Shields

Lotus_Moon

I think shields currently offer goid protection vs missilee BUT are overcosted and too situational. My suggestion is aimed at making them more useful against wider range of armies while still remaining the best pick vs heavy missile armies.

Suggestion: reduce MD provides by shields, reduce cost of taking shields, add armour for taking a shields.

Shields cost 50 to equip for infantry 75 for cav

Bronze = +3MD inf/+2MD cav, 35% missile block from front, +5 armour

Silver = +3MD inf/+2MD cav, 55% missile block from front, +10 armour

This way shields would provide little extra protection vs ranged fire due to armour from all sides while still having an impact if the opponent did not bring missiles.

Units that have shields as defoult might deserve -25g cost down but this should be on case by case basis.

Busa1227

The current balancing is really really good. I don't see the necessity to take the risk to change tons of units stats just because you can't accept that some skirmishers are overperforming. The only change we need is a nerf for these OP skirmishers and some factions and check if they have UP melee units to improve.

Lotus_Moon

Busa1227 said:

The current balancing is really really good. I don't see the necessity to take the risk to change tons of units stats just because you can't accept that some skirmishers are overperforming. The only change we need is a nerf for these OP skirmishers and some factions and check if they have UP melee units to improve.

Skirmishes are not overperforming at all though nor are they OP.

On the other hand shields are very situational at best, would be good to make shields less situational and still usefull when the opponent is not targeting them with his shooting.

Pippington

I agree with @Busa1227 this would have tons of knock on effects for units whose stats are already in a good place. The timing of this idea just seems like an attempt to shift the discussion on missiles.

Lotus_Moon

Pippington said:

I agree with @Busa1227 this would have tons of knock on effects for units whose stats are already in a good place. The timing of this idea just seems like an attempt to shift the discussion on missiles.

yes the idea came from the missile thread, considering the missile thread is fuled by personal perferamce oh what people dislike vsing rather than actual performance if such units i thought it be good idea to let people have easier time countering missiles. Also its not an attempt at shifting the discussion its an attempt at providing an alternative way in dealing with kitting that does not resault in nerfs to units that are clearly not overperforming.

salsicha

if the MD buff from shields changed then the whole game would have to be rebalanced

Lotus_Moon

salsicha said:

if the MD buff from shields changed then the whole game would have to be rebalanced

Fair enough but costs down or armour being added to shield is also bad? Leaving the md like it is?

Pippington

Do you feel CW shields or grave guard are in dire need of -cost +10 armour?

Lotus_Moon

Pippington said:

Do you feel CW shields or grave guard are in dire need of -cost +10 armour?

Cost reduction can be applied for units that have shielded and non shielded variants rather than ones who come base woth shields. I mean salsicha stated in another thread that shields dont offer enough protection vs missiles, my attempt is to make picking shielded units less situational since i think the protection they give vs missiles is good but issue is that to make shields worth it you relay on your opponents target selection, so i aim to make them more worth it vs wider range of units while excelling at missile protection.

Ephraim_Dalton

So you want to make essentially all shieldless versions of a unit completely useless?

No dice.

Shieldless versions should get a buff instead to actually make it a choice. Right now people already tend to preferably take the shielded versions, your changes would make that an even easier choice.

Lotus_Moon

Ephraim_Dalton said:

So you want to make essentially all shieldless versions of a unit completely useless?

No dice.

Shieldless versions should get a buff instead to actually make it a choice. Right now people already tend to preferably take the shielded versions, your changes would make that an even easier choice.

Reallt? I think shielded versions are very weak rite now its why i always pick the non shielded version unless im certain the opponent will bring missile supriority.

Ephraim_Dalton

Lotus_Moon said:

Ephraim_Dalton said:

So you want to make essentially all shieldless versions of a unit completely useless?

No dice.

Shieldless versions should get a buff instead to actually make it a choice. Right now people already tend to preferably take the shielded versions, your changes would make that an even easier choice.

Reallt? I think shielded versions are very weak rite now its why i always pick the non shielded version unless im certain the opponent will bring missile supriority.

Not in the matches I've been watching. Also missiles have been pushed so much in strength that you always want to bring protected units over unprotected ones.

Lotus_Moon

Ephraim_Dalton said:

Lotus_Moon said:

Ephraim_Dalton said:

So you want to make essentially all shieldless versions of a unit completely useless?

No dice.

Shieldless versions should get a buff instead to actually make it a choice. Right now people already tend to preferably take the shielded versions, your changes would make that an even easier choice.

Reallt? I think shielded versions are very weak rite now its why i always pick the non shielded version unless im certain the opponent will bring missile supriority.

Not in the matches I've been watching. Also missiles have been pushed so much in strength that you always want to bring protected units over unprotected ones.

I always take non-shielded variants unless i got spare gold and nothing to spend it on. I do think 75 for shields is too much or 100 for cav.

TellTale_Scar

Agreeing with Dalton here, shields are the dominant infantry type. It is what sets the Saurus variants apart. A shield and ~8 MD for 50g makes the pick a no brainer every time. Like Dalton said, some unshielded variants need buffs but not all (Empire Spears being a superb example of where it's working well).

DandalusXVII

No, op proposal is too much for no reason.

ElectorOfWurttemberg

The issue with this thread is that it's asking for a universal change. Do you have any specific examples?

Ephraim_Dalton

Lotus_Moon said:

Ephraim_Dalton said:

Lotus_Moon said:

Ephraim_Dalton said:

So you want to make essentially all shieldless versions of a unit completely useless?

No dice.

Shieldless versions should get a buff instead to actually make it a choice. Right now people already tend to preferably take the shielded versions, your changes would make that an even easier choice.

Reallt? I think shielded versions are very weak rite now its why i always pick the non shielded version unless im certain the opponent will bring missile supriority.

Not in the matches I've been watching. Also missiles have been pushed so much in strength that you always want to bring protected units over unprotected ones.

I always take non-shielded variants unless i got spare gold and nothing to spend it on. I do think 75 for shields is too much or 100 for cav.

So if you make it, like, 10 for shields plus greatly improved armor and MD...why would anyone ever take unshielded vairants? You might as well remove the unshielded variants completely if you were to make them obsolete like that.

My suggestion is that unshielded variants get a buff to MA and WS since holding a spear with two hands actually makes it easier to aim accurately and thrust with it. The prices of the variants should then be homogenized so that the choice is then between survivability and killiness.

AWizard_Lizard

I ll just post some things i find interesting, historically speaking (i hope i got it right, any other ideas or corrections to mistakes i make are welcome), dont treat this as full balance suggestions although I d like some things to go through..

First of all i find shield and non-shield versions kinda wrong. What it should have been imho is armoured and non-armoured versions. Like the HE archers. Because thats the big thing that would distinguish better and worse geared troops. Shields and weapons were much easier to come by.

Whether shield or armor, both should increase melee defence compared to an unshielded or an unarmoured person. Shields already do that. But armour not always. It righfully happens with HE archers but not chaos trolls for example. Which is weird imho. Someone wearing armour is making the life of the attacker much more difficult, ap weapon or not. Because he still has to make effort to go for less protected parts and also ''connect'' his hits or they could glance off, even if the armour couldnt normally withstand a ''connected'' hit in a particular instant. There is a reason why helmets where shaped as they were for the most part.

Anyway thats what id do, worse and better armoured variants instead of shielded and unshielded. Everyone and their mothers had some form of shields back in the day i think. Armour in this game is trivialised enough, at least smthing like this could happen.

Which reminds me how ap works in this game, which i dont like. Historically ap weapons were weapons who actually allowed for much more forcefull impact, not some magical armour bypassing. Great weapons ingame should ve been like saurus warriors dmg, not blunt (and lower form a single hand weapon!) ap. To balance that all armour values could decrease of course. One of the things TT got right imho.

Anyway thats my 2 cents, not that i m expecting smthing to change since that would need complete rework but its nice to dream.

Xiphos

i think reworking the shields like this would really **** up the balance, it would change too much stats on too much units. Still i think shields coult be reworked, and work with physics ( i believe it did in medieval and rome 2 ), arrows that touched the shields were blocked, arrows that hit the body ....hit the body. Right now in warhammer units like chaos warriors who have tower shields still get rekt by repeated fire from the front because they 'only' have 55% chance to block, which doesn't make much sense to me when you see that their shield cover their whole body from the front.
At some point i also wanted to rework shield block chances and make tower shields get 70% block chance (gold shields), but that would make the cheap dark elf frontline way too effetive against skirmish ( both dreadspears and bleakswords have tower shields ).

One more thing, shields addind armor doesn't make much sense to me, shields help against missiles and block hits in melee, but once you take hit, your body armor takes it, shield shouldn't affect the amount of armor you have.

Lotus_Moon

Xiphos said:

i think reworking the shields like this would really **** up the balance, it would change too much stats on too much units. Still i think shields coult be reworked, and work with physics ( i believe it did in medieval and rome 2 ), arrows that touched the shields were blocked, arrows that hit the body ....hit the body. Right now in warhammer units like chaos warriors who have tower shields still get rekt by repeated fire from the front because they 'only' have 55% chance to block, which doesn't make much sense to me when you see that their shield cover their whole body from the front.
At some point i also wanted to rework shield block chances and make tower shields get 70% block chance (gold shields), but that would make the cheap dark elf frontline way too effetive against skirmish ( both dreadspears and bleakswords have tower shields ).

One more thing, shields addind armor doesn't make much sense to me, shields help against missiles and block hits in melee, but once you take hit, your body armor takes it, shield shouldn't affect the amount of armor you have.

Agree with you on the first point, perhaps just add gold shields to some units not all on case by case basis.

In regards to reasoning behind why shields should not give armour i do disagree, what you say is actually correct however what is true also is if you have full body armour and no helmet (many chaos troops) and get hit in the head with the sword if we're being realistic it should count as you having 0 armour no? The reason i suggested shields to give armour is because overall they do protect you from dmg so they should either provide block chance in melee or armour and in TT having a shield meant better armour save. If however the MD they give is enough than fair enough, but if thats the case and its represented by MD i do think different level shields should give different MD bonus.

Xiphos

Lotus_Moon said:

If however the MD they give is enough than fair enough, but if thats the case and its represented by MD i do think different level shields should give different MD bonus.

That would make sense, but once again would you change the MD stats of all shielded units ? because it's easy to compare men at arms with men at armes (shields) or saurus with saurus (shields), btw for some reason all shielded variants get +8MD except the saurus who get +6MD... and also why do goblins have silver shields ? it has always seemed a bit odd to me while dwarves only have bronze shields, still i understand that dwarves with their crazy armor would be impossible to kill with range if they had silver shields.

Sindri_TWAC

It sounds like OP is an elf cheeser and seeks for an apologize for this kind of behaviour.

The solution lays not in shields or armour though. Its plain and simple: armies that have good ranged, shouldnt atleast have great cav at the same time, or atleast their cav should cost sagnificantly more then aquivalents from other factions. Currently, especialy elf factions, spread out their ranged forces across the map supporting it with highly effective and fast cav and a flying lord to be able to prevent picking up separated units of their army. This doesnt seem to be fair, considering those factions can also field pretty effective melee builds.

Shields are fine: no changes needed at all.

DandalusXVII

Sindri_TWAC said:

It sounds like OP is an elf cheeser and seeks for an apologize for this kind of behaviour.

The solution lays not in shields or armour though. Its plain and simple: armies that have good ranged, shouldnt atleast have great cav at the same time, or atleast their cav should cost sagnificantly more then aquivalents from other factions. Currently, especialy elf factions, spread out their ranged forces across the map supporting it with highly effective and fast cav and a flying lord to be able to prevent picking up separated units of their army. This doesnt seem to be fair, considering those factions can also field pretty effective melee builds.

Shields are fine: no changes needed at all.

It is fair as what this strategy u mention does is to have huge weakness on mass armies. I know cause I played this way as and against. Also these factions are as in lore which is a must for Warhammer.

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GeneralConfusion

Currently AP mechanics (totally neutralizing armor) and the high levels of armor that exist generally make for very stark, rock-paper-scissors balancing. If your whole army except one or two armored monsters gets wiped out, but in the process you kill my heroes and Black Orcs or what have you - well, at that point it barely matters how many other, non-AP units I have left.

If it was up to me I'd consolidate all Weapon Damage into one stat, set weapons tagged 'AP' to ignore 50% of armor, and lower armor values by 20 or 30% across the board.

AWizard_Lizard

GeneralConfusion said:

Currently AP mechanics (totally neutralizing armor) and the high levels of armor that exist generally make for very stark, rock-paper-scissors balancing. If your whole army except one or two armored monsters gets wiped out, but in the process you kill my heroes and Black Orcs or what have you - well, at that point it barely matters how many other, non-AP units I have left.

If it was up to me I'd consolidate all Weapon Damage into one stat, set weapons tagged 'AP' to ignore 50% of armor, and lower armor values by 20 or 30% across the board.

YES thank you, i said the exact same thing above, the current design is lazy and extremely counterpicky.

If it was like this, people would pick according to a strategy they d develop in their mind (e.g. great weapons for rush, shields for staying power) and not according to pick and pray.

Xiphos

AWizard_Lizard said:

GeneralConfusion said:

Currently AP mechanics (totally neutralizing armor) and the high levels of armor that exist generally make for very stark, rock-paper-scissors balancing. If your whole army except one or two armored monsters gets wiped out, but in the process you kill my heroes and Black Orcs or what have you - well, at that point it barely matters how many other, non-AP units I have left.

If it was up to me I'd consolidate all Weapon Damage into one stat, set weapons tagged 'AP' to ignore 50% of armor, and lower armor values by 20 or 30% across the board.

YES thank you, i said the exact same thing above, the current design is lazy and extremely counterpicky.

If it was like this, people would pick according to a strategy they d develop in their mind (e.g. great weapons for rush, shields for staying power) and not according to pick and pray.

There will be no point in taking great weapons anymore if you do that, unless i musunderstood you and you want all armor percing damages to sunder armor by 20-30%... but if you want to reduce all armor values by this amount and nerf armor piercing, why bother taking GW units who are vulnerable to missiles than their shielded variants who will be more effective in any fight ?

GeneralConfusion

Xiphos said:

AWizard_Lizard said:

GeneralConfusion said:

Currently AP mechanics (totally neutralizing armor) and the high levels of armor that exist generally make for very stark, rock-paper-scissors balancing. If your whole army except one or two armored monsters gets wiped out, but in the process you kill my heroes and Black Orcs or what have you - well, at that point it barely matters how many other, non-AP units I have left.

If it was up to me I'd consolidate all Weapon Damage into one stat, set weapons tagged 'AP' to ignore 50% of armor, and lower armor values by 20 or 30% across the board.

YES thank you, i said the exact same thing above, the current design is lazy and extremely counterpicky.

If it was like this, people would pick according to a strategy they d develop in their mind (e.g. great weapons for rush, shields for staying power) and not according to pick and pray.

There will be no point in taking great weapons anymore if you do that, unless i musunderstood you and you want all armor percing damages to sunder armor by 20-30%... but if you want to reduce all armor values by this amount and nerf armor piercing, why bother taking GW units who are vulnerable to missiles than their shielded variants who will be more effective in any fight ?

GW units will still have higher weapon damage and MA stats, and will still reduce armor by 50%; so yes, it will be a bit of a nerf, but given the absolutely overwhelming imperative of having AP units in the current metagame I would be fine with that.

AWizard_Lizard

Xiphos said:

AWizard_Lizard said:

GeneralConfusion said:

Currently AP mechanics (totally neutralizing armor) and the high levels of armor that exist generally make for very stark, rock-paper-scissors balancing. If your whole army except one or two armored monsters gets wiped out, but in the process you kill my heroes and Black Orcs or what have you - well, at that point it barely matters how many other, non-AP units I have left.

If it was up to me I'd consolidate all Weapon Damage into one stat, set weapons tagged 'AP' to ignore 50% of armor, and lower armor values by 20 or 30% across the board.

YES thank you, i said the exact same thing above, the current design is lazy and extremely counterpicky.

If it was like this, people would pick according to a strategy they d develop in their mind (e.g. great weapons for rush, shields for staying power) and not according to pick and pray.

There will be no point in taking great weapons anymore if you do that, unless i musunderstood you and you want all armor percing damages to sunder armor by 20-30%... but if you want to reduce all armor values by this amount and nerf armor piercing, why bother taking GW units who are vulnerable to missiles than their shielded variants who will be more effective in any fight ?

Yes you misunderstood me, GW will have bigger Weapon dmg, MA and charge bonuses, like TT in which from what i understand GW just had more weapon strength but not parry or i think they had always strikes last rule (any1 knowledgable could weigh in). AP was there mostly to balance things out where needed without having any huge impact.

Look i dont wanna be that guy but a certain degree of realism whould greatly appreciated. Let me put it this way someone with a great weapon does almost the same dmg against a peasant and a steam tank. Thats magic except it shouldnt, even in the warhammer universe, for GW to go through armour just because. Historically speaking having armour was always always always better than not having under any circumstance until at least the advent of blackpowder weapons. And of course depending on the role, peltasts would be better off without armour i suppose.

edit: or what the above poster said, lol didnt notice

DandalusXVII

I see your point guys, you are right in what u mean and it must happen. We will maintain the ap mechanics still, as WE troops like wild riders must all be ap due to Asrai spear rule. This will take a lot of work however so CA start already!

P. S. Being ap doesn't mean a weapon is large and 2handed, it is crafted to be ap, could be a small blade etc.

Green0

nerfing AP infantry would be an unnecessary buff to factions capable of enveloping the enemy/fielding large amounts of chaff (for example Greenskins and Skaven) while being a huge nerf to other factions that have bad tier 1-2 infantry and compensate for this by having good elites (all elves, Chaos)