Warriors vs. Banshees

[munkdo]

both units 400req 15 gas

it's just kinda funny in a crude way, don't think i need to elaborate why really.

I wouldn't even know where to begin to be honest...

i mean one is reliant on farseer buff to even work properly, the other is well...

I think they even occupy the same spot on the building browser

the DOW2 balance team works in mysterious ways...

[LandShark]

unupgraded warriors arent really that powerful.

what you are talking about are the adrenal glands warriors i assume, which arent the same price.

[Shinova]

Have you tried using warshout?

[hellic]

Unupgraded Warriors have insane knockdown. Coupled with their Heavy Infantry armor and high HP, they are so much more durable than Banshees.

Sure, Banshees do more damage, but any enemy with half a brain will focus fire them. Result? Very dead Banshees.

[Shinova]

Assuming you're not too bothered by the eldar commander and the rain of plasma nades and shuriken fire.

[Kam!kazee]

1v1 the fight between the two can go in either direction (unupgraded). With upgrades, I've had shees win more ofthen than not.
When you bait the warriors (trigger their leap on a cheaper unit/commander) shees will win with their jump and KD.

sadly, upgraded shees are more expensive, and more dead once shot at.

[cyborgZero]

I wonder how no one has spotted that he used the word "gas" rather than power :D

I found that funny :P

I want to clear out a huge advantage the warriors have over other banshees:

Once you buy an upgrade, it sticks with the squad until they die, kind of similar to a war gear. Now compared to banshees, who's upgrades consist of adding squad members which could be easily lost and would require re-upgrading again and again, which drains the resources.

That is what allows the nids to oveflow with resources, because they never need any slugga nob leader or a Sargent upgrade to their warriors to make them more survivable.

Another point is that AG warrior upgrade gives a weapon upgrade to all three units in the squad, compared to all other squad upgrades which will give a weapon upgrade to either 1 or 2 units in the squad.

[LandShark]

killing a warrior knocks back all the lesser nids and deals alot of damage to them. THAT IS HUGE.

[mccrorie]

One Zoan blast into a melee scrap and your expensive Banshees are toast :l

[LandShark]

1 grenade into warriors and they are fubared also. warriors take extra damage from grenades.

we can tit for that this all we want.

[Red Dox]

Another point is that AG warrior upgrade gives a weapon upgrade to all three units in the squad, compared to all other squad upgrades which will give a weapon upgrade to either 1 or 2 units in the squad.

Nobsquad everyone gets a hammer too, so warriors are not alone in this.

-----Red Dox

[Saias]

Landshark - Zoans have about 5x the range, don't do friendly damage and aren't anywhere near as squishie, so......yeah.

[Buguba]

1 grenade into warriors and they are fubared also. warriors take extra damage from grenades.

we can tit for that this all we want.

1 grenade is enough to fubar Banshees as well. They may not take extra damage from grenades, but the fact that they only have 125 health doesn't help.

The matchup seems slighted against banshees on the whole really. Warriors move at the same speed as banshees (5.5), have 320 health (banshees have 125), heavy infantry armour (banshees have infantry), and automatically come with leap. Banshees only leap after the aspect upgrade.

Only advantage banshees have over warriors is numbers (5 banshees vs 3 warriors).

I think that Landshark has a point with Warriors doing synapse damage on death though. It's not completely fair to look at banshees against warriors by themselves. Each can become dramatically more effective/ineffective depending on what they're deployed with.

I also think it's a bit of an accepted fact that banshees are slightly UP.

[LandShark]

zoans are tier 2 also.

http://dowcodex.com/Weapon:Plasma_Grenade

a well placed plasma grenade or 2 will evaporate a warrior squad.

the wonderful thing is that the warriors leap just means you know where they will and and they wont be able to dodge it.

[hellic]

Shinova: My point still stands. Sure, you can focus fire on Warriors but they can take much more damage. Throw a Banshee squad into the hail of grenades and fire you described and see what happens. Shees drop like flies, which means their DPS also falls fast.

[LandShark]

whats cooler than be able to focus fire on 1 unit, and cause damage to all the lesser nids around them?

i think that would effectively put the enemy dps way above yours.

[Kam!kazee]

If you can pull it, once the first warrior dies the mob dominoes to death.

[LandShark]

this is why vacuum comparisons dont matter.

[Kam!kazee]

Vacuum comparisons are always moot

[HiveMind]

Warriors do indeed cause synapse backlash, but they also provide synapse bonuses before that. Thus, the synapse mechanic should overall be a bonus. If it isn't, then that's a separate balance issue, but we should assume it is here.

Now, with that out of the way, the point still stands that a Warrior brood is just plain better than Banshees, even without considering synapse. Throw that bonus in and the comparison goes so far in the Warriors' favour it just isn't funny. Let's look at their differences:

Warrior Brood
+ Has less members to the squad.
+ Has a better armour type
+ Has more health (960 to 625, more than a 50% increase)
+ Has more sight range (55 to 40)
+ Has twice as much courage
+ Takes 1 second less to build (wow, gamebreaking)
+ The squad has ever so slightly less upkeep (0.1 req per squad, that's pretty important!)
+ Has a melee leap.
+ Reinforces slightly faster.

Howling Banshee Squad
+ Regenerates health faster (same speed each, actually, but more squad members means faster regen).
+ Faster turning time, acceleration and deceleration (woohoo!).
+ Gives 1 less Zeal for killing them all.
+ Give a fair chunk less XP (500 instead of 675).
+ Greater melee skill.
+ Fleet of Foot.
+ Jumps over obstacles.
+ Greater damage (by a surprisingly large amount).

While the Banshees do indeed deal more damage, they're just too fragile to compare. They should beat a Warrior Brood in a vacuum, because the Warriors have greater non-vacuum bonuses. I (n+1)th the suggestion to give them their knockdown leap back, since it no longer works against retreating units.

[Kam!kazee]

IIRC shees still have in-combat KD (pre exarch even). But re-adding the leap would help much in making them not die while trying to get in a fight

[LandShark]

lets consider the rest of tier 1 and heros at the same time though, while warriors might be slightly better, guardians are way better than terms or horms.

[cyborgZero]

I bet if I changed the topic title to :

Warriors vs. Banshees vs. Stormboyz

Everyone would stop their complaining because they would know how bad the orks have it in terms of the 'expensive' assault tier 1 unit. As an ork player, I would rather have banshees anytime over stormboyz.

The issue remains in:
- yes they do have a high dps, but can they survive long enough to cause it. The is the main problem with banshees and stormboyz. They are assault troops, ie. they charge into battle = get focus fired at first = dies in seconds.

[mlai]

Both Banshees and Stormboyz need knockdown abilities (that do not work on retreating units), if all else remain unchanged.

[Aquila]

Everyone would stop their complaining because they would know how bad the orks have it in terms of the 'expensive' assault tier 1 unit
How, exactly, do you intend to make this comparison while ignoring Sluggas?

[cyborgZero]

How, exactly, do you intend to make this comparison while ignoring Sluggas?

The same way they compared warriors and banshees while ignoring guardians and gaunts.

[HiveMind]

LandShark: Never let other balance issues get in the way of making a unit balanced. Thinking like that would lead to us concluding that, since Ravener tunnels are overpowered, every Tyranid unit should be underpowered to compensate. No, you just fix the tunnels and make the rest balanced. Upgraded Guardians may be more useful than gaunts, but that just shows that there's another balance issue that needs correcting. If Tyranid Warriors and Howling Banshees have an equal cost, and yet one is just plain better than the other, there's a balance issue there that needs to be fixed, whether that requires nerfing Warriors or buffing Banshees.

[thrillskr]

If Tyranid Warriors and Howling Banshees have an equal cost, and yet one is just plain better than the other, there's a balance issue there that needs to be fixed, whether that requires nerfing Warriors or buffing Banshees.

Using that logic predators, looted tanks and fire prisms should be as durable as carnifex since they cost pretty much the same ? The fact that some units cost same amount of resources as other does NOT mean they should be equal in every way.

[nemesis09]

Using that logic predators, looted tanks and fire prisms should be as durable as carnifex since they cost pretty much the same ? The fact that some units cost same amount of resources as other does NOT mean they should be equal in every way.
Your analogy is flawed. predators, looted tanks and fire prisms are tanks with ranged weapons. The carnifex is a purely melee unit that needs upgrades to become ranged. Obviously they aren't supposed to be equal. It like comparing a dread to a razorback. Extrapolating on your reasoning, guardian squads should do the same damage as shriuken platforms as they cost the same.
However banshees and and warriors fulfill arguably the same role within an army, that is relatively expensive melee units that can deal respectable damage (as opposed to melee units who are used to tie up ranged units ). it is fair to compare them.

[thrillskr]

Its melee, yes, but You forget that its upgrade is stupidly cheap and its about 3x tougher than tanks. Fact that You can compare units doesnt mean they should be equal in every way to be 'balanced', it takes entire army to be balanced so where one units lets down a bit, another one picks up.
(+ everyone knows that nids are still OP at the moment and even after the patch i suspect they will be so i dont see how comparing any unit to them is sensible...)

[Troubleshooter]

If Tyranid Warriors and Howling Banshees have an equal cost, and yet one is just plain better than the other, there's a balance issue there that needs to be fixed, whether that requires nerfing Warriors or buffing Banshees.Wrong. External balance is not a unit:unit matching scheme, its an army:army scheme that has to factor in hoards of variables such as unit speed, map design, build/reinforce times/cost, upgrades, supporting units, prerequisites, and such.

Compairing warriors to Shees is a completely flawed experiment since warriors can become 3 specialised versions via upgrades, have interlocking auras, and a completely different supporting cast of units. Shees on the other hand are not designed to be flexable, they are designed to do one thing well.

Now, people have argued that shees are underpowered for their cost, but I have not seen evidence of it other than they can not linger in one place for long and expect to live - they are easy to counter with other CC units with even a bit of planning. Still, with the ability to suppress units and the stock advantages of being a CC unit in conjunction with other game features, they have untapped potential that so far I have only seen a tiny fraction of eldar players use.

When its all said and done, Shees are CC/disruption specialists while Warriors are core infantry. You would be foolish to use Shees against warriors without support, but then thats really the name of the game... warriors should not engage Shees without support either. In a stand up fight, the player with the best supporting unit mix will win most of the time. For example, Nids have no counter to ranger suppression + shees without countering the rangers AND shees together. That requires warriors and gaunts/rippers, which can be nuked by GU's. Winning the small fights leads to winning the larger fights... massing upgraded shees is not a good idea because they are specialists, massing warriors is, by contrast, a solid (good) idea.

[mccrorie]

"In a stand up fight, the player with the best supporting unit mix will win most of the time."

That would be Nids, though :)

Counters for Rangers.... Tunnels. Cloaked Hero or bullrush from the tanky Tyrant. Zoanthropes. Spore mines. Flesh Hooks. Barbed Strangler. VC. Anything that deals damage at range should force rangers to retreat, as they are weak and expensive. Then the Banshees are easy pickings as, PG aside, Guardian support fire is average at best. I would imagine hero/Banshees/Guardians/Rangers to be much less robust than hero/warriors/gaunts/ranged.

It pays to point out War Shout also reduces target units DPS by 30%. With the AG nerf this should make things very interesting.

[Lazreal]

Banshees DPS and Knockdown are good once you learn to utilise them, they do need an armor upgrade or HP upgrade, but their DPS is insane when they're not argeted. so making them not the target is the trick, i use them in conjuction with WSE, can use shimmer orb to nullifiy ranged dmg to them while they slaughter, and GU shields help too. fully upgraded they can dps vehicles but I agree cost to power ratio leaves warrriors ahead.

but i think Aldar is about out smarting the opponent not out powering them

[Troubleshooter]

Counters for Rangers.... Tunnels. Cloaked Hero or bullrush from the tanky Tyrant. Zoanthropes. Spore mines. Flesh Hooks. Barbed Strangler. VC. Anything that deals damage at range should force rangers to retreat, as they are weak and expensive. Then the Banshees are easy pickings
Wow, nids have all that and the micro to use it on sneaky rangers WHILE being bent over by shees? I didn't realize nids were that godly. :rolleyes:

( you realize that your "counter" post would apply to ANYTHING right? :awesome: )

The point I am trying to make is that you don't solo enemy units and expect to win, even with "hard counters". The second point I was trying to make was that you cant compare Shees to warriors directly as they fill different places/roles in the order of battle... prices are not balance point singularities.

Thats ok though, don't bother to use my advice... just keep spamming GU's and nades... that will teach those filthy nid players!!! :bonk:

[mccrorie]

There's no need to be so condescending. I wasn't contradicting your point that 'you don't solo' and expect to win. I was simply suggesting that Tyranids will most likely have a better balance of units, even if you use Banshees and Rangers together.

You said "Nids have no counter to ranger suppression + shees without countering the rangers AND shees together. That requires warriors and gaunts/rippers, which can be nuked by GU's." This seems plain incorrect and/or a case of wishful thinking, or else everyone would be doing it. It's not hard to imagine how this would fall apart pretty quickly. Both rangers and Banshees are expensive and fragile.

[Sin Fang Bous]

Banshees are only useful when a squad is tied up with something else.

It seems that if the Banshees can get off some hits for a couple seconds before being focused on, they do quite well.

Edit: By the way, as the Eldar's only melee-capable unit, Banshees really do need a slight buff. Other melee squads can roam around proudly bashing in skulls while Banshees have to hide in the bushes 4 out of 5 times and wait for a rare, opportune moment.

[Troubleshooter]

This seems plain incorrect and/or a case of wishful thinking, or else everyone would be doing it.Seems...

You're right, everyone else would be doing it, except that everyone else is spamming GU's instead. Once people get wind of some bit of "common sense" everyone else copies it without question. Hence, SM players spamming Plasm-Devs on Capital spire - over and over again - even though its the surest way to defeat every time... all because they saw someone rant about how IMBA it is to do.

As for my condescending tone, your counter point was to list 90% of the Nid army as a potential counter, which is inane. Sorry, but eveyone has their limits, you hit mine ;)

So like I said... you can either take my advice and try some unit combos to deal with these issues or you can just keep spamming and hope for the best. I'll tell you this though, until you try things out and break out of the tunnel vision, you're not ever going to find what you are looking for.

People want external balance to look like a game of chess... thats not going to happen. The best you can hope for is that you have the tools to make lemons into lemonade. Just because everyone says that a unit is weak or broken doesn't make them right... it just proves that group-think is alive and well.

The funny thing is that I might have just posted the most IMBA eldar combo ever devised (its not... but w/e) and 95% of the people who read it will say "you took two worthless units and put them together to form one worthless tactic" without bothering to try it out. Games are free, do some testing on your own.

[Hunlow]

these arguments hold no ground. if all of the armies were the same then we would all be playing SM. how boring is that? they cant make all the units equal for each race that defeats the whole purpose of having more than one race.

[mccrorie]

TroubleShooter: I haven't actually told you how I play. I use x3 Gu but not all the time. It gets boring. And I don't use the Warlock, so by default I've already strayed from the hallowed list =p

[Beholda]

Personally, i didn't see what was wrong with banshees before the patch. The only time i saw banshees get pwned was when the enemy charged 3 full squads against: my warlock , a wraithlord with shuriken cannon, 3 shuriken weapons teams, a brightlance team and a guardian squad. Other than that banshees always used to kick my ass or win me the game.