[SS 1.2] RJBs

[Orgad_E]

RJBs build is imo the best way for DE 1v1. many people think this is way op, but i think after the build time nerf, and the fact its dps/hp isnt all that impressive, there is only one OP aspect in RJBs. that is, they are spammable with only 1 generator in T1.

soul chambers increase the pop/veh cap by 3. they cost 75 req if im not mistaken, not much. in order to get more then 3 rjbs, you need one of those.

my solution: make the soul chamber require the hall of blood to be built. that way you cant get more then 3 RJBs without a barrax, a huge nerf to the actual SPAM of RJBs in T1, considering the cost of the barrax. this has the advantage of nerfing the RJB build without touching the HoB build.

so what do u guys think?

[lackofcheese]

In my opinion that would probably force DE to tech to tier 2 quickly (either before the HoB for faster T2, or afterwards to make the HoB they just built more useful), which would only serve to limit the DE player's choices.

[steel_tomatoes]

Since 1.2 I've hardly played against any RJB spammers. I'll have to get back to you regarding whether its still OP or not.

Don't forget not only as DF build being nerfed with the cost increase on the armory, but HoB cost has been reduced, effectively buffing HoB builds.

I feel that if your change is implemented, you might not see anybody bothering to do RJB builds. With the Rax and the DF in T1, DE would suddenly have so many options but no resources to do anything with it.

[Orgad_E]

with this change you can still get rjbs, but it will strongly discourage their spam in T1. you will be able to use 3 rjbs for ranged support, with hellions and mandrakes as tie up troops, and haemonculi for support. it encourages mixed armies, rather then brainless rightclick on the jetbike button.

[terlanis]

I really dont see this as being an issue with what orgad says. Gotta figure you already start with 3 veh cap, meaning you can get 3 rjbs from the get go. By time you wanna drop a hob to get soul chambers up you should already be doin good with your harass/capping (considering whether u went 3x drakes or 2x hellions.)

The other option i was thinking about is raising there veh cap to 2. This would have similar results meaning more req expendeture on soul chambers to get more. Also this means you will need an initial soul chamber to get at least 3. Id prefer this method over the rax build, it wouldnt dramatically kill the rjb strat but throw in enough of a curve to force changes in build order to compensate.

[Orgad_E]

yeah but raising the rjb to 2 cap means killing its scaling. no one will use it after T1, even now ppl barely use them (though their damage and hp for cost later are great)

[steel_tomatoes]

Ok I kinda get what you're saying - the intention isn't so much to force people to build HoB as well as DF and lab in t1 - its to make them work with what they got with just DF and lab.

The first downside is that DE cannot harvest any souls without a Slave Chamber, I think thats a bit too much of a sacrifice just to get 3 bikes and non-scaling hellion squads. I mean, with HoB you could have the archon, warriors and infiltrated drakes, as well as soul powers.

The other downside I can think of is the lack of scaling for that army into t2. Drakes will scale... the upgrades for RJB are ok but I wouldn't bother getting them if I only have 3 bikes?

I don't want to rubbish the idea, I just wonder if anyone would still do DF builds after such a change. At the moment, most players I get matched up with are sticking to HoB builds. But that might just be from an unjustified belief going around that DF builds are no longer very good?

[edit]Building on the pop cap idea... How about making them cost 2 pop, but with the t2 upgrade RJBs get, it changes them back to 1 pop? That does sound a bit stupid logic wise, but it might just work.

[mlai]

Building on the pop cap idea... How about making them cost 2 pop, but with the t2 upgrade RJBs get, it changes them back to 1 pop? That does sound a bit stupid logic wise, but it might just work.

Not stupid, because (1)it's easily moddable, and (2)if you need logic, just figure that once the DE base "advances technologically" then ofc the capacity for building more low-end vehicles increase.

And it's not as much a nerf as needing HoB. All DE player would need is to build another S.Chamber, which would pay off even more, later in tier 2.

On that note, Raiders should start off costing 3 pop in tier 2, but drop down to 2 pop in tier 3.

[lackofcheese]

I think the 2 -> 1 pop is an excellent idea.

[Derogator]

How about lowering the Dark Eldar's starting vehicle cap to 2 instead of 3. That's one less Reaver Jetbike you have to worry about, unless they got a Slave Chamber down...

You can still max your vehicle cap to 20 with 6 Slave Chambers, by the way.

[terlanis]

iono, the 2-1 pop idea could work but again, rjb compared to other units available in tier 2 are not worth the investment really. RJB are only really worth getting in tier 1 imo, unless you have a tech lead (you getting to tier 2 alot faster then your opponent). If and when your opponent reaches tier 2, there av will just crush rjb anyway in mere seconds even with hp upgrade.

[KotCR]

Still, I don't really play Dark Eldar much but I would suspect that with the health upgrades, beyond T1 Reaver Jetbikes would still be uesful for decapping various things, not to disimiliar to how Sentinals sometimes see use despite their not always being vehicular threats on the field.

Also, once power becomes a bit more abundant when you are beyond T1, they still have some massively cost effective DPS when compared to your basic soldiers (I know it's a vehicle, but seems as it's a vehicle which is availiable in T1, when most other races only have basic soliders, it doesn't seem a totally unfair comparison).

[terlanis]

Im going to have to disagree with kotcr on his view of reaver scaling. If you get to tier 2 before your opponent then yes rjbs still present a real and strong threat, but if your both tier 2, for cost rjb wont matter much due to av from any army. There paper thin to av and just wont justify continuing there use. This also applies to decapping, having one or two out from tier 1 for this purpose is ok but rebuilding them just to decap after knocking down lps, its almost a waste. Personally once tier 2 hits i see using raiders so much more effective due to disruption and troop carrying. I also like derogators post, that would be effective as well. Regardless for rjbs, i think something has to be implemented to increase req dependancy to get rjb spam rolling.

[Inst]

RJBs are in the same class as Tier 2 infantry; Tier 2 upgrades can double their damage output and almost double their health.

Whoever designed the RJB unit was obviously thinking of adding a "i win" button to DE.

[ViS]

Hellions and Mandrakes can tie anything and 6 T2 bikes > 1 Fragon squad fyi.

[Inst]

1 maxed fragon squad costs less than 6 RJBs...

but if you're some sort of micro god, RJBs > Fragons, simply because RJBs are faster than even FoF Fragons, and RJBs outrange fragons.

[ViS]

You don't lose all six RJBs...

Also, it's impossible to carry out the micro you just mentioned as RJBs take time to turn. They'll get no time to fire.

[KotCR]

If you can hit them as they originally come out the RAX, then yes I could see 6 x RJBs owning some Fragons. Same as you can do with 3 Land Speeders when playing SM (if some strange reason you manage to tech faster than him). But in the grand scale of things?

Fragons > RJBs (and Land Speeders ).

[ViS]

Fragons aren't that tough, you know.

[PandaMine]

Umm, yeah they are.

They have like 700 terminator armor fully upgraded, thats like what all elitist squads have at the top scale.

Seeing as almost every IF weapon does around 30% less damage to terminator armor (only being outclassed by commander armor) and they come out of the box with 500 HP, they are pretty damn tough. Things get worse when you factor in FoF

Both land speeder and RjB does like 70% of normal damage to heavy high infantry

[Atro|Hypernia]

rjb are only good in t2 now. t1 rjb is too counterable since their dps without the upgrades is shit.

[ViS]

FULLY upgraded means T3. Look at their T2 HP without their first armour upgrade since Eldar will never have that when the T2 bikes first come.

[Pigletdude]

RJBs are in the same class as Tier 2 infantry; Tier 2 upgrades can double their damage output and almost double their health.

Whoever designed the RJB unit was obviously thinking of adding a "i win" button to DE.

Well kiss my Granny inst!

If RJB spam is so uber amazing how and makes DE win every game, why does no one play DE???

[ViS]

Because they're stupid.

[Inst]

Why didn't everyone play Necrons back in DC, when they were imba as fuck?

[Flagg]

Why didn't everyone play chaos when you could spam loads of Posessed back in the day when there was no hard cap.

And so on.

[terlanis]

Alot of your would be de players now a days play using hob builds, and thats usually to either try new strats or to avoid the whining that comes from rjb builds. I guess you could say using the df build now a days is taboo, hence why this topic originated... to try and create a reasonable means to balance out rjb strength in the early game. Theres alot of great ideas that have been mentioned, and hopefully at some point something will be implemented.

[PandaMine]

FULLY upgraded means T3. Look at their T2 HP without their first armour upgrade since Eldar will never have that when the T2 bikes first come.

What armor upgrade?

They start off with terminator armor, straight off at T2. The upgrades they get are to their health and damage

[White_Pointer]

Panda, read his post again. You even quoted the specific part of it you misread. Here, I'll put it here for you again:

"Look at their T2 HP without their first armour upgrade"

In other words, ViS was talking about what their HP is out of the blocks, without upgrades, which is 500.

Armour upgrade = HP increase in 99% of cases. I think the only unit that actually changes its armour type through upgrades are nobz and it's not even really an "armour" upgrade that does it (well, not an infantry armour upgrade anyway ).

White_Pointer

[PandaMine]

"Look at their T2 HP without their first armour upgrade"

What armor upgrade?

Their armor never gets changed or upgraded. If he was talking about HP upgrade the he should say health and not armor

Armor != Health

[Galain]

Yes, but you research "Reinforced Armour at Soul Shrine, wich increases HP of most Eldar units. It was because of this ViS wrote armour. Hope this clears up things

[PandaMine]

Ok my bad, miscommunication

[ViS]

Stop being pedantic and address my point please.

[KotCR]

I think the only unit that actually changes its armour type through upgrades are nobz

Banshees change from infantry_high to heavy_med with Enhanced Reinforced Armour.
I believe Aspiring Champions change from heavy_med to heavy_high with Purge The Weak.
Then of course there is Fire Warriors who can change from heavy_med to heavy_high with Improved Metallurgy.
And finally, you already mentioned Nobz, but they don't do that via an upgrade exactly, as you said, rather it comes with a Tier (but then again you get to that Tier via an upgrade, so...).

I think that covers it all though. If I've missed any people are free to add them.

[Derogator]

^Also, Wraiths change from infantry_heavy_medium to infantry_heavy_high with Wraith Flight.

[PandaMine]

Stop being pedantic and address my point please.

My point is that a unit having 500 HP terminator armor at T2 is one of the tankiest units you can get in that point in time, as well as having FoF and being completely immune to knockback.

They also scale incredibly well

[Orgad_E]

They also scale incredibly well

as do all eldar units, except for guardians.

wait a minute... <looks at topic name> how the fuck did it became another nerf eldar thread?

Vis... i think u started it with

Hellions and Mandrakes can tie anything and 6 T2 bikes > 1 Fragon squad fyi

now ppl, BACK ON TOPIC BEFORE THIS GETS LOCKED

[ViS]

500hp of heavy_high is still not match for T2 bikes. They do UNWHOLESOME amounts of damage. The squad will almost always break at two members left. All of this applies to other AV units, especially Immortals due to their low health.

[ImmortalChaos]

It's worth noting that immortals have more than double the basic DPS to bikes (67 for Imms) than fragons (who have 30). Even fully upgraded fragons only get about 50 DPS. All that and Immortals still have 15 more range.

Necs will most certainly get owned by DE, but they actually do comparatively well against bikes in my experience.


Anyways, talking about AV units isn't completely off-topic; the strength of each races' AV unit can be directly looked at and compared when talking about the power of a T2 bike, which, by the way, does 55 DPS to infantry... which is a freaking lot. Any infantry-based AV that doesn't outrange them significantly or kill them ridiculously fast will get slaughtered.

[Orgad_E]

necs do fine against rjb spam, due to NW resilience and their high damage to rjbs. their short range means nothing as rjbs are short ranged as well.

they will still lose though, but not because of bikes.

[Inst]

Landspeeder does like 67 DPS against common infantry types.

[ViS]

What does that have to do with JBs? Speeders are nothing like them.

[Pigletdude]

RJB spam is still the most awesome tactic against space marines Tier 1, its soo funny watching the Space marine player hopelessly using their FC to try and hit your Jetbikes.

Perhaps we should look at which races suffer the most from RJB Spam?

[ViS]

Why would a SM get a FC against DE let alone put him in melee?

[Orgad_E]

because, his a noob ^^
sm can beat rjb spam in small maps, though its stii hard.

[KotCR]

Why would a SM get a FC against DE let alone put him in melee?

With a Hammer a FC will kill a Bike in T1 in about 3 seconds. That's fast, and that's why.

Unfourtunetly, we all know that Bikes are much faster than the Force Commander, so you'll never catch the buggers, unless you use Skull Probes (infact I expect this is the reason in SS that Skull Probe stun is availiable in T1, if you recall while Skull Probes were availiable in T1 in DC, they couldn't stun until T2).

But, the price of constantly churning out Skull Probes (and the micro required also...compared to the lack of micro needed for Jetbikes), is too much for the strat to work against a DEld Bike spam.

[Orgad_E]

thats why the pop should be changed to 2 for t1, or my idea implemented. both good, but i think pop--> 2 is better, just didnt know it was possible.

[bman3k]

I think reducing starting pop cap to 2 would be the best solution

[mlai]

However, if you nerf RJBs' tier 1 pop cost to 2 per RJB, then you need to buff other DE things to compensate.

DE either wins (or gets big advantage) the game in tier 1, or they don't win.

[Brutal_Mauling]

However, if you nerf RJBs' tier 1 pop cost to 2 per RJB, then you need to buff other DE things to compensate.

DE either wins (or gets big advantage) the game in tier 1, or they don't win.

You don't automatically buff because of a nerf.

If your going to put a unit in t1 which nothing can easily counter(no av) you better add some tight restrictions.