DOW2: ELITE (Experimental Balance Mod)

[Gorb]

Have you played this modification, Gabriel, or are you merely basing your suppositions on the state of the vanilla faction? I'm merely asking as you haven't managed to provide feedback prior to now, and your post seems to be exceedingly familiar to your current balance arguments in the DoW II subforum.

[Pocktio]

There's a reason people didn't take those suggestions seriously for vanilla balance. Why would they suddenly be any different for a mod? It seems you have an axe to grind, though it is not really based on anything logical :/

[Gabriel Gorgutz]

I don't have an axe to grind, and I think this mod is a good one. Consider the changes made to the lascannon pred and the nurgle pred. Very good ideas! Reducing the aoe on the lascannon turret so it isn't a great option vs inf makes the decision between going lascannons or staying autocannon a strategic one. I like. Choosing Nurgle Pred as Chaos is not a no-brainer now. Khorne upgrade is decent av and ai, nurgle is good ai with the poison cloud cannon, and tzeentch is the av option.

The vanilla pred lascannon is a no-brainer because it gibs groups of infantry and the autocannon should be ideal for that. Kudos to Caeltos and team for recognizing this and fixing it.

The request to change the big shootas is a similar fix. They aren't a no-brainer go-to upgrade if they aren't ideal versus heavy inf and if you would be better off gen-bashing with flamers, and needed an upgrade to do so. It makes sense to reserve those roles for the power weapon/flamethrower burnas.

Also, tacs are supposed to counter shootas. They don't if they shootas have big shootas, or if there are 2 of them. Also I noticed that the librarian's smite is grayed out if he's suppressed, but AWD is not grayed out, meaning that if a devastator suppresses your shoota blob, you can suppress the devs with AWD even while the shootas are suppressed - again, they counter their counter. I really think that this is a good idea based on similar changes made to other weapons/units/upgrades.

It would certainly add strategic depth to the orkz faction.

[Supernaut]

Surely you can make those changes in your mod?

Also why are you insisting Tacs are the counter to Shootas, they are both ranged and will just ping each other from afar. Get a squad of ASM and kill the shootas!

[Caeltos]

Orks are designed to be the one of the more agressively played races(With a much weaker empthasize on defence, much alike the Tyranids), I intend to not shun away from that. Shoota Boyz also do not neccasarily clear garrisoned troops as well as the Burna Boyz (Supression-Counters wise, this is a fundemental weakness however, but adding the neccasary counters is more or less difficult without finding a work-around that might come across to complex however). Burna Boyz with the flamer is more less the improvement to enhance their melee prowess, and do much better in the early-game melee confronations/mid game encounters vs heavily armored targets.

Sluggaz being cheaper by default also makes their reinforcement per model much cheaper, they're a much more versatile unit simply by reducing their cost now, you can apply the generators more efficiently ontop of it as well, and not having to worry about the attrition having to much of an impact on the ork's economy. As it stands now, 3x sluggaz in inhouse games are much more common, but are nullified by multiple supression teams. I'm very comfortable in their performance as it stands now.

If you do get genbashed by Sluggaz(Let-alone going up against Orks in general) is to be very counter-push oriented, since that's what Orks generally would like to capitalize on. A very strong offensive pressure, and you can delay the offensive, unless you missplay. Orks with upgrades enhances their agressive-play, more so then an defensive-aspect. That's why I also made some adjustments to the Lootas to furthermore promote a more versatile build for orks, to promote new gameplay/gamestyle ork plays, with a much more viable lootas.

Also, tacs are supposed to counter shootas.

A cover vs cover tacs will do excellent vs Shootas. The biggest issue is when people leave Tacs out in the open, where the damage output of the Big Shootas will start to shine. Keep in mind, double shootas means he's giving up map control for a pushy-control play, this can be capitalized on having a scout squad running rampant, or misc remaining unit at your disposal. Tacticals are also very ideal attrition-based-bleeder units, so if you can inflict some damage and get away with it, do it. You gain red, experience & economical damage on your enemy, will avoiding those aspects of yourself by utilizing tacticals. This was also changed somewhat in the latest patch, to make the reward of killing Tacticals more rewarding simply, since they yielded somewhat less then an avg.scout squad member(experience effiency, 130(scout) vs 200(tacticals)

This change promotes the useage of scouts, by the fact that you can be on par-level effiency with your enemy, instead of continously feeding experience & levels to the enemy, making scouts rather less-combat efficient.

[Gabriel Gorgutz]

Do you think that scouts should be a bit tougher in general, to ease the learning curve for SM players who don't have micro absolutely mastered, and who want to use scouts with bolters in early firefights with out having to flee as soon as the shootas turn their guns on them? Scouts are softer than guardsmen, and I don't think that's right.

[Caeltos]

Scouts are tougher in a way by allowing the Space Marine players to invest in cheaper(timing capable) sergeants(75/15 from 75/25). Improving the overall effiency for scouts(By default) is a rather risky & steep move in terms of how you want to balance every-single matchup. By increasing their overall effiency, they would probably have to go in price, which is a cost efficient matter, thus power-generators & tactical marines would become a difficult unit to balance, in a sense; Are they worth their price-tag compared to more beefier & efficient scouts (from the get-go)

Having the purchase of Sergeants being more accessible both stops Scout Spam(+Sergeants) overperform, since it's still a 75/15 investment, thus leading you to furthermore stall Space Marine tech; And they're still vulnerable to heavily focused fire, such as from Chaos Space Marines, Shoota Boyz, and etc; The purchase simply more or less enhances their survivability and gives them somewhat a more prolonged ineveitable loss fighting prescence, which means that they can stall the enemy to bring forth the big guns (Tactical Marines and such);

Thing to consider, since Shotgun upgrade also makes the Scout Sergeant wields it, makes them more ferocious in close-combat, therefor a mixture of upgrade and effiency becomes effected somewhat by the cost reduction, since the combo is -10 power cut, and packs a much better punch as well. This is altho at the off-set of a much weaker long-range combatant & safe-prescence play. But that's something that practice makes perfect); Again tho, the way you can bleed Scouts & such remains unchanged, and the attrition is still there. But again, prior the changes; The reward was way to good for the opposite team, getting 130 experience (Only 70 less than tactical marines, and they're more fragile and easier to target to accumulate levels and experience.)

It's a promote scout sergeant play, but at the same time not to go overboard, due to how they're designed by Relic. So I'm staying true to not having an overboardness in their performance.

[Caeltos]

Update
Got some super exciting news, there's is soon to be a scheduled tournament, hosted by GR. There will be a prize pool, so have a few games and start practicing. I'm inclined into updating the modification with 1 more patch prior to the tournament. The update will feature new models, updated tooltips & furtermore balance tweaks.

Dire Avengers are planned to make it for the patch, along with some other misc models, but no specifics on that yet.

[Seawolf]

Wow. Congrats a ton Caeltos! I had suggested a tournament of your mod on DoW 2 Live after GROS 1, but this is just as good. Can't wait to see how matches turn out.

[ImPEREZ]

I tested your Mod today, and tried terminators with cyclone launcher. Vector targeting feels cool. As i remembered missles did pretty good av damage. So I tested it on stunned by FC looted tank. Cyclone did ~500 av damage to a tank. But what feels not so good: on this range(especially min range which far too distance) projectils flying horribly slow. So we have OB ?2 - looks pretty juicy but works pretty squshy =\
Proposals: make shorter minrange and buff projectile speed. For 770\170\350r unit I think it should be good enough.

[Caeltos]

New PC, rewritting all the patchnotes, tournament is coming soon!

[Caeltos]

Had to reformat my PC, so re-wrote patchlogs and applied new changes that were needed. Patch is undergoing at the moment, and Shalesey will be covering the tournament instead of GameReplays. DoW2live will be asked to cover the tournament as well. ETA for the tournament to go live; Late this month to early-next, so get practicing!

Prizepools included, going from approximately 100$ - > Misc other prizes.

[Shuma]

Cool, i guess i'll have to tune in for this tourney.

[Phoenixlight]

What's the difference between Guardians and Dire Avengers?

[Caeltos]

There's no real difference apart from cosmetics(visuals appearances). Guardians are still operating the brightlance & shuriken cannons however, or at least they should be.

Now for the actual changes regarding Guardians was that they underwent a fundemental battle performance increase, but at the expense of being more expensive through upgrades, but less suspectible to attrition (which was one of the reasons why triple guardian builds died in the first place, since they went from 270 to 300);

So by default, they're equiped with Fleet of Foot, meaning they can be used as a very agressive unit in the early-game to establish a well defensive perimeter by using banshees, or you can use them to capture key-locations fast, and setup a fast agression with banshees instead (since their Aspect of the Banshee cost was reduced, amongst a few things, they're more available as a "timing" purchase in offensive-pushes, making them more lethal in the first minute). Back to the Dire/Guardian thing, is that The Battle Equipment has lost the Fleet of Foot upgrade, and the genuial cost was abit to cheap to pull off in the early-game, they now give the squad some extra damage output. 10% extra infact, and in the upcoming it'll be reduced to 7%, since en-mass of Dire/Guardian has been very very efficient in the inhouse games, alongside with Falcon functioning as a viable transport.

Let-alone, one of the bigger changes is how Brightlance can now be incorprated into many builds and function more than just a one-way trick pony. Once they've dealt with a vehicle, they can now become a large supportive-damager with it's damage modifier changes, making Dire Avengers squads really functional and lethal against High Health targets. Banshees with the assistance of a Brightlance can now deal really efficient with Terminators per say, making the issue of Terminators being fielded a non-issue somewhat. There's more options to deal with issues before, but at the same time opening up for more experimental playstyles.

For an example, you wouldn't see 2x Banshees in a mirror, but in the inhouse games we've had, mirror-wise 2x Banshees has proven to be quite succesful, but not overwhelming. In conjunction with Webway Gates, you can setup a nice ambush now, more true to the fluff or genuine racial differentials you'd expect. All thanks to an additional sight increase on Webway Gates + Pop decrease as well.

It's really been working out to a great success, and I can't wait to see what people will come up with for the tournament :-]

[Phoenixlight]

I really don't like the new models that have replaced the guardians but aside from that the mod does seem pretty good, is there a reason why you didn't reduce the deff-dreads power cost by 20 along with the Wraithlord, Dreadnought+Chaos Dreadnought? Also, when I was using the Ulthwe DLC my Farseers' armour was constantly flickering for some reason.

[Caeltos]

For the Dire Avengers, they're getting abit of a love in terms of visual appearance in the upcoming patch. They're also getting a unique portrait as well ontop of it. Just to throw it out there!

is there a reason why you didn't reduce the deff-dreads power cost by 20 along with the Wraithlord, Dreadnought+Chaos Dreadnought?

I wouldn't want even cheaper deff dredds then they are already. They're as cheap as 70 power, but the Burnaz'n'bitz are quite expensive, so it went down in requisition cost to make the comparison.

Also, when I was using the Ulthwe DLC my Farseers' armour was constantly flickering for some reason.

Yeah, it's a bug. It's getting fixed as well. Ultramarine DLC will work next patch as well.

[ImPEREZ]

I still think that removing leveling for terminators is bad desicion, every faction have adequate counters for them.
Also guys, can u fix scouts shotty bug?
And where I may read full log to mod?

[Caeltos]

I still think that removing leveling for terminators is bad desicion, every faction have adequate counters for them.

It's not that their effiency from lvl 1 has been nerfed, it's just they can't skyrocket into overperforming when leveling. Easier to contain, but still pretty lethal, but less of a 1 man army type of unit per say. Their upgrade has gotten a look at, the missile launcher does more damage, and the other misc wargears are getting abit cheaper.

Also guys, can u fix scouts shotty bug?

Abit to vague, elaborate on the bug, and if you can- show me a replay.

And where I may read full log to mod?

It's in the initial post, I'll compile all of the changes into one big changelog, I'll get it done soon.

[ImPEREZ]

Terminators have no retreat that compensate their power. At lc termies get owned by any walker. Plus it's shitload resourses to get simple antiinf unit.
I played a mod and tested many stuff, cyclone have huge minimum rangefire, slow windup, slow projectile speed and little damage itself. Ob like point targeting looks good in concept, but facts above make that advantage pretty useless, too much time to get target shotted imo. I think it's should be buffed by negating some weaknesses.
Shotty bug is simple, by itself, since you get them lvl3, they got 130 energy, and blast uses 120 energy for single ability. As solution I think shotties should get 5 sec cooldawn between using. I wrote about it's long time, ago in dev's threads, but that simple bug ingame since forever, and bc didn't done anythiing with it.

[Caeltos]

Terminators have no retreat that compensate their power. At lc termies get owned by any walker. Plus it's shitload resourses to get simple antiinf unit.
I played a mod and tested many stuff, cyclone have huge minimum rangefire, slow windup, slow projectile speed and little damage itself. Ob like point targeting looks good in concept, but facts above make that advantage pretty useless, too much time to get target shotted imo. I think it's should be buffed by negating some weaknesses.

Lightning Claws is more of the go-to for anti infantry shredding specialization. You could argue that the pricetag is abit to steep, but that'll need some solid playtesting to get a final verdict on. As far as ranged terminators goes, they're pretty rock solid in performance still, they just don't become an overbundance in their effiency per say if they went into lvl 3s/4s when they get a ridicilous amount of HP which makes it way to tough to kill em for races that genuially have some issues with them, per say Tyranids/Eldar in particular. IG comes to mind as well. They're still, like I said. Very good solid lvl 1 units, but they just won't scale no more with their leveling prolonging. They're still a good bulwark of damage output and surviveability.

The vector-targetting doesn't actually work, so it's getting removed. And the Cyclone missile launchers I believe almost twice the amount of damage ontop of an knockback feature. Had the minimal distance been decreased, we would go back to the old days of Terminators + Cyclone Missile spiking nearby units and they can't do anything about it. Let-alone, vehicles in general. It's meant to be used more from a distance, so the minimal distance feature is pretty much intentional.

So the whole thing is now brought more in line with adjusting their cost effiency, and at the same time avoiding overperformance issues they have when leveled up, which means they can become a 1 man army literally, whereas good level tacs/asms with synergy already is a problem to deal with. (Space Marine T3 dominance per say in retail). Lowering the pricing on the upgrades is pretty sweet, since they're quite pricey, but hardly overperforming for what you buy em for. Espicially when you factor how the leveling modifier was changed for terminators.

Shotty bug is simple, by itself, since you get them lvl3, they got 130 energy, and blast uses 120 energy for single ability. As solution I think shotties should get 5 sec cooldawn between using. I wrote about it's long time, ago in dev's threads, but that simple bug ingame since forever, and bc didn't done anythiing with it.

So if you're level 3 with scout + shotguns, the explosive shot will drain 120 of your energy? That's ... really odd, I haven't seen that. But I suppose the rarity of lvl 3 shotgun scouts alone is somewhat of a rare case ontop of that as well. But I don't see how a 5 sec cooldown inbetween using frag grenades/explosive shot would be a good solution, since it indirectly nerfs them in their earlier stages ontop of it as well to some extend. It's just best to have a look at the actual issue and then see if it can be fixed, since it's clearly not intentional if so;

[mghZ]

how can i create a new .exe to launch this mod without manually set launch options to steam?

EDIT: ok, copy and past the shortcut from the folder but now i have a new problem: on gameasset folder i have two .ucs file: the kolaris mod one (for vanilla game) and the caeltos mod one (for elite mod) and when i launch elite mod it reads the kolaris one. What to do to display the correct one?

[ImPEREZ]

Great log overall, Caeltos. Some things I think should be looked at. AV, carried by teleport hero by default is too cheap I think. Why mekboy got price decrease for such good longrange AV? Why wse got same but not opposite for his AV claws? TM with buffed melta and 100% fotm? He already have nice grenade for that purposes. Bustas overbuffed imo, same for plagues, now they even better for teamwork spam. Eldars got serge cost nerf and this is well reasonable, but other gu/banshees changes looked unnecessary. Byonic eye is Yay! changed. I played Kolaris's nidmod, and I thinking it's better and more fun than any changes which could be implemented for today's nids
Sorry for walloftext x)

[Caeltos]

Yeah, I like Kolaris nid mod- however, it's in interpretation to the balance of retail. I'd proabably need some number tweaking here and there.

AV, carried by teleport hero by default is too cheap I think

Not sure I understand this, could you elaborate abit on this?

Why mekboy got price decrease for such good longrange AV

It's a specialized weapon nontheless, it grants you nothing else apart AV damage, and it's the only commander with that feature, therefor the price shouldn't be to steep for it's effiency. That's all.

Bustas overbuffed imo

Important to know tho is that the upkeep they got in 3.17.1 was not implemented, so their upkeep is relatively high nontheless. It's to make up for the req decrease on sluggaz and misc other changes that I made as well. They're a glass-cannon ability user with great AV capabilities.

same for plagues, now they even better for teamwork spam

They are really alot easier to focus fire down tho nontheless. You can go melee and chain-kill multiple units more efficiently, Area of Effect damage also works really well vs Plague Marines, due to the no-chain heal anymore benfit to other Plague Marines.

but other gu/banshees changes looked unnecessary

Which ones are you referring to? The default cost decreases?

[ImPEREZ]

I mean teleport hero with cheap av is too good at chasing down vehicles.
In case of tankbustas as well vb venoms etc I dont like that cheap av - it makes vehicles usage even more crappy.
With eldar default price droped down as well fof I think it's too good for eldar economy

[Nullist]

Ive downloaded the the mod and about to try it out.
From a reading of only IG changes, I have to say I am cringing a little as it seems to read, to me, like a rather long list of mostly nerfs with very little compensation.
I understand ofc that these changes have to be considered in light of ALL the changes. However when I read the Chaos changes, I still felt IG was getting the short end of the stick.
Feels like these changes have been made unduly on the basis of external concerns on IG, and addresses almost none of the internal IG concerns with the faction.
Nades on AK STs sound nice but not if they still have increased incoming damage, especially considering the additional req/pow cost.
I don't understand cost increase for LG retinue at all considering their pathetic DPS, low hp and LG's problems overall with fielding any 3rd slot wargear members because to lose them is such a massive economic hit,
especially now that other leaders share damage even in baseline units.

But I'll reserve further comment till after I've tried the mod.

[Caeltos]

However when I read the Chaos changes, I still felt IG was getting the short end of the stick.

How are Chaos relevant to IG? IG has been completely outshining Chaos in inhouse playtesting between good players thus so far. I fail to comprehend how IG got the short end of the stick when alot of their stuff got buffed; Per se, the Catachan pop decrease with Smoke Grenades that DOES NOT reduce outgoing damage, which is huge for synergy with Guardsmen. Heavy Weapon Teams are still good, and has less pop- (Less pop means LESS UPKEEP)

Stormtroopers AK STs have some pretty scary range, meaning you can dislodge garrisoned units with ease and you can also spike incoming ranged units, enforcing some ranged weaponry to go up against them- meaning you're prone to also pick your fights more carefuly with them due to them having the extended sight radius vs enemies. They're your ideal scouts for manticore strikes and getting an idea of what's going on.

I don't understand cost increase for LG retinue at all considering their pathetic DPS, low hp and LG's problems overall with fielding any 3rd slot wargear members because to lose them is such a massive economic hit

That's why some of his wargear got a cost decrease to help up ease the compensation. The Stabalisers are extermely potent since they work now in combat to 50% of it's effect, meaning even Imperial Guard en-mass can do some really pain on weak-melee units. (at 100%, they could beat even the toughest melee units lol). And I believe the retinue might actually be back at 25, but don't hold me to that.

[Charerg]

I'm having a problem with the mod. Anytime I click Tyranids in either race selection screen or army painter the game crashes to the desktop. Anyone else having the same issue?

I tried deleting the previous install and doing a clean install but it didn't change the problem. Only a problem with the latest version btw, didn't have this in the previous versions of the mod.

[Caeltos]

You're correct on the matter charerg, whenever tyranids are selected- you will crash. We'll get it fixed eventually, but no ETA on it.

[uncle_anaesthesia]

yep same problem in my mod, had to update the gameattrib_orig_sga to rectify the problem

[.:Zack Fair:.]

Is this compatible with Retribution? If Yes, what version?

[Caeltos]

This mod is compatible with Retribution (Infact, only Retribution I believe), by asking what version- I'm unclear what you mean by it.

[.:Zack Fair:.]

Is it for 3.18, 3.14.2, 3.13...what version?

[Caeltos]

Back in business. Much reverts happening, wargear adjustment and whatnot. Red/Experience/ blah blah fine-tuning, as per usual.

[xLime]

u.to /RoOjAQ
How i can download this mod? Please make another way.

[Caeltos]

There will be an updated download link with the new update in the near-future. I can't say for certain when it'll be done, but I hope sometime early-next week.

[Caeltos]

Looking for a new modder to assist on the modification. I'm not expecting anyone to reply, or to get any PM's- but i'm really desperate right now.

[Pocari]

What type of help do you need, specifically?

[Hollow]

Hi Caeltos, I would like to help you with this mod if possible, if I get the basics of the tools and all (hope that it would be close as Corsix at least). If you want, just PM and I will take a look, in time.

[Caeltos]

What needs helping is mostly just onfortunately, everything. But the most basic thing is to adress balance adjustment, that revolves mostly around statistical changes.

However, there are also new-wargear implementations and units(in the future). Seeing if there's work-around to fixing bug issues and ease up the technical issues in the game.

- Statistical Balance value changes
- Implementation of new units in future updates (These things are something I'm abit cautious abit, seeing as they neede to be implemented carefully)
- To help "fix" bugs, be that through-work around on point 1, or by just finding where the underlying issue is located.

[Pocari]

I can help probably help you with anything that doesn't involve modeling/texturing/animating crap... I've done a bunch of basic modding and I've got spare time this summer.

[Gabriel Gorgutz]

Hey guys, I just sent the finished changes to Caeltos for fine tuning. 1.7 should be finalized soon.

[GrS]

Hi Guys,

At first i have to say that this Mod is awesome a like it, but i have a problem with it I´m from Spain and so my Retribution version is on Spanish and all the new units they dont have Name and description, insteed of that all what i can see is the Text Range xxxxx.

http ://img341.imageshack.us/img341/7238/dowrange.jpg

I hope you can tell me how i can fix that or even if i had to translate it.

Bye

[Gabriel Gorgutz]

Two things: 1. Chaos is noticeably less useful than loyalist SM on every level. Raptors need to knock back instead of suppress on landing. Tacs beat CSM in shootouts with kraken bolts, etc. Why should units that ostensibly do the same thing need to behave differently just for the sake of being different? This was one of the things Relic did that was very annoying. Different for the sake of different is not necessarily good. I realize chaos got some nerfs in the last patch, but what exactly got nerfed and by how much?

2. IG have no answer to melee charges in T1. The sentinel isn't nearly good enough on its own and seems to be less tough, and catachans cannot melee very well anymore. While I applaud the nerf to catachan melee, I recommend that Ogryns move to T1 and get a cost reduction and damage reduction so that they can be in line with ASM and Raptors for a front line melee unit.

Currently they are less good than they used to be, which is a good thing since Ogryns in vanilla are ridiculously OP, but in this mod their nerf didn't correspond to cost reduction. They are definitely not worth 90 power now, even with a leader, and with some adjustments would make a fine T1 melee unit to counter jump troops (or at least tie them up) since catachans cannot do this anymore.

Another thing that would be very interesting to see for IG are alternate sentinel weapons, such as the heavy flamer, autocannon and lascannon, to make this vehicle scale better outside of tier 1. An armor upgrade in t2 could be added that upgrades its armor type to vehicle, since there is a command to change armor type in the rbf's. Also, consider adding smoke launchers to the Chimera. This is a very useful thing to have as IG but it isn't worth 40 power to build catachans for.

[Caeltos]

1.
I'll disagree whole-heartly with you. Chaos has different aspects because of balance-aspect. The reasoning behind the Raptor not knocking back is not to overload with means to knockback and cause an overhaul of distruption, toppled with Barrages. The supression is a means to crowd-control and leave your army more at ease with less-direct damage coming out due to the supression mechanic, this is taken into consideration with less-sustainability compared to their Space Marine counterpart. Tacticals beating SM with Kraken Bolts, I do not see the problem. It's pretty much the point of the ability. You'll want to head-charge with primarily Heretics or utilize LoS. Or invest in EW to make them more on par-in each engagement and definately utilizing LoS and meleeing them is an ideal approach.

Raptors are one of the higher damage-dealing jump troops in the game. But they trade-it with their sustainability, which can be boosted by worship effects in general. Thus in general with the combination, the heretic-health regeneration from Nurgle had to take also a nerf in-conjunction with the Daemon changes and etc that was made. It was already planned out from the get-go. Chaos roster compared to for an example, Space Marines vary in the cost-effiency department more-so then raw-attribute differencials. This is a huge-aspect that needs to be taken into consideration.

- Chaos in the Tier 1 got changes primarily and foremost on Heretics. The cost of Heretics have gone down, in conjunction with having less health, but scales more effectively with the AC' now from 10% Health increase to 15%. Eternal War price went down to make the counter-act of having to much pressure and lack-of a punch in fights a more compelling upgrade, more-so then a standard T2 investment in-conjunction with Mark Upgrades. You can still do the old-routine, but you'll have to play more cautiously now as Chaos in the Tier 1 department in that regard, if you don't get the agressive-pushes you were having in the previous state. Which in Retail, caused a snowball-effect to Crushers and T2 win in most cases.

Noise Marines got a health decrease, but a pop-decrease as well rotation increase. They are easier to maneuver and kite with, and their 2-bolters + Blastmaster(iirc) now deal more-overall damage, without becoming an overbundance versus quantity of models. This makes them a more compelling upgrade since you can easier synergize with a T2/T3 army with the pop decrease in general. Oh yes, their health got cut by 50. Not a enormous amount, but it needs to be taken into consideration. They're more offensive now primarily in their damage-attribute values, more so then just being an anti-blob + genbash (Altho they still are good at this), it primarily gives IG and other misc. matchups that struggled with them an better chance, while-overall improving them on matchups where they were lacklustering.

2.
The Sentinel Stomp is the old-stomp (The really-strong one) and it cost 50/15 (+ Sentinel is cheaper by default) so overall the price is +15 power (which should be a primarily upgrade if you're running into matchups that can sometimes go for melee-build(?) vs IG.) This change was made in heart-to make IG forced to make some sort of early-game investment to prevent-a way to fast Chimera. (Chimera-build was increased as well and etc, since simply a mere +15 cost is not enough). Melee-charges will be penaltized heavily. But I believe an aspect is that being to agressive-with IG and not repairing fast enough and being forced to hightail leaves melee-a chance to move up is what you're actually being "annoyed" abut I reckon. But that's more of a good thing then a bad thing. IG has a very good means to counter-melee with Sent alone, the other player shouldn't be forced to into a singular playstyle to deal with the threat. There should be options etc; (Imperial Guard repair ratio went down to prevent-agressive pushes)

Catachans are lower-pop, Smoke Bomb no longer reduces outgoing damage. And their cheaper. Cost-effiency and utilize increase overall-damage. They should alone be a great-synery with any Guardsmen vs Ranged, and their Explosive-Shot, and occasionaly bleed in-combination with overall economy change to IG (Pop-Reductions >> Upkeep reduced) means there's less stress on overall-infantry builds. If you do get pushed, you should be able to reinforce and still get back in the fray without suffering to much of a penalty. I dunno, I don't see how Explosive-Shot and their damage-output in conjunction with Smoke Bomb/Barrage and etc can be bad thing really overall.


No to Ogryns going Tier 1. That's a complete revamp of the whole-IG army. I'm not going that route. It would change the dynamic of IG matchups way to much and break away from the overall-matchup "feel" from even old-existing game.
Ogryns really only got 1 change, and that's their charge duration was reduced by I believe, 3 seconds. Nothing else. I didn't need much changing since it was more of a factor of other races not having means to deal with them exceptionally well. Etc, Eldar (Dark Reapers) and Tyranids (Genestealer changes comes to mind primarily). Other races already had means to counter-them, so I didn't need to expand that much else-what on it. Ogryns didn't need tending foremost that much heavily and esp. with the other misc changes that IG got in the modification. It would risk going somewhat "overboard" with Imperial Guard economical and fundemental gameplay.

The Sentinel with the Missile Launcher is an absolute-beast. The Sentinel stomp upgrade actually grants it an permament +50 more heal compared to retail (Bare-in mind, repair ratio did went down, so sustainbility in a prolonged fight it got a nerf). And the Missile Launcher got improvements in it's fire ratio and cost. Overall-the scaling of the Sentinel has gone up due to health increase in-combination of the Health increase overall. Granting IG more means of an auto-cannon on sent is really REALLY dangerous. A manuevability-fast moving Sentinel with a good "anti-all" is problematic for vehicles for that moves at slower-past, even for a T2 mid-game state. Flamer, not really neccasarily due to an overall-agressive IG play can be really punishing to an gen-bash, or that the fact Catachans/IGT1 has means to deal with bunched of stuff. They do however, struggle more against Setup-Teams, since (again) the agression got overall reduced.

Sentinel with it's already somewhat high health value, with vehicle + speed attributes, is not likely. It would be far to problematic for a player to be able to handle it, to top it with the proposed Autocannon/Lascannon attributes. You'd definately force players into a chokepoint where an army-composition of theirs wouldn't really have that of a much means to deal with the rest of the corresponding Imperial Guard roster, for say, even the simplistic Guardsmen+Sent/Catachan/Ogryns/Chims etc; Quite a problematic matchup with means to counter, and it's pretty much a basic 101 build, and any other race with the same-attribute would struggle along with it. I foresee mostly that Tyranids would have just say fuck-it and call it a day.

However, what's in-plan for the new IG is the Vox-Cast squad, which will be available in Tier1, and can call-in 2 different-variants of Mortar-Strikes. One will deal damage and supress targets in its vaccinity (fore a short period of time) and one shot will reduce sight radius all units by it. The two types serve a purpose of helping IG deal with Setup-Teams, and even-so, with a proper-call in Mortar- you could effectively halt- an melee if you so please. The unit would synergize very well with HWTs or any means of a crowd-control oriented build. The easier you can land the shots, the better.

[Gabriel Gorgutz]

The vox squad sounds pretty good, I made a vox trooper as an optional leader upgrade for my own mod and he calls down mortars and is also required to call in turrets. I really wanted to find the old mortar shots from the Angel Gate level in the original campaign, but couldn't find the assets in the data folder. Any idea where those original orange shots are?

Also, is the sight affecting mortar going to be the same type of thing that the commissar has on his global hotbar?

[Caeltos]

No, it'll be more in-line with the Warp Vomit from the Weirdboy.

Altho one pre-empatative issue is that removing line of sight doesn't seem to have that much of an impact on the actual neglecting outgoing ranged damage, since any incoming damage reveals the target anyway, similiar fashion to Malignant Blindness doesn't work nowhere near to the effect you'd expect due to how the mechanics seems to work.

Not sure which orange shots you're referring to. It was like Aeons ago since I last played anything from Angel Gate :P

[Deus_Draco]

Just thought I'd give a heads up, but the Wraithlord model for the Ulthwe DLC has the standard Wraithlord model inside it. Sort of like the issue for the Ulthwe DLC Farseer? But more obvious on account of the differences between these models. It could be just me, but I don't see how it could be. I have nothing else modding my Retribution isntall.

[dropmine]

A n00b question but does this mod also affect campaigns?

[Caeltos]

No, the campaign remains marginally intact.