AG Warriors, Spore mines and Carni nerf

[shishou]

-Reduction of Warrior Adrenal Gland vehicle damage.
-Spore mines won’t be able to enter Ravener tunnels or Webway gates.
-The build cost for the Carnifex increased.

Surprised?

EDIT**

-Several changes to how energy shields work, making them less overpowered.


Originally Posted by Croak
Rippers are more squishy when attacked in melee, by about 20%, and Zoanthropes don't vehicle stun for as long.

Originally Posted by TASK3R
To clarify the warrior AG damage nerf is overall not just AV.

from http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=220559

[Troubleshooter]

I'm surprised the spore mines will not be tunneling, I actually think that was a good use of tunnels (even if a bit frustrating as the target).

The problem with tunnels isn't mine showing up at the wrong moment, it was the whole AG warrior/Gaunt mass showing up anytime they wanted, every where they wanted... making map control impossible vs. a ravener in 1v1.

I think the Fex fix is right, I don't think that Fex's are that bad in small numbers. Its when 2 or more are on the field that things get stupid.

AG warriors nerfed - bout time. Still, without a tunnel fix this is just stalling for time on the balance front. Zoans and Gaunts will still cripple most everything they have to face on the other end of a tunnel.

Any fix is a good fix though....

[Red Dox]

Mines & tunnels is a bit to hard. They deal devestating dmg and with tunnels it was impossible to avoid them. The ravener summoning is here better, i have a notice that something nasty comes from the sky and can retreat or prepare for it, but with tunnels *piff* here they are *boom* several dozen orks/gaunts/guardians are squished.
Next thing on the nerf list to avoid such things should be the clusterbombing Ork Mek with his mines -.-

With the changes i am not surprised. All this we see long coming ;) Oh and you forgot to mention the general shield nerf. I think for the tyrant its nothing to important, but zoantrophs can get more squishy with this. And maybe a orbital bombardment kills them now, instead of reducing the energy shild a tiny bit.

-----Red Dox

[Brenil]

The problem with tunnels isn't mine showing up at the wrong moment, it was the whole AG warrior/Gaunt mass showing up anytime they wanted, every where they wanted... making map control impossible vs. a ravener in 1v1.

Clearly you haven't ever been the victim of spore mine spam. This mostly happens in 3v3, but when it does, it is ugly. Constant spore mines without any explosive counter (which is surprisingly difficult to get for most races) will completely devestate a large army, especially swarm-based ones.

Spore mines not being able to use tunnels is a good start, but I think spore mines need less ranged damage reduction, because unless you have a tank, lucky plasma dev shot, very lucky grenade, a D-Cannon, or Fire Prism, you're going to feel some serious pain or be forced to retreat alot.

P.S.

It was mentioned in the patch thread that AG Warriors will be receiving a global damage nerf to both infantry and vehicles. This is something that was sorely needed.

The Carnifex change is also good because even though a critical mass of Carnifexes is silly, they are still somewhat managable to deal with and aren't terribly imbalanced in of themselves.

[Pocktio]

Nid blobs already have synpased rippers and a host of leaping units (plus tunnel emergence) to shank set up units, being able to spore mine tunnel as well was just too much, it deserved to go.

[Troubleshooter]

Clearly you haven't ever been the victim of spore mine spam. Clearly. :)

I can see the potential of the problem, I just have no ax to grind about a particular unit using tunnels over the core tunnel problem itself.

[Hunlow]

@ Red Dox

Maybe you shouldnt let the mines close to your orks then they wont get squished. But really that is the only hard counter for orks for early game. Do you just want to nerf the nids or do you want to make them balanced?

[Red Dox]

Are you kidding me? If there is some fight, there comes the ravener and makes a friggin tunnel which pops the damn mines out directly near what he wants to kill. If you turn your back at me and i throw a bottle at you and yell "Think fast!", thats the damn situation. If the ravener _want_ to hit you, he hits you with his sporemines. Its like the mek boy teleporting to that target he wants out, and clusterbombing it with his mines. If he wants it dead, he gets the job done.

Besides, who says I am the target that gets bombed and not the sneaky ravener that kills dozens of light armoured troops in most games he wants with sporemine tunneling? Your last line sounds more like _you_ want simple defending the sporemine bombing way, then actual balance ;)

-----Red Dox

[nemesis09]

I don't think its enough. Nids will still imba. Even if AG warriors are nerfed to hell and have the melee strength of scouts (which is unlikely as probably only their vehicle damaged will be touched), nids still have many viable alternatives. Its just that we dont see other builds as everyone spams AG warriors and fexes.

And where's the rippers/zoay nerf? I feel that rippers are by far the most annoying and imba unit in the game if a player uses them to their strengths. And zoays? Dont even get me started: an arty unit that requires zero micro and won't ever die if the player is half decent? Plus the AV ability and no friendly fire? Even gaunts are very good...they scale well through tier without any upgrade cost plus they are incredibly fast and awesome under synaspe?

Nids shouldn't be nerfed bit by bit until they are balanced(that would probably take forever). They deserve a kick in their chitinous balls. Nid players have to relearn their race all over again, because right now using them is so straight forward and easy that there is hardly any skill/micro involved.

Nids have the potential to be a great finesse race if balanced right. their unit lineup has good synergy and their speed makes them very mobile ( they should be like a melee equivalent of eldar). I want to see them use mobility to outflank and pincer the enemy, have a combined arms force and maybe even build lictors to for the surprise element. Not just attack move and steamroll through the enemy, suppression weapons be damned.

[mlai]

Nid nerfs not mentioned in that changelog:

1. AG Warriors have both AV and AI damage reduced.
2. Rippers get 20% more damage by melee attacks.
3. Zoeys' vehicle-stun ability is shortened in duration.

Oh, and Zoey shields should be affected by the blanket shields nerf.

[nemesis09]

mlai...where did u get that complete changelog from?

[Troubleshooter]

mlai...where did u get that complete changelog from?Its common knowledge, its just spread around different forums. You can find most of it on the main page here at RN.

[ImmortalChaos]

I can see the point of view of people who don't want to see spore mines + tunnels go; it is a pretty neat move to pull off, and does add a lot of extra use to mines for the ravener.

However, from my (massive amount of) experience, spores+tunnels simply has to go. It completely ruins the Nids vs ork and nids mirror matchups. Being able to tunnel a mine capable of removing any infantry you can build in T1 is just way, way too much. The game becomes a techrace to actually get something that won't be slaughtered by mines. No fun.

[mlai]

The thing with tunnels + spore mines is that there is nothing you can do against it, just like there is nothing you can do about a Mek Boy teleporting right next to your vehicle and one-shotting it with clusterbomb-mines. It doesn't matter how skillful you are, there is nothing you can do.

[shishou]

The thing with tunnels + spore mines is that there is nothing you can do against it, just like there is nothing you can do about a Mek Boy teleporting right next to your vehicle and one-shotting it with clusterbomb-mines. It doesn't matter how skillful you are, there is nothing you can do.

Exactly. Thank god they removed tunnels + spore mines abuse, hopefully they will change "mines" next..

[Troubleshooter]

there is nothing you can do.Which is only slightly less than you can do against anything else that might pop out with a mind to kill your stuff.

The problem is the tunnels, not the surprises. :)

[ImmortalChaos]

Some races/commanders can just beat the 'nids in melee... unfortunately you can't beat a spore mine in melee.

[Pocktio]

you can't beat a spore mine in melee.

I smell a challenge.

[Sebi]

I smell an achievement.
Fixt.

[Frigidair44]

You can't do melee damage to mines. The AI won't swing at them. I had my Warboss pin in a circle of them. He couldn't move out... and he kept shooting at them even if I pressed z attack.

I wish I kept that replay.

[mlai]

You can't do melee damage to mines. The AI won't swing at them. I had my Warboss pin in a circle of them. He couldn't move out... and he kept shooting at them even if I pressed z attack.
LOL I smell an exploit.

[ImmortalChaos]

Yeah, you can't hit mines in melee at all, which is kinda uncool, as melee commanders are totally helpless to save your troops that way.

On the other hand, I think if they changed it, melee troops with a sidearm (sluggas, asm) would start melee charging the things to their doom as opposed to shooting and possibly accomplishing something.

[Brenil]

Which shooting is all for naught because of Spore mines' ranged damage reduction that means anything short of multi-squad focus fire will do very little to nothing before they're in explosive range. The only counter to mines right now is either mass retreat (not really a good option) or explosives, which are mostly later tiers with the exception of grenades. However, hitting all spore mines with a grenade (for those races that get them in abundance) is definately a matter of luck and skill, mostly the former.

[whatsleft]

yep, its really hard to hit spore mines with nades, burnas help too, but require sluggas to be close to mines.

most of the time, i just use the shotgun HE shot against them, which is imo the most efficient way to clear them out for orks.

im not sure about the other races though.

[Seth Dracovitch]

I'm on the fence about some of the updates. I never "tunnel spam" so I'm not really affected by the Spore Mine stuff, they're only use (to me at least) now is to clear buildings and hope that they don't get gunned down in the process. Kinda peeved at the Warrior nerf, I didn't mind the vehicle damage nerf, but the nerf to infantry, that angers me. At this point, as long as they don't nerf the Synapse Bonuses I'll live. The Energy Shield nerf applies to all races, can't complain, I'm actually happy for this. Bubble Commanders are one of the few things I seem to have problems with... and when going against a team of three of them I get tempted to outright quit. So weaker energy shields makes me happy. Fex's being more expensive isn't that hard of a blow, half the time I never really get to use them before the battle is won or lost. Rippers are another I can't complain about, the few times I do use them, they do their job just the same. Being squishier is just part of life.

As a side note, I really think that if it weren't for the constant spamming of single units in the Nids, they wouldn't be so overpowered. I never hear anything but AGW+Horm Spam or "Tunnels this, tunnels that." Am I the only nid player that knows how to play with tactics and actual strategy. It's a pity to see my all time favorite WH40K race reduced to the "noob race" because of how some people play...

[Brenil]

I don't think it is so much how people play but how the race was designed for this game. Even without the overpowered abilities, damage, ect, the race is still built as a jack of all trades bunch where basically it doesn't hurt to attack-move like it does with other races. Your ability to outsquad your enemy and do horrendous damage in the process means simply by virtue of the mechanics that the person on the receiving end must work that much harder to overcome the Tyranid player's lesser effort.

Put together a great player using (abusing?) Tyranids and you really have a recipe for destruction because all of those tactics and useful units suddenly have more focus and direction and can be used to far more devestating effect.

Tyranids may eventually one day be balanced, but it'll take a lot of reworking how the race works to make them more difficult (or as difficult) to play than the other three races.

[Seth Dracovitch]

Like I've said before. 'nids were made like 'nids. Some people argue about some form of unit spam, some argue that nids are op because they're nids, and some argue that they aren't op. My only real concern is that "balancing" the nids too much is going to make them the weakest race in the game. I've seen it happen in plenty of games and I really wouldn't want it to happen here.

[Brenil]

I don't have a problem with Tyranids being an easier race to play than all the others; yet I do have a problem with them being simply more powerful (really, it isn't up for debate, those saying Tyranids aren't overpowered are, quite frankly, blind or hopelessly biased) and easy to play. The combination of both means if one chooses to do so, they can beat someone far better than them with far less effort. I don't want Tyranids to be overnerfed either, but saying that doesn't mean they shouldn't be tuned down when they clearly should in many regards.

[Infernoblaze]

I beat people today by spamming hormagaunts with my lictor. I clicked attack on the enemy troops and dropped a pheromone cloud down and then did nothing until they tried to run away before flesh hooking. Man that was some intense gaming :)

[JaxGaret]

I play almost exclusively Eldar, for aesthetic reasons. I just prefer their voice acting/army looks.

Recently I played a few games as Nids. It was like a veil had been lifted. So much easier to do everything. I was rolling over squads where before I had difficult pitched battles. This was using the Lictor Alpha, I can't even bring myself to use the RA or HT, it would feel even more wrong.

I can't wait for this to be fixed, we seem to be on our way though - hopefully the next patch brings us a little closer :)

[Skarmory the PG]

For the record:

Zoanathrope is only hit half as hard by the bubble nerf (the 1:5 to 1:4 ratio hits her, but she never regenerated energy)

[Beholda]

speaking of the zoan, i have no doubt that it used to be OP but i just would like to point out that my zoan with the fully charged bubble and full health got insta-gibbed in 1 hit by a dred. Surprised? you bet it was!

I guess it was my fault for letting the zoan stay so close to the dred tho...

[JaxGaret]

my zoan with the fully charged bubble and full health got insta-gibbed in 1 hit by a dred.

Impossible. A fully charged level 1 bubble zoan has 600 shield/HP. There is no Dread attack that deals 600 damage.