Chaos on the Ladder: Style over Substance

[3DHouseOfBeef]

So there is much discussion about what race sucks or is unbalanced or whatnot, with everyone always throwing their two cents in as to why this or that race is strong or weak. After a few hundred games as Chaos on the 1v1 ladder, before and after the patch, I think Chaos is the whipping boy of this game. I do well until I hit about 1450+, then the good players prove Chaos wrong.

I'm not just saying this because I suck. The painful truth is shown on the ladder rankings.

***********************************************************************
As of right now, there is ONE... YES ONE Chaos player in the top 30 players on the 1v1 ladder.
***********************************************************************

Good job WC_Sleign for being the top Chaos player at 11th.

So one Chaos player in the top 30, and NONE in the top 10.
(As of the time of this posting, yes I know they move around all day and this data may not be exactly accurate whenever you go check it)

If it was just a matter of player skill, and the races were balanced, I would expect to see a roughly equal breakdown of races represented on the list. However what you see is an absence of Chaos. There are some more scattered around the bottom of the top 100 list, but still underrepresented at 17 total.

Yes, I know in the overall race rankings Chaos is doing well at 54%. However, this is not at the top level of play. Chaos is successful in the sub 1500 rankings where a good rush vs. an average player can still net you a win. The top ladder stats show what happens to Chaos when both players are consistantly good. Chaos simply doesn't have the answers to the questions posed by a well played opponent.

I have looked at the top Chaos replays (Thank you WC_Sleign and Oneguy for posting, you both are amazing players) for tips, but I am not seeing Chaos defeating opponents because Chaos is powerful, I am seeing opponents who gambled on early generators or tried a failed scout rush and suffered the fate that they deserved. When Chaos wins it is usually amazing micro coupled with a favorable map and build by the enemy that sets them back too far to beat Chaos. Rarely do I see a replay where it was a trait of Chaos that was the winning element... generally whatever Chaos did to win, Space Marines could have done, and done it better. I have no doubt that the top Chaos players would do better with Space Marines.

Before you start telling me how Possessed Space Marines are amazing, you'll notice that the top Chaos players on the ladder rarely use them. At the top level of play their huge cost is better spent elsewhere. The PSM rush does not win top level games. If you haven't won the game in the first encounter, you need to tech up to counter what the opponent will be coming back with... Wartraks, Dark Reapers, Dreadnaughts or whatnot, rarely is PSM the counter you can count on.

So if I am wrong, please let me know. If you are a top ranked Chaos player, tell me what you think Chaos gives you as an advantage that is worth picking Chaos over Space Marines. If you have a secret Chaos plan for victory against the top players, please share it. Or better yet, go crush your enemies and move up the ladder to represent Chaos. As it is the racial breakdown on the ladder seems to be pretty good evidence of how Chaos fails at the top level of play. I'd love to think Chaos can compete against the other races of this game, as it is, regardless of all the talk and theorycraft, the proof is in the rankings.

Looking for answers,
-3D House of Beef

[ChunkyMrEvil]

Every race has been said to be too weak. Look back a few pages and you'll find topics like "Orks iz teh worst!" or "SM need betterness!", and a LOT of "Eldar sucks, make 'em stronga!"

[3DHouseOfBeef]

Which was why I covered that issue in the first sentence of my post. The point is, this isn't idle speculation or theorycraft. It's about the fact that there is only one Chaos player in the top 30 players on the ladder.

I am an old gamer. I have seen lots of games and lots of forums. People (usually with a feeble grasp of balance issues) always complain about everything imaginable.

However, looking at the 1v1 ladder stats, it is clear that the Eldar do not suck, the Orks are not the worst, and SM do not need to aquire more "betterness".

What is clear... (and the ladder ranking is fact, not speculation) is that Chaos cannot beat the other races at the top of the ladder. If this was just a matter of me complaining without good reason, you could point to the ladder and show me all the successful Chaos players in the top 10. As of right now, there are none.

-3D House of Beef

[.42.]

Chaos is under represented at the top of the ladder. I don't know if this is because of a weakness in Chaos or if it's just that people don't like them.

WC_Sleign and KS_Josey_Wales have gotten to the top but they are just exceptional players and could probably do it with any of the races.

PSM are good but I have yet to see a replay of WC_Sleign using them or the sacrifical pit.

I do wish that cultist were a bit better meatshield or that they could go toe to toe melee with scouts and win.

edit:
ps I just had a thought I nerver reenfoce the cultists maybe I should :Slap:

[Moe]

I think Josey got in trouble for playing during work hours :)

[.42.]

hehe but with him playing chaos it looked more balanced :P

[-|EoT|-Havoc]

house of beef i must agree with you, ive been playing with chaos before and after patch, around the 1400-1500, but it just doesnt seem to get higher there.
Ive now started playing eldar with another account and noticed they were a lot easier to win with, ive now also got a 1450 score with them, while im not nearly as skilled with eldar as i am with chaos.

[Alpha_1]

This is exactly the kind of observation and comments that the developers need to make sure the game is well balanced.

Any ideas as to how the balance might be acheived 3DHoB? You have a good grasp of the game surely you have some thoughts?

ChunkyMrEvil,

You need to learn to read, and if that isn't the problem try to understand the points being made, what did you do, not evewn read his first 2 paragraghs?

[3DHouseOfBeef]

.42.



I do wish that cultist were a bit better meatshield or that they could go toe to toe melee with scouts and win.

edit:
ps I just had a thought I nerver reenfoce the cultists maybe I should


FYI, if you overwatch your Cultists and they overwatch the Scouts, it ends up tying up both units until something changes. Problem with that is that you have just tied up one fifth of your 10/10 starting population cap (2/10) and you are only tying up one tenth of the Space Marines population cap (1/10).

So you can decide what you want to do there on a case by case basis. You can not overwatch, fight them, and lose. Overwatch, and stalemate them, but because of pop cap be at an overall disadvantage (generally means the main fight elsewhere will be 3 Scout + 3 SM + Force Commander vs. 2 CSM + 1 Cultist + Chaos Lord), or run and lose whatever point you were trying to capture to save the cultists. Not very good options. At least Cultists beat Guardians and Slugga Boyz... oh wait... that's right they lose to everyone. :duck:

-3D House of Beef

[apettican]

Hmm, cultists are a funny one. To start with, they are certainly not 2 cap units, but fill them up and add grenade launchers, and they certainly aren't 1 cap units either.

I find the absence of chaos at the top quite suprising, why doesnt the bigger squad size give them an advantage over SM?? One thing that may count against them is in scenarios where the players are even, and they both give ground to lick wounds and tech up(I assume this happens when 2 equal players meet at any level). In this case, chaos have nothing cheap and effective like speeders, and defilers cant match up against a dread.

Just my thoughts, feel free to pull em apart.

Andy

[[Vertigo]]

I have to agree with the posts here. I am a dedicated Chaos player, so far I am 1450 on the ladder but I find I can't get any higher than that. I can't quite put my finger on what is wrong with Chaos. I can only give generalizations about us.

The main problem I have is trying to use the racial traits of Chaos; being strong in melee only helps against Space Marines. Eldar can just activate Fleet of Foot and run away from you, and Orks just run you over. So it is extremely difficult to use one of our biggest advantages.

The Taint of Chaos buildings does not help when you are fighting around your base; the effects of it are to weak to turn the tides of battle in your favor. if you want proof of this, try fighting off an Ork Slugga rush in your base with two sqauds of Cultist, two sqauds of CSMs, and one Chaos Lord.

We have no light vehicles, only a moderatly good combination walker and a piss poor excuse for a tank. Both of which are way to expensive to field properly. That is how they should be, the defiler is a combi-walker/artillery that does just about everything well enough, but the Predator is extreamly weak. When it rolls off the machine cult it is only good agaist infantry. Its main cannon isn't good enough to justify buying a Predator. Untill you can replace the autocannon with a twin linked laz cannon, at teir three, the Predator has no use when you first get it.

Possessed Space Marines are great, really they are one of the best Chaos units in our arsenal. So why don't more people use them? The cost of the Sac pit is why. For 250req and 100power I can move into teir 2. Not a very hard choice to make. I would rather upgrade my exsisting CSMs then get more, expensive, units. But the PSMs are priced where they need to be.

Horrors are a different stroy; they are just as expensive as PSMs but are horrible units (no pun intented). They drop fast under fire, you can't reinforce them, they deal very little damage compared to their price. Sure you can deepstrike them, but that doesn't help the fact they are a sub-par unit to begin with.

thats all I can think of for now.

[3DHouseOfBeef]

Any ideas as to how the balance might be acheived 3DHoB?


After reading lots of gaming forums, I cringe every time I see a suggestion for balance change posed by your average player. Usually they are just something along the lines of "I have played seven games now, and Chaos needs to start with a Bloodthirster... with lasers for eyes... that leaves a trail of chaotic goo that randomly changes the map every six minutes". Having read hundreds of similar suggestions, I hesitate to put myself in that camp.

I would like to hear what the top players think might help though. I'd love to see some good counter-strategies that work. The developers spent a lot of time working on balance, I only have a few hundred games under my belt. Chances are if I made a suggestion, it has probably been tried at some point.

I'd really like to see what some of the issues were during testing that made them make this or that decision about unit costs, unit power and population caps. I look at the cultist population cost of 2, and think it is steep. I also think 1 would probably be low, as 10 grenade squads after an armory would terrify our poor Ork friends. A starting pop cap of 12 might make the cultist price seem better, but who knows what was tested. Maybe KS_Josey_Wales owned the other testers with Chaos so badly, they got scared. :argh:

There are so many elements to balance, I can't think of one easy way to resolve an issue without breaking something else. I mean when I see that first Bonesinger appear in my base I am thinking, "That builder is stronger than my Cultists and my Heretics...". At which point I am usually running my heretics around, wishing they were building things, and taking a beating until my CSM get built. For me it isn't just one thing that seems to be a bad matchup, but a combination of things that are hard to overcome as a whole.

Maybe some of the top Chaos players could chime in and tell us what they find to be particularly problematic, or better yet, tell us how they overcome these apparent disadvantages.

-3D House of Beef

[*Eroes*]

This is exactly the kind of observation and comments that the developers need to make sure the game is well balanced.

Any ideas as to how the balance might be acheived 3DHoB? You have a good grasp of the game surely you have some thoughts?


Alpha, seems to me the answer is obvious: Cultists need a boost [they're supposed to be meatshield. Eehehe! Too bad their 95hp make'em totally useless as wall of meat].
And Defilers, like any other walker, need using 2pop cap.

I do not even speak about their totally useless tier3 ;)

[[Vertigo]]

For me it isn't just one thing that seems to be a bad matchup, but a combination of things that are hard to overcome as a whole.


I have that same feeling when I am playing online. It is like all of our units are way too expensive for what they do. Cultist, for example, being way too weak for a meat shield and costing two cap each, but on the flip side they would be way over powered if they costed one cap each.

[ShadeKnight]

I'm primarily a Chaos player, and to be honest, I just don't know. The Chaos seem as though they are pretty well balanced with the other races, but there may be a thing or two about them that could be tweaked to even the field a bit more. The first thing that comes to mind is a lack of light vehicles for Chaos. There is no Wartrack, Speeder, or Vyper equivalent that you can get out there quickly. That being said, the Chaos just isn't an army thats about their vehicles (which is, IMO, the primary factor that sets them apart from the Space Marines). The number and power of infantry units they can put on the field is really quite nice, with vehicles being used mainly for fire support (at least by me), or occasionaly use a Defiler or two to mix up your CC forces if you want to show your opponent a different look. I think a light weapon add-on that can be upgraded for the Rhino might be a possible way to address this if its the way Relic wanted to go. Also, a slight augmentation of the Defiler's HP might also help on the vehiclar part of the equation. Not much mind you, since it is an incredibly versatile vehicle, but maybe enough to let it last another second or two against another walker.

That being said, I think if you want to enhance the Chaos army, you need to focus on the infantry, since that is their bread and butter. The Tactical and Raptor squads are perfectly fine and better than the Space Marine basic infantry (mostly same stats, but more per squad, plus Furious Charge upgrade and heavy weapons on Raptors). The cultists are overall pretty good, I think. The only thing I would change would be increase their individual hitpoints by just a bit, no more than 30 or so. This would allow them to fill the early game meat shield role more effectively without giving them too much of an advantage. And 3DHoB, I don't think that the Scouts and Cultists coming to a draw on overwatch is such a bad thing since Chaos get two more marines in their Tactical and Raptor squads than Space Marines, and since those two extra Tactical guys can cloak with the rest of their buddies. Horror squads might have their damage increased a bit. I have no problem with them being fragile since the Chaos is an assualt oriented army and they are support fire, but I think that they need a little something else since they can't reinforce. A moderate damage increase would take care of this quite nicely. Its hard for me to complain about Possessed Marines. They just kill so much. I think that for what you're getting, the cost is completely justified. After all, they have over 900 HP apiece, can be upgraded to be effective against everything, and are, I think, one of the best infantry units in the game. The only change I would make to them is to possibly decrease their build time by just a bit. Maybe 4 seconds less to get them out of the pit and a second a piece for reinforcing in the field. Obliterators are also very nice units, some of the best fire support in the game. Its hard to argue with something that carries a gun for every situation on it's arm. But I do think that maybe their damage out put could be a little higher. The only way I would do this would be to chop 800 HP off of each the individual unit's health (they have about 1016 as it is now) and allow them to reinforce to five units. This way the full squad is just as fragile, but has a bit more punch.

Again, I think that the armies on the whole are really balanced pretty well. Any changes that are made should be small and in keeping with the themes of both the army and the individual units. But I think these might be, if Relic decides any Chaos changes are needed (since I think they probably know the game a lot better than most of us, and definately better than me), these might be at least a decent place to start.

[Aetherfox]

I am not a top player in DoW either, but that is because my current connection does not allow me to play on Gamespy. But I do have 10 years of experience in RTS games, and have competed at RTS tournaments before.

The way things look I would actually be in favour of scrapping the Tier 3 of Chaos altogether, and give them everything in Tier 2 already. Daemon Pit in Tier 2 = more usage of Obliterators, perhaps overpowered but then counters to heavy infantry high already exist in tier 2, and really only strong point of Oblits is their armour. Tier 2 Bloodthirster is in no way overpowered, prerequisite to have all other structions up and running of course. Tier 2 Laser Predators is fine, if a bit strong. Sacrificial Pit should cost less, to make it an attractive option before uprading to Tier 2. Defilers be 2 vpop. Chaos Rhino projecting Taint of Chaos. Starting pop cap to 12.

This isn't changing anything that Chaos players really use and abuse at the moment, so I doubt it makes them that much stronger as a race. However, the idea here is to make the other techs more accessible and give Chaos a larger diversity in strategies and flexibility when dealing with threats, not increase their power level directly.

[[Vertigo]]

However, the idea here is to make the other techs more accessible and give Chaos a larger diversity in strategies and flexibility when dealing with threats, not increase their power level directly.


That is it, right there! Chaos has lots of unique infantry units that are not accessible. Our primary strength is our infantry. PSMs, CSMs, Oblits, and Horrors. But each of those units requires a seperate building to get access to each one. And I can tell you that those buildings are not cheap. Unlike the Eldar who get cheap buildings and very strong specilized units we have to pay through the nose to get ours. And the Eldar and Orks only have 2 primary buildings to produce infantry

As for ballance changes:

I would like to see Cultist with a few more hitpoints. The Sac pit needs to be much more cheaper, it should cost about 100/50. Horrors are easy, just make them cheaper to field, like about 150/75/2; they are no way near the power of their cost right now. The Predator needs to either be cheaper to produce, or it needs a massive damage buff to the main cannon. I'm leaning towards the price reduction for the tank. SM needs to have a cheaper pred as well.

[First And Only]

Chaos definitely has some problems. One major problem is how worthless cultists are against a rush of CC units. Chaos is heavily disadvantaged against Orks and Eldar opening fights. Orks especially. However I don't have a good solution in my head at the moment, because it's pretty easy to overpower cultists, and we have to keep in mind that any changes to Cultist durability affects gren launcher spam.

[{EG}Dark-Odin]

I play the Chaos and the Eldar, and I am fine with em both but just by bringing across the point of this race is weak then this and that race is weak then that and so on it's stupid because at the end of the day each race has something wrong with them lets see

Eldar: are very weak at close combat even the banshees when you lower there morale and the sheer council, in the beginning of a game they can be easily rushed by a group of 2 chaos marines squads, by that time they would have like one unit out or a farseer or both and even then the farseer is so crap it dies hell if a guy attacks with a marine squad and a FC/CL they die also there rangers they cost way to much for nothing

Chaos: I have played these and I think they have the best close combat units I mean come on More fire power damage then the SM theres more fair enough morale is crap and they die badly when they lose it however they have more damage and hell when you get the possessed out fully upgraded with all researches my god these are the ultimate close combat unit god termies stand no chance against em if they have no leader attached or a medic they lose morale and fall like flies so I like to call em the Anti-termi unit oh the wonders of the possessed the cultists I dont really use em much and if I still have a few upgraded I just upgrade em with launchers and hide em behind my hardened CM or usaly I have my raptor in front then my grenade launchers cultist and CM just lay the floor with the stuff infront.

I do find some stuff does cost to much for the stuff they do not just on Choas but Eldar to even when there pointless the rangers are the most pointless unit in the entire game they do nothing and they decreased the morale damage they do in the latest patch I think not sure and that’s made em more pointless and a group of cultists do more damage then a sm scouts or eldar guardians and mine win all the time so I'm not sure where your going with sm kick your arse maybe they have them upgraded with 2 snipers and that’s what hits your guys and morale thus making em so weak the scouts finish em off, er yeah I'm done now.

[Sanguinius_nz]

@ Dark Odin:
Umm banshees are one of the best CC units in the game they will kill assault marines and raptors and decimate chaos marines and and marines, one game I played against a chaos player his possessed spent more time running away from my banshees, it wasnt untill he got possessed flamer upgrade then abused F2 so they fried my banshees morale before switching back to melee that he actually managed to kill 1 squad of banshees (it was too late for him by then anyway).

Back on topic, I feel more than anything else that hold chaos back against other armies is they have trouble against armour they have no anti vehcile weapons beyond missiles untill they can get lascannon preds this generally means a large proportion of chaos troops end up armed with missiles instead of plasma or HBs to counteract enemy infantry.

Chaos are also forced to be more sneaky than other races (even more so than eldar) and I feel making good use of infiltrate to lay traps and attack enemy bases is something a lot of chaos players just dont do.

[Sinbad]

When I play chaos vs eldar or ork, I only tech to tier 2 for missles. Vs chaos and SM I tech to get plasma. All other their 2 and 3 chaos units are either not effective or too expensive to field properly. Teir one is where chaos is suppose to shine b/c of horros and psm, however even these units fall into the not effective (horrors) or too expensive (PSM in early game when they are most effictive) categories. It seems to me that the CSM units are suppose to be the main force of the army and all other units are suppose to be their support (just like SMs' army setup) however the other units are not well suited for supportment role because:
a) Are not a specific counter to anything but try to be buff on their own (PSM).
b) When you need to counter something the best way to do it is to give your CSM unit the appropriate weapon for the job because:
1)CSM with plasma > horrors vs heavy infantry
2)CSM with missles > defiler vs vehicles
3)CSM with HB > anything else chaos has (with exception of cultists with grenade launchers if you can keep them alive) vs light infantry.
So I guess my point is Chaos support units that are specific counters to something are not as good as the upgraded basic unit vs their specific counter. Where in other races this isn't the case or the gap is not as big.

[ThE|Android]

As of right now, there is ONE... YES ONE Chaos player in the top 30 players on the 1v1 ladder.

okok i will be the second one in the top 30 players j/k or maybe not ^^

[Redcap224]

The initial poster was correct in with the typed observations for Chaos being weak in terms of no one is winning the higher Tiers with them.

Vertigo was correct, at least from my own personal experience from playing Chaos a lot, with all of his observations. His post summed up the same things I have been seeing.

As for Cultists sucking - yes, they do. I only bother to make 2 squads total of them and to be honest, I suicide / dance / throw them at my foe as a misdirection rather than spend points on grenade launchers half of the time. Let's face it - since cultists suck, why spend more Req on a bad thing? A heretic using Forced Labor can get your temple built FAST, so your commander and chaos marines are out lickity-split in comparison to other races busting out their better stuff. So... If cultists got a boost in HP's that would be great, but the way I play, I'd still not rely on them. I'd have better options through raptors and chaos marines over them.

As for Possessed, man, they are great, but as have been observed by Vertigo and others, Tier 3 really kinda sucks for Chaos. Others get better toys with better and cheaper options to get them. Chaos is all about taking the fight to the enemy NOW and reaching Tier 2 as fast as your mouse will let you click for it.

Which kinda bites, I guess. I still like them best for their graphics and sounds.

[.42.]

I like the idea of a blodthirster shooting Chaos Goo out of his eyes! To make it fair just make him 4 pop :P

You know what'd be cool for a chaos light vehicle?
Hells Angels! Chaos marines on Hogs that'd be so awsome.
I know they have them in TT.

Anyway Chaos is weak vs vehicles specially wartracks maybe a boost to rocket damage?

[Sajuur]

Chaos has been my ladder race for almost all ladder games I play. Their 10 squad number instead of 8 is very helpful, and the cultists are great for pulling enemies into CC, and keeping your CL alive. Cultists are often that little bit more than you need to win the first battle, and then you will probaly those both the squads so you can have 4 marine squads without any upgrades. I'm not a top player, but I've played over 75 automatch games since the beta, and Chaos was about the only race I ever use. They are weak at teir 3, but its rare for automatch to get there.

[[Vertigo]]

When I play chaos vs eldar or ork, I only tech to tier 2 for missles. Vs chaos and SM I tech to get plasma. All other their 2 and 3 chaos units are either not effective or too expensive to field properly. Teir one is where chaos is suppose to shine b/c of horros and psm, however even these units fall into the not effective (horrors) or too expensive (PSM in early game when they are most effictive) categories. It seems to me that the CSM units are suppose to be the main force of the army and all other units are suppose to be their support (just like SMs' army setup) however the other units are not well suited for supportment role because:
a) Are not a specific counter to anything but try to be buff on their own (PSM).
b) When you need to counter something the best way to do it is to give your CSM unit the appropriate weapon for the job because:
1)CSM with plasma > horrors vs heavy infantry
2)CSM with missles > defiler vs vehicles
3)CSM with HB > anything else chaos has (with exception of cultists with grenade launchers if you can keep them alive) vs light infantry.
So I guess my point is Chaos support units that are specific counters to something are not as good as the upgraded basic unit vs their specific counter. Where in other races this isn't the case or the gap is not as big.


That is exactly as I feel, I can't build anything else other than Chaos Space Marines. It is like CSMs are the only unit in our army. Plasma CSMs are better than Horrors for the price. CSMs with missles are our only anti-tank unit. CSMs with bolters are not as good as Cultist with grenade launchers so there is at least something else there. The biggest thing that is holding back Chaos, is the fact that the sac pit cost the same as the upgrade to teir 2.

[trekkie9090]

ok,why don't they leave cultists hp alone,and just make them 1 pop without heavy weapons and 2 pop if they have heavy weapons? No spare pop=no grenade launchers.

Also,the 2 pop cultists might be to balance the larger # of CSM in a tac squad,2 pop cultists=less tac squads.maybe


the Predator is extreamly weak.

No. It's a tier 3 unit that chaos gets at tier 2,it shouldn't wtfpwn everything.

Also,don't lower the PSM cost,thier annoying for me as ork,because they CC while CSM shoot up all my sluggas. Plus,they do wicked CC damage.

Make Defiler 2 pop? NO!!! God,10 of them would be insane they can do everything. Might as well make fire prism 2 pop too :p

[First And Only]

Because 1 pop cultists is overpowered. How will anyone have a unit free to shoot the cultists if the Chaos player has 1 pop cultists? Unelss you want them to die as fast as Grots do?

[*Eroes*]

That is exactly as I feel, I can't build anything else other than Chaos Space Marines. It is like CSMs are the only unit in our army. Plasma CSMs are better than Horrors for the price. CSMs with missles are our only anti-tank unit.

Yeah, and that is what I FEEL.

Chaos army is supposed to shine due to his units diversity. But we can't rely on that.
When I play against SM or Orks, my only anxiety is to tech fast fast fast to tier2 to gain missile launchers and defend against their wartraks and dreads [dreads: 3800hp, heavily armoured, good against anything ... cap2. Lol. Ridiculous].

Horrors, PSMs, Oblits ... I can't even think to build them: against 1400+ players I have to play in a very defensive way. So: CSMs and missile launchers, missile launchers and CSMs.

Answers to this problem?
Well, Aetherfox gave us and example.

Just my [probably useless] 2 cents

[{EG}Dark-Odin]

To Sanguinius_nz

Thats wierd cause everytime I go against banshess my possed wipe em out they lower there morale and with a damage rate of 103 to 126 I think when fully upgraded I just own a banshee unit and most of the time the eldar player runs em away back to his base and not to mention there is one ultimate thing Chaos have over the eldar my god this is the best thing of all

Eldar have 1 cloak detecting unit the farseer and what do you do, you draw the little blighter out kill it then send in 3-4 sqauds of Cm some armed with rockets and some with heavy bolters or you could just do all rockets then try to teleport your sorcere into there base so you can see there buildings if cloaked then let rip or you if you have an ally sm wait for him to send in his FC with DS always gets eldar they just curl up in a ball and die when they get hit with loads of rocket boys in the back of there base.

[-|EoT|-Havoc]

Space marines will just be better, because scouts just kick ass too much, they are the only 1 pop (combat)unit, are as fast as normal broken units, no terrain penalty, lots of firepower and can be equipped with 2 special weapons. When you mass scouts with flamers at the beginning, theres nothing chaos can do to stop them. Because cultists are worthless untill you get to grenade launchers, and after that they are useless again. But then again scouts will probably get a nerf in the new patch, because everyone knows they are too good to be 1 cap.

Defilers are supposed to fill the roles of dreadnought and artillery at the same time, but isnt really good at either of them.
Predators are not even a factor at tier 2, so basicly chaos has just one vehicle. And 1 vehicle hardly justifies the cost of a machine pit(not to mention the cap upgrade you have to buy at the beginning.
Just build sacrificial circle, PSM are quite good, and so is the sorcerer

Tier 3
I would not even go to tier 3 unless you have too much requisition. Because: oblits suck, your better off with CSM and possesed. Bloodthirster sucks->waaay too expensive for what he does. Only thing worth noticing in tier three is preds with lascannons.

So basicly, there are 2 ways to win with chaos imho
1. rush CSM with lord before he got his hero/units out. try to destroy as much as possible, retreat, and attack again immediatly when 2nd squad is out
2. tech to cultist grenade launchers asap, attack when you have them, then destroy him.

Do not let the game last into late tier2/tier3! You will not survive.

But instead of making it hard on yourself you could go play SM, would be alot easier. I just play chaos becuase everyone plays SM already

[Aner-Dyfan]

I play as both Chaos and Space Marine, not that I am a very good player with either. When I do play Chaos I can only win if it's a fairly short game, if the enemy has too many vehicles then I can't do it. Defillers are good for killing heavy infantry, but are useless if I am useing possessed marines cause they wipe out my morale and keep them from fighting. But if I just use tactical marines I'd rather be space marine, as then I can have healers, and a better range of vehicles.

Cultists could do with a bit of a Hp boost, though a tip is not to use them melee. I have fought scouts in melee and it's been a stalemate, moved them out of melee to range and then the scouts died in seconds. Defillers would also do better with a Hp boost, it's a bit unfair that dreads destroy them so easily even though they are less pop.

Chaos is VERY power hungry; possessed, horrors, lascannons. If the power generator was reduced in requisition then it might make it fairer, whenever I play Space marine I only ever need about half the generators. Even with quick-start I need a load of power plants for chaos, yet don't need any for other sides.

[*Eroes*]

So basicly, there are 2 ways to win with chaos imho
1. rush CSM with lord before he got his hero/units out. try to destroy as much as possible, retreat, and attack again immediatly when 2nd squad is out
2. tech to cultist grenade launchers asap, attack when you have them, then destroy him.

But instead of making it hard on yourself you could go play SM, would be alot easier. I just play chaos becuase everyone plays SM already

Indeed I'm using SM these days.

But this is a defeat.
Not for me. Not for you. But for the game itself.

As a 1420 rank. points player [now 1360, after a lot of defeats agains 1450+ Sm players], I find myself unable to go forward with Chaos army.
And not for my fault, but for the limits of this army.

[Redjowl]

One of the problems I find when playing as chaos is a lack of a clear path to victory.

What I mean by this is you get several options to spend your res on come tier two but neither is realy good enough on its own and its too expensive to go for both.

The other races can pretty much all go for armoury (or the racial equivalent) then Machine pit equivalent and start pumping vehicles.

Chaos however arent realy strong enough with just vehicles alone (whereas other races can) to win a battle. However if you go for the sac pit for the infantry to win the game you lack the anti vehicle firepower to stop someone who is concentrating on vehicles.

Going for both vehicles and sac pit isnt normally an option due to the cost of both.

Maybe an option, which would hopefully be keeping the theme of the game, would be to give chaos an extra unit type (deamon) from the sac pit. This unit could be something like blood letters or possibley jugganaughts (I apologise for the spelling its been a long time since i last read about either unit) and be an anti vehicle deamon unit.

This would make it possible for chaos to go for the sac pit rather than the machine pit (hopefully saving a bit on missles too) which would also add to the theme of chaos being a deamon based army, less reliant on vehicles than other races.

The new deamon unit could possibley use up vehicle cap rather than troop cap (as chaos already has some squad cap issues) and possibely should be fairly weak at attacking buildings to save it from being unbalancing in attack.

I think that even with this horrors need to be made into a more useful unit which might also add to the sac pit being the focus of chaos armies to save them being so similar to sm armies.

[RhyuFyre]

Lower the SAC PIT cost to 150 and 50. Its already costing a teir upgrade :|

[Sinbad]

Maybe an option, which would hopefully be keeping the theme of the game, would be to give chaos an extra unit type (deamon) from the sac pit. This unit could be something like blood letters or possibley jugganaughts (I apologise for the spelling its been a long time since i last read about either unit) and be an anti vehicle deamon unit.

I think this is a good idea. However I do not think it is going to happen in a patch though, it sounds more like something that would be done in an expansion. I am fine with the units that chaos has and their power/req costs. I would like to see some of these units buffed up a little bit so that I would actually have an incentive to build them.

[trekkie9090]

[dreads: 3800hp, heavily armoured, good against anything ... cap2. Lol. Ridiculous].

imho,defiler > dread. It just fills alot of roles so chaos can pump out 1 vehicle and do alot of things with just those 1 type, If u CC it will kill you,if u run it will autocannon you,if u get outta autocannon range or charger it ,it will usu its aty and decimate morale.Thats basically what the ork leman russ does,only the russ has more hp,no CC damage,and comes a tier later. To sum it up,leave it 3 pop.

[MusedMark]

Defilers are good, but they dont last long enough. In cc, while they can tie a sqaud it takes a defieler a very long time to actually kill the sqaud. Its cannon is good, but not brilliant.. And a chaos player has to spend 150 req just to able to get one out, on top of the cost of the defiler and the vehicle pit. The 150req could be better spent on re-inforcing units or what not.

The problem with Chaos, in my honest opinion, is that the sqauds are all too generic. No single unit or sqaud is a direct counter for an enemy sqaud/unit.
Let me elaborate....
Orks have a possible strat/bo for each race they may face
Eldar also have a strat/bo for each race they may face
SM to an extent can use one of many different early game builds to harass specific races.
CSM dont, not one early game chaos unit is a good counter to what the enemy can throw at you.
Anything a Chaos player can do a SM player can do better, an ork player can over run and an eldar player can counter.

Its not really fair when the best match up a Chaos player can hope for is Vs another chaos player.

Sure, there some good chaos players out there (myself included), but it like having to play with a handicap. I don't want any drastic balance altering changes for chaos, i just wanna see them get an easier ride through the game.
`

[ChRoNiC]

totally agree that chaos needs buffing...

my change list would be...

1. Cultists: More hp or slighly quicker reinforce time.

2. Sac pitt: make it quicker and cheaper to build.

3. PSM: Slightly quicker to build.

4. Horrors: need to be made cheaper to build or more effective for what they currently cost perhaps allow them to reinforce?

5. Chaos pred: main gun needs to do more damage this would stop chaos getting owned by tier 2 vehicles.

6. defillers: make them 2 pop!

[trekkie9090]

6. defillers: make them 2 pop!

no no no no and no!Defiler is to good for 2 pop,because of it's artilery. Not to pop,a chaos player with ten defilers would be to strong.

Alos, theres no way chaos could be buffed that much, chronic, and be balanced.Faster building PSM with cheaper sac pit= much more powerful rush.

[/QUOTE]5. Chaos pred: main gun needs to do more damage this would stop chaos getting owned by tier 2 vehicles. [QUOTE]

it's a tier 3 vehicle chaos get early,dont expect it to pwn everything,its fine.

But the most important one is don't change defiler pop!!!

[Albi]

Whirlwind pop 2
Dread pop 2
Landspeeder pop 2

WarTrak pop 2

Eldar fast thingy pop 2

@ trekkie9090 what would say is Chaos pop 2 veh?

None + they have to buy a Veh upgrade to get the first veh.

[FM_Surrigon]

I was primarily a chaos player (I've lost interest recently because it's just gotten too frustrating) and I played two types of games:

Games where I got out-played
and
Games where chaos got out-played

A decent gamer knows the difference. I get out-played a fair number of times, but there are times when an opponent just so non-chalantly decimates me that I know there wasn't much I could've done.

[[Vertigo]]

totally agree that chaos needs buffing...

my change list would be...

1. Cultists: More hp or slighly quicker reinforce time.

2. Sac pitt: make it quicker and cheaper to build.

3. PSM: Slightly quicker to build.

4. Horrors: need to be made cheaper to build or more effective for what they currently cost perhaps allow them to reinforce?

5. Chaos pred: main gun needs to do more damage this would stop chaos getting owned by tier 2 vehicles.

6. defillers: make them 2 pop!


I think Chronic sumed the ballance changes, that I would like to see, best. Except for the Defiler being 2 pop, that would be way too much for any game. Instead I would like to see the Chaos machine pit produce 3 vehicle cap instead of the 2 it currently produces.

[Chaz]

I love the Chaos for their style only. I've not played online since Gamespy hates me and most likely my router with an unbrideled passion, but I have gotten a chance to play rather often on the LAN at my friends'. I tend to play on Random because it adds some fun to it. The only time I choose a side, I always choose Chaos. Style baby.

While the Chaos have some advantages over the other races, ultimately the other races have far more advantages over the Chaos.

Defilers really do need a drop in cap to 2. As it stands currently, the defiler tries to be a multi-purpose assault walker but doesn't actually do anything well. Its artillery can break a squad up if it hits, sure. But it doesn't do enough damage to change the tide of a battle. In CC it'll tie a squad of troops up, but by that time the other player should already have MLs sitting behind that squad. More often than not those MLs can shred the defiler long before it kills off a squad in CC. Well, unless you're fighting orks. In which case there'll be a mass of squads with nob leaders just itching to use their power claws while a tank busta squad sits behind them slaughtering the big mechanical monster with rockets. Then a Killa Kan trundles out and laughs at the very thought of a Defiler harming it in CC. It is not good at everything, it can just do everything very poorly (especially considering it requires a vehicle cap increase in addition to the cost of the machine pit and defiler).

The Chaos Tier 3 is a desolate place full of expensive options that lead you nowhere. I've been toying around with a few ideas on how to make teching to Tier 3 worth more than a twin-linked Lascannon on the Pred. Oblits, while a very good fire support role need something more to be worth the cost of teching to tier 3 and then the insane amount of time it takes to reinforce. Perhaps a reduction in the reinforce time or an increase to six man squads. They are handy as it is, but they are still easy to counter (especially if the game has dragged on to Tier 3) and just lacking when compared to the cost/time needed for them. As for the bloodthirster...well..ha. Yeah right. Uber unit he is not. A ludicrious jaw-droppingly stupid waste of resources. While he has the element of surprise and can pop out of anywhere (well, anywhere an aspiring champion or CL happens to be), he is still just not up to snuff. A squad of Assault Terminators can crush the over-sized idiot by themselves. He needs a bit of tweaking, perhaps just a decrease in how fast his life plummets when he isn't swinging that huge axe. So what's left in Tier 3 now? Upgrades for the Sorcerer and CL. Corruption does barely noticeable amounts of damage and then there's some ability that I've never used for the CL. So, why as a Chaos player, should I even consider using the resources to tech to tier 3?

Cultists...well I just don't know what the hell can be done here. It seems they are weak, but any buff seems like it'd unbalance it in the cultist favor. Perhaps a simple and slight HP buff would do it, but I'm not sure.

The Sac pit could probably stand for a price decrease, as could the horrors. The only thing horrifying about those little imps is how useless they are and the fact that they come at the same cost as a squad of PSM.

The PSM are the icons of the Chaos army...or can be. Provided you are given the time and money it takes to pump out a squad of PSM, reinforce them, and then research all of their upgrades. About ten minutes later, yeah, you've got some insane little buggers running around.

Generally I end up just fielding a bunch of CSMs, a single squad of PSM with the CL and CS. Defilers serve as mechanical meat shields and the Pred rolls around being really ineffective until I can stick lascannons on it. If the game even lasts that long. Unfortunately by then I'm watching Dreadnaughts stomping around screaming "I shall end you" while fire prisms jump all over the place and blast my poor little CSMs into the hills.

I can win with the Chaos against my friends, but it feels like I had to work harder to do it; though at the same time it seems more satisfying to win with them.

"The forces of Chaos call for your destruction!"

[newghost]

here what my changes would be

1. buff the oblits. the assault cannonn and plasma cannon need a tiny buff, but i think that where the problem lies is with the units las cannon. buff it and up the penetration power of the cannon and plasma. if your gonna whine about that making oblits too powerful, just limit them to 4 like healer units.

2. add 40 or so HPs to cultist, this way theyre still meatshields, but they wouldnt be over powered later.

3. sac pit should be cheaper.

4. remove that lame idea of the BT loseing health every second, thats just stupid.

5. buff the preds cannons SLIGHTLY, like only 5 points. (for those of you who mod your games.)

since i REALLY doubt well see a chaos light vehicle soon, just give the Defiler a slight buff. other than that i dont see any other problems.

[Sps]

As an eldar player my thoughts at seeing vehicles rom chaos is quite literaly:

"Oh, it's just a defiler".

Whereas dreds whom yes I can dispose of relatively easy - are a pain. As chaos I used to love sending 3-4 defilers in cc to tear enemy a new one, but as people got better I'm usually trying to keep my precious few csm alive vs a horde of sm/ork by artying the approach and shooting anything getting close to the defiler. One dred can turn the tide of battle - one defiler capable yes, but not so much.

Why is this the case? Simple ,defiler is paperthin and as they say jack of all trades and master of none - almost.

Two solutions I can see for defiler:

1. Increase it's HP. Why? Well a lot of Sm players whine trying to keep their overpowered race as such but at 3 pop you have maximum of 6 units relatively ok as artilery and good as CC. Crap at ranged as autocanon I never even notice killing anything (and i am eldar go figure). Since no1 ever uses rhinos much that always leaves 18 vehicle pop vs 20 vehicle pop - 10 vs 6 - always.

2. Reduce cap to 2 (very dangerous)

At 20 cap sm can have 5 wicked good CC units and 5 relatively good arty units with insane range. That is TEN vehicles you have to dispose of as chaos.

Sm has to worry about 6 only and simply treat it as artilery - spread missile squads and keep them out of cc, defilers low HP makes it easy to pop them.

To any sane person this is a decisive Sm advantage and total vehicle superiority. Think about it:

5 dreds (more than a match for 6 defilers)
2 ww's
2 predators

vs?

6 chaos vehicles - any mix of defiler/predators (2-4, 1-5, 3-3, 4-2, 5-1)

Sm win the vehicle war every single time with one formula - arguably half the sm cap of 5 dreds is quite enough.

Solution:

Increase defilers HP
Increase autocannon damage output slightly
Keep it at 3 pop as its versatility justifies it - provided it does it slightly better.

I like chaos. I t is my second race altho I am not as good at it but frankly aside from possessed or an early raptor rush chaos is ZERO threat to my eldar.

Actually the beefs I have with chaos and buffs I think would make them able to stand up to SM are:

Increase cultist HP slightly
Increase chaos marines reinforcment speed slightly (they are after all about numbers)
Nerf horrors back but also make them 1 pop as they were at one point during beta (I think I could be hallucinating) and make them cost 220/50
Increase defiler HP
Reduce obliterators to 3 pop and increase their laz cannon damage.
Make chaos buildings actually benefit chaos and maybe even HURT enemy near them.

I am not suggesting ALL of these at same time but they are some ideas. 1.1 has definitely made chaos better but not enough.

Alternative train of thought I have is that chaos may be fine as is, SM are without a doubt in my mind the most overpowered race across the board. They do everything exceptionaly well and they do it at all points in the game. Even SM weapons are UBER as plasma mass is quite capable of taking down a defiler, not as fast as missiles but definitely capable. You try taking out a few dreds with a full eldar infantry cap and we'll see you in a decade or two. I could post a replay of my mass plasma scouts wtfpwning a kan but i am sure Sm players would consider it a rigged game :P

(yes i know eldar BL kills vehicles the point is SM weapons suffer almost no penalty if they happen to be the wrong ones - plasma will do vs eldar just as well as bolter the only shortcoming being range!)

The single biggest advantage of SM vs other races is time. They addapt fast and do so on the spot with minimal time penalty. Their basic units are resiliant enough to hold a lot of pressure until tier 2. I would be quite happy if my aspect portal cost 250 and required no aspect stone for banshees precisely because of the TIME factor.

Which is also why chaos only has advantage early on due to FL. VS chaos SM have a formidable enemy until mid tier 2 when vehicles start showing up in numbers. And at tier 3 chaos only has laz predator as obliterators are a joke (and this is from an eldar player).

I play a lot of team games with a team vs team skillset being relatively equal T3 is reached quite often, and 2v2v2's which always reach t3 - so I have a bit of a different perspective than a lot of automatchers.

But again while yes chaos could use some bufss, I think SM needs to be brought down to chaos level as opposed to the other way around.

[.42.]

SPS:
You probably don't know this since you say you mostly play team games
but chaos is being run over by fast wartracks in automatch so if you bring SM to chaos's level you will have 2 races underpowered vs orks. SM isn't doing that well vs fast wartracks either, so I bet we can expect wartracks to be toned down a bit in the next patch.

In any case I'd rather buff chaos rathen than nerf SM.

I like the idea of starting with 3 vehicle cap then we wouldn't have to pay through the nose for our first defiler or predator.

[silencio]

The likely reason that cultists are poor at the moment is that balance changes are usually made very gradually. In the final version of the beta before release, cultist squads formed part of a horribly effective tier 1 chaos rush due to the fact that their reinforce time was so fast they were almost impossible to kill without concentrated fire, and concentrating your fire meant losing to the csm.

I think that cultists now either need a slightly faster reinforce time, an increase to their HP or possibly a careful combination of the 2. I don't think dropping the cap to 1 is really the answer, and if you did I think you'd have to restrict the grenade launchers to 1 per squad until after the heavy weapons increase research.

[Shorn]

Not sure chaos should match SM in the vehicle war. SM are the vehicle race. They have the best and most vehicles. Chaos I think are the infantry race. If chaos needs to be improved I think we should look there.

[testthewest]

the problem with chaos and the lacking of diversity is the following (applys to SM too):
Space Marines are too good. In fact they are the best counter to everything and available from the start. Right now if a critical mass of Marines is reached, the only way to beat it is with more Marines. Here is where the advantge for SM over Chaos comes: Snipers force you to attack in their defences due to their high range/dmg.

[{EG}Dark-Odin]

chaos Marines have good attack power, alot more marines in a squad to the space marines they also have 433 hp compared to the space marines 300 and the one thing that makes space marines hard is there high morale and able to rally.

I got the HP's from a game I played maybe its cause I upgraded mine to max and he didnt I'm not sure, so I'll have to check that out.

[*Eroes*]

I like the post of SPS: great and fair analysis, pal ;)

I hope to see some change in the upcoming patch.

[SgtSteve]

Lets add a new vehicle for chaos. They've only got 3 to begin with, one of which is a rhino! That's the smallest number of machines available to any army in the game.

Also, when you get 6 defilers / predators, your cap hits 18 and the only thing you can still build IS a rhino. Lets see some small chaos vehicle with a cap of 2, or even 1, to fill in that last bit so a chaos player can make REAL use of the full 20.

The following suggestion is just something that I threw together as an example, don't bother flaming it cuz its only half serious =)

Suggestion: Chaos Bikers. Builds at the machine pit, Tier2 required, armory required, chaos temple required. Build time is fast. Reinforcement time is fast. Bikers are intended to be primarily anti-infantry, tho they can stand against heavy infantry and other light vehicles because of their light armor and fast firing good damage weapons. Squad starts at 90r, 40p, 1cap. Squad can be increased up to 5 bikers, each one taking the same amount of resources described above. Bikers have light vehicle armor, around 650hp, do 45-51 ranged -continuous fast firing- (twin mounted boltguns plus hand held pistol), 23-35 cc (pistol and chainsords), are very fast, being able to run down ANY infantry unit in the game, with the possible exception of broken fleet of foot eldar, and Bikers can CAP strategic points, since they are a squad that just happens to use vehicle cap instead of infantry. Chaos armory upgrades apply to Bikers. No upgrades on the unit themselves, no special abilities. No champions.

Something like this would give the chaos player a little more flexibility in choosing his vehicle dispotion. As has already been stated several times, the mid to late game chaos player really only has ONE choice - what combination of 6 vehicles do I want? 3 and 3? 1 and 5? All 6 of one type? These limited choices make it easy for an enemy to counter, knowing what is to come.

If anyone remembers, when Brood War came out Blizzard added two new units to each race. These units were all over the map, and related very little to each other. I suspect that something similar is on the way for Dawn of War, with a couple units getting added to each army to contribute to 1.2 balance! Until then, struggle on you heretics, and know that the Emperor's finest await you!

[*Eroes*]

No new unit will be added by devs.
First thing they told on the forum.

[.42.]

{EG}Dark-Odin:
Space marines and Chaos Space marines have the same hit points.
CSM are slightly better at hand to hand than SM and SM are slightly better at ranged.

[MusedMark]

In fact, CSM have better melee damage than ranged damage..

[Noir]

Suggestion: Chaos Bikers. Builds at the machine pit, Tier2 required, armory required, chaos temple required. Build time is fast. Reinforcement time is fast. Bikers are intended to be primarily anti-infantry, tho they can stand against heavy infantry and other light vehicles because of their light armor and fast firing good damage weapons. Squad starts at 90r, 40p, 1cap. Squad can be increased up to 5 bikers, each one taking the same amount of resources described above. Bikers have light vehicle armor, around 650hp, do 45-51 ranged -continuous fast firing- (twin mounted boltguns plus hand held pistol), 23-35 cc (pistol and chainsords), are very fast, being able to run down ANY infantry unit in the game, with the possible exception of broken fleet of foot eldar, and Bikers can CAP strategic points, since they are a squad that just happens to use vehicle cap instead of infantry. Chaos armory upgrades apply to Bikers. No upgrades on the unit themselves, no special abilities. No champions.

That can't be done properly in the game.Well actually the CC element can't be done.Just turn the Chaos bike into a Cheaper and faster LS and you've got something nice though.

[Sps]

I do know about traks - that is a factor of trakks needing a nerf tho, not the other way around.

Shorn the reason I think vehicles own chaos is that their strength is CC. You can't cc a dred with any unit other than upgraded pcm. And with more vehicles on the field SM wins the shooting war.

Again those are just some thoughts. SM are the strongest of the four and only a few things can give them a run for their money. Hence me thinking sm broght down to chaos level.


I really really like the 3 pop obliterator idea as just last nite I saw how pathetic they are in comparison to terms - 3 pop may save them. Or no tier 3 for chaos - radical idea but it made sense. I don't know about ork but my reapers can dispose of oblits, I cnow tacs plasma can also. I don't know about ork.

Also CC advantage wont help you once vehicles show up - ask ork :).

Other things that may help chaos vs sm:

Scout HP reduction and sniper nerf (keep them as they are otherwise - fast, 1 pop)

I think this one may be the most important as it solves a lot of problems early on eliminating the early setback.

Orbital bombardment and DS rethinking. Orbital is way too strong and as for DS, 3 dreds are not a problem, it is the fact there is another 3, then another 3 that can potentially keep dropping on a force incapable of reinforcments due to OB cheezing buildings. That one I can't figure out as SM need DS as is now I just wish that they were unable to use it to spam from safe distance. Reducing the OR HP slightly and making it correspondingly cheaper would potentialy allow a small chaos surgical force to infiltrate and take the ability out - forcing a fight on even ground.

Chaos infiltration - useful against ork and eldar - vs sm, well 6 SM units can see them - kinda difficult to sneak past that.

And finally the CC mechanic as is is easily defeated via dance. It's not even that much micro select the unit being CC'ed and move it away. That's why come plasma time raptors and posessed generally die.


Bah - a million combinations hard to make them all fair or even true in every situation. Either way keep the ideas coming. I'm sure relic will pick the right ones.

There is no doubt in my mind chaos needs help even if Sm are nerfed vs chaos as like I said from my eldar perspective, short of initial rush gl/raptors, a bunch of posessed or that insanely tough CL (good thing) chaos is not much of a threat. And I consider eldar the underdogs.

[3DHouseOfBeef]

I'd like to see what some of Relics testers had to say about the issues involved in balancing Chaos.

KS_Josey_Wales is a (talented) tester that has played a lot of Chaos and I'm sure has some insight into what ideas failed and for what reason. Better yet, perhaps he could tell us what we are all missing in our collective struggles to be competative with Chaos.

I think it is particularly telling that Chaos' opponents don't see Chaos as much of a threat, and has at hand an immediate and generally successful plan to break what we plan to throw at them. i.e. "Oh, it's just a Defiler".

When I roll out a Defiler against Eldar I usually am feeling pretty good about it, kinda stings to see the other side not terribly concerned. Then again, given the alternatives they have to face in the vehicle world, I can understand it... hordes of Wartraks vs. all that light infantry, the ever brutal Dreadnaught, Landspeeders vs. all that light infantry, Shurkin Cannon plats vs. all that light infantry, Fire Prisims... yeah, things could be worse for an Eldar army.

Still... my evil chaotic black soul cringes at the thought of players seeing Chaos as their automatch opponent and being pleased. No one should be pleased to see Chaos on their doorstep.

-3D House of Beef

[Sps]

House - it's because of defilers low HP, the only concern i have is spreading out 3-4 BL so that arty doesn't cause them to resetup.

First on Bl - it is not as uber as sm players like to whine. First it is terribly inacurate therefore requiring a mass of those which 1. costs a lot, 2. eliminates eldar vehicles out of the picture. Sm can simply plasma up - plasma vs eldar IS a good idea as 1. it kills bl dead, and two the only disadvantage of plasma is range - but it kills just as fast as bolter. So SM kills my bl and a single dred can dispose of my 20 cap of aspects.

Now having said that, I still have disproportionately more trouble taking out a dred with say 3-5 bl, than a defiler. That is just plain wrong. The only advantage chaos has is the ability to not as efficiently as sm - but ability nonetheless to plasma up and kill my bl.

I've lost games to fast dreds, I don't remember losing a game to a fast defiler. In fact the last time that happened was in beta 1.1 I think where every chaos player "rushed" defilers (more of a fact of everyone playing slower).

Also I can take out a defiler with just one BL, whereas I rarely do the same with a dred. I don't know why that is as artilery fromt he defiler should in theory keep my BL in a set-up loop - yet it only slows it down. I can also take out a defiler with a prism - whereas dred simply takes forever.

And beef I am all for chaos buff - SM I don't like playing against as i consider them way too strong - alternatively Sm may be actually the most balanced and the other 3 races are simply too weak (trakks being an exception). VS chaos I also don't like playing as I don't think it's a fair match past fast granades/raptors. Where I have to work for the win as eldar only during the initial few minutes I don't think its fair at all.

One of my buds whom I consider an extremely good player says he can't beat me if I am eldar but can beat me as any other race. From eldar point of view I will admit that that fact is not due to my eldar skill as we know eachothers play pretty well - it is due to chaos weaknessess being greater in number.

The only option i see chaos having vs eldar is posessed+ horrors as reapers are not terribly effective vs demon armor. But then i would simply upgrade my shees out the wazoo - as I can have more shees than pcm. With executioner+warshout - superior optics and health - even demon mass will get chewed up.

[3DHouseOfBeef]

On that advice I'll think more seriously about plasma vs. Eldar and see how it treats me.

I always ask people how Chaos beats them whenever I lose to another race. Eldar players generally tell me cultists grenades or fast vehicles. In the past I have been able to be aggressive and push my CL down their throats, but players are getting better with FoF, Entangle, and Banshee's, so that idea generally fails me anymore. When I see Eldar I do drop a power generator to get HB's and grens ASAP, but I also generally get tied up by banshees and lose cultists with a quickness. Farseer spells are being used very well at this point, I usually take a pretty healthy punch in the mouth from their AOE spell.

I do love the Chaos Lord. He is a brute. When winning that first encounter is as important as it is, I am glad that he is such a capable unit.

All Chaos tactics and matchups aside. Looking at the ladder I see what I generally see. No Chaos in the Top 10, one Chaos in the Top 30 at number 13. This is still the strongest evidence that something about Chaos is lacking.

There have been a lot of opinions and suggestions on this thread, it looks like a lot of people have been thinking very hard on exactly what element or combination of elements Chaos is missing. I am encouraged by the discussion, thanks to everyone for their contributions. Especially those willing to help Chaos try and beat their race. Chaos loves a traitor. :fight:

-3D House of Beef

[Sps]

Bolter is still the "appropriate' counter - with plasma you have to watch range - reapers will munch your chaos as finger food. But if you can get plasma in range with defiler keeping eldar off their feet its a win 90% of the time.

once BL is dead eldar are literaly helpless even vs a single surviving defiler. All you have to do at that point is keep an eye on new bl and plasma it or a switch to prisms in which case you'll need to missile up.

Either way to kill BL in numbers you need plasma.

[RhyuFyre]

Chaos needs more MORAL breakers.

[Bubbel]

Chaos are in no way lacking in substance - the problem is the people who play them. Everyone plays them like SM, massed marines with the cl charging at the enemy.

Imo chaos have the most powerful and possibly overpowered unit in the game - A cultist with a grenade launcher. Get them early game, get marines with rockets, your cl charging infront, and you can cause alot of damage. Grenades are the way forward.

[Noir]

Chaos needs more MORAL breakers.

Chaos has the MOST MORALE BREAKERS OF ALL 4 ARMIES.

Seriously though:
CSM squads
Raptor squads
Defilers(2x really,with the BC and the Flamers)
PSMs
Obliterators

That's almost half the entire chaos army right there.

[Sps]

Bubel I am sure you meant scout sniper but i could have misread.

Single biggest advantage early on is a scout which is almost as tough as marine. Lower its HP and a lot of chaos vs sm problems go away.

[{EG}Dark-Odin]

where do you get Sm have better ranged attack's the CSM do more damage with there ranged attacked have alook at it and again I feel the CSM are awsome infact I just mass on them with defilers backing em up and possessed gotta have them beautiful anti termi units, to be honest I find only a few things bad about the chaos the damn cost of some stuff but isnt that the same for most race's.

[ChRoNiC]

why do relic never reply in these threads?

[Sps]

they do - sometimes

I'm just glad this thread is for the most part inteligent and whine free. Keep it going guys. Throw out ideas - let relic sort them.

[Noir]

why do relic never reply in these threads?

They do,but sometimes they're just busy.

[trekkie9090]

funny sps,because when i see defilers,i say oh shit.

Wartracks don't need nerfing, thier the orks tier two mainstay. Plus thier fragile

Any buff done to the defilers artilery would also have to be done to the looted leman russ's artilery.

choas is an infantry army,don't like it? play SM.

I agree with bubbel, grenade launchers are wicked.

Don't complain about masses of space marines,masses of chaos space marines are just as bad.

[Sps]

Nerf as in 56 pop as is they are way too fast on battlefield to get missiles.

[{EG}Dark-Odin]

Ah sorry I take back the fact CM have better ranged I checked and ah well my mistake oh well but still I still like choas but I would rather have some better Demons I mean the horrors there just bad, ok there good against infantry or supposed to be but they arnt I have never used them so I spend my money on possesed I wouldnt mind being able to use the sorcerer to change the enemy infantry unit into Choas, that would be good battling then all of a sudden one of his units turns chaos and betrays him HAHAHAHAHA THE SWEET POWER OF CHAOS, ahem yeah I'd find that intresting.

[Shorn]

One of the possible problems I see with chaos is that at 1st tier and early 2nd tier they are too much like SM. But will always fail, because you can't beat SM at being SM.

I wonder if you could alleviate this, by allowing the sac pit to replace the armory as a teir 2 requirement.

As it is, if Chaos go Sac pit in first tier they are behind the curve for getting to second. But if you allow chaos to go tier 2 by either building sac it, or armory, you allow them a completely different tech tree and different options than SM.

The loss of heavy weapons wouldn't be as bad, as you get horror squads from the sac pit, which are actually cheaper than a heavy weapons upgraded tac squad, as well as being able to get possessed out earlier without crippling their tech tree.

The armory and tac squads would be brought out in force later as anti-armor, and for their infiltration ability. This also helps chaos towards being more demon driven, as opposed to vehicle or tac squad driven like the SM.

Fix the oblits and their lascannons up for tier 3 and I think that would just about do it.

[Sps]

A combination of things really.

http://anytown.orionnet.com/nembus/DoW.html

Sm just dominates in the armor piercing values.

[First And Only]

@Sps

I think you've got a few misconceptions about the game.

Yousaid:
"First on Bl - it is not as uber as sm players like to whine. First it is terribly inacurate therefore requiring a mass of those which 1. costs a lot, 2. eliminates eldar vehicles out of the picture."

This is entirely untrue. Brightlances are the most accurate anti-tank in the game. Not to mention they are the most difficult to deal with, being very durable, being seperate from infantry squads, and thus it is impossible to tie them up. You can never prevent a brightlance from firing at its target. There's really no complaints anyone can have about Brightlances being ineffective, they are most definitely very difficult to deal with and are available way earlier than everyone else's anti-tank, which is an enormous advantage.

You also said:
"Sm can simply plasma up - plasma vs eldar IS a good idea as 1. it kills bl dead, and two the only disadvantage of plasma is range - but it kills just as fast as bolter. So SM kills my bl and a single dred can dispose of my 20 cap of aspects."

Plasma is only a good idea against platforms and WS because they are heavy infantry. Against every other Eldar infantry unit, plasma deals less than heavy bolters, much much less.

A single dread will never kill 20 cap of aspects. It shouldn't be doing much more than making you dance or run away, it is too slow to be killing much. Yes you will probably lose the game if you are totally unprepared for vehicles, but it's nothing compared to a Fire prism.

Eldar don't have that hard of a time against Dreads compared to how hard of a time everyone else has against Eldar Fire Prisms, which are the most godly vehicle in the game. If you want a nerf to Dreads, you will first see a nerf to fire prisms.

Oh and I wouldn't go with Nemesis Chicken's data, it has been reported to have errors in it. Rather you should go with Vertigo's stats.

[trekkie9090]

Nerf as in 56 pop as is they are way too fast on battlefield to get missiles.

oh please,46 orky pop=tier 2,pushing them back another banner would be ghey. Orks already get our walker in tier 3,wartracks and sluggas have to last us the whole first 2 teirs,they better be good :)

[Korbah]

huh? since when have you ever faced rocket marines b4 u get wartraks. If you put up any competition in early tier1 the sm/csm player must spend much more resources on troops than the ork player --> ork player gets traks faster and wins. Sluggas are already better than marines until hvy bolters arrive and even then a nobz leader in each squad takes most of the threat away (since you can make it into CC due to the nobz large HP). Stormboyz also work a treat.

[Sps]

First and only, once plasma disposes of the BL vehicles dominate eldar and you know it. Second artilery causes it to resetup (1.0 penalty on the move 35% accuracy with grav booster on and 2s setup time), and thirdly its accuracy is 70% if I remember correctly. As for durable it has 1100HP shift queing from two plasma squads will net you 10 BL kills in 15 seconds with nothing past intial shift-target as micro. Send in teh dred....

And eldar can't run/dance from a dred + marines capable of destroying hq mid relocation as they walk into the base(200/200 is a cruel joke really). Most 1v1 to 3v3 Maps are claustrophobic and eldar-hostile simply because eldar mobility comes into play only where there is room for it. I may post a 1024 map eventually where eldar simply dominates - any eldar losing to sm/csm/ork on that map should stop playing eldar alltogether.

Incidentaly most larger maps are ORK hostile.

I have allready warned the chaos dude that HB is the appropriate counter but plasma works - by that i did not mean "substitute plasma for hb", i meant "get some plasma when available".

Their not misconceptions - they are experience. And vs eldar plasma has its use in a big role - keep vehicles/snipers alive. vehicles and morale happen to be the two biggest eldar weaknessess. So yeah I'd plasma up a few squads.

As for trakks I think it is inevitable at this point 56 pop or some other nerf will happen to tracks - it is one of those silent nerfs everyone agrees is necessary. I have yet to speak to a non-ork player that thinks otherwise, and only a few ork players disagree. And korbah even vanilla sluggas will pwn marines with a few rokkit squads keeping them and the mighty fc off their feet.

[newghost]

i still say my changes would fix chaos, but thats just my opinion.

[Sps]

I dont know newghost - there are a lot of small advantages/disadvantages that given the right circumstance certainly seem overpowered or underpowered it all depends.

With chaos it is a mixture of things but mid tier 2 and tier 3 to my eldar most times chaos is not a threat at all that much I know.

[[Vertigo]]

I wonder if you could alleviate this, by allowing the sac pit to replace the armory as a teir 2 requirement.


I had the same idea! Let the Chaos player choose early on where he wants to take his tech tree. If the Chaos Armory and the Sac Pit are the same price and each one would unlock the teir 2 upgrade, it would make Chaos alot more flexible then it is now.

[Korbah]

I think you've got me wrong sps....I agree completely that sluggas dominate marines even with a lord/FC --> matters are even worse with traks since they pretty much always come out b4 rocket marines (and the rocket marines need support not to be killed by traks any way). Slugga rush is a nightmare for sm/csm I'm not sure why you thought I was advocating that sm/csm can take out sluggas

[Sps]

I was just reiterating the fact ork will get into cc nob or no nob - I was agreeing.

[newghost]

well look back at my BT and Oblit suggestions. the point is that oblits should be a REAL terror on the battlefield, not some joke. BT needs that lame health loss removed period.

[IronLegionnaire]

Few suggestions. Just something I'm throwing into the mix.

1.) Decrease cultist reinforcement time. Considering their terrible health, lousy armour, and so-called "angry flashlight" las pistols, their only use during Tier 1 is meatshield until you can get an armoury for GLs. BTW, can anyone vouch for the numbers on this website?

http://anytown.orionnet.com/nembus/DoW.html

According to that site, not only do Guardians and Scouts reinforce faster than Cultists, but blurdy Sluggas and SMs/CSMs reinforce faster than Cultists do! Madness

2.) Chaos Razorback. Since DoW isn't exactly fluffy anyway, why not? The Rhino is useless, and thus Chaos really only has two vehicles. You build a basic Rhino and buy an upgrade package - either twin HBs, or twin meltas/missiles/lascannon/whatever. Call it a Possessed Rhino or a Traitor Razorback if you want to make it sound "fluffy." Give it a bit more armour and put the whole package in the price range of a Trakk or Speeder (which are pretty close anyway)

3.) Change Defiler AI. This one was suggested by someone else, but I thought it was a great idea. Change the Defiler's AI so that on its default Ranged setting, it doesn't use the battlecannon. Make it so the battlecannon is only used on Attack Ground, or w/ a button that allows you to attack enemy squads w/ it. Sounds strange? The Defiler's autocannon can do a lot of damage *IF* it's given the opportunity. Since it currently requires a great deal of micro to keep the autocannon doing its job (the blurdy battlecannon seems to throw it out of whack every time it fires), giving the battlecannon its own seperate firing mode would eliminate this silly and wasteful micro. Also, it would actually make the Defiler a USEFUL support vehicle. You wouldn't have to worry about blasting your own infantry sky-high whilst engaging that irksome Dread from afar w/ your autocannons.

Well, that's all I can think of at the moment. Comments? Suggestions? I understand that Relic isn't likely to add any new units pending an expansion, but perhaps the first and last suggestions fall w/i the realm of feasibility.

[spaceyme]

Yes changing the Defiler AI is a pretty cool idea I think. I've played a fair few 1on1 automatches - always Chaos and I too have had the feeling they're imbalanced - especially troublesome against SM.

Ideally, if the game were truly balanced you'd have in the top 100 players roughly 25% of each race mixed in there. StarCraft now is phenomenally balanced but I understand it took a long time to get there. I just hope Relic/THQ are up to the task!

Most of this thread talks about Chaos 1on1, but where you have 3/3 4/4 team games those games invariably go to T3 very quickly and those that play Chaos usually get eaten up quickest as they do indeed suck at T3. Lets do something about Oblits they are indeed a JOKE! A big change to Oblits would probably be all that's needed.. apparently they were way overpowered in beta?

[oi you there]

Having to add to the VC before the first vehicle pops out is frustrating. Chaos could start with 3 VC, then that 150 req and time youve just saved can go towards whatever else.
I havnt played online as much as others here, but preds at tier 2 has got to be an advantage surely?
I dont like the preds AI, they have this habbit of going on a mad one instead of staying still (Constantly wondering into water on testing grounds isnt funny).

[*Eroes*]

3.) Change Defiler AI. This one was suggested by someone else, but I thought it was a great idea. Change the Defiler's AI so that on its default Ranged setting, it doesn't use the battlecannon. Make it so the battlecannon is only used on Attack Ground, or w/ a button that allows you to attack enemy squads w/ it. Sounds strange? The Defiler's autocannon can do a lot of damage *IF* it's given the opportunity. Since it currently requires a great deal of micro to keep the autocannon doing its job (the blurdy battlecannon seems to throw it out of whack every time it fires), giving the battlecannon its own seperate firing mode would eliminate this silly and wasteful micro. Also, it would actually make the Defiler a USEFUL support vehicle. You wouldn't have to worry about blasting your own infantry sky-high whilst engaging that irksome Dread from afar w/ your autocannons.

Agree.
Defiler AI is a pain. :(

[Warskull]

Chaos also have the highest win percentage overall. Previously Eldar were by far the highest (and obviously the best due to seer council, plasma grenades, and bonesong abuse.) So this conflicts with few higher level chaos players to a degree. Chaos may need reworking, but I don't think they are as crippled as some people claim they are. Early Possessed Marines are a nightmares just like early horrors can be. The Chaos player sacrifices teching though. A slightly cheaper sacrificial pit could help, but too much cheaper and Horrors/PSM have the potential to become what the Seer Council Rush used to be.

First off Chaos should natually have a 3 vehicle cap instead of 2. The price of their machine cult may need a minor reduction too. There isn't much reason for chaos to go for vehicles in a 1v1 situation. They are better off utilizing upgrades for their infantry and both heroes.

[Sps]

I have a bit of diff view.

Chance of player LOSING a game based on player race - based on stats from the web page - regeardless of number of players or number of races involved in a game:

SM 0.88
CSM 1.15
Eldar 1.21
Ork 1.41

Balance = 0.99-1.01 range - in laymans terms - 50/50 split represented by "1". And btw 0.88 to 1.15 is not close enough at all not by a long shot.

Notice how nicely it follows the SM>CSM>Eldar>Ork>SM joke?


Whichever statistics you use you will always find a decisive SM advantage and a distribution of "power" as:

1. SM
2. CSM
3. Eldar
4. Ork

The stats on web page are meaningless as they are incomplete.

If anyone has current statistical/probability prowess - as mine is getting rusty having not used it in years you are welcome to verify and correct if need be. I have simply decided NOT to ignore the weights facts as relic has.

[tos death]

wtf does saying what races suck have to do with mods?????? i thought this place was supposed to be the place where you talk about mods or show mods??????

[Sps]

try adeptus section dude - this is a dow - discussion section not mods section.

[.42.]

SPS:

Can you explain what those stats mean?
Any ways I don't think the race win percentages mean much since they include newbees and maybe team games.

The only stats that matter I think are the ladder standings and what races are at the top. 1 or 2 Chaos at the top points to some serious weakness and the over abundance of orks shows that they are dominating.

PS. I think I heard that Relic will not be making any new skills or troops in patches. So it's best we concentrate on the units we have to work with at the moment.

[newghost]

just buff the Oblit and BT, nicrease Cultist HP by about 20 and bingo.

[Sps]

It means that having a base of 1 as 50/50 chance of a player losing regardless of the race - meaning it comes down to skill/luck - weighing actual stats results you get coeficients of sm having a .88 chance of loosing which means it wins MORE - way more than it should if all was fair.

All other races are past 1 and have more chance of losing than winning. Which is in line with more people playing sm - 50%(+/- 5%) of all dow players are SM actually. But it is extremely magnified in terms of racial weakness.

.42 team games in my analysiys are not a factor at all as I simply show VS which races based on weights each race wins/loses. team or no team they should be within .03 of eachother -they are not.


Ideally regardless of number of games played the distribution should be in between 0.98 to 1.02 with room for all 4 races and it should alternate day to day or week to week. meaning today Sm is at .98 chaos at .99 - week from now those two reverse etc etc, but in a balanced game ALL 4 races would remain within .03 points of eachother. As you can see that is a daydream.


As it is Sm is WAY skewed towards winning most and other races are way skewed towards losing - and NOT always necessarily vs sm. As you can see from the list ork have a .2 point difference (its large in statistics world) of losing to eldar, eldar losing to csm, and csm losing to sm.

The only matchup that disputes these results is the ork vs sm as ork potentially in good hands wtf[pwn SM. However
good ork players are few and far between and hence ork remains at the bottom and not top (i played 12 ork games today only ONE ork player was past 60%). That last conclusion is a logical inference - stats support it - trak rushes owning don't. But imo and in my experience good ork players are indeed few and I think its fair to assume ork is indeed the weakest. Partly due to skill partly because light infantry vs heavy favors heavy - hence eldar/ork on bottom.

So very simple:

SM>Chaos>Eldar>Ork

Whereas in a balanced game allowing for .03 diff between all races but no more than that:

Sm=CSM=Eldar=Ork

Take a look at the top ladder races - say top 30 at any given day and you will see this to be the case - with the exception of a few good ork rushers...and they happen to be competitive 1v1 as in team ork rush doesn't net you a win.

The web page stats are dry and do not take themselves into account the relation between races - I did. Web page tells you Chos played X number of games and won Y - it doesn't tell you vs whom it wins and vs whom it loses. I do. And ideally in chaos case chaos should lose equally to eldar/ork/sm but as is it loses MORE to SM and LESS to eldar/ork. And SM win more vs everyone than everyone else.


Relic : food for thought - I knew this game was far from balanced but not even I thought it was THIS bad. Please take a look at it and fix it.

[.42.]

What is the source for the stats?

The only stat pages I know are
http://www.dawnofwargame.com/ladder/homepage.php
and
http://dawnofwar.free.fr/dawn-of-war-global.php

and they just tell you what the win percentage of each race is and they don't tell you who they played against.

There is also a problem with the global stats: they are scewed towards SM winning. They are the campaing race and the easiest to use. So when newbees play vs newbees SM will come out on top. Also Eldar and Ork in particular have much higher learning curves and that leads to higher losses for them in the begining.

Like I said before the top of the ladder is a better indicator because there the people know how to use their races. And there we find lots of orks and few chaos.

[Sps]

That is the source - the first link - its what you do with that data that matters...

And the data does allow you extrapolate race vs race plays, or more to the point the way i calculated it - each game is treated as a Race vs any other race as all plays are shown.

most people take the face value only tho. Which is bad.

The only thing I don't take into account is a situation where a losin eldar for example is saved by chaos and a win results for both in a team setting eventhough it may be one oposing teammembers fault - however since the same can be equally true of all races I can "potentially" ignore it as it is equal weight on both sides of the equations, and therefore the numbers stay as they are.

SM= Uber

[trekkie9090]

firstly,about the wartracks,i don't know what your talking about but usually when my second wartrack comes out the enemy gets thier first missle launcher.

[3DHouseOfBeef]

First a ladder update:

Highest Chaos player on the ladder is now 19th.
Orks, Eldar and SM are well distributed all over the top ranks.

A few things.

I have to agree with Korbah when it comes to the concerns that Orks have about suggested Chaos "fix's".

[QUOTE]
huh? since when have you ever faced rocket marines b4 u get wartraks. If you put up any competition in early tier1 the sm/csm player must spend much more resources on troops than the ork player --> ork player gets traks faster and wins. Sluggas are already better than marines until hvy bolters arrive and even then a nobz leader in each squad takes most of the threat away (since you can make it into CC due to the nobz large HP). Stormboyz also work a treat.
[/QUOTE}

Seriously, a Big Mek with a Teleporter is great fun to harrass with. Choppas are cheaper than CSM and can out CC them. If you are having problems slowing Chaos down before you can get out your Vehicles, maybe you need to be more aggressively harassing them. Your Chaos opponent knows that they are on a tight timer to get rockets before the Wartraks end the game. They also know that if they don't deal with your Sluggas properly they will lose before it even gets that far.

Warskull:
I think they are as crippled as people say they are. The best Chaos player is 19th. As top players perfect their 1v1 strategies with the more able races, Chaos is dropping. Chaos players are perfecting their game too, and it is reveiling their weakness. As to which "fix" would be the most balanced, who knows.

About Defiler AI:
Yes, this needs to be tweaked, their autocannon is a great boon but the micro you need to do to keep it firing is tiring.

I don't think this fix alone will save Chaos. In my experience, even if the game isn't decided before vehicles roll out, usually a player has a serious advantage by the time someone builds their Defiler.

I like the Sac. Pit being a path to teir 2. A little more meat on our meatshields would be nice too. Having the worst scout in a game that is decided so quickly is a serious drawback. Too bad this kind of thing cannot be tested by us laypeople.

So. Chaos is falling still. Space Marines, Orks and Eldar are hitting their stride at the top level of play and crowding out the weak. I had hoped for a Chaos savant to show us how we can use Chaos to it's best effect, but it is looking more like Chaos at its best isnt good enough. Hopefully some manner of genetic engineering by the developers can prevent the inevitable extinction of Chaos in the Top 100.

Looking for answers and still hopeful,
-3D House of Beef

[.42.]

Too bad this kind of thing cannot be tested by us laypeople.


If you learn how to mod you could test it.

[Bubbel]

If i make a chaos account and get it into the top 10 will u stop whining? ive fought some amazing chaos players, the ones who know what theyre doing, and they've pushed me to the limit many times.

[Snidely]

Go for it, Bubbel.

[Sps]

Again, condescending hostility even in a so far decent thread with opinions debated as opposed to argued and flamed about. Way to go. Bubbel you should really learn to read. I am not a chaos player and I agree chaos has very few cards they can play.

Instead of self centered egomaniacal "I I I" how about you actually listen to what people have said so far.

Insulting people by implying they don't know what they are doing only serves to paint you as a complete and uter idiot.

As for your challenge - please do. I give you 10 days of play. Make it to top 10. Then come here and shut us up.

Rules:

Get to top 10 without cheating.
Post a screenshot that has Bubbel in top 10 list of competitive ladder.

If that happens I'll say "chaos is ok I was wrong".

GL

[-|EoT|-Havoc]

bubbel: why dont you do that?

[3DHouseOfBeef]

If i make a chaos account and get it into the top 10 will u stop whining? ive fought some amazing chaos players, the ones who know what theyre doing, and they've pushed me to the limit many times.


Yes! I will. Looking at your stats tells me you are an amazing player. 1725 and number six on the ladder as Ork at time of posting. Break out the Chaos horde, crush your enemies at the top of the ladder and post us replays for your games against these top players. Then the rest of us can see what exactly we are failing to do as Chaos.

Right now us Chaos players would like to do more than 'push Ork players to the limit', we would like to beat them and grab some of those points you seem to be hording.

Lead the way.

-3D House of Beef

[Bubbel]

Check me out ill start tonight :D Gimme a couple of days to get to know chaos, then check back in a week :P

*flexes fingers*

His name will be ChaoScotsmaN, comming hopefully to a top 10 near you :P

Btw if i fail, i blame lag/badmap/ chaos underpowered / warpspiders :D

Wish me luck :D

[.42.]

Hey good luck on that. I'm always looking for good Chaos replays apart from WC_Sleign's.

[Bubbel]

Wow, the ability to shoot! This is so much better than that close combat shinanagins.

May i add, The Chaos Lord is amazing. Hes so damn tough.

[Korbah]

If you could compile a list of replay's of your march to the top 10 it'd be most appreciated Bubbel.

[trekkie9090]

lol,i trust bubbel to make it,he whipped me with chaos. Gl making top ten,and yes it is nice to shoot eh?

[spaceyme]

Bubbel if u make top 10 i'll throw $500 at you.

[Bubbel]

Ill save all replays from now on if u want, compile it into "Bubbels top 10 journey". Hey, ill even add some text and voice shinanagins and make it really cool!!

[spaceyme]

That would be nice Bubble, although i'm pretty damn sure you won't make it and you'll be talking about the same things most of us have been with Chaos being underpowered..!

[Bubbel]

Throw down the 500 squid if i make it and it'll be a breeze :)

[.42.]

Chaos Lord rules! But he's not expendible like the big mek. The Sorceror on the other hand rules and is expendible.

It's not impossible and Bubble seems like a really good player. So I think he will make it. Thing is you don't see many Chaos even in the top 20.

Do really good players just not like Chaos?

[Sps]

Heh, GL bubble or chaosscotsman (like the nick). Save the replays I can stick em up in a nice big ZIP for you.

I hope you do make it. Watch for the most frequent complaints in this thread and see if indeed they are true - whether you win or not - be fair.

Week it is.

[Nurizeko]

the only thing i can think of to improve chaos is maybe a corrupted orbital relay, but then it hit me that chaos forces rarely have a handy fleet floating in orbit like marines.

chaos arnt weak, i use them enough to know their just as good as any other army.

in my PEROSNAL opinion, orks have more problems going up against the other armies simply because of chaos and marines deep striking, and eldars cloaking, but since orks seem better at building units and stuff it all works out.

[{EG}Dark-Odin]

I believe the Choas should have a Warp Gate or something which is like an OB but instead it opens rifts up from the eye of terror and the Chaos emerge from them, and maybe even give them terminators or forget that and give them a Choas land raider.

[Bubbel]

Day 1 over, initial impressions are that :

Chaos Lord is unbeleivable.
Predators with upgraded lascannons are amazing.
Fast 2 marine squads at the start.

I played an amazing game vs TE|Ccart last night which lastest 23 minutes, in which was so close tocall it could have gone either way. Anyone know where i could host a demo? Also how would i record an audio file to go alongside it?

[Bubbel]

I cant take this - 2 losses now due to the gay Force commander owning my chaos lord becos he stands there shooting his pistol.

[-|EoT|-Havoc]

Yeah thats sucks, another thing that bothers me is the "squad leader" the guy in the middle who carries the blue morale bar, if he gets killed your squad will cancel orders. This can mess up a retreat pretty bad. But other races have this bug too. Lost(and won) a lot of games because of this.

[Korbah]

I find SM pretty hard to deal with if they're micro their scouts well. Tricks like attaching the FC to a scout squad....detatching so that your troops attack the scouts for a few seconds can give the FC the edge he needs to survive the lord (imho its only a VERY slight edge). The big issue is the speed of scouts letting them micro (and the fact they get so many damn squads).

This is why I've used nonstandard BO for ages (plus it makes it easy to beat down on orks and eldar). That being said sometimes more exotic BO that work against light infantry can get trashed by a solid counter rush of hvy inf (right Havoc :P).

What have your other losses been? all sm?

[Snidely]

Yeah thats sucks, another thing that bothers me is the "squad leader" the guy in the middle who carries the blue morale bar, if he gets killed your squad will cancel orders. This can mess up a retreat pretty bad. But other races have this bug too. Lost(and won) a lot of games because of this.
Is this also why squads will drop out of selected groups sometimes? Every now and again a unit will still have surviving members, but no longer be selected when I press 1 or 2 or whatever. It's very annoying.

[.42.]

Once you've engaged the FC with your hero there is no running away because of his stun. Same thing goes for the CL because of his slow poison. Except for the FS on FoF she can run from the CL.

[Bubbel]

Ive only lost to SM, played a couple of strong orcs and not had a problem - I find heavy bolters to give them alot of love, then if any squads reach combat you just retreat them - Almost invincible as they run at the same speed.

Im still being too aggressive and just charging forward the orc way. Gonna have a night off at my gf's and think about it :)

[Noir]

I believe that thinking about how to play Chaos would be the least thing you should worry about when at your GF's... ;) :D

[Sps]

Keep all your replays, zip them and i'm hoping dowfiles may host them, if not I can up them to FP for you. I do have the webspace for them however only for another month so I won't bother with it.

Alternatively attach them in a post here, dunno what the size limit is.

Oh and if it's not so much bother keep an eye out for validity of my stats analysis that says:

SM>Chaos>Eldar>Ork

(exception of ork in 1v1)

[Bubbel]

Any1 offering a place to upload them? Got a good one VS ThE|FeRRi, and a TE guy.

[opheliagrimm]

sure thing bubbel

I've sent details via private message.

I'll be glad to host the replays (and watch 'em myself to follow you up the ladder)

big fan of the game.

actually stopped playing tonight and checked the forums only because my stats weren't updating. Otherwise I'd be buried in DOW right up to this moment. lol

[Bubbel]

Just to shout ive entered top 50!! Sitting on 49th with 45 wins 13 losses.

[edited to update]

[chico-1876]

Go Bubbel, we are with you! Let us dream....
You are very fast!

Some posts ago, you asked how to make a shoutcast...
and where to upload some replays....
People at http://dow.sanctuary-network.com could help you for both.

Hi and Kudos!

[Bubbel]

Just to let you know i stop playing as of now because i cant be arsed when the force commander is fucked. Here is your problem guys, The oh so good chaos lord gets cut down by a stupid bug. Once enganged, when u try and retreat he starts shooting. Obviously while in combat, his accuracy is 1%. GG, my commander is doing no damage and cant move.Ill probably play a couple, but really what a shit bug.

[*Eroes*]

Well, let's report this huge bug in the Bug Forum.

[Galdred]

yeah; the same happens when the FC is able to hit the Farseer, but it is so hard for him to reach CC with the FS FoFing that it is less of an issue.
as soon as you're hit by the FC, the unit will do stupid things; like trying to shoot back when you retreat :/
Against everyone but SM, I try to avoid Focusing the hero, but against SM, it is really not an option because of it:/
The only way I've found out was to attach the CL to a unit a short time before you want to disengage, and charge the FC with the unit: With some luck, the FC will switch target, and you'll be albe to disengage both the squad and the hero.
but it's not that great, as you'll probably lose 1-2 SMC doing that
I heard some players set the hero on ceasefire, but I have never tried it myself.

I think it had already been reported, and I hope they'll fix it indeed.
BTW, how do you counter fast trakks as Chaos?
Orks have been my hardest matchup as chaos so far, while Chaos has been my easiest as orks :o

[-|EoT|-Havoc]

lol ive been playing eldar a bit now(SMB) and im in the top 100 already it suprises me how easy it is to win with them, i just wonder if eldar is just so good, or chaos just sux, probably a little of both :P

[MusedMark]

The FC stun effect is well documented within these forums, it is an ability Relic intended for him to have,however, as it currently stands i dont think it is how Relic want it to be, so it will be changed... But.. The FC stun will remain, just in a different way.
Lets not forget that all the heroes have something unique to them.
FC - Stun
CL - Slow Poison (an enemy sqaud/commander who disengages from HTH combat with the CL will run away very slowly, while the CL can shoot and attack, teh CL is the only unit who can melee while chasing the enemy)
FS - Knockback effects
BM - Kill animations (invulnrable) and teleport

[3DHouseOfBeef]

I saw the ChaoScotsmaN in the chat room on the weekend, and sent my best wishes, but you must have been AFK.

Congrats on the top 50 man. I see it's slid a little since then, but I have faith. I am quite looking forward to seeing the ChaoScotsmaN replays, especially vs. Orks, as you know them so well, know what they have problems with, and can thusly become what they fear.

Some of the maps I always wince when I see, the more solid Chaos replays I see working on these maps, the happier I'll be.

From Bubbel:


Chaos Lord is unbeleivable.
Predators with upgraded lascannons are amazing.
Fast 2 marine squads at the start.


Two things about this quote. Yes the Chaos Lord is maybe the best thing about Chaos. He dishes out the pain, takes enemy fire, eats up those sniper shots, ties up squads, and we all love him so.

Second... wow... you saw a Predator with lascannons... in a ladder game? I have never hit teir 3 in hundreds of pre and post-patch Chaos games.

From Bubbel:


Here is your problem guys, The oh so good chaos lord gets cut down by a stupid bug.


Yeah. There is no second guessing that first, all-important fight with the Force Commander. Mirco is limited because of the bug. Only option is to engage only when you are sure you are going to come out on top, which, of course, is easier said than done. The FC can micro, jump in and out of squads, change targets, and all that... the Chaos Lord has to stay in there until the FC, or the CL, is dead. Hoping this gets fixed, as I am sure everyone is.

From Korbah:


This is why I've used nonstandard BO for ages (plus it makes it easy to beat down on orks and eldar). That being said sometimes more exotic BO that work against light infantry can get trashed by a solid counter rush of hvy inf


Guessing you build early power? (I mean there aren't THAT many different build options available after all) I try and drop a power whenever I see Orks or Eldar, so I can build counters, but since every other game is vs. Space Marines, it seems risky to me. This weekend I went 36-1 vs. all kinds of baddies without early power. I always lose when they rush and I go early power. I've seen Oneguy dance his way out of it, but I can't seem to make it work.

Which reminds me... WTF is going on with the stats? I had a 36 game win streak this weekend (Disclaimer: The stats were goofy this weekend and was reporting lots of players, myself included, as 1000 point players who were not, so I got matched up against a lot of new players) but I don't see it on the list. It did record the 36 wins and one loss, just not the streak. Ah well. My GF got quite pissed that I played so much... :Slap: so I'd at least like to see the payoff on the "Top Streaks" page.

Edit: Found the stats. Top win streak is different from current win streak. All is explained.

http://dawnofwar.free.fr/dawn-of-war-global.php

-3D House of Beef

[lord of khorne]

OKAY........................

i will first start saying that i am an avid chaos fan. i will start from a point of view with a true to the history of warhammer kind of thing.

if relic wanted to make this game like the actual story nothing could beat chaos space marines,
and may i quote from the chaos space marine codex.
"nothing could defeat a bloodthirster save the primarchs of old" and for those of you who dont know what a primarch is, think of god, on earth (except the emperor ofcourse)
need i go on.

basically they had to make chaos weak to make it all balanced. what the problem is they made it a bit to weak :(

[*Eroes*]

Reported the CL but in the Bug Forum [and in an awful english, I fear :D ]

[Bubbel]

the ChaoScotsmaN replays, especially vs. Orks, as you know them so well, know what they have problems with, and can thusly become what they fear.

Something i have noticed, i can predict an orc player almost exactly, meaning i can counter them at most stages. Ah i just had an idea!

[3DHouseOfBeef]

WC_Sleign has battled is way back into the top 20 and is representing the best Chaos has to offer at 18th on the ladder. The numbers are still supporting my hypothesis that Chaos as a race is lacking the ability to win at the top level of play.

From Bubbel:


Something i have noticed, i can predict an orc player almost exactly, meaning i can counter them at most stages. Ah i just had an idea!


OK. You're going to leave us hanging with that? I, for one, want to hear the idea. Especailly if it relates to defeating Orks... as I suspect it does.

Find any place to post replays yet? Battle Archives anyone?

From lord of khorne:


if relic wanted to make this game like the actual story nothing could beat chaos space marines

Yes, yes. We have the TT rules, we have the novels and fluff, and we have Dawn of War. As it has been covered, TT rules and fluff do not apply to Dawn of War. Personally, all I am concerned with is game balance in Dawn of War. That is all that matters. If we can affect a more perfect balance in the game with rational discourse, we go a long way to ensuring the longevity of a game we all love to play.

The TT game is doing fine (the TT players can dispute those rules and balance changes, as they do). I suspect the novels are selling as expected. We are all about the Dawn of War here. Lets see how close to perfect we can get it.

-3D House of Beef

[.42.]

WC_Sleign's hardest match up he has said is orks. Because of your large experience with orks you might have an edge on him Bubble.

[Bubbel]

OK. You're going to leave us hanging with that? I, for one, want to hear the idea. Especailly if it relates to defeating Orks... as I suspect it does.

I cant explain it, its like, it feels like their troops are here, or it feels like they just brought out a trukk. I know the timing very well and judging situations. I remember playing WC_Sleign with orcs, and found him to actually give me a hard challenge as said before. Usually i walked all over chaos, but he really put the grenade in grenade launcher :P

[Demonhorde]

Im a chaos player and i think cahos is fine, its just not many people who takes time to play em, the yare fine... maybe boost defiler or add some more vechiles, also boost the pinkys the ysuck otherwise fine as it is in my book.

[.42.]

but he really put the grenade in grenade launcher :P

WC_Sleign is the Chaos-Man.

Buble you said you usually walked over chaos, were the other races as easy or harder to beat?

[Bubbel]

i found chaos easiest, then Marines with their snipers rifles, then Eldar.

Marines were still quiet beatable though. I used to play marines so that could be why.

My eldar games were 70% win / loss, as i eventually found a tactic were i could outmicro the eldar player with reasonable results and get trakks quickly too.

[Bubbel]

I found my happy thought - found the tactic to play chaos, the raptor rush with nades, out of the 20 games ive played today ive lost twice. Somehow my rating is taking my wins as losses, either that or im owe like 20001010101 wins. Its wierd.

[3DHouseOfBeef]

Any luck with posting replays Bubbel?

I would love to see your Ork games and how you are succeeding with the Raptor rush + nades. I feel very vulnerable going raptors, if they don't chase me I think it puts me at a disadvantage, and I seem stuck with 1 raptor squad for too long after I build it.

I go raptors on larger maps here and there so I can have some mobility. I can't raid Ork bases though, too many guns, then I find I cant get missles by the time they get traks if I have had to reinforce my raptors much.

About nades. Are people going with the inf cap. upgrade to get more cultists, or are people trying to handle the green horde with 2 Cultists and 2 CSM/Raptor squads? I find cultists die so fast, especially if the Big Mek teleports, that I have gone that route a few times. The short timer before they get traks always makes me think I am putting myself back if I spend 150 not teching up. I suppose I should play some Ork games, would give me a better feel for where the Ork player feels vulnerable, because as Chaos, I feel vulnerable a lot.

Orks ---> :Slap: <--- Chaos

-3D House of Beef

[Korbah]

I find I can beat the initial rush with 2 raptors + 2 gren cults....with some micro lol. From there no cash for pop cap.....I NEED ROCKETS ASAP :P

Otherwise its GG

[alien|Left]

Can it be that one of the 2 losses were against an Eldar player?
Who teched to Vipers?
One to an Orc?
Who played Sluggaz and l8er Trakks?

Cheers, Left

[Korbah]

lol that sounds like about 80% of all my losses (i've got the replays to prove it too :P)

[Kormus]

Gimme a couple of days to get to know chaos, then check back in a week :P


If i make a chaos account and get it into the top 10 will u stop whining? ive fought some amazing chaos players, the ones who know what theyre doing, and they've pushed me to the limit many times.

10 days over.

Considering your plethora of whine threads in the past week (exactly what you attacked in the Chaos players with the complaints about Chaos getting the shaft balance wise) things seem not to be running smoothly.
Big mouth or you give in that Chaos needs to be looked in?

[John_Mirra]

I'm not a solo player, neither a very competitive one so I don't know how you'd rate this comment. Thie biggest problem I have with chaos is transitioning to counter vehicles, I often end up using possesed with attached cl and the armor piercing upgrade to take down vehicles simply because I can't field anything better.

Defilers are very good imo but they aren't dreadnoughts and they need a lot more micro to be useful. Even in cc they aren't anti-vehicle though.

Predators are also good but they aren't anti-vehicle when they come out so trying to use them as such doesn't accomplish much.

How would I improve chaos? Give raptors melta bombs and see if that allows them to counter vehicles without making them overpowered in hit and run attacks.

p.s. I remember watching KS_Josey_Wales replays for AoM and he always managed to be very succesful using under-dog races.

[IronLegionnaire]

Giving Raptors meltas would be a bit much considering that Raptors already have a bigger squad size than AMs, have more health, and carry heavy weapons. I also personally don't like the idea because it does nothing to distinguish Chaos from Space Marines. Boosting the penetration of the AC's powerfist against vehicles would be a start, though.

Once (if) the Defilers are given the option of turning off/not using the battlecannon, they will be quite effective against vehicles with their autocannon alone.

As it stands, though, you're right. Pretty much the only hard anti-vehicle counter Chaos has until Tier 3 is rocket-armed CSMs.

[Korbah]

to keep things differet make raptors get powerfists as one of their hvy weapon options

shooty upgrades really aren't that great since u want them in CC

[John_Mirra]

.... melta bombs...

Raptors with power fists would definetly be too much imo.

I find going all out rocket armed csm is less useful than getting a mix with a couple of psm to tie down vehicles. Getting all the upgrades makes psm really powerful but sticking with the cl aura and the armor piercing early game usually works better for me.

[Korbah]

How would raptors with powerfists be too much....at most you could only get three since there are only 3 hvy weapon slots. They do far less dmg than meltas but do it more often...plus they wouldn't get pfists too cheaply.

As to early game psm....you haven't played in the high ranks have you.

[John_Mirra]

Nope, haven't played in the high ranks, nor solo for that matter.

But if I try to use csm with missiles alone it doesn't work, so I can try using cultists to engage vehicles or go for psm. As I'm in tier 2 to get missiles anyway I can go for a machine pit or go for psm. I've had more luck going possesed.

Sorry, thought you were gonna deck out all the raptors in powerfists. I'd really like to see raptors with 3 powerfists. I think it'd be a good compromise to melta bombs.

p.s. early game would more accurately be early tier 2.

cheers.

[-|EoT|-Havoc]

that is usually late game in 1vs1

[John_Mirra]

I know, which is why I don't play 1v1 :beer:

[Hunter]

Yes being able to upgrade 3 raptors with powerfists would go a long way towards solving chaos's antivehicle problems. The powerfists (including the AC's) should have about 50% penetration vs light and medium vehicles and otherwise be identical to the AC's powerfist now.

At the moment chaos isn't horribly broken. IMO they only need three things:

1) Slightly better cultists. Easy way is to reduce reinforce time a bit.

2) Better antivehicle options.

3) Fixed defiler AI so that it fires it's autocannon more often. Fix .lua bugs so it does damage to regular infantry.

[3DHouseOfBeef]

First of all, Hail Chaos! Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read and comment on this thread.

From Kormus:

10 days over.

Big mouth or you give in that Chaos needs to be looked in?
I have been reading the threads as well, and I think that it is safe to say that Bubbel now agrees with us that Chaos is hurting.
Chaos --->:Slap:<--- Bubbel

From the Lame Dawn of War Jokes Thread
From Bubbel:

I got one. Chaos.

So take the 6th best player in the world as Ork, give him Chaos, and we find that his Chaos account not is present in the top 100 today, despite the best efforts of the player. (Your efforts are much appreciated Bubbel, and I hope you keep up the fight! I'm still looking forward to replays). If this doesn't illustrate that the Chaos weakness is clearly a problem with the race and not a problem with the players, I don't know what does.

To quote myself (how arrogant!) from my very first post in this thread:

Chaos is successful in the sub 1500 rankings where a good rush vs. an average player can still net you a win. The top ladder stats show what happens to Chaos when both players are consistantly good. Chaos simply doesn't have the answers to the questions posed by a well played opponent.
I think Bubbel's experiment bears out my initial statement. At a certain level of play, Chaos doesn't have the tools to win. To acheive balance, equally matched players should have an even chance of winning at the top level of play. If it was only the early ranks of 1v1 play where there was an imbalance, then we could look to the top players replays for how Chaos can win, and we could blame the inexperience of the low ranked Chaos players, or cite complexity of the race (not in Chaos's case here, as there aren't enough Chaos options for high complexity, but generally). We are dealing with the opposite problem. Chaos fails with the best players at it's helm.

I would love to see if the Dev's are even talking about this. (Just a little "We're looking at it", to give us hope?) Being the best dressed race can only hold a players attention for so long.

Also... still sad to note, but; Our only Chaos representative in the TOP 30 is TaleOfSin at 14th. However he plays a number of races, 45 of his wins (at time of posting) as Chaos and 37 wins as other races, including a predictable 11-1 with Orks.

Still getting hammered :smash:
-3D House of Beef

[Sinbad]

I would love to see if the Dev's are even talking about this. (Just a little "We're looking at it", to give us hope?) Being the best dressed race can only hold a players attention for so long.

I will second that. Any word from the devs would be much appreicated. I know that it must be very difficult to balance the game because if you fix one imbalance then you have to test to make sure that another imbalance isn't created. However I would like to hear a dev say that they are at least looking into the issue because chaos weakness isnt a problem that has just been touched on in this thread, but it is a problem that the whole community knows about.

[Lobster_]

A large flaw in the entire argument posited is that it only applies to 1v1 games. It seems obvious that Chaos are not the choice for 1v1, does that make them the "worst" race though? Does Chaos have some attributes that can be brought to team games that can be seen as a balance to its weaknesses in 1v1?

I'm not a Chaos player, so I don't have immediate answers to those questions, but they're still worthy of consideration before we ask for a Chaos buff.

[CSM_]

A large flaw in the entire argument posited is that it only applies to 1v1 games.

Testing balance in anything but 1v1 is quite silly. If its balanced in 1v1, it will most certainly be balanced in larger games.

Besides, it would be quite retarded if Chaos was relegated to a team game only race. Thats preposterous. Even if Chaos has some redeeming quality in team play, it should not get the short end of the stick in any game play mode, nor should any race.

[spaceyme]

A large flaw in the entire argument posited is that it only applies to 1v1 games. It seems obvious that Chaos are not the choice for 1v1, does that make them the "worst" race though? Does Chaos have some attributes that can be brought to team games that can be seen as a balance to its weaknesses in 1v1?

Read my post earlier. They're by far the worst race in team games too. If a race doesn't cut it in 1v1 you may as well lose the race completely..

[First And Only]

Every race must be balanced in 1v1, otherwise an RTS cannot claim to be balanced. the bigger a game gets (2v2 and beyond) the less you can control for things when you balance them, eg amount of time you would typically have to tech freely, resources, typical army compositions, spamming of units, etc

[Galdred]

First of all, big thanks to Bubbel :)
I'm glad you share our point now

I tried to get my random account higher than my chaos one, and I succeeded on monday, but a terrible losing streak got it back around 1200 :(
But I have good hopes of being better with random than with Chaos, I only need to get some basics about microing and building up with Eldars =)
The good part about having played Chaos so long is that I feel overpowered everytime I pick Marines at the beginning.


I agree with the other about team balance:
There is no reason we should suck in 1v1 only because our role is not nonexistant in team games.
+ we have nother issue in team games which is the total lack of any interesting tiers 3 option, so even in team games, chaos is at a disavantage(+ PSM at tiers 1 are useless as the ennemy only needs to pull back and gun them down with another squad). And at tiers 2, our PSM are useful indeed, but not as much as the other races' vehicles, so we end up being the last to tech up in a team.

[Dymo]

It has been noted many many times that the 1v1 Ladder play never reaches top Tier 2 or even gets a sniff of Tier 3.

Given that being the case then how does one propose to speak of Unit Balances beyond the scope of the small variety of units involved?

Surely the only way is to have some type of game setting where teching is allowed( all units must be matched up) and then comparisons might be reached. How can this be achieved in the current Tier 1 1v1 format?

Any time I jump in to the 1v1 arena to test a build as an SM, getting HB's is quite an accomplishment and death is not far off for someone.

So? How many games of 1v1 Ladder play ever get to Tier 2? 10%? 15%? How about Tier 3? 1%? 5%?

If the numbers are rather low then Balance is gauged how? Scouts and Heretics?

[CSM_]

Many many many times have I seen FPs used in 1v1 ladder matches. I have also seen Chaos Predators used in 1v1 a fair amount (WC_Sleign). Saying that 1v1s never reaches

top Tier 2 or even gets a sniff of Tier 3
is an over generalization by somoene who has not watched/played a whole lot of top ranking demos. Yes, its true, it doesn't get that far a lot of the time but, its not like its out the question for a game to actually get that far.

Please form your own opinions instead of adopting other people's next time.

[JoeDoom]

Chaos players, you have a tool that you seldom use.
Infiltrate should turn the tide.
2 squads CSM with rockets one way, 2 squads with rockets another. 2 squads for their leader to find and engage, 2 squads to sneak around and destroy power, infantry buildings etc.

[-|EoT|-Havoc]

yes but infiltrate is tier 2 wich means SM can have aphothecaries all over the place, ifiltrate is good but often a one way ticket. And Chaos rckoets miss all the time, its rediculous

[Flying_Panda]

Let us consider chaos specificities: they lack vehicles (defilers and/or predators), making them an infantery-based race, with few support from machines. We have to admitt that most of Chaos available units are infantery or take some or quite a lot of pop cap. I do not want to say whether we should buff or nerf this or that unit as, if we look closely (and deep) into the stats, Chaos units are more than correct (except for the Horrors whose cost HAS TO BE reduced as they are poooooooor -and too expensive- support units).
What I suggest would be a starting pop cap of 12 (instead of 10) and max pop cap +2 (20->22) and max vehicle cap -2 (20 ->18).
It is a fact than a 2 pop poor unit such as cultist really slows down Chaos: let us consider other races in a 10 pop start cap:
1- Orks: they HAVE TO build waaagh banners fast and their "tier 0" units (slugga) is worth a tier 1 unit for any other race, making them able to have quickly a descent first army. So they really begin with a 20 pop cap -> 2 gretchins, 4 slugga squads (for a total of 18 orks as it is possible to pay for 2 extra reinforcements within the 20 pop) + BigMek
2- eldars: descent tier 0 unit -guardian- (FoF, nades) and Eldars HAVE TO build webgates quickly, wich means that their starting pop cap can be considered as ~14, making guardian's 2 pop "less expensive"(relatively) -> 2 builders, 2 or 3 guardians, 3-4 aspect warriors + farseer...
3-SM: scout is 1 pop, so within a 10 pop start cap, they can have 3 scouts, 1 builder, 1 FC and 3 SM squads.... ouch
4-Chaos.... no comment: with 10 pop they hardly do 2 cultists (ah-ha-ah), 1 builder (or 2), 2 CSM squads and a CL.... for an infantery-based army.... it is kind of short ^_^.
Flying.

[Ryilo]

@Flying_Panda:
early in game, with the units you reported, in the very first minutes we have
1-Orks:
1 group of 10 Gretchins (at least they are not defensless)
3 groups of 15 sluggas, for a total of 45. HtH damage: 28-34, Ranged: 25-31
1 Big Mek. HtH damage: 137-182, Ranged: 122-148
Total: 46 combat units

2-Eldar:
2 builders
2 groups of 9 guardians, total of 18. HtH damage: 7-12, Ranged: 12-16
2 Group of 9 Banshees, total 18, with Executioner and Fleet of Foot. HtH damage: more than 33-46, Ranged: 5-9
1 Farseer (poor in combat, but with 3 powers)
Total: 37 combat units

3-Space Marines
1,2 Builders defensless
2 groups of 4 Scouts, total 8. HtH: 6-8, RAnged: 11-13
2 groups of 8 SM, total 16. HtH: 25-31, Ranged: 22-27
1 FC (good at combat, no powers)
Total: 25 combat units

4-Chaos
1 builder defensless
2 groups of 10 cultists, total 20. HtH: 14-17, Ranged: 9-11
2 groups of 10 SMs, total 20. HtH: 26-31, Ranged: 22-27
1 Chaos Lord, Good at combat. HtH: 135-165, Ranged 54-66.
Total: 40 combat units.

If you ask me, it seems pretty balanced. Cultists get grenades, so you may consider NOT using them as meatshield. CSM are strong and numerous.
You have to consider COST and TIME of unit/building production.

The reason scouts are pop 1 is that they are only 4. What about cultists that are pop 2 but in a group of 10? We can make scouts pop 2 in group of 10 if you want, with 5 weapons. Also an engaged or moving scout, is a dead scout.

Chaos don't have much vehicles, but they have DEMONS. They use a different armor and they are hard to take down for that reason. Only if you outnumber them you can defeat them. Those "pooor horrors" are a pain to take down if there is not a leader.
And i've not even wrote about all the powers that chaos units gets.

When i play with my teammates that use chaos, we wins. Always. They know how to use chaos of course.

[Galdred]

the damage given are irrelevant, as the only important thing is the DpS by armour type, and the cultists are really terrible in thsi department.
Cultists are strong with GLs indeed, but before that, they are the most useless tiers 0 unit in the game, by a good margin. A scout squad will easily slaughter an equal number of cultitsts, due to their low DPS and low reinforcing time.
and the SM can field 3 scout squads against the 2 cult squads we can get.
Chaos has demons, unfortunately, if you build the sac pits, you'll end up in tiers 2 so late that your daemons will get slaughtered by any ennemy vehicle, so it is not an option, but in team games where one player can tech while the other powerbuilds daemons.
+ I dunno why so many people imagine the daemon armor to be taht uber, but plasma and reapers are almost as good vs Daemons as they are vs Heavy inf.
IMO, the daemons do not compensate the lack of vehicle at all, at least in 1v1.
in 2v2, it is much harder to evaluate balance but Chaos is more useful indeed.
I think the 12 pop thingy would be too powerfull though, as it would give Chaos a large advantage over space marines, but as it is now, things are not balanced.
Your winning when teaming with some of your friends playing chaos does not really make the race balanced :p
most of the time I play with my friends in non automatch team games, we win regardless of the race I use, so I could say that every race is overpowered...

[trekkie9090]

Chaos seem balanced in low leveel play,is there anyway to make them balanced in high level play but keep them balanced in low level?

[Ryilo]

Cultists are fine as they are. You have pointed out the fact that a squad of scouts in overwatch against a squad of cultists in overwatch is a no-win situation, so they ARE balanced, and in the long run cultists win because they are cheaper than the other squads and more numerous. Scouts are good, but they cost 45req each! More than the other units.
Giving the cultists more hitpoints or more armour penetration would overpower them if we do not reduce their number or if we do not increase their cost. And I haven't even mentioned the fact that they get an aspiring champion and berserk fury.

Don't forget chaos can build faster, so you can use marines instead of the second squad of cultists.

As said, those 2 extra marines in the squad makes the difference when it cames to 1 cultists and 1 CSM vs 1 scouts and 1SM.

Also, without plasma the demons are very hard to fight, and plasma arrives only on tier 2.
A possessed marine + Chaos Lord rush is very hard to counteract.

Regarding vehicles: chaos gets the predator early, this can make the difference.

[Flying_Panda]

->Rylio
The figures I gave were WITHOUT reinforcement... of course with reinforcement it becomes more or less balanced. Yet, with more squads (<> more units!) you can do much more things: harass, scout, cap more points, block more troops at CC while having backups for support fire, etc, etc... In EARLY game (no GL, no HB, no plasma....), with an evenly good opponent, if I have Chaos, I don't know if I can survive with 2 cultists + 2 CSM + CL Vs 3 Scout squads + 3 SM squads +FC even with good micro cause both players may have all squads locked in CC but SM player will have 2 squads for support fire (and no one gets in early encounter 8 or 10 units per squad making chaos' 2 extra units/squad totally useless). So yes, we can have CSM faster with force labor (at least!!!) but this means making only 1 cultist squad and wait until temple completion + 1st CSM completion... meanwhile, any other race would have capped 1.5 to 2 more SP than you... yami yami!
And last, yep, we do have deamons... fine! 1 horros cost more than upgrading stronghold to monaster!!! (300/100 Vs 250/100), takes 2 pop, are only 5 and cannot be reinforced.... that's why I'd like Chaos to have slighty more pop cap (decreasing vehicle cap if needed) to fully enjoy using the full potential of its infantry (who plays obliterators?? except for fun).
By the way, if , as SM player, you ar to face the most famous 3min' PSM+Horror+CL rush; 1)your opponent do not have neither a stronghold nor a Temple any more, 2) possessed have no upgrade making it SOOOOOO easy to dance/break (low moral without CL).

Anyway, this is not to whin, nor to say this or that unit is good / bad... Chaos has a given set of units, with great stats and potentialities, but a fact is that we focus only on few of them due to sever pop limitation and choice (for vehicle), therefore chaos looses part of its capability to cope with a wide range of threats and, if this is not flagrant against unexperienced opponents and at the beginning of the game, it becomes evident in long games or Vs skilled opponents.
The proposal of increasing Chaos' starting and max pop cap is only a way to "relatively" reduce the cost of cultists in early games and give Chaos more flexibility in chosing infantry mix later on.

Flying

[Alpha_1]

Frankly I think they need to raise the scout pop cap to 2 or limit the number you can have altogether. Scouts are too easily abused, and in a skilled and fast hand they are more than enough to win any game.

Cultists will never be the equal nor superior to scouts that are at 1 pop cap, compare them to 2 pop cap and you have a better comparison.

Each scout cost as much as 3 cultists but can kill more than that number before dying, so comparing cost is not a valid premis.

Besides for 2 10 pop cultists you spend 150 extra res at 4 pop cap, that allows for 3 scout squads, 2 to tie up and one to shoot, everyone knows cultist wither under any type of fire.

Lets look at it from a population perspective.

4 scouts squads at 1 pop cap each = 90*4=360 req, reinforce to 4 each = 8*45= 360, total 720, but 4 4 man squads.

2 cultist squads at 2 pop cap each = 75*2 = 150 req, reinforce to 2 10 man squads = 15*10=150, total of 300 req.

Now you are going to say that 720 worth of req should beat 300 worth of req, problem is that while that 300 req (who reinforces the cultists that early anyway?) is being tied up by 540 worth of req the other 180 of scouts are still capping, or in most cases de-capping that 300 req's worth of points. All the while the 300 req is NOT getting any more points/req for the chaos player.

Considering the time as well the chaos player may or may not get a csm or CL out before the first encounter, that will be the only squad they get out at that point because it becomes so expensive to keep the cultists alive that there is no req for anything else.

Cultists are not worth the money they cost period, even at a 2 pop cap the scout is a better unit even if it is more costly for a full 4 man squad compared to a 10 man cultist squad.

This is of course just an opinion in chaos v marines consideration but name any other starting unit that a cultist squad can beat.

Tier 0 cultists are a joke.

[Jakaero]

Ok, wait. So you are saying that you are keeping 240 req MORE than they are worth occupied, and still cannot do anything about that remaining 180 req? Where is the marine player GETTING this extra 420 req from, and why are you NOT using yours to pump up your CSM and obliterate those stupid scouts?

I agree, scouts need a tweak. Making them 2 pop is not going to fix it, unless dropping marines out of early game competition completely is a solution. They cost almost as much as a marine, and can never be larger than four. They start at two of them, FFS. Yes, I know, the scout rush is screwed up. What balanced thing would you do to them then? This, to me, is more an indicator that cultists need some help than that scouts need a massive nerf.

[Ryilo]

Ok, wait. So you are saying that you are keeping 240 req MORE than they are worth occupied, and still cannot do anything about that remaining 180 req? Where is the marine player GETTING this extra 420 req from, and why are you NOT using yours to pump up your CSM and obliterate those stupid scouts?

I agree, scouts need a tweak. Making them 2 pop is not going to fix it, unless dropping marines out of early game competition completely is a solution. They cost almost as much as a marine, and can never be larger than four. They start at two of them, FFS. Yes, I know, the scout rush is screwed up. What balanced thing would you do to them then? This, to me, is more an indicator that cultists need some help than that scouts need a massive nerf.
You get the point! The chaos player should use those 420 req to have 2 CSM squads.
As said, cultists pay in the long run, scouts pay in the short run, they are different, period.

Scouts are fine as they are, unless you want to give SM a useless unit against all races. The point of scouts is: they are slighty better than other units, but they have high cost and they are light infantry (easy to kill).
Remember that, as cultists, scouts get extra hp with bionics implants. That should be the first extra to purchase if you want better cultists.
After Tier 2, scouts are useless because it's more convenient to build SMs, while cultists have more power and can be used to throw grenades up to tier 3.

Sincerely I think the problem is in the strategy used by the majority of chaos players. In early game use 1-2 cultists without reinforcing them to cap points, then build CSM thanks to the ability of fast-chapel-building. Also Raptors owns almost everything.

Guardians win against scouts at every moment, they do more damage and are numerous. Orks have slugga that can win against all the other races.

You said scouts costs less than SMs: SM cost 50req, they are heavy infantry, and they do more damage. Scouts are 45req, but they are light infantry and to half the ranged damage and 1/4 HtH damage! Ugh! But they are the ONLY infiltration squad, so SM needs them.

I think we need to watch some replay to see why chaos is not strong enough, to examinate if it's the players fault or not.

[FM_Surrigon]

Ryilo,

You would have us believe that everyone who plays chaos is worse than those who don't. That the top chaos players are just less-skilled than SM/Eldar/Ork players. That's a ridiculous assumption.

This isn't a flash in the pan issue, we aren't hot off a balance patch with initial whining, we aren't talking about 3 games, or one or two players. Chaos has been played and played and has been found wanting.

[Ryilo]

You would have us believe that everyone who plays chaos is worse than those who don't. That the top chaos players are just less-skilled than SM/Eldar/Ork players. That's a ridiculous assumption.

This isn't a flash in the pan issue, we aren't hot off a balance patch with initial whining, we aren't talking about 3 games, or one or two players. Chaos has been played and played and has been found wanting.
It is not ridiculous if you think that you learn to play SMs in the single, where the game explain in detail every unit. So it is harder to learn how to play the other races (but this is the fun part, right?).
Also we have only 22% of "games" played by chaos, we don't know how much 'players' play them and we don't know how much of those play ranked games.
Also we don't know how much they are skilled. What we see is that chaos with their 22% games has 54% won games, that to me doesn't seem bad.

As I said, let's watch some replay and actually examine why chaos is losing, shall we? I don't see the problem in doing this. We had replays regarding invincible seer council and a patch has been done.

[IronLegionnaire]

We had replays regarding invincible seer council and a patch has been done.

That was less a balance issue and more the simple fact that Conceal was bugged. It's not a bug that's holding Chaos back at the moment, and thus, it's not as cut-and-dried as fixing Conceal.

Also, comparing the singleplayer SM campaign to multiplay is laughable. In SP, you're generally going against a known, established enemy presence with some story-driven objectives. In MP, everyone starts from scratch, and you may not know who you're fighting until you run into them. Things like BO's and rushes don't factor into SP, yet play a big role in MP. You learn no more about SM units from the campaign than you would playing a few skirmish games, so no, I don't think that the other races are any more difficult to learn in that regard.

Those statistics you mention also don't represent the entire truth. Where are most of those games won clustered? Evenly, from the top of the ladder to the bottom? Or are they clustered more towards the bottom of the rankings?

[*Eroes*]

Rylo, I don't understand if you have ever played Chaos, or not.

Because if not, why are you speaking about things you don't know? ;)
ALL of us are able to play SM and rather well [since they're the race of the single player game] and we are able to see the real difference [and merits and faults] of both of the two races.

Chaos is really limited when played in high-ranking matches: it's the grim reality.
On the opposite front, SMs shine in ... everything.
Trust in a ~1600 ranked player: Chaos really need "something". Relic has to decide WHAT is this "something" but, at the moment, Chaos army has real disadvantages compared to the other races.

Plz, do not think that any Chaos player is a whiner. A lot of us are competent, mature and skilled rts players, not simply ultra-whiner-loser-n00b-players.

[Ryilo]

@Eroes:
I insist. Let see the replays, shall we? Why is chaos losing? Let see what happens so we can see what is that 'something' needed.
We have shown that cultists are ok as they are, horrors are extremely powerful at the beginning _but_ rarely used, and so on...
Also experience of other rts games apply very little to dow, due to his innovative design.

If we really think the game is unbalanced and want to balance it (not transforming every race in the invincible race at turn) we need to find out what is unbalanced, so we need to see how chaos is played. All i have seen so far is simply "omg i'm the better dow player ever existed and i can't win using chaos, this game is unbalanced" and _no evidence_ to it.
So simply shouting that good chaos players can't win is worthless.

Please start giving evidence (replays) of high-ranked games to discuss about it (if this is not a simple whining thread) so the thread can become useful.

[FM_Surrigon]

Replays don't belong in this thread Ryilo, they go in the replay section.
We see the replays, we play the game, and then we post here, because we see what's going on.

Replays won't do you as much good as you think, why? Because no one plays perfectly enough to see imbalance any specific game. Why do we think Chaos needs work? Because we've played, we tried many different builds, and Chaos comes up lacking.

Anyways, this thread has gone on for 13 pages. Reasons and explanations have been given again and again. If you want replays, go find them yourself. DL all the chaos replays you can find and watch them. Better yet, play chaos yourself and see.

Even if you take out SM, you could reason that eldar + ork players have had the same amount of time to get used to their races and they're among the elite and chaos isn't. 22% of games played by chaos is very close to a quarter, which is normal considering there are 4 races. if it was 30,30,30, and 10% for chaos you might have an argument, but the numbers aren't that bad.

[Galdred]

at least, if you feel so confident about Chaos weakness coming from our lack of ability, why don't you try for yourself?
Don't you think that saying that the 22% players chosing Chaos must be less skilled than the other ones will even be considered as an argument when you have not even tried it?

Even if you don't get to the top 100, you could at least TRY your theory about using daemons and such stuff.
And provide us some nice replays we could learn how to use Chaos from.

Perhaps if you had made the effort of reading the thread instead of only flaming would you have found more than

It is not ridiculous if you think that you learn to play SMs in the single, where the game explain in detail every unit. So it is harder to learn how to play the other races (but this is the fun part, right?) [....]

All i have seen so far is simply "omg i'm the better dow player ever existed and i can't win using chaos, this game is unbalanced" and _no evidence_ to it.
So simply shouting that good chaos players can't win is worthless.
And btw, could you enlighten me in telling me how saying Chaos players have lesser success than other because they must be kindof stupid is any worthier?

Maybe if you were able to read, you would have understood that no one was sayinf that it was impossible to win with Chaos or anything like this.
People were saying that it required a lot more efforts to win at high level of play(you know, at the level where using horrors and PSM early on is not an option).
Or maybe you could explain me why for good orks, SM and Chaos alike, the prefered matchup is against Chaos?
only Eldars tend to differ, because they'd be better facing orks...
Oh, wait, I know, it is because Chaos are the last foes in the single player campaign, so people know how to deal with them better!

Sorry to flame, but I hate it when someone who has no clue about playing Chaos call us idiots and whinners...

[Ryilo]

Calm down people, i have not used bad words neither i was flaming. I was trying to make a point.

I was simply trying to lead the discussion toward finding where actually the problem with chaos resides, because after hundreds of pages we're still discussing about "something needs to be done, but we don't know what".
If my posts seems rude (to me it doesn't seem the case) it's because i love the game and don't want to see it ruined, and maybe due to little padronance of english.
That said i will not longer post in this thread if my presence is not desired, so good discussion to you all.

[.42.]

Funny thing is that Bubble thought the same thing as Ryilo. That it was our fault and we didn't know how to play Chaos and we were just whining because we got beat a few times. So he took up the challenge of getting to the top 10 with Chaos. He is a top 10 with ork so why not with Chaos. We wished him all the luck in the world because we want to be proven wrong. We don't want Chaos to be weak just so we have something to complain about.

A week later he starts posting about how weak Chaos is.

[Galdred]

Sorry for overreacting, I didn't want to make it personnal or whatever, but you should avoid implying that all of us must be unable to play if chaos gets so poor results.
It was not very constructive either, as was telling us to go watch some replays.

There were some possible fix discussed there indeed, like denerfing cultists and oblits a little, fixing defiler AI, making Sacrificial Pit a possible tiers 2 upgrade for chaos, giving chaos more pop at the beginning, so saying that the thread was just an empty whining one by spoiled chaos players unable to play their race well was inaccurate at least.
We'd like you trying playing chaos at least before telling us they are fine as they are, especially since some of your points(the daemon stuff and the like) showed you were not very familiar with playing with/against Chaos in 1v1 ladder games.
If we advocate for chaos, it is because we like this race, but we'd like to be able to play it for other occasions than for uncompetitive play, which is rather hard there.
I don't mind people telling us that chaos is ok as it is now, and I would have liked to see Bubbel at the top, but it didn't happen, and unfortunately, it didn't change much things as people keep getting there telling us to learn how to play our race before moaning. Maybe we'd need everyone to open a chaos account to get things sorted...
that or we all need to open another race account and get it way higher than the chaos one, but even then, people would tell that there must be some kind of secret hidden tactics making chaos an overpowered race, that PSM need to get pushed to tiers 3, that cultists need to have half of their current HPs removed and such things.

[Flying_Panda]

.42. made the point with Bubbel's challenge.
And I am almost sure Ryllio never played Chaos as I don't think a Chaos player will spent 300/100/2 for 5 horrors IN EARLY GAME (and later, horrors are of no match), except maybe for the kill-or-get-killed PSM/Horror/CL rush.
Once again, I am not sure that scout are overpowered: they are just great, they are resilient, almost as tough as a SM, only cost 1 pop but are only 2 and therefore this is manageable (yet, I have already had 1 CSM Squad tied-up by scouts at CC AND NOT BEING ABLE TO CRUSH THEM!!!) and putting them 2 pop would be too much for a 4-units squad. Cultist are weak, but numerous, can have a Champion and, once equipped with GL, are worth a guardian squad so 2 pop is not the question... it is just that, in the beginning, they are 0-use -except capping SP- and take 1/5th of your army's starting max cap Vs 1/10th for scouts (not talking about Eldars as guardians are correct at the beginning, waiting for aspects, and ork as slugga are good at any time).
Later in game, Chaos is limited by the number of units in the field: other races can have a good mix between numerous "cheap" troops and vehicles whereas chaos has to select for fewer, more expensive (pop) troops (BTW, this is done among quite a good selection of troops) and poor, expensive vehicles...
Now I let you think about it, but I am personnally convinced this is not about Chaos' unit selection or stats....
less units -> less flexibility -> less opportunities to react against various threat....

[[Vertigo]]

Now I let you think about it, but I am personnally convinced this is not about Chaos' unit selection or stats....
less units -> less flexibility -> less opportunities to react against various threat....


I think you have hit the problem on the head with that statment. As Chaos progresses up the tech tree we should have more choices presented to us, and in reality we have some of the weakest, overpriced, high pop cost vehicles in the game. Sure the Defiler is a great artilery piece, but I dont need an artilery piece when I am fighting off fireprizms. I need a dedicated anti-tank unit, like the predator; but it is so damn exspensive to get one, just one! So we are forced to use CSMs, the only real unit in our army seems to be CSMs. When facing down dreaghnaughts I need a anti-tank unit besides the CSMs that I have equiped with heavy Bolters and Plasma to deal with the Space Marines, but the Preditor is too damn expensive for what it does, and the Defiler can't hold a candle to the Dreadnaught.

Look at our infantry and deamons, Cultist are weak without Grenade Launchers, CSMs are some of the best starting units in the game, next to Sluggas. Horrors are an expensive joke, since you need to pay 250/100 just to get the opportunity to build them. PSM are a godly unit that I wish I could use more often; but their expesive, but fair, price is preventing that. Raptors are a great unit that is good at killing other units, I have no complaints about them.

Our buildings are supposed to be the toughest, but focused fire will destory the most important ones, like the Armory, Power Plant, Barracks, Sac Pit quickly. We have the Taint of Chaos, alot of good that does us. The regen affects are hardly noticable, and the moral damage/boost don't help in any fights around our buildings, like it should.

It isn't that Chaos is weak in the unit department, we have some really great units. The Defiler is a ranged killing machine, PSMs are deamonic death, CSM are good all around units. The real problem lies in the pricing of some of our units, like the Predator, it has the most HPs of the Chaos vehicles and does decent damage to armored targets. Pefect for fighting Fireprisms, but I can't afford to field it in a one on one game, but the Eldar can field their ultimate tank in a one on one. Horrors are way to overpriced for what they do.

Our racial strengths do not help us. The taint of Chaos is much too weak, and so are our buildings. It should take a lot more effort on our opponents to take down a Chaos base. We have several overpriced and underpowered units that are not worth building: Horrors, Predators, Obliterators, and Cultist just to name a few. All of that adds up to a race that is subpar when compared to the rest.

[GeneralElectric]

This is funny. Space marines start with marines allready at tier 0. When cultists cant even beat grots in a fight because grots will make it to build a fort and hide there before cults kill them.

[Galdred]

nice summing up, Vert.
The problem is that some of our units/buildings cost a lot more than they should.
I would use horrors if building the sac pit early was not a sure way to lose.
We cannot even afford a single vehicle before researching the vehicle cap upgrade.
The defiler could be ok if there was a way to have it use its autocannon...
About the pred, I heard WC_Sleign had good results with it(have you noticed he has dropped out of the top 100? :/ )
To fight vehicles, we have no dread, no meltabombs, and CSM that do the same as standard marines, but without the possibility of getting medics...
Sure we could send PSMs with AV upgrades against a FP, but I doubt they'd ever make it to CC

Against SM, I'd say we have a window of 1 minutes during which we have the upper hand, thanks to FL, with a standard CSM build: if they avoid the initial encounter long enough, we're as good as dead, due to our poor tech tree, and against other races, it's like they were facing a nerfed version of marines.

[hiteche5]

I'm mostly an Ork player but I dabble in Chaos sometimes. I really think the problem is in the cost department. Horrors could be effective but 300 req and I forget how much energy!! I see the Anti vehicle thing being handled by Regular CSM but not when you have to equip have your squads with plasma to counter Marines. Thus the deamons should be viable support to allow CSM to use ML. They are not viable support when they cost so freakin much for so little. I would also like to see the Sac Pit a llittle cheaper and able to be built before the armory. You can limit what units come out of the Sac pit so you can't mass PSM fast...for instance PSM available from Sac Pit after armory but at least you would see horrors on the field more. And Oblits need the building damage upped.

As for Ryilo's posts...I think you guys were a little harsh. English is not his primary language and you might be mistaken what he is trying to say. I think he is trying to say we need to use replays to figure out where the weakness is. What units are underused, what beats Chaos when faced by the 3 races and then get a common denominator.

[Flying_Panda]

Ok... tryed many "mass unit" games to see units' effectiveness in number (see below)....
By the way, there is a fact that squeezes my brain: at full vehicle upgrade, like other races, we go up to 20... but (as I don't think lots of us play Rhinos) 20 cannot be divided by 3... at best, we have 6 vehicles (each of them cost 3 -> 6 x 3 = 18), which makes 2 vehicle pop out of 20 (10%!!!) ABSOLUTELY USELESS (unless you want to make a Rhino.... hmm hmmm). once again chaos is outnumbered, which is, in my opinion, a major issue and weakness in a RTS....
As for the result of mass troops:
6 defilers ROCK!!! yet, I confirm that, for a slighty higher price, I do prefer predators (mainly because it won't cause my own troops to flee due to a totally messed upartillery shot, HP and multi directionnal shot)...
mass horrors: definetly useless (for the price) as they miss 50% of the time. Good points though: deep strike + enemy confusion -> people tend to focus fire on horrors so other troops can do their job without disturbance. Moreover, they only cost 2 pop cap -> if you are already 18/20 pop, can be a good idea if you are tired of marines and want to annoy your opponent :) (deep striking 3 horrors squads is delightfull!!!)
mass PSM: ARGH! so gooooooood. Tank killers, troop killers... love 'em! yet, get aware that without speed increase THEY SUCK!!! upgrade research order: speed, penetration (against vehicle / building), damage, fire.... just try 4 PSM + 3 CSM + CL + CS.... yami yami!
CSM: definetly a good unit. 11/squad is good. Trully.
Raptor: if only they had melta bombs!!!!! Flamer+speed+champion is OK
That's all folks! -> Chaos is limited in number of squads and vehicles. Units are awesome and vehicles gooooooood as well, but we lake number! I'd like to see how space marine (or any other race) would cope with MAX 8 troops and 6 vehicles (no matter how good they are).....
I definetly think I have pointed out one of chaos main weakness in a RTS: number of troops/vehicles. If you have ever played Warhammer Battle / W40k, I think you know what I mean....

NB: maybe another weakness would be the lack of mid-game valuable anti-vehicle solution... I let you think of it

[3DHouseOfBeef]

First of all. I love you guys. All of you. And I mean that in whatever way would make you the most uncomfortable. :D Great comments as always.

I had a number of comments on Ryilo's take, but you guys seem to have it covered. Just a couple additions for clarity.

From Ryilo:

horrors are extremely powerful at the beginning _but_ rarely used
Lets see if I can sum this up. First, as it has been pointed out, if I go for the Sac. pit, I spend 250/100, which means I am not getting to tier 2. My opponent is moving on to rockets, plasma and vehicles, I am not. However, I get my horrors... for another 300/100. So now I am down 550/200, my opponent is at tier 2. So we meet in battle with our new shiney armies. I drop my horrors behind enemy lines. The opponent takes the nearest scout squad, hits overwatch, and goes into close combat with my horrors. My horrors can now run or melee. Both bad options, as both options take them out of the battle. So my 550/200 investment gets neutralized by my opponents 1 pop. cap. tier 0 scout unit. I lose my troops in that battle and try to think of how to beat a tier 2 opponent and his army, with my tier 1 base and no army.

From Ryilo:
Cultists are fine as they are. You have pointed out the fact that a squad of scouts in overwatch against a squad of cultists in overwatch is a no-win situation, so they ARE balanced, and in the long run cultists win because they are cheaper than the other squads and more numerous. Scouts are good, but they cost 45req each! More than the other units.
In this situation the one dead scout kills three cultists, so it is a push as stated before. However, this is only if the scouts care to sit there and brawl cultists all day. If they run away, cultists stop killing them, and either have to disengage or follow the scouts (usually into their main force, where the cultists die). The scouts win at range, and move faster. So even in the one instance where tier 0 cultists have a chance, it is only if the SM player allows it to happen. If they simply run off, the cultists are again in a bad spot. Also, as mentioned before. I lose 2/10 of my cap in this little skirmish, and the SM ties up only 1/10 of his.

From Ryilo:


Don't forget chaos can build faster, so you can use marines instead of the second squad of cultists.
We only build faster when it comes to our brief forced labor advantage. After that it is over. Also, Chaos buildings take longer to build in the first place. We don't get that CSM squad out so fast that we can skip the second cultist squad. I have seen replays of this idea by top players (WC_Sleign and thanks for innovating), but as you might have noticed, WC_Sleign isn't in the Top100 anymore (as of this posting, as always).

From Ryilo:
As said, those 2 extra marines in the squad makes the difference when it cames to 1 cultists and 1 CSM vs 1 scouts and 1SM.
If I am having a 1 CSM+1 Cultist skirmish against 1 SM+1 Scout, this generally means that under the 10/10 pop cap limit, I have 1 CSM and 1 Cultists elsewhere on the map, and my opponent has either 2 SM and 1 scout, or 3 scout and 1 SM elsewhere on the map. Whether these units are capping, harassing, engaged in their own battle, or coming to back up the battle in question, Chaos comes out the loser in all of those scenarios. In the 1 CSM+1 Cult v. 1 SM+1 Scout battle the odds are about even in my experience. Also, if I have...
those 2 extra marines...keep in mind that those 2 extra marines cost me 100 req+ the time to reinforce them. That means the SM could have build another scout squad, and tie up my CSM in that battle. Of course he could have built a LP, reinforced his SM's as they take losses, or whatever. In any case it's not an advantage if my force is more expensive than the enemy force. A more expensive force SHOULD be winning against a less expensive force (barring hard counters, bad matchups, etc)

Somewhere in this thread (I can't find it now + no search) someone made the statement that scouts were an early advantage and cultists were a late advantage. I disagree with this. Scouts are an amazing advantage all game long. There is no dispute that in the early game their low pop-cost, speed, and power are an advantage, in both fast economy, harass, and rushing ability. Late game they have sniper rifles, which means I have to take extraordinary measures to try and have my main forces not broken in every battle I fight. A couple snipers in a main battle means I am having my squads broken and losing an extra man every 6-12 seconds. This cannot be ignored. I'd love to be able to tie up the scouts with cultists, but they die when approaching any force that has more than 1 SM squad in it. If I charge my whole force in and try to target the scouts with grens, I still will have at least 1 squad broken when the main forces get into range with one another, then its still a toss up in the grens v sniper battle, and I have to retreat a broken CSM squad from the main battle. I am left with having to send my valuable raptors into the scouts, or charging my Chaos Lord into battle ahead of my main force, as he can take the sniper fire. Of course, the fire from the main force will eat him up, and he won't last long once he hits the lines under that kind of fire, but these are the kind of battle options we have against sniper-armed scouts. Scouts are strong from tier 0 until the end of the game.

One last note on this already-way-too-long post.

From the Ask a Dev thread;
From Viscerate:
Will the CHAOS side recieve some BEEFING up?Thanks for reading the thread, thanks for bringing it to the attention of the dev's, and thanks for the subtle and sexy "beefy" reference. It didn't go unnoticed. :beer:

-3D House of Beef

[Fixer]

Chaos is the talentless rushers army of choice.

Quick build your barracks, mass Chaos marines, move in general direction of the enemy base. The fact that Chaos marines can have more units in their squads gives you an advantage over marines in a straight off / mass rush. Marines have a slight advantage in that they can use scouts to cap points faster.

Of course, if they're all dead it hardly matters. Only thing to watch out for is scouts/bonesingers hitting your heretics.

Chaos Rush Build order:
1st Heretic Builds Barracks, Force labour
Build Heretic, move to Barracks, Force Labour
Build Culitst, Capture SPs.
Once the barracks is built:
Build Chaos marine unit, re-enforce when it heads out, move towards enemy base.
Build CL
Build as many CM units as you can and re-enforce.

As long as the map isn't too big and you hit the enemy starting units you're nearly assured a victory. It's easy to pull off and your opponent will have to out macro you to win.

biggest problem is against Orks, just make multiple chaos units so they don't all get tied up in combat.

[3DHouseOfBeef]

From Fixer:
Chaos is the talentless rushers army of choice.
If things were only this easy, do you not think that the Chaos players wouldn't be all over the top ranks? The build listed is probably the most common build for Chaos. Everyone knows this and is ready for this build. Once you have played enough games where you are no longer going up against low ranked players who are not familiar with the game, this tactic will lose you games. The one reinforcing squad is too easy to tie up in Close Combat.

Fixer, feel free to take up the challenge. Make a Chaos account, and see how far this tactic gets you. I don't know how good of a player you are, but if this works even for us "talentless..." players, anyone should be able to win with this, correct? Hope to see you in the top ranks.

-3D House of Beef

[*Eroes*]

Well, we have found a genius: FIXER!

Wow Fixer, our beloved god, we could not imagine that winning with a Chaos army could be so simple.
Thank you: now WE KNOW. And all of us will be 1800+ ranked players.

Thank you. And wow. Wow again!

[sMoC]

I have played many games with chaos and I often lose to one tactic. The scout / faarseer/ warpspider tactic. The problem is that chaos can´t beat an rush and at the same time capture rp becuse of the cap 2 on cults. The fact is that a SM player can at the same time rush an opponent and also capture rps. Same goes with Eldar.

So what does the chaos player need to do to make sure he have equal or better economy and at the same time attack and rush the opponent. Hardly possible but what you can do is:

1 You can hope that the opponent is lasy and let you have som points (Rarely happens in high ladder games) and give you the time making cults with nades.

2 you can make alot of csm in order to rush the opponent. At the same time enemy scout will lock you up in cc as well as the 2 other scout squads capture some rp which gives the opponent the economy advantage. This tactic often fails becuse the enemy have their fc out on the battlefield at the same time you ruch him and if you dont have a cl your toasted as you can´t shoot him as the scouts are fighting you i cc.

3 You make an fast raptor build but you will have an economy disadvantages unless you attack and decapture enemy rp. But if the opponent rush you before you get your raptors it´s gg.

So it can be confirmed that chaos are the weakest in the beginning.
Dont say that you can build more csm units becuse the opponent beats this with less expensive force. For example: Eldar that uses warpspiders and faarseers to kill your cults. There is no way that you can save them. spiders and faarseer are to fast for csm. We have to most powerful leader in cc but if he never gets into combat why use him?

So what need to be fixed:
I dont think csm need beefing up, I think the unbalance is in the speed of the other races. If they where to choose between rush or economy it would be an much more intressting game.

I also like to add that i never won any match on rushing an opponent. Also many players that fails their rush often lose becouse they dont have the micro/skill to fight on equal terms.



I must excuse my poor english.
Im from sweden ;). Perhaps explains it all.

[Fixer]

Would you like my replays of high ranking players shouting abuse at my NoSkillRetard lame ass tactic test account? :D

It's actually quite funny in a tragic kind of way. If you get the right map especially (Think VoK) It's unbeatable! Unless you're playing against a Chaos player doing the same thing of course.

[hiteche5]

Fixer...we do know that Chaos rules at the small map, 1vs1, possessed rush at low levels. What every one is saying is at high levels of play that "cheap" stuff doesn't work anymore and when you start competing with competent players they walk all over Chaos once the vehicles start coming out.

[Fixer]

I've been in and out of the top 100 1v1 Ladder players a few times. if i've learned much from my time there it's that Tier 2 is a rarity. Most games there are decided within the first 5 minutes, usually when somone's commander dies.

If you've ever played against Iam|Ferri (not sure if he's still in the top 100) you'll find that he never builds ANYTHING but marines. Had a very interesting game where We were equal until the point I made a power generator, Armoury and upgraded my units with HB/Flamers. Wow, that was a mistake, gave him the advantage in numbers (a couple of marine units) and he wiped me out. This game lasted 40 minutes of constant marine building and re-enforcement I might add.

Anyhow, I'll agree that Chaos is weaker when it gets to Tier 2. Possessed rock but marines have the severe advantage in vehicles. Since chaos charges into combat for jollies and the defiler loves to shoot shells that blow up your own troops with severe innacuracy it's a bit tricky.

Dreads eat Possessed for breakfast. (Khorneflakes!)

Space marines own Tier number 3, it's about 1/100 games you'll ever get there though.
For Chaos Tier 3 just seems to be there for commander upgrades and lascannons.

[sMoC]

I think cap 1 on cult would fix everything.. They are the weakest starting units so why cant he have alot of them?
Then again we must lower the damge of nades becuse no one want an 6 sqaud cult rush with nades ;)

[Flying_Panda]

I have tried many rush BOs this night... Raptor Rush, Possessed Rush, CSM Rush and mass Horrors Rush (believe it or not ^_^ it is possible -and viable-, yet a bit slower and do not even think to go to tier 2)
What seemed best was CSM rush (then, depending to your style, raptor rush, then mass horrors Rush then possessed rush). In my opinion, PSM Rush IS THE WORST THING TO DO EVER!!! (just try it in automatch Vs Insane AI ah-ah-ah!)
So yep, chaos rocks, but it is rush, only rush, and just rush. It lacks consistance in mid to long-term, your economy greatly suffers from the painfull early choices and if you face early vehicles and/or if your opponnent survives and resists a bit, you have no real backup solution, no finisher.
Kill before you get killed: we rule at tier 1 so we have to prevent other from reaching tier 2.
Maybe we have to resign, bow to chaos forces and its twisted schemes: we have to suffer, crush opponent as fast as possible or die in pain and misery.
So chaos have chances on small or 1v1 maps or vs unexperimented players... maybe in team with orks or fast rusher team mates.. but I am a bit sad, today, realising that my games won't last more than 10' as, if it happens, I'd surely die -> I will have to play chaos and never having the chance of using its full potential or its full range of units (though limited)....
I don't think it is a question of skill, of buffing/nerfing this or that unit... it is playstyle: if you want to rush, take Chaos or orks, for mid-player; SM, for tactical ones: Eldars...
Rush is always a double-edged blade: either you rule or get rapped (as a banshee by a bolter tower). So if you see your opponent turttling, pray you'll have fire magnets (PSM, predators) soon enough to hold the counter-strike.
low/badly optimized pop/vehicle cap, cruel choice between army or economy (other races do not have this choice so emphasized) and no real solution to handle vehicles (except ML): welcome to Chaos!

[[Vertigo]]

Lets see if I can sum this up....


I agree with you on this Horrors should allow CSMs to go the direction they need to go without costing an arm and a leg. Horrors need to be better support units, which means they don't need 500 Hp a peice and cost 550/200 for the first squad! What they do need to do is support my CSMs as they are working over the armor of my opponent.

Horrors should be more like Cultists with grenade launchers; Low hitpoints with high damage potential, for a cheap price. Horrors should be anti-infantry and anti-heavy infantry, leaning more to the anti-heavy infantry.



In this situation the one dead scout kills three cultists...


I'm inclined to disagree with you on this point. Cultist are not supposed to be the greatest unit to start with, Orks have that luxury. SM are supposed to have a great starting unit, that is what separates the two races from each other. It is what gives SM the advantage over Chaos, the ability to start their economy early.

I have never had a problem with Scouts, infact I love facing SM since I can predict their movements. I know what to fight, Cultists vs Scouts is a waist of time, as you have pointed out. Cultists vs Space Marines on the other hand is not a waist of time. You just have to know were to put your units. If you have problems with Scouts meleeing you CSMs, just charge the enemies SMs with your CSMs, problem solved.
---------------------------------------------------------

the rest of your post is mostly conjecture, alot of what you say is, to me, incorrect. I have been playing Chaos alot so I have had to deal with everything you have brought up. I have had no problems with SM other then my own mistakes.




Ok... tryed many "mass unit" games to see units' effectiveness in number...


Massed units will only get you so far. Chaos requires combined arms to fight properly, or at least some flexibility in our fighting force. This is why massed CSMs are good, they have flexibility.

[FM_Surrigon]

If you have problems with Scouts meleeing you CSMs, just charge the enemies SMs with your CSMs, problem solved

It's not this easy. This happened to me fairly often, and if I just melee the SMs the scouts get free shots. With proper micro the SM wins. It's just the added versatility of 2 squads vs. 1. In an equal pop match-up I can cancel out his SMs with cultists, he can cancel out my CSMs with 1 scout, and still have a scout left over to do whatever he wishes, whether tie up your CSMs further or make quicker work of the cultists.

Now a lot of people will say while he's microing that much to beat you with this match-up he can't be handling his economy but microing the first encounter is of such great importance that whatever state his economy is in (and with proper use of waypoints and such how bad can it be?)

You personally may not mind the scout but I still think it's a major problem. Rambo would have trouble with them.

I think CSMs need to be a bit better in melee combat than they are right now. Not to the level of beating orks but definitely making quick work of SMs in hand-to-hand. SMs + CSMs don't match up right now I don't think. CSMs get 2 more guys true, but SMs are more accurate right off the bat and have much better morale, which, if he breaks you (and with scouts + sniper rifles or flamers is not hard), basically dooms your squad whether you have 10 guys in it or not.

I think one of the big problems is that instead of DoW having 3 parts to the game, it has 3 separate games. There's no good flow between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tiers. A map is either designed for 1st or 2nd tier play. Most 1v1 maps are 1st tier play maps, with some notable exceptions (deadmans perhaps). In team games I think you get a better flow because you ahve time to tech, but when you're in a 1v1 and you're fighting for your life, the choice between waiting a minute or two for tier 2 which has no immediate gains or pumping out another marine squad is pretty much decided.

[Korbah]

I actually find that killing scouts to be more influential in the initial combat than killing the hero. If you can kill the scouts with focussed fire from 2 csm squads (whilst tying up the SM with cults and CL vs FC) you can whittle down their advantage somewhat....that being said I find this combat to be very touch and go, scouts do decent shooting damage and with 4 squads can be reinforcing fast....imho they're a big threat.

[LarkinVB]

Did you notice that chaos is the only race that has disabled hotkeys in keydefaults.lua as if these didn't make it into the game in time.

It's :

chaos_manreaper_research
chaos_melta_bomb_research
chaos_move_through_cover_research

I want them back Relic ;-) !

[*Eroes*]

Plz, give us Chaos-Melta-Bomb. We need it :(

[Galdred]

Plz, give us Chaos-Melta-Bomb. We need it

That or power Gauntlets, or even kamikaze AT cultists, I don't care, but anything to deal with the first vehicle to show up or delay the construction of a mech factory, but nothing at all is rather harsh.

[IronLegionnaire]

Suicide belts for cultists, or krak grenades for Raptors would be kinda nice.

[-|EoT|-Havoc]

we need anti tank weapons, rocket launchers alone wont cut it.

[[Vertigo]]

Or we need another unit that can fill the void that lots of missle equiped CSMs make.

[.42.]

How about giving raptors good armour penetration vs vehicles.

[*Eroes*]

Yeah. Instead of a totally useless heavy weapon upgrade, Raptor could be equipped with a sort of Power Fist upgrade which almost ignore the armour of the target.

Or simply a damned melta-bomb.

It's not fair that we MUST equip our FULL Cms force with rockets. Where is the chance of diversification we should have?

Sigh. It's so annoying ...

[The Fatman]

Raptors in the table top game can use a weapon called a Meltagun that is meant to be extremely effective against tanks at close range. It could be added to the Flamer and Plasmagun selections they have now.

[VariableEagle]

This would be my first post here so I'll make the most of it. I dont have any fancy numbers or damage figures to show off and I dont know anything about the tabletop game other than from what I read in an afternoon on the Games-Workshop site. But I love Dawn of War and I love Chaos and I hope that's all I really need for people to hear me out.

I think the "problem" with Chaos is being looked at the wrong way. I think Chaos is weaker because it tries too hard to be different than the Space Marines. But it shouldn't be! It should be a more powerful and stylish "twin" of the Space Marines but at the same time infinitely more unpredictable and unreliable. At the moment, we're all playing Chaos just for the aesthetics and style. And that, I'm certain, is what we should be looking into, not how to make Chaos easier to play, but more fun to play.

If Relic needs to do anything, it's to flesh out Chaos with more stylish, twisted and completely over-the-top units.

[Viscerate]

Like the juggarnaught.

[|AXiN|]

VariableEagle, while style is great, what a lot of people in this thread are looking for is a way to bring Chaos up to the level of competitiveness the other three races have. I mean, the title of the thread and first post say that from what we can see, Chaos is mostly about style - they can't really cut it at the top levels of competition.

[ultimar235]

I've played as chaos for quite a while now and what's missing is the elite units IMO.

Obliterators are not elite units, they arent in the TT so why are they presumed here? And why the heck am i firing a twin linked plasma gun?? At least they shud appear in a group of 3 and can be reinforced to 6 like the TT rules, then maybe they would be good. But 1 - 4, no.

The chaos terminators are awesome, they look awesome and have awesome combi weapons. I'd like to see them replace obliterators. They were awesome in Chaos Gate, they should be in DOW.

-----------
end rant.

[Paradox]

Obliterators are not elite units, they arent in the TT so why are they presumed here?

Actaully according to this page (http://us.games-workshop.com/games/40k/chaosspacemarines/catalog/default.htm), and this page (http://store.us.games-workshop.com/storefront/store.us?do=Odd&odd=NewLayout&_do=List_Models&code=5225&game=3&database=22&c=5225), they are elite units; granted they still suck.

I've been play Chaos for a while now (only Skirmish and LAN games), and I agree that Chaos is under powered. If you want proof look at these statistics out of the Top 50 players on the competative ladder 3 are Chaos... 3.

In my experience the biggest problems with Chaos are Cultists, Obliterators, and a lack of anti-vechicle options. As many have said Cultists are a waste at 2 pop but to powerful for 1 pop with grenades. The best suggestion I've heard is to give Chaos a starting Pop of 12. Obliterators- well I can't really think of how to fix them... short of replacing them. As to the lack of anti-vechicle options, why not add Chaos Havocs? I've never played TT so I'm only familiar with what I've read on the GW website but they seem to fit the bill for what we need perfectly. The only problem I can see with this would be running into problems filling up you population cap to quickly. However, would it not be fessable to decrease the Pop of the Defiler to 2, decrease the Vechicle Pop to 10-16, and increase the Troop pop to 24-26? Just a suggestion... I'm not very experienced with the game, but I thought I'd give my 2 cents anyway.

[|AXiN|]

Well, I think that we all realise that one biggie which could considerably ease Chaos' pain is the implementation of light vehicles. In TT, Ork vehicles live in fear of anything more dangerous than HB, as do most Eldar, while most SM and CSM only need to worry about dedicated AT units.

One issue I have with the way Chaos has been done in DoW is that they've tried to make their units as different as possible from SMs, but at the same time tried to include as many SM units as possible. The problem here is that CSM use pretty much the same stuff as SM. Chaos Dreadnaughts, Chaos Terminators, Chaos Land Raiders... all are staples of TT, yet here are limited to one side. One other thing which gets to me is that Defilers are un-customisable. In TT you can mix and match weapons to get missile launchers, lascannon, and enhanced CC ablity, but this is absent in DoW, making them a not wonderful choice.

Anyway, back to the vehicles issue, perhaps we could get another Veteran Ability added - Tank Hunters. Makes all CSM units deal more damage to vehicles. Makes plasma and missiles viable anti-tank choices. In TT one thing you really, really don't want to see as a player with Armour is a TH squad with 4 plasma. That's 7+1+D6 armour penetration, as good as a krak missile, with rapid fire.

[*Eroes*]

As many have said Cultists are a waste at 2 pop but to powerful for 1 pop with grenades. The best suggestion I've heard is to give Chaos a starting Pop of 12.

Better it would be if Cultists had a reinforce time lower, like 6 seconds. At the moments it's 10 sec and it's ridiculous. Moreover a little boost of their hp is a must: I think 110hp [now they are 95] should be fine.
In this way they could be the MEATSHIELD they are meant to be. In any other way they are a waste of cap and resource.

About Chaos totally lack of anti-vehicle options, as I've already told Raptors could be equipped with melta weapons instead of their stupid and useless flamers and plasma.

And now I would say: why the hell a simple Ork Trak deal MORE DAMAGE to infantry [far more damage!!] than a Chaos Predator equipped with twin heavy bolter and autocannon?
W H Y ?

It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in a rts. Moreover we all know how the Trak is cheap and easy to have in the field in the first minutes of game.

Bah.

[VariableEagle]

VariableEagle, while style is great, what a lot of people in this thread are looking for is a way to bring Chaos up to the level of competitiveness the other three races have. I mean, the title of the thread and first post say that from what we can see, Chaos is mostly about style - they can't really cut it at the top levels of competition.

Sorry, looking over that, I noticed I was too vague.

I know what this thread's called. That's why I said that it wasn't the real problem. If you add more flexible units, decent ones that are fun to use, the players will come up with ways to use Chaos competitively.

[|AXiN|]

Sorry, looking over that, I noticed I was too vague.

I know what this thread's called. That's why I said that it wasn't the real problem. If you add more flexible units, decent ones that are fun to use, the players will come up with ways to use Chaos competitively

Fair enough. The general feeling I get out of Chaos players atm, though, is that they all really feel that competitive play is very much an uphill struggle, due to Chaos looking pretty but being underpowered. (Sidenote: I hate the cultist voices so much. So very much)