1v1 me (orks) vs. Trunks-X2 (Eldar) on Valley of Khorne, seer council imbalance

[HalberdBlue]

Map: Valley of Khorne
Players: HalberdBlue vs. Trunks-X2
Type: Automatch 1v1
Winning Conditions: Annihilate, Control Victory, and the other one thats in automatches
Winning Condition Triggered: Annihilate
Duration: 19:30
Description of Battle: I do my normal start up on this map and it looks like victory as usual but then all of a sudden comes a Seer Council which completely ruins me. At first I am able to hold him off and am even able to get a few seconds onto Control Victory but the Seer Council just keeps coming back and owning me. Now I am the sort of person that likes to think that when I lose its solely because I was less skilled and/or made more mistakes but seriously there was very little I could have done about this. Trunks even tells me its overpowered and to post about it on the forums in the replay. So I did (otherwise I probably wouldn't have, and would just lose to it over and over until I decided to blame seer council imbalance).

Other than that I thought it was a very enjoyable match, I had a lot of fun and didn't feel cheated out of victory. Its always a blast to play against great players.

EDIT: Would be nice if I attached the replay, eh?

[Lonewolf64]

The Seer Council isn't imbalanced if you just think about how much money goes into making a far seer, 16 MEMBERS OF SEER COUNCIL, GIVING THEM ALL WITCHBLADES, and the fact that a single vehicle could of killed them. One dreadnaught would have solved your problem.

[Accaris]

If I recall, full Seer council with witchblades crushes a dreadnaught into dust.

[Lonewolf64]

I don't think it is so...

[Darkweaver2]

Seer council may be overpowered... but that replay demonstrates nothing of the sort. In fact, in the replay, every time the council is faced, in melee, with a comparable (in terms of requisition) # of orks, it suffers badly. The ork lost the game to brightlance plats countering his traks, and the fire prism generally killing him...

Yes shooting the council is highly ineffective... but ork melee, at least, apparently does very well. Seems like if he was using shoota boyz to melee more he wouldn't have lost the early battle, either. Also if anyone can enlighten me as to why the eldar made dark reapers... that move really had me confused. If you look, they do hardly any damage at all vs orks, a whole squad of them takes like 15 seconds to kill ONE slugga.

[Tumbler]

I'm an ork player and I spotted several big mistakes you made that cost you in that 2nd encounter with the seer council.

The first thing I noticed was the 2nd waaaagh banner you made early in your build order. You don't need it that early, put the points and time into a barracks asap and get the big mek out. Also, research kustom teleport, that is a HUGE advantage the big mek has. Forget about mines, they just don't earn their cost imo, your mines were definitely effective in this case but still didn't make up for the time you spent on them.

The 2nd was just your general strat in battle. You need to make sure the shoota's come in after the slugga's charge into battle. The 2nd time around your shoota's came into the fight before your slugga's and took the brunt of the fire.

3rd, you waited way too long to get a pile o gunz out, getting those big shoota upgrades asap is crucial.

4th, in battle with slugga's or and h2h troops your objective is to keep engaging squads and move to another until all your enemies are fighting you in h2h. Your biggest mistake was not ignoring his seer council. Engaging one dark reaper makes them all stop firing and start fighting in h2h, your big mek would have cleaned their clock if those dark reapers hadn't been firing on him the whole time. After engaging the dark reapers you should have put your big mek back on the seer council and let him go to work. With a good shoota squad supporting you, the orks are vicious in h2h. And if things aren't looking good just use that kustom teleport to escape.

[Duckie]

Dreadnoughts solve "Most" problems, not so sure about a Seer council though

[Anakaris]

I really don't think it's that imbalanced. How come you didn't get the Pile O' Gunz until almost half way into the game? Some Big Shootas, Burnas, or Rokkits would have been pretty useful in dealing with the council. After that I really only saw a few weapons upgrades.

One thing that I would like to see to me that seems to go more for the Eldar tech tree is that you would have to upgrade all the infantry aspects for access. Making the Seer council the pinnicale of Eldar infantry. Just like the aspect of Khaine is the pinnicale of all Eldar when every vehicle and infantry class is researched.

[HalberdBlue]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll keep it in mind.

I think posting my replays is bad luck though. I've lost 6 games in a row since this. I was ranked 50 something now I'm not even on the ladder.

EDIT: Oh yeah and the Pile o' Gunz thing... That was not a mistake building it so late, I've always built it late, didn't know I should build it earlier. I'll definately try to put it earlier in my build order now. And about tying up the Dark Reapers... I did try it a little by telling my shoota boyz to go into melee mode but I definately could have done a better job. And then the 2nd waaagh tower. I've always built 2 waaagh towers in a row for some reason... Don't know why. I'll place it later in my build order.

EDIT 2: OK I just did some testing with Big Shootas and I never realize that they were so good against infantry (including marines). I think its been pounded into my brain over the years from the tabletop than Big Shootas suck vs. marines. I think I'll definately build my Pile o Gunz earlier and load up on big shootas now.

[Zagan]

The Orks lost majorly because you didn't stay in the fight.

You had the seer council 3 times, over before they starting trashing your units, at 2 times there was only 1 seer council left and that would have been the whole unit destroyed.

The Eldar have better close combat people than the orks, but the orks have sheer power and size and all you were doing was running up and bearly hit 1 eldar squad and then run back to base.

If you had kept your troops in CC you would have wiped him out very quickly after all you had nearly all the check points and he was stuck at the base you should have made more ork units while getting the tracks ready to come up from behind.

To sum it up, you were playing the orks like playing an eldar army, that's why you lost.

[God's Hitman]

a full seer council with full withblades would destroy an ork dreadnaught, but the thing is, that would cost absolutely heaps and ages to acquire. remember, u cant get witchblades until you research mobilise for war, which is a mid game to late game research usually. if anything, they should probably make the members of the seer council less but not decrease their damage/armour. in the TT game, you an only field 5 warlocks with each farseer but since u can only have one farseer in DoW, i think they should probably have between 8-10 warlocks in a seer council.

[Erlend]

Decrease the numbers in the council.

After reading the posts you guys seem to fail to realize that in the early encounters with the council the back up for the council were Dark Reapers... So basically during the 3rd encounter, around the critt point, a 10 man council with a farseer owned an entire orc strike force conisting of one full squad with big mek, 2 supporting smaller slugga squads and a full shoota squad. The shootas were gone to one storm and then the council basically owned the rest. I do not count the reapers since they do nothing against orcs, and the guardians there were not doing their job of entangling things. The peashooters they have again do very little to the orcs. The one council unit pretty much took care of everything there.

Now if an eldar player, since eldar are the most specialized race in DOW, can make such a huge blunder and field Reapers instead of spiders against orcs and still own most of the early encounters due to ONE squad something is wrong.

Decrease their numbers and make broken morale even a little more important for the council. Notic a few times in that replay the broken council takes a LOT of fire and still does not realy lose many members at all.

Yes mistakes on both parts, but big mistakes on the Eldar end and it still turned out to be a resonably easy win.

E

[HalberdBlue]

OK I got another replay... The other one I really only posted because Trunks asked me to, but this one... Entangle just completely ruined me... Where did I go wrong here?

Its on Fallen City, about 20 minutes long. Was a fun game even though I got rolled over by the Seer Council

[Anakaris]

That first time you lost to the seer council, you really didn't have enough troops compared to his. The focused fire from guardian squads kicked your ass along with the council.

Second you didn't get the Pile O' Gunz out fast enough again. You not having weapon upgrades really hurt you in those engagements. Just like the last replay.

[HalberdBlue]

Ah ok... so how early do you suggest I get it? Right after the power generator?

[Anakaris]

That's about when I try to put those buildings up.

[SubZero]

lol

You are blaming Eldar for you not upgrading your units for a one off fee that virtually increases their damage by 50% ....

[HalberdBlue]

Of course I am, the Farseers are psychic and controlled my mind to make me do crappy

[HalberdBlue]

OK, I tried to see if using a Seer Council takes any sort of skill at all. So I took a clone account, BombEveryone, and used Eldar in an automatch and ended up playing vs. someone with 75% wins (better than me). I had NEVER used Eldar before (besides the time in beta in the tutorial where I just got the Avatar to see how awesome he was, and I never built the farseer or seer council or anything) and I completely walked over him. It was complete bullshit. This unit is completely broken. I didn't have to micro anything, I didn't even know where the Seer Council was on the tech tree going into the game! It took no skill whatsoever. I now have no respect for anyone that claims that this unit is fine. What a load of bullshit.

Notice how the only micro I do in battle is pressing A and then clicking the ground, use the Farseers powers, then sit back and watch. It should not be this easy to win.

[fgStratus]

Give your squads flamers, break the council. If you gave the flamers to your sluggas, you need to make sure they're on ranged stance (the council is gonna initiate melee with them anyway) so they keep the flames going for as long as possible.
The Big Mek can solo the council once its broken.
If he entangles your guys, attach the big mek to them, teleport away, retreat the rest of your guys, and then attack when entangle wears off. The ability takes forever to recharge.

Get a squad of sluggas or shootas (doesn't really matter) with rokkits and kill his listening posts whenever he attacks you.

The goal isn't to kill his Seer Council, it's to keep him from gaining a huge resource advantage on you before you get to wartraks. Once you hit wartraks, you can pretty much just drive them into his base and kill his power (no more brightlances) and all his warp spiders. A war trak is about on par with a brightlance 1v1, and will take out a fully upgraded warp spider squad that's in heavy cover, even after the haywire.

You know that the top player plays Ork, right?

[Tumbler]

My build order starts like this:

Waaagh Banner
build barracks -->Big Mek asap
Build power
Build a listening post or 2
build pile o gunz

It might feel too early to buy it, but the upgrades you get from it are too valuable to wait on. Against marines you can expect to see hvy bolters very soon and without some firepower of your own you won't last long. Also, right after purchasing bigmek, buy the kustom teleport, and be sure and use it to ambush some enemies. It's perfect for dropping in on the rear troops and cleaning up.

Hope this helps

[HalberdBlue]

OK all that is fine and dandy, but if I have to do that much work to beat someone that is just pressing a and clicking on the ground then something is wrong IMO

[SubZero]

You really do have a hate campaign against Eldar.

I destroyed an Ork opponent just now without a farseer or council.

If they do rush you with a council early on, and you give the council casualties, the cost of a new council member is the same virtually as a slugga squad.

So every casualty represents 4 Orks, 1 Squad.

If you put this into Resources, you may get a good base if you keep throwing crappy troops at the council, whilst the council will be constantly remaking new members. The Eldar player will therefore have no resources for anything else since council cost both Energy and Requisition.

Double Post

And you talk about the psychic powers...

Eldritch storm requires Shrine and 250/50 resources, and does big dmg to vehicles and buildings. It does very little damage to troops apart from knock them down.

Mindwar is only good against Heroes, and psychic storm can take 50% hp off a group of Orks, or 25% off Marines.

-Battle swaying powers- hardly.

[190 Proof]

The Council, while powerful, and probably overbalanced, is certainly not unbeatable nor is it a "point, click, forget" unit. In any given early-game engagement the eldar player is trying to simultaneously entangle you, constantly attach/detach FS from Seer Council to cast his powers, and trying to maneuver to drag as many of your squads into combat as possible. Despite all of this, if you have a couple flamers, big shootas, or heavy bolters, he will be taking casualties that cost him very, very dearly in terms of resources.

The key to beating the council is whittling down his forces and keeping your economy going... with all the furious clicking the Eldar player must do to keep from losing his precouis troops in battle it is very hard to keep his econ running. If nothing else, run away! The SC (w/o witch blades which is a mid-game upgrade) and all other first level Eldar troops basically just throw marshmellows at buildings, so if you can lure him into combat around a Waaagh banner or get your traks into the fight he is Screwwwwwwwed.

[HalberdBlue]

OK Ground Zero you just proved how little knowledge you have of the game. A seer council member is 80 req and 25 energy. A squad of Slugga Boyz is 140 req. And where did I mention Eldritch Storm? Farseers start off with 3 powers, Psychic Storm, Mind War, and Guide.

EDIT: On the Seer Council perhaps you meant with witchblades, but you didn't mention them. And witchblades aren't necessary to own everyone anyways (just like how Nobz are great even without Powerklaws)

[HalberdBlue]

Wewt, I beat a skilled player (he has about 85% wins) using the Seer Council (thanks to the advice in this thread).

Map: Outer Reaches
Players: HalberdBlue (Orks) vs. Sabyul (Eldar)
Type: 1v1 Automatch
Winning Conditions: Annihilate, Control Area, and the other one in automatches
Winning Condition Triggered: Annihilate
Duration: About 15 minutes
Description: I still built my Pile o Gunz pretty late but I kept the pressure on one of his nearby req points stopping him from being able to expand further. His seer council never gets large enough to overpower me because he keeps having to spend resources on other things. Eventually I win from vastly outclassing him economy-wise. Mistakes I made were mainly the late Pile o Gunz and that I didn't have enough population to make Wartrakks once the Mek Shop finished.


This doesn't mean I think the seer council is balanced, just giving a thanks to those that helped.

EDIT: Forgot to attach the replay again... It appears as seercouncilbeat ingame

[Trunks]

this may be a bit late.....but that was like my 3rd or 4th game using eldar. so i didnt have the entangle down at that point.....