try to avoid melee with my Apoth.

[unregistered]

You should make sure apoth is attacking first then put AoA (Apoth keeps attacking as long as his target doesn't move on because AoA is only 5 energy and power axe resuplies as long as it hits some one plus it will drains is FC's energy.
For the Tacts Plasma Dev and HB Dev are good but pure melle might get you killed.
On the other hand if your pure ranged hell be able to use cover/ flank you and his FC will easily tie you up.
also keep your forces mixed or hell be able to just use anti infantry stuff. Vehicles are good but do not send them in w/out support.

[ZeroNiner09]

You can give your opponents a nasty surprise by going offensive ranged with stims, which works well on high priority targets: Mastercrafted Bolter, with Stims and either Purification Vials or Rites. First you buff the squad of your flavour, then you go Full Auto on the target you want knocked down and if that doesn't cut it, you grenade the them (with vials) or send a unit into melee (with rites).

The Pros of this build are that you can knockdown retreating units, especially commanders and kill them. You also stay out of melee, where the apothecary doesn't shine as much as other commanders.

The Cons are that the Full Auto special isn't very reliable and often misfires, if a unit isn't close enough or something bumps into the apothecary. If you use everything at once you might find yourself energy starved.

[Sharkpunch]

I always thought the FC was the best commander until I focused my build around Apoth+ASM. I either get the Vials or Purification rites depending on what my enemy is fielding. Then in T2 Combat Stims are godlike. Never really bothered getting any of the weapon upgrades unless I have surplus req late game.

[DespotSheep]

Nowadays i upgrade according to battlefield conditions. I find stim good, but it sacrifices the armour. Unless u stim, and then put the eq back on while on the attack after the stim.

I now dun put static dev squad. My dev squad moves with me slightly behind my squads so its unseen incase they got jump-units. So they can set up either on each sides or behind. And if i have mostly ranged units i will upgrade Flame Sword.

still experimenting on the eq's

[Shakrith]

I always go with the Sanguine Chainsword and the Armour of the Apothecarion, because it makes him and everything around him unkillable. I then usually fill out the bottom row of wargear so that I have extra energy for using the AoE heal - I've seen a squad of assault marines melee a Warboss to death under the effect of that heal, it's incredibly good if you can keep it up. Not only that, if you've got allies, you can plonk him among their army to heal them all at once, which is often very quick for swarm armies.

As has been mentioned earlier, FC with Iron Halo is pretty much guaranteed murder for your apothecary and everything else you own, I have no idea how to deal with one with this build. Pray you have an ally with a Warboss or something.

[Demonhorde]

Have you tried it now after the patch, I have been able to keep my apoch alive even against bubbleboy-lolhammer now. The sanguine and faster health build will outlast a FC. But then again you will sacrifice longer group heal/energy regen. But to make him a FC killer it's ok.

[SteinerNein]

Mastercrafted Bolter as first item in conjunction with ASM , then hit tier 2 for Combat stims and Medical Equipment (because there is no way you can keep up the spam for long which is required) then get a Razor and a second squad of ASM, gear out scouts with sniper rifles get Dreadnought with Autocannon.

[Sabulum]

A good build Steiner, but requires too much power imo and lacking effective AT. I'd go with the power axe over the MCB so you can scrap the medical equipment somewhat and ditch the dread for a tac squad for ML upgrade so that late game you can swap in the Combat Stims to up the MLs damage. I find that a stimmed ML and a melta can handle AT pretty well and the two squads of ASM should be able to knock the enemy on their back long enough to handle any infantry threat.


You are rooted while AoA is activated. Besides... against any good player, like what RedScare is talking about, your Apoth is going to be a stain if he is melee. I normally try to avoid melee with my Apoth.

That's what the ASM are for I find. If you can micro effectively enough the Apoth shouldn't be head to head with a dedicated melee squad for long enough to matter. The Apoth is too valuable a melee tangler to be sitting back with a MCB I find, especially early-mid game. When SM are outnumbered against every other race, you can't afford to scap an opportunity to tangle ranged units or use up 50 power with an MCB to do it.

[redscare]

I still suck with Apoth+ASM :P

Against Eldar (vehicles come late) and Nids (all infantry till fexes) I do it OK. But an early Deff Dread ruins my day, and in mirrors I'm steamrolled by the RB rush :'(

Oh, FYI, according to GameReplays, Combat Stims give an unlisted 100HP bonus to the Apoth (I haven't checked it out yet).

[konfeta]

That's what the ASM are for I find. If you can micro effectively enough the Apoth shouldn't be head to head with a dedicated melee squad for long enough to matter. The Apoth is too valuable a melee tangler to be sitting back with a MCB I find, especially early-mid game. When SM are outnumbered against every other race, you can't afford to scap an opportunity to tangle ranged units or use up 50 power with an MCB to do it.

Do you really want to melee something like a Warboss? Power Axe is very nice, but Apothecary is no front-line hero - he smacks down range/support heroes very nice with it, but MCB is a premier choice against things you don't want to melee.

[FooF]

All armors give +HP, as far as I know. It's always been a +100 HP boost with Stims.

Armor of Purity used to give +150, but it was dropped to +100 (along with the recharge redux was nerfed).

@ Konfeta

A lvl 10 Apoth w/Axe will beat a lvl 10 Warboss with any gear combo minus the Power Claw (which, of course, is the most popular but still). Apoth is no slouch with levels. Labbed it with a guy two days ago and was amazed.

The MCB is an excellent choice, no question, but my Apoth will get meleed because he's so valuable to my troops. He's target numero uno, especially when everyone knows that the Apoth with MCB is terrible in melee. It only gives them more incentive to melee him. If that's the case, I might as well leach Power and do decent damage because once he is in melee with the Bolter, he's more junk than usual.

[Sabulum]

Yes, I am sure if you put him up against, mano a mano, one of the best melee heroes in the game he will lose out, but I never said that he could. First, he can tie stuff down early game if he heals himself (which is why I called him a tangler, not melee hero) including a warboss, but late game he needs serious backup. The power axe allows him to A) get energy back for his abilities, and B) deal some more damage when he does tangle squads.

The MCB takes away his ability to tie things down in melee and costs precious energy, requiring, as Steiner pointed out, the ME. I like the MCB and I get it in some situations, but I feel the power axe is much more versatile and cost effective for T1-T2.

[konfeta]

I find MCB an early game choice anyway. I almost always do better with MCB Apoth/ASM than with PA Apoth/ASM against a Warboss with Slugga support. An extra heal barely does anything against that amount of damage, the Power Axe just adds a few more Slugga kills to the table. A 5 second stun tipped the fight in my favor plenty of times.

I mean, from a number perspective, 3 ASM do about 75ish DPS. Apothecary with the Axe will deal 40 DPS, Apothecary with the MCB will deal 30.

However, I find that an fight's length is significantly longer if I disable some of their melee damage and let my ASM do their job a while longer. In my experience, it's a less risky endeavor that nets me more kills.

*although that seems to be a specific case. You are right, that the Power Axe is better most other match ups even against heavy melee.

[Sharkpunch]

Everytime I used the MCB I felt like it wasnt dealing enough punishment and also made it easier for enemy to swarm my apot because he appears vunerable when hes off by him self healing

[Sabulum]

I find MCB an early game choice anyway. I almost always do better with MCB Apoth/ASM than with PA Apoth/ASM against a Warboss with Slugga support. An extra heal barely does anything against that amount of damage, the Power Axe just adds a few more Slugga kills to the table. A 5 second stun tipped the fight in my favor plenty of times.

I agree, the MCB works wonders against slugga boys, but I find the purification rites to be a much better choice early game. PR can handle slugga spam, even Waagh'd slugga spam, quite well.

The biggest problem I see with MCB does not have anything to do with its ability or damage. They're both respectable. However, the 50 power requirement for the full auto means less energy for healing...which is always going to be on cooldown due to frequent use. The ME can mitigate this, but its T2 and an expensive fix to this problem. Once I get to T2, if I have extra resources for wargear, they go to either the AoP or the stimulants, which only means more of a power drain.

[BoDyBaG2224]

I just started using him and I went the route of "getting more health then you" with it. I've had great success using the chainsword (gives me health), the armor of the apothicarian (gives me more health, and passive healing to people around meh), and purification rites (as I'm getting more health you're losing it).

Overall I like him more then the force commander. Although his ranged weapon is great, but due to the fact that most commanders end up in melee I go for a melee weapon, although with a lot of micro you can avoid that, but I'm too busy microing everything else to do that as well.

[XViper]

I've been going the Power Axe, Combat Stims and Advanced Healing Kit lately.

+75% combined with the ability to heal is awesome. The best bit is there's really no noticable visual effect from using combat stims, so your enemy never knows when that assault squad that just jumped in is doing the extra damage until its too late :)

[Skyline Pete]

Stims + flamers = many many dead nids very very quickly.

[ZeroNiner09]

Stims + flamers = many many dead nids very very quickly.

...or sluggas, or gens, heck even tacticals are toast in seconds, if they hang around in green cover that is...

[Shinova]

I did combat stims on a single missile tac and I think it could waste a carnifex with four shots, max.

[PhobosMoon]

Flamers are under-rated.. And they own with combat stims.. I think for the next patch they should lower the prices to flamers, that way they could be more versatile..

[FooF]

I really haven't messed with Stims+Flamers. I might have to try it out. I wouldn't be against lowering the cost of Flamers, either, but only in Req. The power cost is reasonable.

[Sabulum]

+75% combined with the ability to heal is awesome. The best bit is there's really no noticable visual effect from using combat stims, so your enemy never knows when that assault squad that just jumped in is doing the extra damage until its too late

Actually, the unit base glows gold when under the effects of combat stim. It's not really noticeable, and the enemy doesnt usually know what it is/can see it very well, but its there.


I really haven't messed with Stims+Flamers. I might have to try it out. I wouldn't be against lowering the cost of Flamers, either, but only in Req. The power cost is reasonable.

The cost all around is reasonable. If they had to change it, I would remove or seriously reduce the reload, and give it some more AoE damage.

[PhobosMoon]

If the flamer was reasonable they would not be a weapon you rarely saw on the battlefield..

[FooF]

I don't think it's the cost that makes it rare, PhobosMoon, it's the fact that Plasma and Missile Launchers are generally regarded to be far superior and people don't want to "waste" their Tac squad upgrading it with a weapon that is not as effective later in the game.

The Flamer needs added "oomph" to compete with the other weapons or it needs to be economically attractive. I'd prefer it be given a little extra something to make it feel like less of a dead-end upgrade but I don't want to screw with balance that much. Reducing the cost is the next best thing, though it only covers the symptom of the problem and doesn't cure it.

[Sabulum]

The Flamer needs added "oomph" to compete with the other weapons or it needs to be economically attractive. I'd prefer it be given a little extra something to make it feel like less of a dead-end upgrade but I don't want to screw with balance that much. Reducing the cost is the next best thing, though it only covers the symptom of the problem and doesn't cure it.

The only problem I see with that is it might be give a SM too much of an early game advantage in that the flamer works well against early game units and gens, so if you could get it out early you could force the enemy to retreat and hit their gens absurdly early. I like the cost because it affects how early you can get it out, but its the scaling of it that lags.

Going back to the Apoth though, the MCB is definitely a wonderful hard counter to FC or Warlock. Not much use against nids or orks because they can tie him up so easily and the power axe's special attacks are so nice, but knocking a Thunder Hammer FC on his ass has saved my ass in a couple games recently.

[konfeta]

How is that any different from Ork's early game with Slugga Waagh pile up and Stickbombas? Shouldn't the game be balanced towards every faction having equal chances in all tiers?

[Sabulum]

In a perfect world, yes, but right now SM have an okay T1.5, strong T2, and a lacking T3 (my opinion). Orks, conversely, have a strong T1, a lacking T2, and a strong T3 early on. Giving SM a strong T1 would make them nigh unstoppable because they can swing into their T2 at a distinct advantage (Sound familiar? That's my problem with nids right now). I like when the flamer comes out, but its just so lacking in T2 and onwards that I always kick myself later on when I get it.

[ZeroNiner09]

In a mirror match apoth vs apoth, do you focus fire the apoth first or the squad? I tend to shoot at the apoth first, because if he heals his squad he gains way more out of it opposed to healing himself. Once the apoth has to retreat, i can have my filthy ways with his squad...theoretically...