Feedback regarding Tzeentch improvements for the upcoming DLC: Tech and Red Line Skills

cersbsb#2301

Tzeentch's current tech tree and Daemon Lords' Red Line Skill Tree aren't ideal. Here is why:

Red Line Skills:
The Daemon Lords of Tzeentch's Red Line Skills are really bad at buffing ranged Daemonic units as they mostly buff their melee capabilities rather than ranged ones. The Mortal Lords of Tzeetch's Red Line Skills buff these units much better. This leads to the unfortunate situation where Mortal Lords have better Daemonic units in their armies than the Daemonic Lord options. Here is a breakdown:

Horrors (all versions) in a Daemon Lord's army receive +10% Barrier and +16% Missile Strength at tier 1 of the red line tree and +6 Leadership, +10% Speed and +15% Missile Resist at rank 7 and above at tier 2. These bonuses are pretty bad. The rank 1 bonuses are okay but the rank 2 ones not so much. 6 Leadership isn't that impactful (especially for a unit that should stay out of melee as much as possible), neither is 10% Speed on a Missile Infantry unit that should be stationary for most of the battle. 15% Missile Resist is actually good, but they receive this bonus from the Mortal Lord's Red Line Tree as well. Now let's compare this to the Mortal Lords' buffs for Horrors.
Horrors in a Mortal Lord's army receive +8 Melee Defense and +12% Missile Strength at tier 1 and +10 Armor, -10% Reload Time, and +15% Missile Resist at tier 2 (rank 7 and above). Overall the difference between these two Lords' buffs isn't huge, but the Mortal version is still better overall. At tier 1 the Daemonic version provides better Missile Strength and more Barrier is better for a ranged unit as protection from enemy missiles than Melee Defense. Yes, Horrors are technically a Hybrid unit but their main strength is their Missiles due to their high ranged damage and low HP and Armor causing high vulnerability in melee. The tier 2 bonuses however are much better in the Mortal side than the Daemonic one. The +10 Armor is very helpful vs enemy Missiles; the -10 Reload Time makes up for the lesser Missile Strength from the previous tier and then some; and the Missile Resist is the same in both versions. That's not all though. Because Horrors count as a hybrid unit they also gain buffs from the Mortal Red Line Skills that buff Melee Daemonic units. These include: +12 Armor and +12 Charge Bonus at tier 1, and +5 Melee Defense, +10 Armor and +20% Spell Resist at rank 7 and above at tier 2. With these added the Mortal Lord version blows the Daemonic one out of the water.

Flamers (all versions) in a Daemon Lord's army receive +10% Range and +8% Missile Strength (for some reason this extra Missile Strength is given only to regular Flamers and Exalted Flamers, not the Burning Chariot) at tier 1, and +6 Leadership, +24% Melee Weapon Strength and +15% Spell Resist at rank 7 and above at tier 2. The tier 1 bonuses are good (not as good as the Mortal version though). The tier 2 bonuses are horrendous though. +6 Leadership is again, not that impactful but is still better than the rest here. +24% Melee Weapon Strength is horrible. Neither Flamers, Exalted Flamers nor the Burning Chariot are melee units or even hybrid units. They get decimated in melee and don't even have enough Melee Attack to make use of this extra Weapon Strength. This buff isn't going to suddenly turn them into a hybrid unit. It is completely wasted here. +15% Spell Resist is also pretty bad. Single Entities and Monstrous Infantry very, very rarely get targeted or hurt by the AI using spells. Vortex/Wind Spells do nothing to them and the AI uses Magic Missile and Spirit Leech spells almost exclusively on Heroes and Lords. Let's compare this to the Mortal version.
Flamers in a Mortal Lord's army receive the same buffs as the Horrors do (except for the Melee Daemonic units ones) as they are both considered Missile Units. These buffs being: +8 Melee Defense and +12% Missile Strength at tier 1 and +10 Armor, -10% Reload Time, and +15% Missile Resist at tier 2. These are just way better than the Daemonic version and makes Flamers preform way better at their job. The only main weakness in the comparison is the lack of a Range buff, but Flamers perform best at closer ranges and the extra Missile Strength and Reload Time more than makes up for it. The extra Melee Defense, Missile Resist and Armor will also prevent them from breaking more than the 6 extra Leadership from the Daemonic version.

Soul Grinders in a Daemon Lord's army receive +12 Armor and +6 Melee Attack at tier 1 and +12% Melee Weapon Strength, +6 Bonus vs. Infantry and +15% Spell Resist at tier 2. Soul Grinders of Tzeentch are true hybrids and should get buffs to both their melee and ranged capabilities. Their ranged attack perform an important unique role in the Tzeentch roster, providing an accurate, long range Anti Large and Anti Character artillery tool. Unfortunately these buffs completely ignore the Soul Grinders' ranged attacks. the bonuses to it's melee capabilities are decent but not great. I already explained why Spell Resist isn't great for Single Entity Monsters. And +6 Bonus vs Infantry is just worse than +6 Melee Attack since it is conditional vs. Infantry and the extra 6 Weapon Strength it provides vs Infantry is negligible on a Single Entity with 400+ Weapon Strength. Let's compare this to the Mortal version.
Soul Grinders of Tzeentch in a Mortal Lord's army receive the same buffs as the Horrors and Flamers do. Strangely enough, despite being a hybrid unit they don't receive the extra Melee Daemonic Units buffs that the Horrors do. I don't know if this is a bug, or that hybrid units were never meant to benefit from multiple buff sources and the Horrors' ability to do so is a bug. Here are the bonuses again: +8 Melee Defense and +12% Missile Strength at tier 1 and +10 Armor, -10% Reload Time, and +15% Missile Resist at tier 2. These are just plain better in almost every way. Much better ranged buffs. Arguably better melee ones. +8 Melee Defense and +15% Missile Resist is more useful for a Melee Monster than +6 Melee Attack, +6 Bonus vs Infantry and +2 Armor, at least in my opinion.

Please CA, improve the buffs that Daemonic missile units receive from the Daemonic Lords of Tzeentch's red line skills.


Techs
Tzeentch's techs overall are very lackluster. Many of them are just unlocks for Changing of the Ways abilities, most of which will rarely, if ever be used. the Bonuses to campaign are also very small for the majority of these techs. Where Tzeencth techs fail the most in my opinion is in unit buffing and magic buffing.

In terms of buffing the magic casting capabilities of the faction one would expect Tzeetch to have the best techs. Unfortuately all he provides is +20 Winds of Magic Reserves (which is admittedly good) and -10% Cooldown for Lore of Metal and Lore of Tzeentch spells. Compare this to the Chaos Dwarfs' Sorcery Tech Tree and this is laughingly bad. While Chaos Dwarfs are running around with 200+ Winds of Magic, extra Winds of Magic per turn, reduced Winds of Magic Cost, Reduced Miscast Chance, etc, this is all Tzeentch has to offer.

In terms of unit buffs Tzeentch provides very little to his elite units (outside the Lord of Change) and nothing to many of them. Here is what he provides:

Horrors: +25% Ammo, +25% Melee Weapon Strength and the Arcane Mirth ability. The Ammo is good. The Weapon Strength not so much, as again the focus of the unit is it's high ranged fire power rather than somewhat decent melee capabilities. The Arcane Mirth ability is also useless for Exalted Pink Horrors, Tzeentch's elite Daemonic Infantry, because they already have it by default. Horrors could really use buffs to their ranged attacks, be it range, damage or reload time. Maybe make it exclusive to Exalted Pinks at they require the most investment and get the least out of the current tech buffs.

Flamers (excluding Burning Chariot): +9% Missile Strength. Decent, but pretty bare-bones.

Marauders, Marauder Horsemen, Chaos Warriors, Chaos Knights (excluding Doom Knights): +10 Armor. That's it. Pretty pathetic for essentially the backbone of the Mortal side of Tzeentch.

Forsaken, Chaos Spawn:: +40% Spell Resist. Again not great as the AI rarely casts spells. Better on Forsaken as they are more vulnerable to spells than Chaos Spawns who are a Monstrous unit.

Screamers of Tzeentch: "Charmed" Contact Effect for attacks and +9 Charge Bonus. The only buffs in this list (other than the Lord of Change ones) I would actually consider good. the 9 Charge Bonus is decent and the Contact Effect is good.

Lord of Change: A bunch of Bound Spells. Actually amazing. The only really great aspect of the Tzeentch tech tree.

Units that don't get anything: Doom Knights of Tzeentch, Flaming Chariot, Soul Grinder of Tzeentch, Chaos Warshrine of Tzeentch, Chaos Chariot of Tzeentch, Furies of Tzeentch. It is honestly bizarre to me that so many elite, centerpiece units from Tzeentch's roster basically get nothing. The ones who do get something, get very little (with the exception of the Lord of Change and Screamers).

Another strange thing about Tzeentch's tech tree is how quick the techs are to research. The absolute majority of his techs take only 4 turns to research, while the rest (except for one) take 6. This is strange because Tzeentch has a focus on increasing Tech Research speed through many ways. Having a bunch of low research time techs with minimal effects makes much worse use of the increased Research time than if they had longer techs with better effects.


This Tech Tree issue is evident to a lesser extent in the other Monogod Factions as well. Nurgle is about on par with Tzeentch if not somehow worse, Slaanesh is better but could still use some improvements. Khorne is good. Chaos Dwarfs showed how impactful and fun techs can be, and while I don't expect, or even want, every race to be at their level, I do hope to see at least some improvements.

Thank you for your time.