Perk discussion

[Misiok]

Sorry, but

I could go on about the several useful effects it has starting ith the one mentiond above. But at the end of the day there;s really only one reason it needs: because.

is a kindergarden-level explanation/excuse. It is not 'just' unbalanced, but downright annoying, fluff raping, out-of-place perk ever.

You fight a 1hit hammer ASM as any other class (For this argument lets take a hbolter devastator). He lands in your face. He glance hits you, leaving you with like 20% hp. You somehow manage to kill the bastard (alone with ridiculous amount of skill and luck and/or with teammates helping you). The bastard dies right under your legs, denied the kill. He explodes and kills you, even though you did that hilarious fatmans' sidestep. Now, 2 things happen, one of it varies depending on the fickle mood of the Lag Gods.

1 - you got killed by lag. Now, it was awful during the first week, where evading things like that was useless as you'd get killed no matter how far it looked like (on your screen) you were from it. Exploding from ground kamikaze while you're 20 meters up in the sky as an ASM? Oh fun. Now, since more people have the game, it's better with the lag, but that doesn't nullify the problem. People with lag/bad hosts still appear, and if I am to play a game that's marked as 'competetive' where I win/die by a random chance, I want to pay a random amount of money for it.

2 - it's retarded. You managed to defeat a 1-2 hit kill melee monster that landed right in your face, only to explode and still get the kill. It's as if just running away from him was safer than disposing of him. You should not be rewarded for dying. Period. If you want to have a newbie perk, make it so that after 3-5 deaths in a row without any kills you somehow, raping the fluff so bad it yelps for Dark Eldar touch, instead.

Also, about the fluff rape. Now I know we have a few fluff purists on these forums, and while it's understandable that fluff =/= gameplay, it still should make some coherent sense. If in the lore Raptors/Assault Marines were to explode on death, there would be a terrible low rate of gene-seed recovery. And people don't rant at that? You might as well strap a jetpack to a rocket, save some time, training and resources. Or hire an Ork.

It's out of place.

[hellic]

Amen to that, Misiok. All I'm hearing from the opposition is "I suck too much at playing Assault so I need Final Vengeance to get kills."

[Carl]

That was the polite vershion Misiok. Here;s the non-polite vershion.

It's balanced, so TOUGH LUCK, get over it and kindly shut up about it.

At the end of the day an ASM that takes final Vengance is giving up other perks to get it. If he'd taken and correctly used any of those other ones he'd have killed you outright, and possibbly got away to kill others. Final Vengance makes taking him out easier and unless your a setup Dev, Lagging like hell, or just unable to press space inside a several second window it won';t do anything to you. If your the former it's working as intended, if your the middile choice, see below, and if your the latter, well what are you doing in MP anyway.

Also, you playing a 1/100 ultra laggy game that makes getting out of the way of final vengance imposibble and thats what you choose to complain about? Thjere a lot more stuff that just plain broken in those games, (Starting with ASM in general and ending with any kind of explosive if you want my opinion).

EDIT:

If you want to start claiming somthing is unbalanced actually make an argument for how it helps your opponnent improve his kill/death ratio more than the possibble replacments are. You find it anoyying, fair enough, we got that several posts ago. But right now your whole argument is: It's cheap. To which all i can reply is: So what, i don't care so long as it's balanced.

[hellic]

So as long as something is "balanced", it stays in the game? Even if it's poorly designed, doesn't fit, and encourages contemptible gameplay?

Retreating units getting knocked down in DoW2 was arguably balanced (hey, all races could do it). Why'd Relic get rid of that, it was balanced! Why isn't Martyrdom in MW2!?!? It was balanced in CoD4!

Imagine if Relic introduced a new weapon skin. Like how power swords were implemented, we would get a new weapon model with the same stats as the power axe. And this epic weapon model would be...A LIGHTSABER!1!! How cool would that be!?

Just because something is "balanced", doesn't mean it should be in a game.

[Pseudonymn]

Vengance is trivial to avoid if you know where the beepings coming from. Seriously.

Exploding from ground kamikaze while you're 20 meters up in the sky as an ASM? Oh fun

This has happened to me more times than I care to count. Rage&DisgustQuits are building in number and frequency.

If in the lore Raptors/Assault Marines were to explode on death, there would be a terrible low rate of gene-seed recovery

LOL!! That thought completely failed to enter into my mind but now that you mention it, it's so true! Fluff 1 : Final Vengence 0. We all know what happens to fluff arguments around here though.

[Mirage Knight]

You managed to defeat a 1-2 hit kill melee monster that landed right in your face, only to explode and still get the kill. It's as if just running away from him was safer than disposing of him. You should not be rewarded for dying. Period

So as long as something is "balanced", it stays in the game? Even if it's poorly designed, doesn't fit, and encourages contemptible gameplay?

Nice to see some common sense in this thread. And sadly enough of us DO know what happens to fluff arguments around here

[Jaimas]

I never use Final Vengeance. Impenetrable, however, is my baby.

And I've done 20+Kill Kill Streaks with the Power Sword.

[Trizzdog]

Oh, final vengeance. DAT FINAL VENGEANCE. Here I am being a burly serrated blade tactical with a storm bolter, and I just manly punched some sneaky assault git to death who tried to get the drop on me. But before I can celebrate my manliness, blam, I die too. It's like the game is punishing me for being a true space marine that engages in manly melee combat, and instead wants me to be a bitch and just keep holding S + M1, with some SPACEBAR spam to boot.

Like others have said, it's not so much of it being a balance issue (even though it is one), as it is something that goes against the design philosophy behind being a SPHESS MAREEN.

[Methuselath]

Final Vengeance are for wuss and Eldar cowards. Real Assaults go for Aircooled Jets, so you can act like a smart marine and ambush oblivious chaos hordes.

I echo the rest of the doods, its not imbalanced per se (don't remember the last time I died to that) but dammit its annoying. Especially if yer a planted down devastator.

[KDR_11k]

Also Final Vengeance is very effective area denial. In Seize Ground that's a very nasty attribute. In Waste Disposal it covers a large part of the platform of point B forcing enemies to roll away from the point (or accidentally roll into a wall which happens a lot and results in another cheap death).

Sometimes I die to FV because my enemy died faster than I expected (e.g. because an ally shot him dead). Back when I used FV my kills with that mostly happened when I wasn't alone in attacking a group of enemies and they had many more things to worry about besides my beeping corpse (or maybe there were even friendly ASMs who died at roughly the same time).

[Mirage Knight]

What's funny is shooting someone in mid air with FV and then watching them blow up coming down.

"Fireworks, Gandalf!"

[Arad]

What's funny is shooting someone in mid air with FV and then watching them blow up coming down.

"Fireworks, Gandalf!"

I personally prefer the kill just as they lift off, and the body collides with a wall/roof, akin to Tony Stark in the first Iron Man when he tests his suit thrusters for the first time.

[Arbit]

I automatically roll/dash away from ASM when I kill them in melee or with some close range gunfire. The explodey jetpack symbol will pop up on your HUD like a grenade so even if someone kills as ASM behind you you know which direction to roll.

It's a bitch if you accidentally initiate an extra swing with the thunderhammer and you can't escape though.

[Civik]

Final vengeance also goes against space marine fluff. To puposefully destroy his body is to destroy the geneseed implanted within and deny his chapter new recruits. It has no purpose in the game other than to be some form of lolololCoD perk. It shouldn't be part of the game.

[goosey_j]

There's nothing unbalanced about final vengeance. It's a completely useless perk. The only people it ever really kills with some degree of efficiency is HB Devs that are stuck in setup after killing an ASM and point blank range, and people new to the game. I'm actually HAPPY when I see an ASM taking Final Vengeance. It means they're missing out on Impenetrable (a goddamn nightmare perk to deal with as any kind of gun class), Air Cooled Thrusters, Death From Above or one of the Zeal traits, all of which make an ASM a much more dangerous combatant than "LOLEXPLODE".

I run my ASM with a Chainsword & Plasma Pistol, Blind Grenades, Aircooled Thrusters and Swordsman's Zeal. And I am a killing monster with that set up. The fight is completely in my favour, all the time. Final Vengeance is quite frankly a bit of joke.

[Pseudonymn]

It's a pointless perk and a wasted slot wether on or off the board in addition to being annoying as fuck because its use required no skill whatsoever. Change it into a perk that allows ASM greater mobilty/freedom by allowing their ground pound more forward range. Something closer to the SP would be superb.

[PKuono]

Are the zeal moves even of any use for assault marines? I've found by the time they get through my shields im dead anyway. As far as I know the zeal moves don't recover any shields so it feels like a wasted trait.

[konfeta]

They help when combined with impenetrable. Mostly allow you to survive stray shots as you hack away at a target and occasionally win you melee fights you otherwise would have lost.

[Gorb]

Final vengeance also goes against space marine fluff. To puposefully destroy his body is to destroy the geneseed implanted within and deny his chapter new recruits. It has no purpose in the game other than to be some form of lolololCoD perk. It shouldn't be part of the game.

Chainswordsman's Zeal (or whatever the name is) also goes against Space Marine fluff. To magically regenerate his body while swinging a heavy motorised blade around is to be tainted by the powers of Chaos and/or defy biological reality (even considering a Space Marine's regenerative abilities, which function without holding a chainsword). It has no purpose in the game other than to be some form of lololol "easy mode healing ability" perk. It shouldn't be part of the game.

Honestly, I consider "this isn't fluffy" arguments to be rather silly, considering that gameplay always comes first.

[goosey_j]

The Zeal/Killing Blow + Impenetrable skills are a great combo for ASM. They give the class some more staying power, which is handy when you're learning the class, or playing with the Axe/Hammer (as those weapons are slow).

But I can't live without my Air-cooled Thrusters, so I only get to pick one. I choose Zeal because theoretically, Impenetrable requires you to start taking ranged damage in order to be effective. And I don't play the ASM with getting shot in mind. So I opt for the survival skill that requires you to be hitting things with the sword instead and it makes a noticeable difference.

In my opinion, once you've mastered moving with the ASM, speed is their greatest offensive weapon and their greatest survival tactic.

[konfeta]

See, I have a different opinion. I play under the assumption that the opposing team won't sit there, herpaderping it up as I slash away at their allies. An ASM can't exactly sneak up on someone and it costs nothing to shoot at one trying to kill off an ally withing line of sight.

Plus, with impenetrable, you can sucker meltagun users into walking into melee range.

[Gorb]

The thing is, konfeta, that Killing Blow and Air-cooled Thrusters is rather effective at being gittish. In that jumping in, mauling someone and jumping out becomes not only feasible, but relatively reliable.

[konfeta]

Well, to put is slightly differently - any team that allows you to repeat the strategy of jumping in and out is lemmings and will get its ass kicked no matter what perks you use. Personally, I got tired of going in tandem with few allies, prepping the enemy team with a flash, and getting one shot with a meltagun within a second of attacking someone.

The only time I think you can rely on "please don't shoot me guyz" grand strategy against a somewhat organized team is when you are hunting devastators. I rarely see those guys covered with more than one ally.

And, personally speaking, most of my ASM kills are easily on those who don't carry impenetrable. A good ASM with mobility perks is scary, but is very vulnerable when swinging. A good ASM with Impenetrable is a nightmare as it becomes significantly more difficult to gun it down in the alloted time space of it attacking.

[Arad]

My assault rolls with Air Cooled Thrusters and Death from Above with a powersword. DFA can knock shields off any class that isn't a non Icon/IH devastator and after that it's cut cut chop chop jet away. Regarding Impenetrable, I rarely find myself surviving long enough to enjoy it. I'm running into a lot of tacs that follow up a meltashot with melee or pistol shots, which kills me right quick even as I'm chopping them myself. Simply put, Impenetrable is the difference between one shot melta, or melta and boltshell to the face. : /

[goosey_j]

I'm with Arad here, konfeta I see your point but honestly when as an ASM do you ever jump into the middle of three guys and herpderp slash them up? That's a one way ticket to death town. With Flash grenades, plasma pistol and chainsword and air cooled thrusters you can essentially pick off members of your choosing quickly and effectively before rapidly jetting away from harm. Swordsman's Zeal just helps keep the health topped up between the encounters, but as Arad states DBA in place of Zeal makes for a highly damaging combo which is slightly more fragile then a Zeal build.

I like to think of my ASM tactics as a combination of shock and awe and hit and run

[konfeta]

I go for the guy in the back, but generally, I am also not deaf and I can hear it when an enemy Raptor lands on our guy in the back, turn around and put holes into him.

As for DFA, I repeat my total and utter hate of that perk. IT NEVER GOD DAMN WORKS. I can land directly on a Stalker Tactical who went AFK to get tea and crumpets and the game still pretends as if I landed 20 kilometers to the south.

[The Boz]

You can't dodge the Final Vengeance blast if you simply use a single melee attack after you have already killed the guy. Because of, say, lag, mistimed clicking, or being attacked by more than one kamikaze at the same time.
Try it. Lab it. Kill a FV user in one attack, then attack once more and try to roll out of the damage. So far I've only done it as an Assault/Raptor by jumping the fuck away, which only works half the time, if my jump pack is charged.
Anyone who says Final Vengeance is balanced and should stay in the game should be shot in the leg and left in the desert for the carrion birds to feast off. And by the way, I main Assault/Raptor above all other classes.

[Gorb]

I love how your attitude boils down to "anyone who disagrees with me deserves to die in a fire". Really, is that the way to put a point across?

[The Boz]

It worked for the Emperor, and Emperor be praised, it will work for ME!

[aziz_hafla]

Ive used thunder hammer and frag nades with impenetrable and final vengance since the start and it is seem to be a fine loadout, i got 26 kills in a match moments ago

[Arad]

I go for the guy in the back, but generally, I am also not deaf and I can hear it when an enemy Raptor lands on our guy in the back, turn around and put holes into him.

This actually led me to a very sneaky strategy...or when NOT to use the dive attack. The dive attack makes that very distinctive SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-BOOM sound affect that definitely attracts a lot of attention...but not the muted THUNK you make just by letting gravity do it's job. In one game, I killed a lasdev farm three separate times on the bridge because I simply dropped behind them, popped stims and invidually stabbed them to death with my powersword. This tactic gets REALLY lulzy when combined with the hammer and perk. If the dev doesn't know you're there he won't move out of your range, and he dies a painful death.

Walk softly, and carry a big hammer...

[Ap0k]

The thunder hammer actually works much much better when you let gravity do the work and then proceed to wreck face. The problem with divebombing is that by the time you recover from the landing animation, your opponent has recovered from the stun, and they can roll away from your first swing if they're on the ball. Which is pretty much certain doom for the assault marine, and you just wasted your window of surprise.

I'm pretty sure Final vengeance would be find if it weren't for the complete dogshit connection problems that are a permanent feature of the game. In a 60-80ms environment you'd have enough time to get far enough away from the blast to prevent a fatal explosion even if you were mid-melee swing (exception being if you're thunder hammering, and even at that, I very very rarely get caught in a vengeance explosion these days - Just learn not to spam your melee keys).

[KDR_11k]

I usually do a gravity landing and start softening my target up with my plasma pistol before going into melee. Most targets don't figure out what the PP fire means until they're already dead. Hell, sometimes they're dead (or near dead which means I can jet away and finish them in mid-flight) before I even need to go into melee. With air cooled thrusters and impenetrable I can fight effectively at range even as an ASM since I take less return fire and it doesn't hurt as much.

[konfeta]

Hmm, well, after playing some more with DFA + ACT, I must say that the jump cooldown is most noticeable on the Chainsword and is largely pointless on the Hammer.

DFA is still a roulette for me. It's nice when it works, but it registers roughly 1 on 5 direct hits for the damage it is supposed to do.

On the side note, +1 on using the "Jump + Shoulder Tackle." It has the least delay of all ASM moves.

[Gorb]

Annoyances with the Assault Class:

1. It's possible to kill a Thunderhammer/Daemon Maul-wielding ASM with definitely the Chainsword, and I think the Power Axe as well, prior to him even landing a blow. Combine this with Zeal and you don't even tend to lose any health even if the hammer-wielding ASM gets a partial hit. This is based on playing as, and playing against, said builds. To admit my bias, however, mainly against (the Chainsword in particular).
   
2. Disparity between Chainsword's Zeal, Power Axe's Zeal and the effectiveness of Killing Blow. The first Zeal is superior to the second, and both appear to be more useful, especially if you sacrifice Impenetrable, to Killing Blow.

[konfeta]

1. Only with lag. The hammer swings faster than it takes to land four direct hits. I never engage a Hammer wielding ASM face to face and I almost always win exchanges against a Chainsword ASM while using hammer.

2. Axe just sucks. It needs an advantage. Either higher total speed-damage combination or some secondary property. Unless there is some special skill you need to figure out with it, but I always do significantly worse with it than the other two weapons. Killing blow, I learned to with the glancing thing. Eventually you get used to locking onto the target before swinging.

[Gorb]

Problem is, you don't necessarily need the whole four hits. Three hits is often sufficient after a spray from the Plasma Pistol or Bolt Pistol. What am I supposed to do? Retreat whenever I get hit by their sidearm? I have a weapon that basically one-shots them; my pistol is mostly useless (unless they're running away).

I wouldn't say the Axe sucks, I would just say that the Chainsword is particularly good, especially with Zeal. I would advise Relic, if they were to look at how the game balance is evolving and if they plan to release balance tweaks, to balance around the Axe.

[konfeta]

Theoretically, something about interrupt attacks and a well placed dash should decide who wins an ASM duel. Practically, rely on lag yourself. Hammerines are the First Company of the Lagmarine Chapter for a reason.

As for balancing around the axe... I will have to disagree. That would actually make ASM genuinely suck.

[Gorb]

I enjoy moderate success with the Axe, so aye, will agree to disagree there. On the flipside, I've barely touched the Chainsword so maybe I'm missing out on the awesome?

And yes, I need to improve at landing those charge attacks.

[Zeroblizzard]

Am I the only one that thinks signum link is OP? I just look for the red text and lascannon the sucker.

[Ap0k]

On the flipside, I've barely touched the Chainsword so maybe I'm missing out on the awesome?

Yes.

As mentioned, the swords faster swings give a greater benefit when combo'd with Zeal, and the extra armour damage from the axe can be compensated for with the plasma pistol, leaving you with a slow swing speed, weak vs health weapon that doesn't give you a big zeal benefit, and has the additional negative of not 'locking' to targets quite as well as the sword. There's really no reason to use it right now.

What it should have been was a weapon designed to take on feel no pain/iron halo dev's. You can be pretty much guaranteed to get rinsed by a heavy bolter dev with fast setup 90% of the times you jump in on them, even if you land every swing. It's just too easy for them to setup and fill you with giant bullets before you can actually kill them, and forget about trying to soften them up with a pistol or grenade before you jump them, because you just told them you were coming and that they should have a look around and prepare a stomp for sometime in the next 5 seconds.

If they swapped Axemans Zeal with a perk that made it an actual power weapon (as in, cuts through armour like nothing), thereby reducing the benefit gained from Iron Halo, we'd have a legitimate Dev-hunting option. The gain would be outweighed by the fact that it's still a terrible weapon against anything else compared to the hammer or sword, meaning it would still be a real choice to make.

[Jaimas]

Actually, the Axe is quite good. It takes practice to get used to, but once you get dialed in, you're murder. Axeman's Zeal gives notably more health per hit than Swordsman's Zeal or Power Swordsman's Zeal, and when paired with Impenetrable, makes for the single most durable assault in the game. It's offset mostly by the fact that the Axe habitually loses to the Hammer (due to killing blow) and isn't quite as good at chasing, but trust me when I say it's a fine weapon for what it does.

Granted, Lag issues will get you killed with it far more than with the other weapons. Swords you can bugger out any time, and the Hammer you're going to comphrensively fuck whatever you hit irrespective of its stats, but the Axe's slower speed means it's more vulnerable to lag spikes than the others.

[konfeta]

Axeman's Zeal gives notably more health per hit than Swordsman's Zeal or Power Swordsman's Zeal, and when paired with Impenetrable, makes for the single most durable assault in the game.

Define notably? It feels like it heals 1/4th HP just like the sword does, but it lacks the magic magnet ability which generally translates into less hits against rolling tacs.

we'd have a legitimate Dev-hunting option.

But... that's what Killing Blow is for -_-

[Misiok]

Actually even if Axeman's Zeal gives more health per hit than Swordsman's Zeal, it's moot anyway, because by the time you get your second axe swipe, the chainsword gets 2-3 hits and you just die. I know because I died like that alot in 1v1 against Chainsword Assaults/Raptors.

That and it also lacks the magnet ability :/

[Jaimas]

Axeman's Zeal means you win the damage race vs. Sworders, and I know because I've done it and have the killcount to prove it.

So I'm doing something right there.

I don't know what this "Magnet" you guys keep speak of is, but the Axe is pretty boss if you use it right. Thus far my biggest issue with it is that it's the most vulnerable to lagspikes of the weapons - meaning that it's the most likely of all the melee weapons to miss a critical attack right at the worst possible moment.

Mark my words, if lag improves, this thing will be infinitely better than it is now.

[Zallis]

Apparently you lock onto targets easier when using the sword, and stay on target more if they roll to the side. Honestly, I've never really noticed a difference, but then again, I don't play assault terribly often.

[konfeta]

O.K., to take a break from ASMtalksey, Stalker perk discussion time. Did a quick lab to compare burst fire to regular fire:

Burst Fire takes about 3 seconds to shoot all 10 bullets.
Regular Fire takes about 4 seconds to shoot all 10 bullets.

Burst Fire second bullet very much goes wide. The second bullet will not land a headshot unless you are very close or very lucky.
Regular Fire, at maximum fire rate, actually has all shots hit dead on the reticle. The firing rate is actually synced up with how long it takes for the reticule to recenter. If there is recoil from not waiting a fraction of a second longer between shots, it will only be noticeable at extreme ranges.

What this tells me - the Stalker is superior for sniping and headshotting while unperked. This matches my experience in-game. The burst fire's primary use is potshots on the body and pure DPS on the body. Now, what that tells me, there the burst fire perk actually gimps you at Stalker's intended range/precision if you don't suck at aiming and changes its role from a light sniper into a regular bolter alternative. In fact, it makes it harder to try to go for headshots because you effectively get only 5 bullets per clip to land headshots with. This mostly matches my experience in-game, but I haven't used the gun seriously for a while now. Thoughts?

[Carl]

Thing is at extreme range it's pretty hard to get headshots anyway in my experiance, good aim or not. Doubly so against moving targets. The burst fire amply componsates for that as i'm petty sure 2 body shots is at least as good as 1 headshot. It's also a lot nastier up close. Though it's still outshot by so many of the popular weapons that it's a bad idea to use it at that range IMHO. Unless you can outdodge or out aim your opponnent or they're missing more health/armour than you you'll just get killed. But it does at least mean you can put up a noticably better fight, giving you more opportunity for assists.

[konfeta]

Hm. On Hab map, burst fire actually misses the second bullet even on body shots for me on those "cp to cp" ranges.

-_-

[BigSteve]

Would be better dropping its clip to 5 rounds (from 10) and giving it a 200% damage shot. Burst fire and extra ammo are both pretty meh perks.