SM First Impressions

[Carl]

@Troubleshooter & FooF: What was your impreshion of ASM and Tac's vs enemy RANGED units?

Overall when i did my test against the easy AI i was able to arrange a lot of 1v1 matchups in various combinations, so i felt i got a good feel about how each matchup actually played out, (vital information really for knowing when a unit will triumph and when it won't). But i'd like to hear some opinions from other players and you two are the most level headed around here.

Personoly my impreshion was:

--ok but nothing to write home about, and maybe not quite good enough for cost.

As i've said allready i don't have any illushions about their melee prowess, i just think too many people are over focusing on it and would like some concrete idea of what expiriances others are getting in terms of anti-ranged performance. Not everyone can be playing melee dominated games.

[BudgetMessiah]

If it is known that Space Marines' weakness is melee, why wouldn't they build a melee-centric army? Not exclusively melee, but with a strong investment in those troops?

If it is known that one type of attack is generally much more effective than another, why take the measure of the less effective tactic? It's akin to saying, "It's easy to beat tyranids if they have no idea what they're doing."

[Karrious]

Ive just played 4-5 games on the beta and i think i hate it. y? well as a fan of the space marines i no longer have anything that can stop well anything early on enemy heros r now unstopable and just walk througth my tac marines. i no longer have anything early on to stop myself being over run say by nids,this means the other player gets a massive lead which i find much more difficult than be4 to pull back in fact once they have a large lead i find it impossible 2 do anything,i cant build anything that can stop them.I do i hate it its .PLEASE! give space marines devastators back without power cost.

[Carl]

If it is known that Space Marines' weakness is melee, why wouldn't they build a melee-centric army? Not exclusively melee, but with a strong investment in those troops?

Because if the balance was working right (as the dev's expressed their expectations of it's workings in the vids), a pure or heavy melee spam would run into scout spam and get hard countered into an auto loss. Right now scout spam seems to be barely holding the fort for most people, so their enemies aren't getting ranged units to counter the scouts so the tacs and ASM are trying to fight units they where never meant to fight, (melee).

I think the issue here is people in other matchups are still heavilly reliant on melee to counter melee. Only in the lst few hours have people really started posting about trying to use the various side's ranged coubnters to melee. As soon as people get used to that peoples opinions on melee units are going to change. ATM ASM suffer from the fact that they have heavy armour, when you try the current flavor of the moment melee vs. melee figth the power weapons butchur them, but if you consider your basic ranged unit, it's a 25% boost vs them, it's a big buff overall. It's just that right now everyones a bit too melee centric because it's fairly low micro.


The dev idea of a SM vs. Eldar battle wheer the Eldar player goes double shees opening looks somthing like this:

Doubles shee's go up against double scouts, scouts pwn and the eldar player gets a counter.

If they get GU's counter with ASM or Tac's or HBD. If they go plat you go ASM.

If you go Tacs the eldar can then pull a platform out, if you go ASM they can yank out Rangers with their knockback. That then forces you to get ASM for the plat, or Tac's for the Rangers. Not sure about the eldar response to HBD's or the SM counter response beyond flanking.


See how it plays out, the ASM are never meant to counter the melee, but before they can become useful teh couts hav to hard counter the shees well enough that it forcs the eldar to get somthing other than shee's to counter them.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I don't think the problem is ASM, or Tacs; both units perform fine. The problem is that Sluggas and Banshees do too much damage. For example, if you jump ASMs into a tac squad, that tac squad holds up much better than it would against a Slugga or Banshee squad.

[Aokin]

My opinion of SM is starting to change

here ends day 1

[Dux]

Try FC Power Sword + Battle Cry + ASM. You may be happily pleased with the results.

[konfeta]

Meh. FC Stormshield + Scouts. You will be far more pleased.

[Codex]

what konfeta said. what's your highest AI dps unit right now? scout shottys (sigh?) what's their weakness? durability. what does defend do? TADA!

[Shaitan]

Troubleshooter makes a good point about the flaw of giving them just a general increase in HP. I think the best solution would be a new armour type that would make them a bit more resistant to explosive damage and power weapons/melee in general. I'd say they don't need to be any more powerful in ranged combat and thus more health in general might screw that.

I do agree that Tacs and ASM need a bit of loving as they were largely untouched whereas the other races in general have deadlier tier 1 units. Call me crazy but if everyone gets some sort of buff except the SM then they basically got nerfed. The devs seemed to have thought that the SM were about right in 1.3.2.

That's well and good but now that we're in 1.4 aspects of SM tier 1 are definately falling short. Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong ...

[Saunders]

I've been testing out SM running with a FC and one of each T1 unit before teching up... it's worked very well, so far.

[BudgetMessiah]

Okay, here's an interesting idea that occurred to me. In any experiment, you can't change all the variables and draw valid conclusions from it. You need to have a constant to compare to, called a control.

Could Space Marines be the control for this beta? It seems to make sense, that they could keep their stats as static as possible to have as a frame of reference.

If this is the case, then I for one would be the first to say I'm sorry for the criticism, as that's pretty sound methodology. I don't expect any confirmation of this (it would invalidate the experiment), but it is an interesting thought.

[Codex]

we'd have to know that SM is working as intended i.e. intrafaction balance is fine. then we can work on interfaction balance with SM as the control group.

ask the devs if this is truly what they wanted SM to work as.

[Dux]

I'm pretty sure that Scout Shotguns are supposed to do less damage at mid-long range than Tac Bolters. I'm not sure if this is actually the current case, though.

[Carl]

I'm pretty sure that Scout Shotguns are supposed to do less damage at mid-long range than Tac Bolters. I'm not sure if this is actually the current case, though.

Currently scout shotguns have a max rnage of 25, bolters 38.

Bolters do 24DPS at all ranges, scout shotguns do 22DS at 8-16 range and 60DPS at 8 or less range, i didn't do the figure for 16-25 but your looking at 14DPS or less at a rough guess.

[Troubleshooter]

Frankly, the internal balance of SM seems to be a bit off. Not having access to devs before T1.5 really limits your options.

So far I don't see how you can get through tier 1 without shotties. I also don't see how you can get much play from shotties in the early game if you dont have tacs there to screen/mop up, because you're generally out squadded. So it boils down to either 1 or 2 scouts and a tac squad for tier 1. Thats not terribly interesting from the point of view of varying your build order to keep the game fresh... its not like you can use vanilla scouts for anything but capping.

T1.5 really doesn't open up many options either, because you really need to be on track for tech - so buying devs or ASM are stop-gaps to your early game... meaning you buy them only if the enemy forces you to, they have no role as general purpose units because they are either easy to counter or have no real targets that they will take down for cost. So if the early game is going ok, you can pretty much skip 1.5 and get to teching. However... the energy cost of tier 2 is a nightmare, Razors are fairly limp now... tier 1 mass can take them down pretty easy, and they cost a huge amount for T2. Furthermore, after upgrades, you might as well save for a dread most of the time.

I'm of the mind that devs should be knocked down to zero or low energy cost but pay big for the targeter. ( I never used to buy it, now its just too good not to.) This would make shotties optional again, which IMO needs to be there... right now its not optional.

The only thing I have not tried yet it going 3x vanilla scouts and turrets... but I think that vanilla scouts cant mass enough firepower on the average slugga squad to make it turn back.

FWIW, I am getting the hang of unit position and cover use to get my tacs back to being able to receive a charge from shees/sluggas. Just as before, if you get enough shots on these units as they approach, you'll win the ensuing melee. This is especially important at that first engagement. I'm almost positioning my tacs like I used to position HBDevs and using supporting fire and modest movement to get them to that "sweet spot" where they can take on that unit and win. I'm wondering if the present issues with power weapons are going to be resolved with tactics.

Obviously, there are not enough good tactics to make it feel balanced, so some sort of tweak needs to be made... but I think the tweak might be far less drastic than we originally thought would be necessary.

Last thought tonight... TM plasma does need to be toned back... and MCB and CB bolters need standard DPS buffed accordingly. The suppression shot isn't good enough to justify its cost over plasma now, and BiA still is a bit lackluster.

Alternatively, plasma and MCB can swap spots on the tech tree. Lol, that would make the formerly best weapon the new worst. Take that Relic!!

Powerful sweep needs to be more of a standard AOE like etherial slash, or simply moved to the TM's basic pallet of abilities and have bionics do something else.

All in all, I am in love with the new TM. Relays are awesome (dont change them!!!) and turrets are durable tier 1 "rush down" options. I think that Turrets might need a longer build time, but longer range as compensation. I played a 2v2 vs. another TM who built 4 turrets in tier 1, backed by rangers... they were unassailable. I'll post more on that tomorrow.

GGZ people. Sleepy time.

[konfeta]

@TS http://www.gamereplays.org/dawnofwar...tails&id=86700

The Eldar players kinda sucked, but I am sure you will find this game hilarious. 11 Shotgun Scouts. That take down Wraithlords.

[MasterBlaster]

Shees and sluggas are the real problem, they are the new "stikk" bombs for gen farms.
Sluggas dont do the damage shees do but they can hit you quicker.
It takes shees about 8 seconds per gen.

Both can hit you before you can even afford a single shotgun on 1vs1 maps.

shotguns either need to cost no power or the sluggas and shees need looking at.
Or as ive said before.
Scouts should start with shotguns(and there reduced damage)
Have the bolter as an upgrade where they do the same damage as tac bolters.

[Ac'sTvv]

What I'm still think is that the eco in T1 for SM is a bit disrupted, why? cause all your solutions needs power and your enemies not, so if you see 2 groups of shees you say OK I will fill some more shootie scouts but doing that damaged your eco power, instead your enemies power is intact, so basically you need supression - you spend power, you need knocback - you spend power, you need jump troops - you spend power, and at this point you realize you are spending all this power to counter units that does not required power, so in the end you finish out tech...

Is really sad, cause before I think that SM 1 vs 1 was a bit uphill, but now against Orks, Eldars and Tyranids is becoming really annoying, high TS players knows how to counter Scout Spam in T1, and they also know how bad your power eco is now, so they don't let you capitalize at any point...

You can win, of course but for me now in 1 vs 1 that only happen to low TS players that don't spam sluggas, shee's or Hormie+Raveners.

[Cr4tZ]

What about making scout infiltration T2 and increasing their DPS in close range to absolutely rape any T1 melee infantry?, They would still die to shooting without damage reduction from infiltrate? In other words, make them a truly hard counter against melee.

[Troubleshooter]

What about making scout infiltration T2 and increasing their DPS in close range to absolutely rape any T1 melee infantry?

You mean make them even better, thus outshining all other SM units by an even wider margin? Nope...

[thrillskr]

Or, like someone suggested give infiltration only to snipers, and not shotguns. Add to that less energy cost for explosive shot and shorter cooldown on it and it will help more reliably defend agains fast melee.
Another idea i had is to give shotguns ability to slow down enemies, as in enemy squad that is getting shotgunned in the face gets say up to 30% (make it, every hit that scouts land on the squad slow it down by 3-5% and up to maximum of 30%) that would help them keep pesky melee units at bay while u try to kite and generally outmicro them to survive. Thoughts ?

[MasterBlaster]

ironcily what would work is to simply make shotguns do little damage but to instantly suspress the squad they are shooting, but make it suspression that only lasts as long as the scouts are shooting.

make the shotguns default weapons on scouts, a small damage but suspressing ability..

scratch that suspressed units cant fight back to ranged would be screwed, make them slow units by 50% or whatever seems acceptable.

So they act like suspression but allow ranged units but not melee units to freely move.


Hell banshees currently wail tier1 and can lockdown your whole ranged army with suspression so maybe a single scout squad doing it to a single enemy squad isnt overpowered.

[Ynkvyzytor]

First I would change scouts to cost 300 req as everybody else startng unit and come with shotguns.

And possible solution to make scouts rape melee units but be countered by ranged units would be imho to incerase their damage but significantly decerase their accuracy against units in cover - this would require to remove infiltration from shotgun scout otherwise it would be too easy to flank cover and change explosive shot so it wouldnt knockback units from cover.

[Cr4tZ]

You mean make them even better, thus outshining all other SM units by an even wider margin? Nope...

I was actually thinking of making them more effective ONLY against melee units, but remain vulnerable to shooters. I was under the impression that they are a problem to enemy shooters only when infiltrated. At least in my experience they tend to die against guardians and stuff.



Of course the problem would then arise in T2 I suppose. Maybe linking infiltrate to snipers would be the solution.

Shotguns should also be dropped in price. I know they are effective and all, but its hard when your gen farm gets rapes before you have enough power for shotties.

I also did som testing with ASM, and I have to say they are not actually that bad in the end. They only need to cost a bit less in power. Id say 30-35 power maybe?

[Aetherfox]

trouble: i pretty much skipped the early tac. i played my first 2-3 games of the beta today, picked techmarine and went with triple scout -> vehicle spam.

oh my god it rocks, got champion in both games we won (both teams about TS 30)

micro-ing 3 frag grenades and 3 shotgun blasts is a heap of fun taking out double orks who were trying to to mess with my power farms, infiltrated scouts + grenades nailed one or two shoota squads in buildings, and the scout sargeant prevented the K-NOb from causing too much havoc.

the new pathing for the predators are amazing, you'll almost never lose one now. especially with shotgun scouts backing them up, if you're expecting a jump (obviously the warp spiders WILL jump in to haywire you) you can use the shotgun-blast to disrupt warpspiders / ASM who are trying to get close to haywire / melta and just slaughter them as they lay on the ground while your predator backs up like a pro and keeps firing. the TM also putting out such good damage with the plasma gun it feels like a RA with damage synapse, he got level 10 both games ahead of all the other heroes in the game. other wargear was Mines (for health regen and using mines to cover flanking paths to my turrets) and Orb (to stun vehicles for my dread to kill them)

[Z405]

I've only done a little testing as being more busy with the World Builder, but i do have a couple of suggestions, perhaps you might agree on.

*Assault Marines>

I like the idea of these being "shock troopers" and not as uber dedicated to melee as other armies would be. Gives great diversity and amplifies the idea behind Space Marines being a proper ranged army. However, onto fulfilling the role more adequately as "shock troopers" i would suggest to lower the jump ability cost to the point where they can "jump in> shock the enemy and quickly jump out again" as these guys are already very costly and we do not want to see them die, certainly not since they're role is jumping in, causing disruption, doing some melee and then GTFO there ASAP. 50 energy instead of 70 for the jump ability would do it i guess.

*Sniper Rifle Scouts>

Add something special to it; perhaps not very original, but give it a knockback ability as well or something. There's no real reason to go sniper when shotgun rocks so much more for less points. Increasing the Rate of Fire would also be something nice. Now they don't need to be close to Rangers, but they could show they aren't complete noobs when it comes to sniping in comparison to the Rangers; afterall the upgrade to sniper is quite costly and almost puts them, cost-wise, close to the Rangers.

*Flamer Marines>

Pretty awesome if they ain't tied up in melee. If the enemy lets you burn them, they're pretty much toast. Apparently there are still some AI related problems with the guy firing up> haven't really experienced those, but that might be just luck or lack of attention.

*TechMarine>

I would like to plant some turrets more often, a simple idea would be to reduce the turrets health and in return reduce the cost; especially the energy cost, because by the time you can really afford the energy cost (obviously after buffing up some squads incl. the techmarine himself) you'll probably be confronted with Tier 2 units, reducing the effectiveness of a mid-game turret. Perhaps it's supposed to be that way, but it results in me not using them too much to begin with. An, obivous?, extra alternative would be, upgrading these to rocket launcher turrets so they stay viable in Tier 2 and 3.

Just my 2 cents.

[Soultaker]

I like that scouts are made more important and that blobbing marines is a no no in the begin of the match. But marines play like eldar now. And why make eldar play more like orks?

Also vehicle pathing, didn't they just change the acceleration and deceleration rates?
It is pretty nice to be able to keep those things alive, but it looks a bit silly. Not really like tanks. More like a bumbercar on crack.

Has anyone been able to use the "new" drop pod in a ranked game? Without the techmarine's relay, I can't use the marines so called strenght. I am talking about staying power. Maybe I suck too much with the other heroes and am not used to the changes yet. That's why I am asking others for their view on the matter.

[Cadian Guard]

players just need to blob scouts now till they reach better tiers...i hardly call that a improvement to non blobbing tactics....

[Lionel-Richie]

50 energy instead of 70 for the jump ability would do it i guess.

Used to you could do two jumps on ASMs...the problem was that people were using it to have double the knock down disruption on squads, making them OP.

[Cr4tZ]

Either ASM melee capabilities are buffed to match their price or make them cheaper if they are supposed to be shock troops.

[konfeta]

Used to you could do two jumps on ASMs...the problem was that people were using it to have double the knock down disruption on squads, making them OP.

Yes, that was when other races melee units didn't rip through ASM like through tissue paper.

If we are paying 500/50 for a "disruption unit", is it too much to ask for it goomba stomp twice?

[MasterBlaster]

why not make it 55
they cant cast it twice immdeately but can jump out 10 seconds or so later, once they make a few levels they can then jump twice, but with the risk of getting stuck in melee with troops that will kill them when you hit withdraw.

[Troubleshooter]

Aetherfox: Yep, tonight is going to be scout massing tactics to see how they play.

[swizzle1million]

For retooling the ASM jump, maybe allow them multiple jumps but with a minimum jump distance? So they can jump in, jump out/jump to another reasonably distant unit, but can't jump on the same unit twice.

High level ASM can double jump anyway, so it's not like it's game breaking. And raveners can do their t2 stun burrow followed by a tunnel attack yeah?

[Troubleshooter]

Ok, I got really bored with 3x scouts... so I moved on to the next build... Tac->HBdev.

So far it seems really bad... like not worth the effort. Scouts already do a fair job of area control, I'd rather get a sergeant than a HBDev, as the grenade will probably do all the damage you would get from the Dev anyway, and its harder to dodge.

So far I have tried agressive Devs and defensive devs. Defensive devs are just as bad at defense as they always were with one exception - they do AV damage with targeters... this is only useful in late T1.5, so really going early dev is a bad idea.

I was hoping to use them for Melee control, but orks just have so many flanking options that they can over run HB's too quickly, and now that flamers are good, garrisoning isn't going to save them. Don't even get me started on storm boys!!!

So, since ASM cant stop melee spam, and HB's are too expensive for their performance, SM t1 is relegated to Tacs and Shotguns it seems. ASM are good, but they just dont get the job done for that super high price!!! By the time I can afford ASM, I could have had 2 more scout-shotguns.

[FooF]

Exactly Troubleshooter, HB Dev/ASM are not cost effective, at all. Scouts can perform virtually every T1 role that's necessary.

[konfeta]

My first game in 1.4 beta, I ended up finishing off a retreating Falcon with 2 scout grenades.

They really can do everything

I also watched a 2v2 replay where 11 scouts and a TM took down a Wraithlord with 12 grenades.

[FooF]

lol, Scouts beating Wraithlords...

I think we're going to see some pretty significant Dev responses next week and a lot of talk about shaking up SM. To be honest, Ork and Eldar just need minor tweaks and Nids need some help with AV but I really like what's been done with those 3 races. It's SM that needs a ton of help.

[thegreatbooha]

A TM player here, just an idea on balance.

SM does not have melee at T1 (defined as units that do not cost power), they have anti-melee in T1.5 with scouts

The explosive shot ability could be changed to a buff.

That is it does no damage whatsoever but gives a 100% knockback for 5 seconds except on charging units or units doing their scream/waagh etc...

[Dreavus]

lol, Scouts beating Wraithlords...

I think we're going to see some pretty significant Dev responses next week and a lot of talk about shaking up SM. To be honest, Ork and Eldar just need minor tweaks and Nids need some help with AV but I really like what's been done with those 3 races. It's SM that needs a ton of help.

That's what I'd really like to see. I honestly don't play marines very often, but I tried to Tac/Dev build right out of the gate in a 2v2 game, and ended up getting hopelessly pinned in my base by the Ork player opposite me. It was kind of embarrassing. =S

They need some serious tweaks.

[FooF]

I guess this is the best place to put this:

I started a thread regarding SM balance over on the community site that, while massive (near 400 posts now), pretty much covers all my sentiments regarding what needs to be done.

I've probably written close to 20 pages on the subject via that thread and I don't feel like reproducing it here. The OP has pretty much all I want to say, but there's a lot of clarifications throughout. If you want to make it easy on yourself, just filter the thread by author and read my posts. I address pretty much every major argument (and most of the time it's quoted so you don't have to have context).

It's at the point that the thread has run out of ideas but I wanted to alert anyone that hasn't read it to give it a look and see what they think.

[Steel*Faith]

Nice post there FooF, completely agree with you on all your points. I wish I could bring myself to be more active on that forum, but it's like a zoo over there.

[Enosh]

I think we're going to see some pretty significant Dev responses next week and a lot of talk about shaking up SM.

to quote basicly every character in Star Wars:The Clone Wars since every one of them said it at some point:

"I have a bad feeling about this"

[Cadian Guard]

to quote the librarian
"hope is the first step on the road to disappointment"