Nurgle faction balance suggestions

Spellbound1875#4610

TLDR Plague Toads, Rot Flies, Pox Riders, and Plague Drones need about a 40% WS increase and around a 40% mass increase. Nurgle mortals other than lords and heroes need a price cut. GUO probably needs a redesign. I favor adding a significant bonus versus infantry and regeneration to help the unit be more self-sufficient.

Explanation and discussion follows if you want to check my work.

For the Daemon units I settled on the 40% value by comparing each daemon to a similar unit and reverse engineering the stat difference. I also used plaguebearers WS advantage over chaos warriors to help inform the relative gain needed to make up for the lack of CB. In this case we see a 33% increase comparatively which suggests Nurgle Daemons should hit a lot harder than similar units who are more mobile and have much stronger charges.

Toads

Plague Toads compare directly to Ogre Bull Dual Weapons. Plague Toads have significantly less health, but substantially better defenses in armor and physical resist. Leadership favors the Bulls while speed is roughly the same. In terms of combat stats Plague Toads have a slight edge with plague of flies. However 40 less WS, 5 less BvI, 8 less CB, and 300 less mass. The 50 gold difference is inadequate to explain the stat differences (also Ogre Bull dual weapons seem quite overpriced compared to Ogre Bulls).

Disappointingly "upgrading" to Pox Riders provides alarmingly little in terms of stats. Compared to the same Ogre Bulls the health and leadership gap close, while the combat stats become only slightly more favorable for the Pox Riders in spite of the massive price difference. Even worse the damage gap is largely unchanged, with Pox Riders 26 WS, 5 BvI, and 8 CB behind. Mass is 100 greater for the Ogres.

Comparison to other similarly priced units in comparable roles such as Razorgor, Flesh Hounds, Ice Wolves, War lions, etc. shows significantly worse damage output than should be expected for the price. When WS values are near identical you see either a significant difference in AP ratio, or in entities, sometimes both. Increasing WS and mass by about 40 percent brings them from rock bottom to middle of the road.

Suggested values would be 70 WS and 1500 mass for the Plague Toads. For the Pox Riders 90 WS and 2000 mass.

Flies

Plague Drones compare directly to ripperdactyls. Plague Drones have significantly more health and comparable defenses in armor and resists (physical versus missile). Leadership is near identical and combat stats are comparable with Frenzy and Plague of Flies considered. In terms of damage stats however Plague Drones have 44 less WS, 15 less BvI, and 41 less CB. In terms of mass the Ripperdactyls have 170 more, which is a bit silly.

Rot Flies at least are cheaper but lose health, defenses, leadership, and combat stats while still having significantly worse damage stats and mass than ripperdactyls. The 200 gold difference does not explain the Ripperdactyls gain in stats suggesting the issue is with Rot Flies.

Broadening the comparison to other similar units like Royal Hippogriffs, Longma, Doom Knights, etc. shows a similar trend where WS values are very low when controlling for entity count. Increasing both WS and mass by about 40 percent again takes them from rock bottom to middle of the road in terms of performance.

Suggested values would be 110 WS and 1100 mass for Rot Flies. For Plague Drones 130 WS and 1300 mass.

Mind you I consider these values conservative estimates and I've avoided any suggestions such as splash attack profile changes, though they may also be worth considering. Main takeaway is a lot of Nurgle units are extremely understated when compared to similar units from games 1, 2, and 3 something which significantly hampers the factions performance.

Nurgle mortals are pretty self-explanatory, being they're notably less cost effective than the unmarked versions. It's possible to also buff the mark of Nurgle effects but given it's maybe worth 25 gold on some units any such buff would need to be substantial. I'd like to specifically note this suggestion includes Marauder Horsemen and Forsaken, neither of which are particularly impressive for Nurgle.

For the GUO the units design is currently just unclear. If it's meant to be a generalist duelist like the giant it's WS needs about a 40% increase to match the giant. If instead it's supposed to just bash infantry while being a decent fighting against other SEM's it needs a Bonus versus Infantry like the Rogue Idol or the Jabberslythe. Regardless it needs some defensive boni and regeneration is thematic and makes the unit more self-sufficient so you don't have to dedicate healing magic to supporting it. As for why the Exalted GUOs don't get regen, they have a mortis engine. Seems like a fair tradeoff.

The_real_FAUST#6885

I'd offer an HP buff to nurgle chaos knights. Not quite as resilient as they should be relative to their speed and offensive ability.

Spellbound1875#4610

Yeah I think extra health to Nurgle Knights would be reasonable. Honestly you could extend it to the Chosen and Warriors as well. Mark of Nurgle for the marauder units gives slightly more health than the Tzeentch barrier or a 10% physical resistance would provide but as you go more elite (less entities) the trade off gets worse and worse.

Warriors gain exactly the same amount of health as Tzeentch barrier; Knights, Forsaken, and Chosen actually gain less extra health than Tzeentch gains in barrier on the same units which is kind of a slap in the face.

The issue seems to stem from odd math. Since the mark of Nurgle isn't a real effect the health adjustments were manual and the values for the marauders, warriors, and chosen are 7, 8, and 12 all on a per entity basis (Knights get 11). While some attempt was made to compensate for the reduced number of entities on elite units the percentage gain per entity is off. Marauders gain 9% per entity, Warriors gain 8%, Chosen gain 9%, and Knights gain 8%. The result is an inconsistent improvement across units with some elite options gaining less than others. Tzeentch on the other hand goes from 600 to 800 to 1000 providing a smoother growth curve. The one odd unit out in Doom Knights (down at 600) have such a small health pool that percentage wise they gain more than any other mortal Tzeentch unit.

For Nurgle just using a flat 10% would be easier I suspect than trying to scale the system and would mean on average Nurgle units would gain more health than Tzeentch gains in shield to make up for the innate regen.

The_real_FAUST#6885

Good calculations and makes sense now when playing and 'feeling' " that none of those nurgle units are as resilient as they shoukd 'feel' to be.

The 10% makes more sense. I'd even go up to 12% and I don't feel anything would break on those mortal units

Loupi#8512

Disagree on plague toads, they are very solid unit for 600g and do their job perfectly well.

Pox riders i think should have higher melee attack and maybe also hit a bit harder but +40% is pretty over the top. rotflies and plaguedrones should have stronger charges, again +40% WS is over the top.

A general thing these units need (and all demons) is slower crumbling damage. Id like to see the beast of nurgle get some buffs too.

On the mortal side, yeah the infantry could do with a little more HP, though dont really want to see that on the cav, due to the insane synergy with healing that would make cav blobs very strong (its already quite viable to use them in a few matchups). would rather see them get -50g

For GUO/EGUO, i think it would be nice to make one of them anti-infantry and the other antilarge

(probably EGUO with anti infantry due to flail and bell, and GUO with antilarge)

Spellbound1875#4610

I'd be curious to know more about your performance expectations for nurgle units. I feel as though we have different ideas about where they should be. Based on the roster design I see toads as being meant to provide significant anti-infantry damage rather than just be disruption tools, and that Rot Flies are meant to provide a heavy hitting source of DPS to hunt cav and SEMs rather than just be... I don't even know if these work as a disruption tool given how bad their damage is. The design of the factions passive supports the idea that charging once and remaining stuck in combat is the intended playstyle and with the current statlines these daemonic units just can't manage that in a cost efficient manner.

Toads
For plague toads the general consensus I've seen is the unit is disappointing in terms of performance (and my own experience mirrors that). The one thing the unit does have going for them is very solid impact damage but that's extremely easy to avoid if an opponent just halts their infantry (damage drops between 50-66% in my tests). Compared to a unit of Razorgor or Ice Wolves who benefit from CB, the Toads performance oscillates between about even to actively worse based entirely on if the target is braced (tested against swordsmen). And mind you this is against optimal targets, we haven't looked at anything other than infantry. Plague Toads get outdamaged by units that are sub 500 cost (feral cold ones/squig herd) against optimal targets, it's hard to characterize that as okay performance.

Pox Riders have all the same issues but cost 400 more making their comparison to more expensive units. The suggested value of 40% comes from their very low initial WS. Flesh Hounds at 250 less have about the same WS, a higher CB, and get 8 additional entities. Bumping the rate at which the Pox Riders hit doesn't meaningfully address the fact that without impact damage applying these guys hit like a wet noodle. You could easily drop them to 800 for their current stats and I don't think most folks would bat an eye. Arguably you could go lower given the unit literally has the damage stats of cheaper units (WS in optimal circumstances matches sabretusk packs and is behind Ogre Bulls despite matched entities).

Flies
For the flies improving their charge damage versus improving their WS is just a difference in approach rather than a difference in assessment of the unit. Since improving the charge would require a near 200% increase to charge bonus (they're at 16 now and that would get them to 48 which is still pretty poor) as well as a mass and behavior fix to make the unit able to consistently cycle charge I think WS increases are a much more effective way to address the issue. The WS values I ended on put Plague Drones behind Rippers in offensive output without considering BvI or CB. Again 40% sounds big but it just reflects how ridiculously understated the units started at.

General health commentary
For the health of knights I can see the concern with increasing the health on cav specifically but given the lukewarm performance of chaos knights at base and how much the speed penalty actually hurts the unit in question I feel like they could use the help. An extra couple hundred health isn't going to break anything.

Beasts
Beasts of Nurgle were another unit I considered putting on here but finding points of comparison was much more difficult. Arguably the WS or CB could use a boost but I think health pool is also quite low when compared to a unit like the feral bastiledon. I'd probably lean towards cranking the defensive stats but one of the major issues with this unit is that it really lacks a role now given the Exalted hero is a much better cheap AP SEM. I'm actually quite unsure how I'd help these guys.

GUO
I leaned away from Anti-large primarily because I don't see the GUO's as effective monster hunters or cav hunters. They're already very strong duelists but the issue is an inability to get on target. The Exalted version having a mortis engine and being a caster makes them solid as is, but for the SEM without making them significantly more independent and significantly less likely to be ground down by infantry I just don't see the use case. I do agree the sword doesn't seem super thematic as a BvI weapon but the massive splash attacks lends themselves to an anti-infantry role already.

Daemonic Instabiltiy
I think the issue with Daemonic Instability is somewhat overstated. It is extremely punishing and does quite often lead to units dying at surprisingly high amounts of health but in Nurgles case the reason the units suffer so much from the effect is they're often losing combat against targets they shouldn't be. Plaguebearers, the one Daemonic unit for Nurgle which is unambiguously good is much less impacted by instability at base simply because you can rely on the unit to hold their own in a 1v1 versus anything. Yeah if they get isolated, surrounded, or hammered by a spell they might vanish but you'd expect that out of any non-undead unit. Otherwise Plaguebearers just keep on trucking in even or mildly unfavored match ups.

Looking at the performance of Khornes Daemons is instructive here. They've been dealing with the exact same penalty in Daemonic instability since launch but have by and large performed well in spite of that. This is because when able to engage in combat Khorne daemons actually perform well which helps them maintain a positive leadership value. Buffing the combat performance of weak Nurgle units will have the same effect. See also the buffs to Daemonette/Exalted Daemonettes.

Loupi#8512

Spellbound1875#4610 said:

I'd be curious to know more about your performance expectations for nurgle units. I feel as though we have different ideas about where they should be. Based on the roster design I see toads as being meant to provide significant anti-infantry damage rather than just be disruption tools, and that Rot Flies are meant to provide a heavy hitting source of DPS to hunt cav and SEMs rather than just be... I don't even know if these work as a disruption tool given how bad their damage is. The design of the factions passive supports the idea that charging once and remaining stuck in combat is the intended playstyle and with the current statlines these daemonic units just can't manage that in a cost efficient manner.

Toads
For plague toads the general consensus I've seen is the unit is disappointing in terms of performance (and my own experience mirrors that). The one thing the unit does have going for them is very solid impact damage but that's extremely easy to avoid if an opponent just halts their infantry (damage drops between 50-66% in my tests). Compared to a unit of Razorgor or Ice Wolves who benefit from CB, the Toads performance oscillates between about even to actively worse based entirely on if the target is braced (tested against swordsmen). And mind you this is against optimal targets, we haven't looked at anything other than infantry. Plague Toads get outdamaged by units that are sub 500 cost (feral cold ones/squig herd) against optimal targets, it's hard to characterize that as okay performance.

Pox Riders have all the same issues but cost 400 more making their comparison to more expensive units. The suggested value of 40% comes from their very low initial WS. Flesh Hounds at 250 less have about the same WS, a higher CB, and get 8 additional entities. Bumping the rate at which the Pox Riders hit doesn't meaningfully address the fact that without impact damage applying these guys hit like a wet noodle. You could easily drop them to 800 for their current stats and I don't think most folks would bat an eye. Arguably you could go lower given the unit literally has the damage stats of cheaper units (WS in optimal circumstances matches sabretusk packs and is behind Ogre Bulls despite matched entities).

i actually agree with you in principle, these nurgle units should hit harder, i just disagree with your 40% number, i think thats far too much given their tankiness.

my general expectations for nurgle units is that they should hit hard, and hit hard on the charge (for mobile units), but outside of that be low DPS with the exception of flies and plague drones, who should be the main purely aggressive unit. this means that toads and such would have a kind of mixed role as disruption/mass/damage rather than pure damage dealing.

so for toads/poxriders i would give maybe ~20% WS, 3-4 speed, and some mass.

flies would have roughly 10-20 more WS, ~double charge bonus

for beasts of nurgle i would just make them faster, possible up to ~55 speed, or even upto the same speed as toads, would be a good way to support toads and would have some use to hunt footlords. on TT they also had quite decent movement and it fits the "personality" of the unit.

Spellbound1875#4610

Thank you for the clarification of your position. I think our primary difference in expectation is on where the units primarily deal damage. Your framing has Nurgle units having a lot of front loaded damage while being otherwise low DPS necessitating a grind (excluding the flies) whereas I see the units as having a fairly consistent stream of damage facilitating and rewarding a grindy playstyle. Notably my conception has Nurgle units hitting a bit harder than average to solidify their strategy as forcing a grind and winning inevitably, something which I think Plaguebearers and Exalted Plaguebearers currently exemplify and it's one of the reasons I've been so quick to avoid CB increases.

This does seem to be an area where CA would need to clarify design intent with future changes as I think either playstyle could be functional even if they are mutually exclusive. Personally the frontloaded damage model feels similar to the Vampire counts playstyle where most units are designed not to win combat but to delay the fight so either a few elite units or a mortis engine/spells can break the enemy army. I think Nurgle having the win condition come from their units melee prowess itself would be a nice contrast and the rosters high quality low and mid tier units already provides a jumping off point.

I would like to note that the toads and flies are a far less survivable than one would expect due to their low entity count. Plaguebearers have at minimum 800 more health than similar priced contemporaries (often much, much more) on top of the 20% physical resist and have an unusually high WS at 48 (Saurus slightly edge them here at 52). The Toad and Fly units are much closer in terms of health and in some cases the physical resist is mitigated by other defensive abilities (i.e. missile resist) and have far lower offensive outputs. Even with the projected 40% increase they still just hitting average values for the price rather than exceeding them. Even with the proposed CB changes mentioned I'm skeptical it would be enough for the toad/fly units to perform effectively without a significant amount of outside support.

I do like the proposed changes to the Beast of Nurgle. Making them more able to catch targets to apply poison/debuffs does give them more of a use case and is thematically appropriate. I still worry that the Exalted Hero on a Chaos Steed is just too good of an option in that role for Beasts to see play even if the beasts are set to toad speed. An extra 250 gold near doubling MA/MD as well as providing 70 armor, 150 WS and 32 CB is a really good deal, even if it takes a hero slot. I suspect you'd either need to tone down the Exalted Hero, cut the Beasts price notably, or increase either the MA/MD or the WS of the Beast to make it enticing in comparison.

Comparing the Beast to the Snow Leopard from Kislev I think you could probably make a case for a price cut without any changes stat changes. More testing is needed.

Loupi#8512

Spellbound1875#4610 said:

Thank you for the clarification of your position. I think our primary difference in expectation is on where the units primarily deal damage. Your framing has Nurgle units having a lot of front loaded damage while being otherwise low DPS necessitating a grind (excluding the flies) whereas I see the units as having a fairly consistent stream of damage facilitating and rewarding a grindy playstyle.

"front-loading" the damage on their mobile units means you have the option of using decisive, shock damage engagments, with big monsters, LD effects (Death lord, terror, fliers etc) aoe damage, chariots, lancer knights and such, and burst from their short range missiles. it doesnt necessitate a grind unless the shock fails

Spellbound1875#4610

Loupi#8512 said:

Spellbound1875#4610 said:

Thank you for the clarification of your position. I think our primary difference in expectation is on where the units primarily deal damage. Your framing has Nurgle units having a lot of front loaded damage while being otherwise low DPS necessitating a grind (excluding the flies) whereas I see the units as having a fairly consistent stream of damage facilitating and rewarding a grindy playstyle.

"front-loading" the damage on their mobile units means you have the option of using decisive, shock damage engagments, with big monsters, LD effects (Death lord, terror, fliers etc) aoe damage, chariots, lancer knights and such, and burst from their short range missiles. it doesnt necessitate a grind unless the shock fails

1. Nurgle having less of a focus on shock damage isn't an inherent problem especially if we're aiming to differentiate the monogod factions from each other and WoC. Slaanesh Daemons are almost entirely shock damage and no one is asking to make them more able to handle a grind, so why should Nurgle Daemons require shock damage when that's clearly more of a Khorne or Slaanesh characteristic?

2. The idea that a high CB or specifically frontloaded damage is necessary for many of the tactics you describe is debatable at best. LD effects aren't strictly related to shock damage. While it helps attacked in the rear and flank penalties are present whether the damage is front-loaded or consistent. Additionally consistent does not mean low. Plaguebearers deal damage more slowly than Bloodletters but no one would classify them as a low damage unit and I think that's the best way to think about and design for Nurgle Daemons.

3. Marked mortal units are be design going to provide access to more traditional shock damage since they're just a minor adjustment to an existing WoC unit. Making the Nurgle Daemons distinctly focused on sustained performance in a grind adds options to the roster rather than creating redundancy. The existence of Lance Knights, Forsaken, and GW units means Nurgle has a solid array of shock units already.

songoffire#8157

Some interesting suggestions here.

I am torn between your positions.

I agree with @Spellbound1875#4610 for flies and plague drones.

Suggested values would be 110 WS and 1100 mass for Rot Flies. For Plague Drones 130 WS and 1300 mass.

Your proposed changes make sense and are definitely needed for the flies/drones. In particular the masse increase. I really hate the fact that they are stuck all the time as soon as one entity is in contact with another entity. At the moment it is impossible to cycle charge or just charge elsewhere with them. Which nullify their flight advantage.

I agree with @Loupi#8512 for the toad/pox riders.

so for toads/poxriders i would give maybe ~20% WS, 3-4 speed, and some mass.

I do think they are not that bad for their cost. And the RoR is amazing. So 20% WS, 3-4 speed, and some mass for the Barons can make them really insane.
Low models is a double edge sword. Sure their survavibility is hampered but they are also much more susceptible to regeneration.

For the GUO, I think the design is more anti-infantry than duelist as seem to underline the RoR ability. So a bonus vs infantry would be a great way to boost them and give them a clear purpose.

I also would like to point out the Kugath problem. At the moment the best duelist in the game...
A melee defense decrease and a damage reduction of the mortis seem necesary (16-32->10-22).

Loupi#8512

Spellbound1875#4610 said:

Loupi#8512 said:

Spellbound1875#4610 said:

Thank you for the clarification of your position. I think our primary difference in expectation is on where the units primarily deal damage. Your framing has Nurgle units having a lot of front loaded damage while being otherwise low DPS necessitating a grind (excluding the flies) whereas I see the units as having a fairly consistent stream of damage facilitating and rewarding a grindy playstyle.

"front-loading" the damage on their mobile units means you have the option of using decisive, shock damage engagments, with big monsters, LD effects (Death lord, terror, fliers etc) aoe damage, chariots, lancer knights and such, and burst from their short range missiles. it doesnt necessitate a grind unless the shock fails

1. Nurgle having less of a focus on shock damage isn't an inherent problem especially if we're aiming to differentiate the monogod factions from each other and WoC. Slaanesh Daemons are almost entirely shock damage and no one is asking to make them more able to handle a grind, so why should Nurgle Daemons require shock damage when that's clearly more of a Khorne or Slaanesh characteristic?

2. The idea that a high CB or specifically frontloaded damage is necessary for many of the tactics you describe is debatable at best. LD effects aren't strictly related to shock damage. While it helps attacked in the rear and flank penalties are present whether the damage is front-loaded or consistent. Additionally consistent does not mean low. Plaguebearers deal damage more slowly than Bloodletters but no one would classify them as a low damage unit and I think that's the best way to think about and design for Nurgle Daemons.

3. Marked mortal units are be design going to provide access to more traditional shock damage since they're just a minor adjustment to an existing WoC unit. Making the Nurgle Daemons distinctly focused on sustained performance in a grind adds options to the roster rather than creating redundancy. The existence of Lance Knights, Forsaken, and GW units means Nurgle has a solid array of shock units already.

1. because having a faction based purely on grinding as their sole tactic just doesnt work and isnt interesting at all, also slaanesh can grind very well due to mortis engine, sigvald and tanky infantry. factions need to be able to do more than one thing.
2. The main and largest LD debuff comes from radidly inflicting damage to an enemy, so it is one of the primary ways to do LD bombs.
3. um you say daemon unit should be grind focussed so as to not create redundancy, but nurgle chosen/warriors are one of the grindiest infantry there are, as are chaos knights of nurgle, so there is already plenty of grind action. Nurgle lacks DPS shock units, they dont need any more ways to grind better


Basically nurgle needs another way to play, not more ways to play the same grind game.

Spellbound1875#4610

@songoffire On the toad point the Barons being good has more to do with their ablities rather than the base units performance. It's certainly possible that a smaller WS buff plus increased speed would be a more appropriate depending on CA's goals for the unit. I think the WS values of ~60 and ~76 you'd get from 20% aren't price appropriate when compared to similarly priced units from other rosters but a change in the right direction that proves insufficient would still be a net positive.

Ku'gath could probably use a nerf of some kind but I can't say I find the "best duelist" tests super compelling. It's sort of cherry picked and there are a decent number of ways to deal with him. Wouldn't hate a trimming of the mortis or an MD or WS drop but not pressing.

@Loupi#8512
1. Making grinding a good tactic is not the same as making grinding the only tactic, and I don't see how making the Nurgle Daemons in particular focused on grinding is limiting for Nurgle in the way you describe because WoC infantry are at base above average charging units, something discussed more in point 3.

2. I'd quibble on the relative impact of raw damage versus effects like fear, attacked in rear, etc. on an effective leadership shock. The fact that light cavalry with their relatively low damage output are so effective at delivering leadership shocks is because raw damage isn't the end all be all.

Beyond that the proposed changes make the damage difference between a charge and sustained combat relatively small, but charges would still be substantially more damage than sustained combat and the units damage would be increased in general. Low CB and high WS still results in hard hitting charges, the main difference is that Nurgle Daemons in my paradigm want to charge exactly 1 time rather than aiming to cycle charge, something which synergizes extremely well with cloud of flies. Leadership penalties from damage dealt, winning combat, attacked in rear/flank are all still in place for Nurgle units.

3. Chosen/Warriors are notably less grindy than Nurgle Daemons and Nurgle specifically gets the shock variant of the infantry in the Great Axes. WoC units and GW's in particular have above average CB for the cost when compared to most rosters (even the shielded units have CBs of 18, 20, and 26). The only reason the unit is seen as grindy is because after the initial charge damage they still have above average DPS. Comparing Chosen GW with a unit like Har Ganeth or Swordmasters reveals a massive charge advantage. Heck the Chaos Warriors with shields have the same CB as Swordmasters, and the GW warriors are ahead of both of the elven elite Greatsword infantry. Every WoC infantry unit is a shock infantry relatively speaking and the trend continues when looking at their cavalry, which I think is a more pressing topic when looking at Toads. Knights should be the ones providing shock damage on a fast mover for the faction having both more entities and a much higher CB even on the shield version.

The idea that Nurgle is currently lacking in shock DPS units is just flatly unture, the issue is poor balance on the marked units making Nurgle unable to access that part of the roster. If the goal is to give Nurgle ways to play a wider range of styles the solution is to make their mortals playable since they're already stated to be decent shock units, not try and adjust the Daemons to fill a shock role (mind you this last criticism applies to most of the monogod factions who suffer from bad marked unit balance).

As a side note I did some comparison of Beasts with other SEM units and I do think you could make a solid case for simply cutting their price by 100 at the current statline, maybe a minor health cut (~600 at most). The combat stats for the beast are quite low and the WS and AP ratio aren't particularly impressive for the price. It's basically just a sack of health with an extremely minor niche debuff (15 meter range is very limited). Not sure if that alone would be sufficient but again I think you can make a solid case that this is another example of a Daemon unit being overpriced/understated for the cost which seems to be a trend.

Loupi#8512

@Spellbound1875#4610

In my balance mod I implemented most of these changes you and I have been suggesting (i think they are a good compromise between both our points of view)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2879418236

Spellbound1875#4610

Cool to hear. I'll be interested to see other folks opinions. Looking over the mod and running some quick tests the changes feel solid. I see you went around 20% WS increases with some additional boons in other areas like mobility or CB.

It does feel like a solid set of compromises and I expect the units will feel much more desirable in both multiplayer and campaign. The fact that Plague Drones actually feel threatening is particularly nice.

songoffire#8157

For your mod.

Even if some changes are really good there are many changes I disagree with :

• Hellscourge Infantry Reverted back to having 0 AP
  
• Charge reflection damage multiplier: 2→1.5
  
• Devastating flanker: 2→1.5
  
• Harmony : Harmony Yang: Heavily reduced MA/MD/LD buffs, added bracing (x2)
  Harmony Yin: Speed +6% →+10%,reload +12→+20
  
• .......
  

My opinion on Balance faction changes :

Excellent : Ogre Kingdoms, Khorne, Norsca, Kislev, Empire, Beastmen, Tzeentch, Bretonnia, Greenskins, Dwarfs

Good/Need some changes : Warriors of Chaos (changes are mostly good but Sigvald nerfs are too strong especially for single player game), Nurgle (Changes again are very good with a few exceptions : Barons price increase is too high, +50/75 gold is enough when you take into account their nerfs, Chosen are still too expensive -100gold and Kugath is still too strong: reduce the damage of the mortis eff and some MD), Skaven (changes are mostly good with poison wind change exception, globadiers price increase is a bit steep +100 would be enough, and doomwheels could also be slightly be buffed), Cathay (Harmony changes are too drastic for now, as long as Cathay does not have a more well-stocked/diverse roster), Lizardmen (only change too drastic is the threshold of primal instinct : 35% seem better as a compromise), Dark Elves ( good changes with 2 exceptions : Malus rework is too drastic especialy the healing halved, master price increase is a bit too steep +200g instead of 300g), High Elves (Change to martial prowess are neither good or bad and feel like a sidechange but I would have simply increase the threshold to 25%->33% , spearmen and swordmaster buffs do not make sense in land battles, Alarielle changes are also strange : resurrection should be undead gift (and special blessed nurgle unit), the rest of changes are good),

Bad : Slaanesh (devastating flanker, 0 Ap hellscourges... only good changes are warriors and chosen with sword and shield and chaos knights with lances, rest is just bad), Vampire coast (crumbling nerf too strong and no buff to range units), Vampire counts ( crumbling and healing nerfs too strong for single player), Tomb Kings ( crumbling and healing nerfs too strong for single player and scorpion price increase bad, Ushabti: and necrotect changes are good), Wood Elves (Eternal guard buffs make no sense, hawk riders changes are anti immersive, Durthu buff is unnecessary, Wild riders buffs are unnecessary, Lost Sylvan undead)


I also disagree with the increased cost of the cavalry RoR for gameplay reasons.
Bug fixes are also very good.

Out of curiosity, what was the reasoning to justify the 0 AP for Hellscourges infantry ?
Charge reflection is very underwhelming (you can test with Chosen with hellscourges) and should be buffed not nerfed. I would increased its duration 7s->14s.
Devastating flanker is too occasionnal I think to be nerfed. Especially for heavy cavalry like chaos knights.

Spellbound1875#4610

@Loupi#8512 So I did some additional testing with the unit buffs compared to live for the toads and flies. Generally speaking the changes seemed to work well with a few unexpected outcomes. I think Toad units could potentially use a bit more WS (maybe not all the way to the 40% value) but they're at least within the ballpark of cost appropriate performance now. For Fly units the changes are far more transformative, moving the units cleanly out of unplayable to solid choices for the price.

A more in depth analysis is placed below if folks are interested. TLDR: I have some minor quibbles on direction and degree but these changes are successful at moving these four units from poor for cost to solid competitive choices. I'd go so far as to claim the fly units are excellent with these changes even if I think raw WS would help more than a CB increase.

Frogs

Frogs got about a 20% WS increase rather than the 40% I calculated and a smaller mass increase than I suggested plus some extra speed. Even with the new mass values and extra speed, both units have some difficulty being able to cycle charge without another unit to buffer. It's better than live but against chunkier targets like chaos warriors inadvisable from a value trading perspective.

Plague Toads perform a lot better into unbraced infantry. The extra damage boost allows them to consistently rout low tier units like marauders, whereas on live you see the Toads low damage drag the fights out and result in poor value trades. In the counter charge scenario in about 2 minutes less the buffed toads dealt about 80% of the total damage of the live toads and routed the target resulting in significantly improved performance.

However against braced marauders the live dynamic was still observed. The WS buff still resulted in improved trades for the toads, moving from what is roughly an even value trade to about a 50 value gain against unmarked marauders (toads win in both circumstances). This is roughly similar to the values gained from Razorgor and Norscan Ice Wolves charging the same braced unit. I think the anti-infantry toads should be ahead slightly in this circumstance but this performance is at least fair for the price.

Another gain observed is Toads trading into non-infantry units. As an example on live toads lose to Razorgor herd consistently. On the mod the trade is much more of a coinflip. Norscan Ice Wolves see a similar trend, moving from Ice Wolf favored to coin flip. Given both of those units bring significant gains in other areas (AP and speed respectively) I think toads having a small edge wouldn't be unwarranted here.

Pox Riders show a similar pattern with charges against unbraced infantry showing the best outcomes, though the range can shrink quite a bit against less favorable targets. The higher MD makes them a bit better in the grind but they suffer notably against high armor values or high WS infantry. Against targets like Chaos Warriors, Saurus, White Lions and Berserkers the Pox Riders come out with between 100 and 150 value ahead on the trade (higher values when charging unbraced infantry) which isn't bad but is arguably low for a more expensive unit designed to target infantry. For comparison on live these trades have on the high end 50 value favoring the pox riders and they actually lose some of the match ups so the changes are still having a positive impact.

Their performance against light cavalry is also improved. Comparing the trade with centigors between live and the mod shows about a 50 value gain in a trade that was slightly favorable but not necessarily cost efficient. Chaos Knights with their high armor and MD are basically undamaged by toads even in a grind so the increased WS, even is pushed higher will not break the unit out of it's niche.

I still think the WS values are a bit low for the unit and I'd bump them some more, or increase the Anti-infantry value. I think the 40% values are still a good target, though I think 65 and 85 WS or setting BvI to 12 with the mods WS values would also work. With the Chaos Spawn WS nerf in the rebalance I can see why the lower WS values were chosen but compared to live the Toad units still feel a bit underwhelming. Chaos Spawn at the higher price may be less cost efficient but they beat chaos warriors, saurus, white lions, and berserkers one on one (on live). I'd argue an anti-infantry unit should perform notably better than an unbreakable generalist into infantry, something which even on the mod is debatable.

The mass values I'm less sure on. The toad units feel much more responsive in the mod so I don't think more mass is a pressing need.

Bugs

Bug units in your mod actually got buffed a bit beyond my suggestions, gaining more mass and gaining more total damage, with some transferred from WS to CB. This would appear to be meant to encourage cycle charging though I didn't notice much gain from the practice with the units, with sustained combat being broadly similar or superior.

Against SEM's the Rot Flies perform about as well as Screamers from a value perspective which is broadly appropriate given one is a specialist and the other is a generalist unit, explaining the price disparity. Flies are substantially more survivable in this role which has some major implications for Nurgle faction. You actually don't feel bad healing Rot Flies now.

Against cavalry Rot Flies already performed decently from a value perspective and that remains true, with the major difference being combat speed. Rot Flies get slightly better results into cavalry but the biggest difference is these results occur around a minute faster which significantly increases the units usability in a battle.

Finally against infantry, when used in a totally braindead manner you see a large value gain (chaos warrior trade went from 343 to 535) which massively improves the use cases of Rot Flies. On live they only trade well into armored cav, and even then they trade extremely slowly which makes it hard to capitalize on the units performance. The mod makes them decent generalist options when a mobile damage dealer is needed.

Plague Drones gained in a similar manner and again feel much better for the price. They're genuinely nasty against isolated SEMs and their new found ability to pull out of combat is extremely impactful for avoiding bad engagements. I'm not sure I like the focus on CB since their charge impact is quite anemic against multi-entity units despite the extra mass. I don't think cycle charging is worthwhile compared to a sustained grind and I think doubling down on WS better communicates the units ideal use case. However this is an extremely minor critique and the fly units are all performing very well for their price in their role within both the context of the rebalance mod and the live game. If these changes were pushed to live I'd consider the fly units fixed.

The missile Plague Drones currently suffer largely from only having decent missiles so giving them a proper melee follow up also brings them in line for the price. 10 death heads followed by the melee profile seems like a genuine consideration on the mod.

Final note on mass interaction with passive

This is extremely minor but I noticed an unintended outcome of the mass change on all 4 of the units. Against infantry you occasionally see plague of flies deactivating based on how far infantry entities would be thrown which does reduce the buffs reliability. I'm not sure how often this happens on live but it was occurring often enough in testing to be notable. It's an extremely small price to pay for the increased performance and I think the ease of use brought about by increased mass is worth the trade off but it might be something to look at if CA pushes a similar change to live.

Loupi#8512

songoffire said:

Bad : Slaanesh (devastating flanker, 0 Ap hellscourges... only good changes are warriors and chosen with sword and shield and chaos knights with lances, rest is just bad), Vampire coast (crumbling nerf too strong and no buff to range units), Vampire counts ( crumbling and healing nerfs too strong for single player), Tomb Kings ( crumbling and healing nerfs too strong for single player and scorpion price increase bad, Ushabti: and necrotect changes are good), Wood Elves (Eternal guard buffs make no sense, hawk riders changes are anti immersive, Durthu buff is unnecessary, Wild riders buffs are unnecessary, Lost Sylvan undead)


I also disagree with the increased cost of the cavalry RoR for gameplay reasons.
Bug fixes are also very good.

Out of curiosity, what was the reasoning to justify the 0 AP for Hellscourges infantry ?
Charge reflection is very underwhelming (you can test with Chosen with hellscourges) and should be buffed not nerfed. I would increased its duration 7s->14s.
Devastating flanker is too occasionnal I think to be nerfed. Especially for heavy cavalry like chaos knights.

putting hellscourge back to 0AP is about making them a different type of unit than regular variant. at the moment they are simple warriors+bonuses for very small price, they are simply better. this change (as it says they also got higher damage and faster attacks) makes them a more niche and interesting unit better for smashing light infantry but still capable of grinding heavy infantry (e.g. hellscourge chosen in the mod just barely beat regular slaanesh chosen over a very long fight)

charge reflection lasts as long as their enemy is charging (and as long as braced) so in infantry fights it can last the full charge duration (13 seconds) since they stay braced. This (along with strange charge pathing/prediction) makes braced charge reflecting units overperform, an example is high elf spearmen BEATING dryads when braced, and losing when both charge. another is silverin guard beating chaos warrior GW when braced. The change was necessary to balance these interactions which are currently very spear favoured.

devastating flanker was reduced as you are right, it is very situational and rarely pays off. So almost all slaanesh units were compensated with added charge bonus, e.g. chaos knights lances now have the full 80 charge.

TK/undead: scorpion got pretty strong buffs imo, getting poison, a big speed boost and spell resist being quite major changes that make them a much more attractive unit. As they are now they are never used. the undead crumbling in the game is far too low right now, even with the LD nerfs, it is insignificant. though i did reduce the crumbling damage slightly in the last patch as compensation for the 2.3patch LD nerfs. in campaign it doesnt matter, since you can get units to very high LD and stats with skills etc so they will barely ever crumble anyway.

on woodelves: eternal guards price increase with stat buffs is to make them a stronger unit that can actually do some damage in ideal fights, while also making their 20 stack playstyle a tiny bit harder. this is better for gameplay and is very thematic as well.

wild riders absolutely needed big buffs, they are perhaps the worst light cav in the game. given their extreme fragility they simply did not hit hard or fast enough. compare to units like seekers of slaanesh, which have better stats, AP, poison+magic, are much faster and cheaper and dont rout.

sylvan knights are another terrible unit that got massively nerfed with the ethereal changes, compared to stags they had 800 less hp, 60 less armour and only 35% more physical resist, and lower weapon strength. It also made no sense that they didnt have any of the advantages of being an ethereal undead unit, like all others (dwarfs, hexwraiths etc) despite being ghosts.

Loupi#8512

songoffire said:

Lizardmen (only change too drastic is the threshold of primal instinct : 35% seem better as a compromise), Dark Elves ( good changes with 2 exceptions : Malus rework is too drastic especialy the healing halved, master price increase is a bit too steep +200g instead of 300g), High Elves (Change to martial prowess are neither good or bad and feel like a sidechange but I would have simply increase the threshold to 25%->33% ,

also, about the HP threshold %, unfortunately modders can only do so much, these thresholds are fixed and we can only choose 75%, 50% or 25%

Loupi#8512

Spellbound1875#4610 said:

@Loupi#8512 So I did some additional testing with the unit buffs compared to live for the toads and flies. Generally speaking the changes seemed to work well with a few unexpected outcomes. I think Toad units could potentially use a bit more WS (maybe not all the way to the 40% value) but they're at least within the ballpark of cost appropriate performance now. For Fly units the changes are far more transformative, moving the units cleanly out of unplayable to solid choices for the price.

A more in depth analysis is placed below if folks are interested. TLDR: I have some minor quibbles on direction and degree but these changes are successful at moving these four units from poor for cost to solid competitive choices. I'd go so far as to claim the fly units are excellent with these changes even if I think raw WS would help more than a CB increase.

Frogs

Frogs got about a 20% WS increase rather than the 40% I calculated and a smaller mass increase than I suggested plus some extra speed. Even with the new mass values and extra speed, both units have some difficulty being able to cycle charge without another unit to buffer. It's better than live but against chunkier targets like chaos warriors inadvisable from a value trading perspective.

Plague Toads perform a lot better into unbraced infantry. The extra damage boost allows them to consistently rout low tier units like marauders, whereas on live you see the Toads low damage drag the fights out and result in poor value trades. In the counter charge scenario in about 2 minutes less the buffed toads dealt about 80% of the total damage of the live toads and routed the target resulting in significantly improved performance.

However against braced marauders the live dynamic was still observed. The WS buff still resulted in improved trades for the toads, moving from what is roughly an even value trade to about a 50 value gain against unmarked marauders (toads win in both circumstances). This is roughly similar to the values gained from Razorgor and Norscan Ice Wolves charging the same braced unit. I think the anti-infantry toads should be ahead slightly in this circumstance but this performance is at least fair for the price.

Another gain observed is Toads trading into non-infantry units. As an example on live toads lose to Razorgor herd consistently. On the mod the trade is much more of a coinflip. Norscan Ice Wolves see a similar trend, moving from Ice Wolf favored to coin flip. Given both of those units bring significant gains in other areas (AP and speed respectively) I think toads having a small edge wouldn't be unwarranted here.

Pox Riders show a similar pattern with charges against unbraced infantry showing the best outcomes, though the range can shrink quite a bit against less favorable targets. The higher MD makes them a bit better in the grind but they suffer notably against high armor values or high WS infantry. Against targets like Chaos Warriors, Saurus, White Lions and Berserkers the Pox Riders come out with between 100 and 150 value ahead on the trade (higher values when charging unbraced infantry) which isn't bad but is arguably low for a more expensive unit designed to target infantry. For comparison on live these trades have on the high end 50 value favoring the pox riders and they actually lose some of the match ups so the changes are still having a positive impact.

Their performance against light cavalry is also improved. Comparing the trade with centigors between live and the mod shows about a 50 value gain in a trade that was slightly favorable but not necessarily cost efficient. Chaos Knights with their high armor and MD are basically undamaged by toads even in a grind so the increased WS, even is pushed higher will not break the unit out of it's niche.

I still think the WS values are a bit low for the unit and I'd bump them some more, or increase the Anti-infantry value. I think the 40% values are still a good target, though I think 65 and 85 WS or setting BvI to 12 with the mods WS values would also work. With the Chaos Spawn WS nerf in the rebalance I can see why the lower WS values were chosen but compared to live the Toad units still feel a bit underwhelming. Chaos Spawn at the higher price may be less cost efficient but they beat chaos warriors, saurus, white lions, and berserkers one on one (on live). I'd argue an anti-infantry unit should perform notably better than an unbreakable generalist into infantry, something which even on the mod is debatable.

The mass values I'm less sure on. The toad units feel much more responsive in the mod so I don't think more mass is a pressing need.

Bugs

Bug units in your mod actually got buffed a bit beyond my suggestions, gaining more mass and gaining more total damage, with some transferred from WS to CB. This would appear to be meant to encourage cycle charging though I didn't notice much gain from the practice with the units, with sustained combat being broadly similar or superior.

Against SEM's the Rot Flies perform about as well as Screamers from a value perspective which is broadly appropriate given one is a specialist and the other is a generalist unit, explaining the price disparity. Flies are substantially more survivable in this role which has some major implications for Nurgle faction. You actually don't feel bad healing Rot Flies now.

Against cavalry Rot Flies already performed decently from a value perspective and that remains true, with the major difference being combat speed. Rot Flies get slightly better results into cavalry but the biggest difference is these results occur around a minute faster which significantly increases the units usability in a battle.

Finally against infantry, when used in a totally braindead manner you see a large value gain (chaos warrior trade went from 343 to 535) which massively improves the use cases of Rot Flies. On live they only trade well into armored cav, and even then they trade extremely slowly which makes it hard to capitalize on the units performance. The mod makes them decent generalist options when a mobile damage dealer is needed.

Plague Drones gained in a similar manner and again feel much better for the price. They're genuinely nasty against isolated SEMs and their new found ability to pull out of combat is extremely impactful for avoiding bad engagements. I'm not sure I like the focus on CB since their charge impact is quite anemic against multi-entity units despite the extra mass. I don't think cycle charging is worthwhile compared to a sustained grind and I think doubling down on WS better communicates the units ideal use case. However this is an extremely minor critique and the fly units are all performing very well for their price in their role within both the context of the rebalance mod and the live game. If these changes were pushed to live I'd consider the fly units fixed.

The missile Plague Drones currently suffer largely from only having decent missiles so giving them a proper melee follow up also brings them in line for the price. 10 death heads followed by the melee profile seems like a genuine consideration on the mod.

Final note on mass interaction with passive

This is extremely minor but I noticed an unintended outcome of the mass change on all 4 of the units. Against infantry you occasionally see plague of flies deactivating based on how far infantry entities would be thrown which does reduce the buffs reliability. I'm not sure how often this happens on live but it was occurring often enough in testing to be notable. It's an extremely small price to pay for the increased performance and I think the ease of use brought about by increased mass is worth the trade off but it might be something to look at if CA pushes a similar change to live.

thanks, glad you (mostly) like it, its helpful feedback, i will keep testing and try to host some events with it to get some more feedback

songoffire#8157

Loupi#8512 said:

songoffire said:

Bad : Slaanesh (devastating flanker, 0 Ap hellscourges... only good changes are warriors and chosen with sword and shield and chaos knights with lances, rest is just bad), Vampire coast (crumbling nerf too strong and no buff to range units), Vampire counts ( crumbling and healing nerfs too strong for single player), Tomb Kings ( crumbling and healing nerfs too strong for single player and scorpion price increase bad, Ushabti: and necrotect changes are good), Wood Elves (Eternal guard buffs make no sense, hawk riders changes are anti immersive, Durthu buff is unnecessary, Wild riders buffs are unnecessary, Lost Sylvan undead)


I also disagree with the increased cost of the cavalry RoR for gameplay reasons.
Bug fixes are also very good.

Out of curiosity, what was the reasoning to justify the 0 AP for Hellscourges infantry ?
Charge reflection is very underwhelming (you can test with Chosen with hellscourges) and should be buffed not nerfed. I would increased its duration 7s->14s.
Devastating flanker is too occasionnal I think to be nerfed. Especially for heavy cavalry like chaos knights.

putting hellscourge back to 0AP is about making them a different type of unit than regular variant. at the moment they are simple warriors+bonuses for very small price, they are simply better. this change (as it says they also got higher damage and faster attacks) makes them a more niche and interesting unit better for smashing light infantry but still capable of grinding heavy infantry (e.g. hellscourge chosen in the mod just barely beat regular slaanesh chosen over a very long fight)

charge reflection lasts as long as their enemy is charging (and as long as braced) so in infantry fights it can last the full charge duration (13 seconds) since they stay braced. This (along with strange charge pathing/prediction) makes braced charge reflecting units overperform, an example is high elf spearmen BEATING dryads when braced, and losing when both charge. another is silverin guard beating chaos warrior GW when braced. The change was necessary to balance these interactions which are currently very spear favoured.

devastating flanker was reduced as you are right, it is very situational and rarely pays off. So almost all slaanesh units were compensated with added charge bonus, e.g. chaos knights lances now have the full 80 charge.

TK/undead: scorpion got pretty strong buffs imo, getting poison, a big speed boost and spell resist being quite major changes that make them a much more attractive unit. As they are now they are never used. the undead crumbling in the game is far too low right now, even with the LD nerfs, it is insignificant. though i did reduce the crumbling damage slightly in the last patch as compensation for the 2.3patch LD nerfs. in campaign it doesnt matter, since you can get units to very high LD and stats with skills etc so they will barely ever crumble anyway.

on woodelves: eternal guards price increase with stat buffs is to make them a stronger unit that can actually do some damage in ideal fights, while also making their 20 stack playstyle a tiny bit harder. this is better for gameplay and is very thematic as well.

wild riders absolutely needed big buffs, they are perhaps the worst light cav in the game. given their extreme fragility they simply did not hit hard or fast enough. compare to units like seekers of slaanesh, which have better stats, AP, poison+magic, are much faster and cheaper and dont rout.

sylvan knights are another terrible unit that got massively nerfed with the ethereal changes, compared to stags they had 800 less hp, 60 less armour and only 35% more physical resist, and lower weapon strength. It also made no sense that they didnt have any of the advantages of being an ethereal undead unit, like all others (dwarfs, hexwraiths etc) despite being ghosts.

Hellscourges :
I can understand from a design perspective the desire to make Hellscourge units unique. In that regard, I would have tried to add some unique effect related to the whips combat abilities.
However, from a coherence point of view it makes no sense to give them 0 AP. Peasants and zombies have AP damage and nails piercing armor better than barded whips is just anti-immersive.
Furthermore, 0 AP damage as you said just make them a glorified frontline holder against armored units. And 5-6 minutes engagement, even for a unit just holding the line, is too long when most LB last along 7-8 minutes. Combined the fact that they are supposed to be the Slaanesh elite infantry, they should have some killing power meaning AP. 1500 gold unit desgned just to hold the line or killing peasants have almost no use.
The live version si simply much better in that regard. Even if it is far from being perfect as they are a bit redundant with the S&S version. And far too expensive.

Devastating flanker :
It embodies Slaanesh playstyle high risk/high reward. The units that benefit the less are chariots (and heavy cav to a lesser extent ) with so few entities. For other units, it is good even if it is occasionnal. So I would indeed buff the charge bonus of all Slaanesh chariots and chaos knights with lances but keep the trait as it is. It should not trade for a reduced charge bonus.


Charge reflection :
I thought that charge reflection lasted 7s. Seen that in some table I think. I admit that I have some trouble evaluating the performance. What I noticed with the Hellscourge units (they have charge reflection) is that the damage received in that 7s window by the unit charging was very little. My hypthesis (and maybe I am wrong) is that there too few entities in the braced unit which are actually in contact to the charging entites so that they dish out very little damage. Maybe I am wrong but it would seem that braced units with heavy mass seem to dish out less damage than said same unit but with a smaller mass. Which could explain that spear units perform very well with charge reflection whereas hellscourge units perform poorly.
Again it may be exclusive to Hellscourge units and giving charge reflection to these units may not have been the best idea.
There is also the fact that the charge reflection multiplier is maximal for deeper ranks (8 I think, could check in the tables).

Undead :
Increasing crumbling damage is good but I think the current value is a bit much. Reducing healing is also a bit too much.
I know that currently domination players advocate for nerfing the undead because of their capture/staying power. But for campaign players I feel the changes are too drastic (especially at the beginning of the campaign). I did find myselves in some very tricky situations (legendary/very hard) with VC and was saved by healing/crumbling.

Wood elves :
Eternal guards, I do not know the lore and their respective strength but I always found the unit balanced. For wild riders, I would have reduced their price rather than change some stats and make them a cheap option.
For Sylvan Knights you are right.

Loupi#8512

songoffire said:

Hellscourges :
I can understand from a design perspective the desire to make Hellscourge units unique. In that regard, I would have tried to add some unique effect related to the whips combat abilities.
However, from a coherence point of view it makes no sense to give them 0 AP. Peasants and zombies have AP damage and nails piercing armor better than barded whips is just anti-immersive.
Furthermore, 0 AP damage as you said just make them a glorified frontline holder against armored units. And 5-6 minutes engagement, even for a unit just holding the line, is too long when most LB last along 7-8 minutes. Combined the fact that they are supposed to be the Slaanesh elite infantry, they should have some killing power meaning AP. 1500 gold unit desgned just to hold the line or killing peasants have almost no use.
The live version si simply much better in that regard. Even if it is far from being perfect as they are a bit redundant with the S&S version. And far too expensive.

yeah i know it looks very weird for a unit to have 0 AP, but that doesnt mean they are low or slow damage dealers, and i wish CA had just gone a little bit further with their design. From my pretty extensive testing they now kill anything lightly armoured very quickly, including elites like exalted plaguebearers/demonettes/bloodletter, bladesingers, sisters of slaughter, as well as elite light cav. this is due to the buff i gave them to their attack intervals. makes them very strong damage dealer vs light/mid armour factions.

then vs heavy armour factions they double as a tanky grindy front line, as a sort of ironbreaker unit. giving them this very polarised dual function i think is more useful and interesting than the fairly generic version we ended up with, with them just being chaos warrior+charge reflection.

of course i am open to changing them in other ways, e.g. with some contact effect or something, but for now the unit has a solid dual role and works well.

songoffire said:

Eternal guards, I do not know the lore and their respective strength but I always found the unit balanced. For wild riders, I would have reduced their price rather than change some stats and make them a cheap option.

in lore and TT eternal guard were far more of an elite unit, for example they costed the same as wildwood rangers and had the same stats, so this change to being 500 and 600 gold (with dryads in between at 550) instead of 475 and 550 does several things:
1. better fits their lore and TT,
2. gives wood elves a stronger infantry more versatile unit that is capable of dealing some damage rather than just holding for a few minutes.
3. makes their manspam 20 stack armies (currently their strongest playstyle) a little harder to field, by increasing the frontline cost by ~100-250 gold depending on numbers of shielded/un-shielded

same with wild riders, they are extremely elite personal bodyguard of Orion, and are actually raised above other mortal elves, and they ride immortal steeds which are essentially spirits of the wild hunt. In a way they are the "grail knights" of the woodelves in lore. so it doesnt make sense to make them a cheaper cav unit.

songoffire#8157

yeah i know it looks very weird for a unit to have 0 AP,

For general game coherence it makes no sense. Sisters of Slaughter, a whip unit, has AP damage (as well as zombies)..

then vs heavy armour factions they double as a tanky grindy front line, as a sort of ironbreaker unit.

Ironbreakers have AP damage.

From a design perspective, I don't see the point of making Hellscourges a line holder unit :

• This role is already taken by Warriors and Chosen with Sword and Shield which are cheaper than their counterparts
  
• Hellscourges are unique Slaanesh crafted weapons
  

I think Hellscourge units need a complete rework. CA has been a bit lazy and just copied/pasted the Sister of slaughter design which was a mistake. SoS can be seen like "some kind of ninja" evading the ATK of their opponents but this is due to their "fitness and skills" not their weapons. So high MD.

This is completely different for Marauders, Warriors and Chosen with Hellscourges ; they are not particularly graceful like the Sisters of Slaughter. So they should have a special trait due to their specific weapon.

Morevover, unlike spears and hallberds , whips are not a weapon design to counter charge.

Based on these observations, I would :

1. Remove the charge reflection and expert charge defense of all Hellscourges
   
2. Adjust the MA, MD stats in comparison to their Sword and shield versions. Currently Hellscourges stats make no sense there are a lot of discrepancies between marauders/marauders with hellscourges, warriors/warriors with hellscourges, hellstriders and chosen. What is the difference between a warrior with sword and one with a whip ? Nothing except the whip weights less so grants a slight movement advantage in combat. So I would give them a slight 5% increase in MD compared to their S&S counterpart. MA could be the same as their counterpart.
   
3. Hellscourges as (magical) whip are very hard to avoid so they should imbue a contact effect like a malus to MD
   
4. Hellscourges as Slaanesh specific weapon should tear flesh and armor (like a flail) so I would switch the AP damage of the sword version but keep the WS global value. For example Chosen Hellscourges : 14 Base damage and 34 AP damage
   

Overall for example with Chosen Hellscourges :

MA ->46
MD->63
WS->48 with 34 AP damage and 14 base damage
Hellscourges trait : -8 MD
This trait could scale with the unit tier (-2 for marauders, -4 for warriors and hellstrider, -8 for Chosen)

Obviously this needs testing.

One could argue that daemonettes fill the role of AP damage units. Which is true but the main difference is that the Hellscourges units are slower, more generalist, more resilient and hit more consistenly other units.

Spellbound1875#4610

I think adding more debuffs to Slaanesh is risky with access to charmed and soporific musk already in game. The possibility of providing permenant debuffs equivalent to -13/-13 is pretty ridiculous. Beyond that encouraging Slaanesh players to make a nasty blob feels like it plays against theme already.

Shifting to AP seems like a no-go at base. 75% AP ratio on a shielded unit with high MD? Completely invalidates GW units which trade defenses for extra damage. Not to mention it further marginalizes the Slaanesh daemons who give up a massive amount of defenses for their AP damage. If we have two variants of a single unit that do the same thing that's silly but it's better than having one unit do two roles so well other options are totally excluded. That's the reason Khorne warriors can't have GWs after all.

I can understand the desire to make whips notably unique and lowering attack interval is an effective (if janky imo) way to boost damage which may be sufficient to make 0 AP functional. I do think it makes predicting the units performance nearly impossible. First how often an entity attacks being substantially off norm makes MA/MD calculations less useful when predicting a trade. Second because all base damage can swing wildly based on armor rolls from near nothing to quite impactful. Not the direction I'd take.

I'm still in favor of leaning harder into the stationary implications of charge defense and charge reflection by dropping CB significantly. End result should be at best plaguebearer low. The descriptions provided for units with the Hellscourges imply an almost languid approach to combat (the daemonic whips actively contribute to combat allowing the wielder to savor the experiences better) and lowering CB makes that a game element. These warriors aren't in a rush and perform best when their enemies come to them. They focus on a defensive fighting style because of that in contrast to the Sisters who are former gladiators and so are much more focused on aggressively engaging the enemy.

The result of this would be an extremely focused holding unit, generalist non-ap infantry that is encouraged to charge, and extremely fast high ap damage infantry in the mid and high tier for Slaanesh which wants to flank but can do okay on a frontal charge. Low tier is a bit screwy but anti-infantry, anti-large, holding is an acceptable range to my mind once the units are properly balanced (MD nerfs for devoted marauders are still vital).

Not to mention for the price I think 10 MD, expert charge defense, and charge reflection is a bit much for only -2 MA in the 0 to 50 gold cost range. Losing 10-16 CB would bring them more in line with the Dual Axes, GWs, and Halberds. The fact that the whip infantry is viewed as only okay on live speaks to the ridiculous power of devoted marauders and the silliness of the mark tax. Slaanesh Warriors with Hellscourges feel like they're worth about 150 more than normal chaos warriors (and testing shows they can come pretty close to performing about that much better than the unmarked warriors against matched targets) which I cannot say about any of the other unique weapon variants who face a more than 150 price hike in the same comparison.

Also super strange nitpick but the warrior whips should have 1 less point of AP and 1 more point of base damage for their ratio to match the other 3 whip units. They're at 20% while everyone else is closer to 17% and it feels weird they hit for more AP damage than Chosen relatively speaking.

songoffire#8157

Changes in patch 3.0 :
Plague toads have gained : around 60% AP damage +6 speed +50 gold
Rot flies/Plague drones : + 2 entities +3 MA +5WS (+10WS for plague drones RoR) and -100 gold for plague drones