[SS 1.0] Missile Barrage

[bman3k]

I think that this ability is a bit overpowered in that it does good damage, has a large AoE, good range and a relatively short cool down. Armies with moderately heavy, short range infantry with large squads get massacred by this ability, SM in particular, I don't want to see poor BS face this. Heavier infantry like Terminators will basically take the full damage because they don't get knocked very far.

In a game today, I was attacking the Tau's base and it looked like I had the upper hand, I was about to pull my missile squad up to start attack the barracks, but it along with its apothecary was no where to be found, only large craters in the place where I last remembered them to me. This basically cost me the game, but it was a good one still.

I realize Skyrays are probably one of the best examples of a glass cannon, but I think it should be less "kill it within 4 seconds or its GG" and more "o noes! better get my AV squad up here". I think it's overall range should be slightly nerferd along with Missile Barages range, but it be given more hp (right now 1 melta will leave it with about 150hp).

So buff its hp a bit, but reduce its range or something .

[Jaimas]

Yeah, IMBArrage needs a hard smack and has since DC 1.2 The fact that it instasplorks many infantry squads is bogus, though fortunately its sheer disruption causes it to rarely reach its full potential.

[ImmortalChaos]

IMO it should only be shooting 6 missles, rather than like, 50.

[bman3k]

though fortunately its sheer disruption causes it to rarely reach its full potential.

Except against fat kids (space marines) which don't go flying, but instead sort of... fall over and attempt to get up.

Also it does alot of damage to buildings and vehicles which also makes me a sad panda.

[ImmortalChaos]

The only infantry which dont get thrown out of the blast radius by the first half of the missles are fragons, oblits, and mabey termies.

[White_Pointer]

If you ask me Harbingers are much more of a problem than Skyrays. You can always move out of the way of a missile barrage. There's often nothing you can do about harbinger drone spam.

White_Pointer

[bman3k]

The only infantry which dont get thrown out of the blast radius by the first half of the missles are fragons, oblits, and mabey termies.

Other units can be thrown short distances not completely outside the AoE only to be hit by another one, which could knock in back it. I find it difficult to move units out of the way especially if there's more than two squads in the area.

Harbingers cost quite a bit and you need decent economy to support it, I don't find it quite as hard to deal with, because SM has Librarian.

[fs_xyz]

Hmm... I don't know with you people. But since barracuda being introduced, most Tau players choose barracudas compared to harbringer / skyray....
Well... I think the reason is :
-Harbringer need steady large en generation
-Skyray.... its normal attack somehow tend to miss.... so little use without missile barrage.

[ImmortalChaos]

The skyray missle pods are highly under rated. They do about 40 DPS to infantry in a fairly large area- similar to WA basilisks. On top of that they sport over 80 DPS to vehicles, which is much better than most AV at that range. They have 70% accuracy and a 2.5 second reload, so accuracy can be troublesome but you really dont see them missing every shot like some people say they do.

[Jaimas]

As a note, Skyray Barrages one-shot entrenched broadsides and HWTs.

[steel_tomatoes]

The're also great against turrets or farms of turrets.

The sheer number of missiles fired makes it a spectacular thing to watch and was something I really loved about Tau when I was noob to DC.

Onto the issue, I really think OP is just having a rant for having lost a game (in which he admittedly wasn't watching his marine squad at the time, sounds like the Tau got a micro edge over him fair and square).

Online I've never found Barrage particularly useful. For one thing you need to consider the cost versus benefits to Tau player.
Vehicle Beacon - 300/100
Skyray - 100/225
Barrage - 100/100
Its also worth pointing out that the Vehicle Beacon is expensive and has no benefits other than providing access to vehicles, whereas most races need Vehicle Depot or other building in order to access the rest of their tech tree.
Therefore by Tau building Vehicle Beacon and going Skyray/Barrage, he is sacrificing a much earlier T3. Tau can tech to T3 while still having a strong T2 without vehicles (and Broadsides can fulfill that role to an extent). So for the 500/425 cost of getting access to missile barrage you might want to think twice before nerfing it. Its a risk for the Tau player because if he can't successfully connect the barrage to a worthy target or the enemy builds cheap AV squads and wipes out the Skyray/s, he is getting a very bad return on investment, and T3 can now be out of reach.

Or perhaps now that the Barracuda is available there is more reason to get the Vehicle Beacon in T2. In my opinion if any Tau vehicle warrants a closer look its their wtf base rape flyer.

[Skif]

Therefore by Tau building Vehicle Beacon and going Skyray/Barrage, he is sacrificing a much earlier T3. Tau can tech to T3 while still having a strong T2 without vehicles (and Broadsides can fulfill that role to an extent).

Broadsides without devilfish? Good luck... Skyray is a good unit even without barrage, as ImmortalChaos pointed out. Its not like 500/425 = barrage, its 500/425 = production building, skyray AND barrage. Fair deal for me.

[steel_tomatoes]

No for that cost its a shit unit without barrage, when you could go T3 and get good units with reliable damage.

[TheMiracul]

Why the hell do you all still wana nerf Tau???? aren't they balanced enought???? if u can't get good AV against them, then u ****
It has already been nerfed, so that even slower thinking ppl can run away if they see the target zone...

[mlai]

Barracuda is more of a problem than Missile Barrage.

Would be nice if MB becomes more disruption less dps, with faster cooldown.

[D-coy]

Yes mlai maybe it could work like a pseudo attack ground feature which would give Tau something close to an artillery unit.

BTW wouldn't it be great if the FP would receive the same treatment? Of course it would have it infantry damage toned down. And maybe hp (6k + is ludicrous).

Cheers

[Jaimas]

I too would like MB to be largely disruptory. As it stands, it's superior to the IG Airstrike in just about every way, which is silly.

[Hawillis]

Superior in that any unit that can move can completely avoid damage?

[SpArTy]

v any reasonable players its hard to hit anything other than stationary stuff (buildings/entrenched units) that said it does excel v clusters (caused by maps/pathing) and units with awful pathing (tacs) which I imagine the original poster is basing this on.

Tbh though Look at the costs and Skyrays make sense. Fix pathing plz.

Imo, the problem with tau are Barracudas.

[Hawillis]

Barracudas are good for their value. But ppl miss the injection costs.

In T2 I am limited to a maximum of 2 due to pop.
Thats like each cuda costs 150/50 more than I paid for it (I tend not to let them die - they can run away from almost all AV afterall).

However cudas may become a problem in T3, but I have yet to spam the crap out of them so I dont know.

[ImmortalChaos]

Cudas are fine IMO, they dont rape buildings as hardcore as the hell talon, and have just over a third the HP. They're fine as a harassment unit (though their 200 freaking DPS to vehicles may need looking at).

As for skyrays, I agree that the best solution would be to fix pathing. But lol like that's ever gonna happen.

[SpArTy]

Yes sorry was being unrealistic there, but thats the real issue here.... WHAT ARE WE DOING THERE IS NOTHING COMING! -_-

[PathFinder]

When u just build the sky ray, i found that it miss 90% of its attack for a while, then start to hit normally at 70%. i noticed this in a few games but i couldnt be too sure. (It was missing on an lone LP.. 5,6 shots in a row..). the barrage has its uses. it'll smash kron, SM tacs etc. but the cost of vehicle beacon is exceptionally high since its not a mandatory tech building. plus, although ray is good, its not that hard to get it knocked out.

[bman3k]

Onto the issue, I really think OP is just having a rant for having lost a game (in which he admittedly wasn't watching his marine squad at the time, sounds like the Tau got a micro edge over him fair and square).

Online I've never found Barrage particularly useful. For one thing you need to consider the cost versus benefits to Tau player.
Vehicle Beacon - 300/100
Skyray - 100/225
Barrage - 100/100
Its also worth pointing out that the Vehicle Beacon is expensive and has no benefits other than providing access to vehicles, whereas most races need Vehicle Depot or other building in order to access the rest of their tech tree.
Therefore by Tau building Vehicle Beacon and going Skyray/Barrage, he is sacrificing a much earlier T3. Tau can tech to T3 while still having a strong T2 without vehicles (and Broadsides can fulfill that role to an extent). So for the 500/425 cost of getting access to missile barrage you might want to think twice before nerfing it. Its a risk for the Tau player because if he can't successfully connect the barrage to a worthy target or the enemy builds cheap AV squads and wipes out the Skyray/s, he is getting a very bad return on investment, and T3 can now be out of reach.

Honestly I wasn't even mad that it happened (not the first time), I was just a bit frustrated with my self for not watching, but I still think it's a tad too strong. I agree that they are rather expensive along with the vehicle beacon and everything, but this literally wiped out a 5 man ML TSM squad with an apothecary! It pretty much just paid for its self right there. I still think it's damage needs to be toned down, I mean it is not fair to lose a terminator squad to one T2 ability. Even without the damage it's disruption/area denial is already in valuable for other Tau units as it buys them alot of time.

[Hawillis]

Well aye the damage is good.
I asked for it to have a nerfed damage to make it moar distruption, but relic prefered to increase the animations. Now that the animations have increased though, its a specific counter like v terms as you said.
The key to the skyray is getting the enemy to walk on a snare.

The key to countering a skyray is something like ASM + melta bomb > one throw + one bolt pistol shot = dead skyrays.
Basically they are good but only inline with other tau vehicles.
If anything needs to be done, I think tau T2 should be more expensive globally.

[mlai]

Barracudas absolutely rape bases because there is not a single land vehicle type in this game which can stand against a few of them grouped together, which means the only thing that can save your base is AV infantry (which is still vulnerable to their AI and disruption) and stationary defenses. If you have AA aircrafts you're in luck, but that's not everyone.

[ImmortalChaos]

The cuda does like 5 dps to infantry, and hardly any disruption. The reason AV infantry can;t kill it is usually because they can't catch it.

[steel_tomatoes]

I agree that they are rather expensive along with the vehicle beacon and everything, but this literally wiped out a 5 man ML TSM squad with an apothecary! It pretty much just paid for its self right there. I still think it's damage needs to be toned down, I mean it is not fair to lose a terminator squad to one T2 ability.

You say you appreciate the extra cost to Tau to field skyrays + barrage, but you still think your 5 man squad was of equal worth? Also the Apothercary was totally irrelevant because Barrage is an instant damage ability and healing aura isn't going to help. And there are a lot of abilities in the game that insta kill squads, if you want to take away the Tau's maybe you should also take away Librarian, Confessor, Harlequin etc abilities? hell you don't even get the 3 sec warning for those ones.

Regarding termies I'm not convinced that a single barrage will destroy them. If Tau manages to focus multiple barrages on termie squad well then Tau deserves to be rewarded.

I too would like MB to be largely disruptory. As it stands, it's superior to the IG Airstrike in just about every way, which is silly.

I don't think reworking Barrage to be mainly for disruption will be very useful to the Tau player. Disrupted armies don't make good targets for Fire Warriors, it would be better used to cover the retreat of Fire Warriors (which snares are good for already). Which wouldn't make a lot of sense because by getting Rays the Tau is probably relying on them for Offensive/hurting bases. As it is, investing in Skyray in T2 is risky business because Tau relies on some successful barrage in order to get fair cost effectiveness. If it just provided disruption (with recharge) then I really doubt anybody will bother to field this unit anymore.

Also I'm glad some people agree that if any Tau vehicle is a problem - its the Barracuda. Personally I think they either need to do less damage vs Vehicles and Buildings, or remove the disruptive missile pods so that they can be countered better by infantry. HP is fine I think.

[bman3k]

Each of the 19 missiles from MB do approximately 60 damage to infantry heavy_high, and have an AoE of 6, even if 1 termie only gets hit by half the missles that's still a lot of damage for one T2 ability. Also remember than Termies won't go flying like a TSM, they will just fall and get hit by everything else.

[mlai]

A single Cuda does about 23.9 dps to inf_hvy_med (more than 1 upgraded FW, less than 1 upgraded Big Shoota). And it has 2 80% acc missile pods to disrupt with.

[steel_tomatoes]

Each of the 19 missiles from MB do approximately 60 damage to infantry heavy_high, and have an AoE of 6, even if 1 termie only gets hit by half the missles that's still a lot of damage for one T2 ability. Also remember than Termies won't go flying like a TSM, they will just fall and get hit by everything else.

I might be inclined to agree if someone can confirm that a single Barrage can take a Termie from %100 to %0 health? Maybe not the best case since the 19 missiles are distributed randomly and so there can be freak cases where a particular spot cops more damage than usual. But in an "average" instance, will there generally be casualties to a full health termie squad (with at least one health upgrade)?

If this is true then I might suggest the fix is not to nerf the damage but actually increase the knockdown effect enough to knock over heavy units. This would ensure the ability will remain just as effective vs vehicles, buildings and....Fragons (haha die imba freaks!)

[ImmortalChaos]

Just do the math... If by some crazy bit of luck all 19 missles land on one unit and for whatever reason doesn't send said unit flying (or if each missle knocks the unit into the next blast) the total possible damage to infantry_heavy_high is 798-1558. More than enough to kill a 998 HP terminator, and even an assault termie if you get lucky with the min/max damage.. Though don't count on that many missles hitting the poor guy.

[Zany Reaper]

I'd like to see the Skyray's accuracy & building damage buffed (it's base weapons) in return for furthur nerfing its ability.

Alternatively, just reduce the damage it deals to non-heavy infantry, seeing as they tend to be at a greater disadvantage. It's very annoying to see that the Mont'ka path basically lacks anything particularly good against buildings. I think that the Skyray should fulfill the role as a building destroyer a bit better than it is.

[hermanJnr.]

I find the worst problems I have with it occur when I'm playing IG, and my infantry horde is inevitably blobbed up so that they can actually leverage some form of firepower against attacking infantry.

Then one or two simultaneous skyray barrages, and suddenly my guys screw up their pathing and won't move in my haste to get them out of the blast zone.

Then it hits, and the damage kills alot of men anyway, then the disruption usually guarantees that any infantry in the area can smugly walk in and gun down survivors

Obviously this isn't so bad with some heavy vehicle support (something that should obviously be around in such a situation), but I still get annoyed that clicking a couple of buttons can decimate an army so quick - especially when it's in part down to stupid pathing.

[steel_tomatoes]

Just do the math... If by some crazy bit of luck all 19 missles land on one unit and for whatever reason doesn't send said unit flying (or if each missle knocks the unit into the next blast) the total possible damage to infantry_heavy_high is 798-1558. More than enough to kill a 998 HP terminator, and even an assault termie if you get lucky with the min/max damage.. Though don't count on that many missles hitting the poor guy.

All 19 missiles hitting one unit is virtually impossible, I'm more interested in an average case.

[TheMiracul]

To herman Jr.:

Someone might not agree (give me soem tips ), but i think that a skyray is the only thing in tau t2 that counters well a guardsmen spam with greandes....

Misile barage: Never killed a grey knight (rather won't speak about termies) with it... Don'T think its overpowered and smarter players can easy avoid being hit (if they don't ahve pathing problems with tons of spamed untis)

For the skyray itself.... its normal attack should be move AV and AB than it is...

[Jaimas]

I brought this up earlier, but the Missile Barrage ability is significantly better than the IG Airstrike in just about every way.

Strafing Run:
Area: 12 Offset
Range: 40
Delay: 3 seconds
Bomblets: 32
Bomblet Average Damage: 45
Bomblet AOE: 4
Average damage (assuming 25% of bomblets hit the same target): 360
Total Possible Average Damage Assuming all Bomblets Hit (Impossible against literally anything but maybe a Mars Pattern Command): 1440

Missile Barrage:
Area: 8 Offset
Range: 40
Delay: 2 seconds
Missiles: 19
Missile Average Damage: Varies; 93 on average
Missile AOE: 6 Per Missile
Average Damage (Assuming 25% of Missiles Hit): 465
Total Possible Average Damage Assuming All Missiles Hit (Easily possible and factoring in that MB does less per missile to buildings): 819
Total Possible Average Damage Assuming All Missiles Hit (Assuming all hit an infantry target such as a Broadside, HWT, Termie Squad, FD Squad, Etc.): 1767

A bit of interesting damagecrafting.

[Zany Reaper]

The strafing run is shit, & needs a damage buff anyhow.

The skyray missile barrage seems to hit normal infantry the most as I said. A damage reduction to infantry (excluding heavy infantry, which deserve to get more damage) would be fine, keeping the good distruption.

8 missiles lacking a decent spread? That's wierd. Shouldn't the random spread/deviation be increased if it's Reeaalllly a barrage?

[5Ssham]

Yeah but in reality does strafing run ever do that sort of damage, ever? Iv never seen it kill anything and the only use for it is disrupting. On the other hand missle barrage seems to do may more damage and disrupts and can be cast several times at once with more skyrays.

But it doesnt matter as this comparison is flawed, strafing run comes free with t3 as long as youve kept your cs alive whereas missle barrage costs lots of req and power and time, as already stated in this thread and is far more vunerable than the cs.

[TheMiracul]

Isn't a comand squad extremly cheaper then a skyray? it isn't good to compare something that can't be compared....
MB.... should stay how it is (or reduce 5% dmg and put it into skyray standart weapons like it was done already once)
SR.... should get a litle buff

[bman3k]

MB damage needs to be nerfed to about 80% of what it is now, it would still be able to massacre most infantry. Also increase it's cool down to 120 seconds (from 70).

I think SR only needs a disruption buff, as of now termies can generally walk away straight through it without falling or anything (yes that may be fluffy, but it fluffiness would also have bolters melting everything they touched).

This isn't always practical, but you can have multiple Skyrays and late game you may even be able to replace destroyed ones and circumvent part of the cool down.

[Zany Reaper]

Gayray smart missiles (base weapon) need an accuracy buff IMO. Even though the lua files give them a 70% accuracy, the sad reality is that it's less than that ingame due to being projectile weapons. 80% accuracy with a small buff to building damage would be good in exchange for nerfing the missile barrage.

I think that the best nerf would just be to increase the random deviation of each missile. Damage wouldn't need to be tampered with as things generally would be affected less anyhow.

[LostIvan2]

Why are so many SM players complaining in this topic about Missile Barrage? You have bloody Dreads with 5k HP and can Deepstrike dammit! You have 5 Skyray's with MB versus 1 Dread and the Dread will win. So what if you get a fresh MB when building a new Skyray when you can Deepstrike fresh Dreads into battle. WAH! Skyrays are good versus infantry! What isn't Dreads good versus!? It does high damage to everything! RAWR~!

[ImmortalChaos]

Actually 5 skyrays would rape the dread without use of missle barrage due to having 88 DPS each to the dread with their missle pods.

[TheMiracul]

Skyrays should end up like this.... make their standart atack efective versus vehicles adn buildings only... as for that make misile barage efective only vs. infantry..... this would be enought balanced....

[crusader10k]

so i was attacking this sm base the other day and i ordered my csm squad to attack this barrack. i looked away for about ten seconds and when i came back, my squad was dead, and there was a dreadnought standing there. maybe we should nerf dreadnought.

i dont really think so. some units are better than others and some of them are good enough to wipe out a squad before you notice. thats life. check back on your army more often if you want to avoid it.

tau are pretty balanced, except for maybe barracudas. some might even say they are the weakest race right now (though again pretty balanced). besides, the barrage isn't too hard to avoid. theres even a warning marker.

if relic pays any attention to balance for this patch, i hope its for other stuff. i'd much rather they focused just on fixing bugs. fix the cuda and tone down the eldar a bit and dow is golden imo.

[streak]

skyray even projects a huge-ass beacon on the target before firing its rockets, not to mention its rocket range is less than its normal range so you can pick up on when it's approaching to fire.

Just micro faster and pay attention. If you've got a mass of units, move them individually in different directions away from the centre of the blast and the shoddy AI pathing won't slow them down as much. Even if you manage to get on the edge of the blast radius, your closest units will eat a couple rockets and fly out of harm's way. Wee, tau just wasted lots of resources and 3 vehicle cap on a unit that's useless for another minute.

Come on guys, when you get owned by something, think of a way around it instead of going on the forums and demanding to nerf it. Not that I think Tau aren't imba, but skyrays are actually kinda bad, all things considered.

[generallchaos]

tau isnt the weakest race, its one of the best races atm :P Imo skyrays are balanced, they cost alot, and are very fragile. Just pay attention, or get a rhino to save ur tacs from it, or build a tempest with a krak, gg skyray