Artificer Armour + Relay Beacon = Lol

[HiveMind]

Just played a game as the Techmarine, and I noticed that, when upgraded with his Artificer Armour and standing next to a Relay, his health regeneration rate goes through the roof. Here's a quick replay showing how crazy it is. After a few minutes, my Techmarine is being meleed by a Warrior brood and two Ravener broods (both under the Warriors' synapse) and is healing faster than they can kill him.

[BudgetMessiah]

I don't doubt it, his healing armor was crazy good before, giving him (I think) the best health of all the marine heroes, except for the Terminator Force Commander. With the relays being so attractive now, I think this might need looking at.

[konfeta]

What. The. FUCK?!

That was in excess of 60HP regen per second. I can't think of any conceivable ways the numbers are suppose to interact here. This has to be a bug...


*Just tried it... wasn't a one time thing. He reliably gets absurd regeneration.


I wonder if this is unique to Artificer Armor, or other heroes with regen armor can abuse it too. Either way, submit this bug.




I also found out that mines do hilarious damage if you plant them when meleed. Artificer armor might actually be useful! Far more awesome effect than Sweep from bionics.

[Hirmetrium]

Me and DaFish just tried this. OMFG. He outheals avatar damage. Took my entire army of 3 GUs and WS and WSE all with upgrades to win.

[D-coy]

Now that's what I call defensive ... cool stuff, but it's obviously a bug.

[The Voltr0n]

heh, yeah we can see some seriouse exploits if they dont change it around... i dont think its mento be that way O.o

[Da_Fish]

More damning proof that this shit is whack. Does the relay heal your allies in 2v2s and 3v3s? If it does I might try to lab the effects of other heroes with their respective "healing armours". If it stacks with that as well, prepare for a Techmarine in every team game!

[HiveMind]

It does indeed heal allies. I just played a game as the Force Commander with his artificer armour, and while it isn't as insane as the Techmarine's, he still regenerates at a pretty crazy speed. Fortunately, I've tested it, and a Zoanthrope's healing aura does not stack insanely with a relay beacon. It gives your swarm a pretty good regeneration rate, but nothing near what the Techmarine gets.

[konfeta]

http://www.dow2db.com/ability/pvp/ra...eal_aoe_beacon

This explains so much. Wasn't TM's Artificer Armor regen buffed to 3 per second? That looked about on par with the numbers we are seeing here.

Incidentally, I am starting to think that if Carnifex's regen wasn't nerfed, we would be seeing Venom Cannon Carnies paired up with Relays now.

[OVBlueGhost]

Oh man, this is hilarious.

Broken, but hilarious.

Suggest if people exploit this you concede instantly, should prevent people doing it too much.

Kinda tempted to give it a go on cap-spire, tho that map is b0rked as hell anyway


Anyone know if Bothers in arms stacks with the plasma gun on overcharge? Pew pew pew! *roll eyes*

[The Voltr0n]

i just tested it, it took 3 squads of fully upgraded banshees and 2 squads of plasma tacts to kill the tech marine... its not very fair lol

[craft-star]

But absouluty amusing. A team just conceded when they saw me building a relay XD

[Pellucid]

Is it too difficult to kill the relay?

[konfeta]

Yes. It's 1000HP of building armor supported by SM army. Especially if TM plops down a turret to cover it.

Things like Plasma Devastators do decent damage though. But it's a tier 2 thing.

If you allow a TM to lodge Relay/Turret in a good place, you are out of luck until tier 2 to take it out. With this armor bug, I think that goes triplicate.

[craft-star]

Is it too difficult to kill the relay?

The problem comes from that most plp target the TM.
Btw with the refrector field its pure awsome. The worst thing that could happen is that uve got an invincible meatshield.

[Pocktio]

And TM becomes the new Ravener

[MasterBlaster]

oddly enough mines still more then suck, but the armors worth it just for the regen.

I say give mines as a normal ability
and just make the armor add health and energy and health and energy regen.

and fix the bug with relay ;P

[Octopus Rex]

The mines are useful when people try to rush the relay I've heard, if only for the disruption.

The relay link says it does not stack with other modifiers though, and while playing with T-shooter, the Techmarine fanatic, we've found that the relay is awesome no matter what armour you're using. Might need to lab 2xTM, one with artificer, one without, to see which lasts longer.

However: 60 health per second? Really? The regen on a TM is only 0.5. With artificier armour it's 1 per second. Relay = add 900% = regen rate of 10 (that' assuming they DO stack). It's imba for sure, bit did you really see 60 regen per second?

[killyg]

lol it's chaplain + apothecaries all over again, awesome

[D-coy]

Ivan, if only disguised, is back!

[MasterBlaster]

yeah, an ivan that runs from the first sniff of melee squad without 100 parsecs of his location.

[konfeta]

However: 60 health per second? Really? The regen on a TM is only 0.5. With artificier armour it's 1 per second. Relay = add 900% = regen rate of 10 (that' assuming they DO stack). It's imba for sure, bit did you really see 60 regen per second?

Just watch the replay. Or test it yourself in Quickstart, it's a matter of 2 minutes. It's not even *close*. 60 regen per second might have been an exaggeration, but it's definitely over 30.

Also, I remember reading that Artificer Armor was buffed to bring his regen to something like 3 per seconds.

And mines do great damage if you build them under enemy squads. They will kill quite a few pedosluggas.

[Troubleshooter]

And mines do great damage if you build them under enemy squads. They will kill quite a few pedosluggas.

So far my attempts to build mines in combat sees the mine despawn, either by design or because the object takes 2 hp of damage and is destroyed.

[MasterBlaster]

objects start building with 0 health..
its really good when you try building a turret only to have it shoot once by something as weak as a scout blow it up and cost you the req and energy

[konfeta]

Hm. Maybe because players attack move? I only tried it against A.I. and it went off successfully every time; I really don't want to use Artificer Armor because of this hilarity.

[BudgetMessiah]

I decided to get unlazy and look up an old thread of mine (one of my earlier ones...I guess it really caught my attention) that questioned how quickly the TM was healing (remember, back then you couldn't see wargear purchases in replays). The first reply I got was basically that the artificer armor makes him a "beast", or at least goes a long way towards it.

Maybe signum was so good that no one really played around too much with the artificer, and the relays so terrible that the two never met. At least they didn't until recently.

"Hey, you got peanut butter on my chocolate!"

[Troubleshooter]

I really don't want to use Artificer Armor because of this hilarity.

I find I am using it more exactly because of that hilarity. The TM is effectively the pointy part of my spear, he soaks huge volumes of damage... I can't afford to replace him too often in 1v1, so I find that vs. Orks and SM, the Artificer armor is the one I need so I can stay in the fight longer and heal quicker with or without relays.

@Budget : In retail, the armors healing rate isn't even a factor, the TM cant fight and doesn't really support his squads very well... extra healing wasn't noticable outside of the HQ aura (or with 2+ stacked relays) because he was driven from the field so quickly that the only option was full retreat and HQ aura healing regardless. The mines are worthless... its a wasted wargear purchase.

[konfeta]

Yes, TS, but Artificer + Relays is basically the new Bubble-Boy. Have you no honor?

Alternatively, there is *no* way the interaction between Relays/Artificer is surviving the beta. You really shouldn't get too reliant on it.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

1000 pts of building armor isn't tough. That's twice as much as a Tarantula, and Tarantuals are fairly easy to kill. Vengeance Rounds in particular seems to work well. I haven't tried other races against buildings yet, tho i wager the melee squad power weapons help a lot.

[Troubleshooter]

Yes, TS, but Artificer + Relays is basically the new Bubble-Boy. Have you no honor?

Actually, the TM with Plasma and a refractor is the new bubble boy

A TM with artificer armor standing next to a relay is moderately deadly to everything within bolter range of that relay. Hes just the same ol' tech marine elsewhere. So, heres the thing... the TM was always supposed to be the "defense" hero. He finally does this exceptionally well. The TM can stake out a position on the map and say "THIS IS MINE!" and then proceed to mine it.

There are still ways to deal with this.. such as letting the TM have his party while you cap the map and use supression units to bottle him in. Having a super tough tech marine spitting plasma from the safety of a relay field is an issue, I agree... but its only day two, I've already seen one working counter to this (funnily enough, from another tech marine) and I know there are others just waiting to be found.

I think people have already seen the TM as bad as he is going to get with relays now... theres no shortage of replays (not the least of which are my constant dumps showing me using them) that highlight their uses... I think that even as tough as the TM can be (situationally, not naturally) that good players are going to start finding ways to crack that problem. If nothing emerges, then I will be on board with calling for nerfs too.

I've already said that Plasma needs nerfs (while calling for bolter buffs)... My honor is intact.... so far When I see things blatantly out of balance, I'll say so. The funny thing is, once I get my TM game up to where I always wanted it to be, I plan to switch to Nids, until I get to play IG, when I will cease all this silliness forever!

[konfeta]

I have a strong temptation to compare you to a 1.32 Ravener user, but I know that will send you into a deep shock and make you hate me forever. I guess there are counters to this (like Lictor), but still...

[Hirmetrium]

Its not the new bubble boy, because its static and is not uncounterable. Artillery will handle it fine, and focusing the beacon/using AV still means for death for anything that isn't the techmarine.

[Troubleshooter]

I have a strong temptation to compare you to a 1.32 Ravener user, but I know that will send you into a deep shock and make you hate me forever.

Its day two... thats all I'm saying.

[konfeta]

Well, I know it's counterable.

It's just seems like very difficult when you back it against a wall next to a VP and support it with turrets/devastators.

Its kinda like moving your HQ forward or towing the VP back to your base. The main problem I have with the TM being invincible here is because he repairs, can plant mines, and do very, very decent damage while completely nullifying walkers.

For example, Eldar have a very difficult time with this. Off the top of my head, only Warp Throw and tier 3 can dislodge this. The most they can hope to do until then is kill your Scouts with rangers.

[Troubleshooter]

completely nullifying walkers.

No, not really.

Eldar can ranger spam - D-cannons make relays death traps. Warp throw?

The TM himself is virtually immortal there now.. I agree. This probably needs to be fixed... but the armor healing is required for the armor to be worth its cost, and Relay healing is just too good to let go of considering how worthless relays were before.

Suppose you make the armor aura non-stacking so that it wont add to the relay for healing?

PS: I had one game vs. Nids where my TM was mobbed by gaunts and raveners near a relay (with armor) and he literally would not die until the nid used venom-brood to take down the relay. But, to put this into perspective, the nid player took down 2 turrets, an upgraded scout and HBDev and drove off my tacs before this happened... going for super TM isn't a guarantee of victory is what I am trying to say - a coordinated assault will take this combo down, and while its going, only the TM is indestructible - the relay is not.

[Akagi_Ryu]

Oh the TM is far from "indestructible".

I tried it out if only "for the lolz".
While it is effectively pointing at a random space at the map and saying "Thou shalt not have it" you are giving up the whole rest of the map to the enemy.

Also if only you tie up the TM with something that he will not kill in melee too soon and kill off his support, you can then proceed to swarm the hell out of him, eventually sending his corpse off to bite the dirt even with his precious relay untouched.

While I fully agree the megaman X-blaster is way too powerful, the TM is not that good at melee, is he, and he's not very good at crowd controll either.

What I'm trying to say is, at first glance it does seem unbeatable and deserves a smack from the nerf-bat (that I do not argue with, not in the least) but it does have it's workarounds, and at least isn't as much pure cheese as was the ravener.

[Buguba]

but the armor healing is required for the armor to be worth its cost,

Maybe, but that regen is off the charts. The regen needs to be reduced, but the energy for mines needs to be reduced too. It's ridiculous to have 45 energy per mine.

[Troubleshooter]

Artificer armor regen really isn't what people make it out to be without relays... seriously.