Paladins, Terminators and Strike Squad

[xXKageAsashinXx]

Quicky response to the termi topic: If GK T3 was completely replaced with SM or Chaos T3, it would be a massive buff for the faction in 1v1. I believe GK to be a bit OP in 3v3, but a req cheep, power intensive battle tank would be much stronger in 1v1 - especially when the faction can get by without vehicles before then, making transitioning into AV a real problem for the opponent. It's important to keep this in mind when considering nerfs to termies/pallies.

I for one would welcome cost and build time decreases for GK termies (and the ability to level added!) in tandem with damage, health and ability nerfs, including putting teleport behind an upgrade. The goal would be to to make them more useful in 1v1 and less overpowering in team games.

This sound good indeed. I felt GK termie variants are not so useful in 1 v 1 but crazily good at 3 v 3 so there should be a way to make them less overwhelming in 3 v 3 while keeping their potential in 1 v 1. Having to buy all the abilities and buffs like nobz do would greatly balance it out and with cost and build time reduce it will still be viable in 1 v 1.

However that makes them both cheaper to get them onto the field, so they show up faster since you don't need to enter the floating realm in order to buy one right after teching, and their reinforcement cost goes down. This would actually make them even better in 3v3 than they already are now because of those points as well as the fact that economy is shared.

[Cyris]

However that makes them both cheaper to get them onto the field, so they show up faster since you don't need to enter the floating realm in order to buy one right after teching, and their reinforcement cost goes down. This would actually make them even better in 3v3 than they already are now because of those points as well as the fact that economy is shared.

Right, but the point is to reduce their base stats by a good chunk at the same time, as well as gate things like teleport behind upgrades. Weaker, so they don't dominate 3v3 as much, and cheaper so there is an actual point to going T3 in 1v1.

Spitballing, buts here's an example of a set of changes I think could help termies across the board be more valuable in 1v1 and less blatantly OP in 1v1 (pallies are not addressed here):
Cost from 600/100 to 500/125
Teleport no longer default ability, is now granted by Libra Demonica
Retreat cooldown set to 1s (no cooldown)
Terminators now can level, with only 10% health per tier (like tacs and asm)
Health reduced from 1416.67 to 900
Melee damage reduced from 68 to 45
Ranged damage reduced from 63 to 40
Further changes could be removal or limitation or weapon upgrades, or making teleporters a separate upgrade from Demonica.

As a side, INT could also stand to have their req cost go down and power cost increase, to make them compete more reasonably against the termies and pallies. As it stands, the costs are so close, it's quite rare that INT are gonna be a better purchase then waiting for 100/40 more and have terminators.

[xXKageAsashinXx]

For the hp, they end up with roughly 100 less hp at max level, so either you did that intentionally or your math is wrong. Of course, if no math was involved, then here's your correct value for the nerfs with the leveling involved.
929.48 starting hp
44.61 starting melee dmg
41.33 starting ranged dmg

As for teleport, I personally think that it should stay built in and instead give the termies Nemesis Force Swords, and make their splash halberds part of the Demonica upgrade or separate for a low price. Additionally, granting them another upgrade to Falchions would work to mimicking lightning claws since they're supposed to be the speedy weapon type of grey knights. Now that I think about it, giving the falchions to the purifiers or the interceptors wouldn't be a bad idea either.

The retreat is too generous to be giving it to them like any other infantry. Even with these nerfs, they are still huge chunks of SHI that's hard to dissuade when there isn't enough damage types that get bonuses from their armor type. Maybe make it go back to 3 minutes so that it's practically usable every engagement, but dangerous if you're in a position that doesn't even allow you that much time before sending them out and needing them to fall back.

[Cyris]

Nope, no maths done. The intion wasn't to make level 4 equal current. I want Gk termies stats nerfed hard, with a build time and cost reduction. I think it will make it part of a late game 1v1 build without breaking 3v3 as badly.

[xXKageAsashinXx]

Well, if you nerf them too hard, then they stop being terminators and become gk's version of sterns and vans combined.

[531st]

Apart from "gkt3overpowerednerf" cries I'd say that strike squad are kind of alright with their current ranged damage. If u lower ranged damge because of melee damage as it was b4, u'll get very expensive, mildly tanky slow unit that gets outshot by ranged squads and outchopped by melee squads which leads to no ss builds in every single gk army u'll ever see in high lvl games. And they dont scale too good in t2 cuz they get outclassed by like everything except termagaunts and dire avengers. Their upgreades are good but they are more of the luxury purchase rather than smth u need be ahead of ur enemy. I dont really like "not bad at everything, not good at everything" concept

With GK vs SM matchup is a tricky one. As a guy who mained SM and GK for my entire life here is my opinion. I'd say that GK is somewhat easier to play in t1 than SM. BC just pushes WATH button and chases 1 squad for the rest of the engagement, IST dont need as much micor as scouts, SS can run around waving their halberds, ops are like burst damage medium ranged scouts with that bonus smoke screen, rhino is... A box that gets ur flamer around a turret.
In low to mid lvl games GK are dominating SM in t1 and can continue to snowball in t2 and especially t3 (hence the rivers of tears) but with having straight forward tactics they dont have too much ability to "manuever" and change their playstyle and when it comes to high lvl games GK are starting to have problems. BC is extremely slow and that is a problem, he is the slowest commander in game and his +1 speed for 15 secs doesnt help him all the time, he is still much slower than scouts. There are tons of stuff that hurt GK and have very different playstyles like double shotgun scouts and asm, powersword FC and double tacs, double devs and at least one with vengeance rounds, turrets, sniper scouts that can demolish gk if microed well. Apo still has some of problems, especially after t2 when fleshhook gets into play but TM and FC can do wounders.
So in high lvl games ppl that know how how to counter gk and/or those with godly micro can dominate GK in t1. I've played a lot of games SM vs GK as SM and as GK and vs ones who i'd call the strongest SM and GK players around and seeing as GK gets roflstomped does not surprise me at all. It is really hard for me to play as GK vs some good FC or TM, much harder than every other factions and commanders i'd say (except warlock and commissar, i hate those guys )

The problem with GK is that they dont have too much tactics choises and they cannot adapt vs enemy that can adapt vs you. In t1 gk forced to go SS if they want to not melt under the ranged damage, ops if they want to not get bullied by melee for entire t1, no1 buys rhino these days only very few guys that wanna roll around set-up teams with enough micro to control two parts of a split army or maybe just b4 t2 to get early vehicle counter. With their choises kinda limited every time i see GK i understand that i'll see SS, ops, Aegis and GL IST. I can vary my build to counter that from the start. The only real choises for GK are: do i want to build dread/purgations t2. Almost all the other purchases are either not luxury ones like some BC gear like vortex or staff, some SS upgreades, some ops upgreades etc or a forced purchases. Purifiers=HI spam without hard melee counter, libr=melee spam, vindicare=low model squads/squishy vehicles, Terminators=not-tanks, Paladins=tanks, Interceptors=long ranged tanks.
I can predict almost every single move GK will do and build according counters while GK dont have that ability so their only options should be at least better than the very same ones from other factions, so they would at least win in plain same on same units fight, and not suck only when enemy is trying to counter your stuff. Imagine SM with terminators as their only t3 option. Or eldar with seer council being only t3 option. Or orks with nobs, or IG with just baneblade. Do you think they will be as strong as they are now? Nope, they will suck balls and be roflstomepd by every single player that decides to counterpick units and you wouldnt be able to build anything else cuz its ur only t3 option! Thus in order to keep the only option viable, it needs to be a match to other factions' multiple options that have different strong and weak sides.

So the situation is: we have a gk player that will go for obvious one and only termies in t3 and will clash with other not-gk players. Since we want this player to be as good as other faction players we need him not to get roflstomped. What can we do to make him not suck vs Vanquisher spam, autocannon spam, D-cannon spam, farseers, TCSM spam, fex spam, not gk termie spam with different weapons, Sorc, nobs spam, avatars, GUOs, land raiders, manticores, inqs, Fireprisms, buffed plasma GMs being the same termies? How can we do that? OFC THEY SHOULD BE FKING STRONG TO DO THAT CRAP

[ol'smithy]

Apart from "gkt3overpowerednerf" cries I'd say that strike squad are kind of alright with their current ranged damage.

From the codex:

Tac damage: 25 damage per hit / 14.58 damage per second
SS damage: 28 damage per hit / 16.33 damage per second

I think this is where the difficulty in T1 comes from for SM. Even taking into consideration kraken rounds, each GK unit beats SM ones out of the gate. Add WATH and you cant even kite effectively with the speed buffs.

[egewithin]

SM can struggle in T1 vs GK. But SM will rise and shine in T2 with plasma guns, power weapons and stuff. GK can only react with Purifies, psycannon spam, Assasin dude and a Dreadnough. SM can counter each of there pretty damm good, specially with Force Commander. T1 weakness pays off in T2 so I think not too mcuh problem here.

The real problem starts in T3 specially for Apo. He can not counter GK Terminators, specially Paladins.

[Sub_Zero]

You need a dreadnought to shut down that teleporting gay and prevent his halberd from KILLING models left and right. Cheap halberd + teleport-pack on this kind of hero is so broken.

[Cyris]

Stuff

I find your grammar hard to parse, but your content is spot on in my experience I'm also a former SM main and current GK player, and your analysis of the match and faction follows my experiences. GK builds are the most shallow and predictable of any race, SM have a disadvantage early game that can be largely mitigated by player experience with the matchup, T2 feels oddly shallow considering how many options there are, Termies need to be strong to hang.

My GK wishlist:
Rhino as a viable T1 option, or moved to T2 and replaced with Warrior Acolyte squad (plz!) or bring back down a T2/3 squad to T1.
T3 made less OP in 3v3 and more viable in a normal 1v1.
Design writings from Caeletos about the "progressive scaling" design goals of GK, since I find it to be the single least scaling faction in the game (previous tier units are not worth keeping in almost every tier, IST being the notable exception)
General nerfs to some over-preforming units to allow for buffs to the numerous under preforming or overly niche units/upgrades.

Nerf list:
Ops
BC - agies, halberd, teleporter (maybe remove imo...)
SS T1 (add a power cost to squad)
Vanilla Dread
Psy-Purgation
Termies / Pallies

Buff list:
Rhino
BC - power sword, energy regen armor, psychic lash,
SS T2 scaling
Add a new T1 squad
Flamer Dread
Purifiers

[531st]

Nerf ops and SS and GK will get roflstomped by melee spam. Sluggas, banshees, warlocks, hormas, lictors etc and GK can just go and support other side or smth.
Nerf termies/pallies and they are gonna get roflstomped by all of the leman russes, LC termies, fexes, genestealers, TCSM, Techmarines, sorcs, inqs. It is already disgusting to play GK cuz of how hard can they be countered. Only some hardcore fans gonna play GK if that happens
Vanilla dread is already crap. Least impact walker that u could possibly get in t2 with same cost.
Nerf purgations and they gonna get hard countered by every player that have any micro, they would be hard to use, still very buggy, expensive unit that can only delay enemies by dying slowly

Buff rhino? How? U give it more armor and it gets too stronk, give it more damage? It will require much more damage to compensate the terrible vehicle pathfinding. I'd say just move it to t2 and bring purgations back
Buff SS scaling? How? As soon as u touch them, u'll drown in tears. "boo hoo, upgreaded purgations kill my vanilla CSM"
Add new t1 unit? It should be extremely good to make GK not suck vs so much things. Better than ops for sure
Flamer dread could use a buff to make it at least as damaging as HF
Purifiers buff? They are extremely situational and extremely deadly. U buff them and they will become a nightmare in some situations

BC is a very complicated guy and nerfing smth will require buffing smth cuz he is "not bad at everything, not good at everything type" which u want to make just "not good at everything"

To sum things up: u created a faction that can be played only in t2 and is very good in t2. Congrats, no1 plays GK since game have t1 and t3 and you are drowning in boiling poop and tears cuz of how OP they are in t2

[Cyris]

thanks for the feedback! Remember, this isn't a changelist but the general high level directions that I think would help make the faction more varied, and less silly in 3v3. I'm a GK player, and want the faction to stay viable while opening up build options.

Nerf ops and SS and GK will get roflstomped by melee spam. Sluggas, banshees, warlocks, hormas, lictors etc and GK can just go and support other side or smth.

As of right now, double ops play in response to melee spam is so outrageously powerful, I think there is plenty of room to bring them back in line. Remember (and this is a general theme) that the change would not happen in a vacuum, I listed a bunch of changes that I think would need to happen in tandem. For example, introducing Warrior Acolyte Squad would give more counter melee options and buffs to Rhino in T1 would make it much better suited as a melee counter. The magnitude of the ops nerf is relevant of course, since if it were as big as last time (maybe 50 more req cost) it would have a small impact.

Nerf termies/pallies and they are gonna get roflstomped by all of the leman russes, LC termies, fexes, genestealers, TCSM, Techmarines, sorcs, inqs. It is already disgusting to play GK cuz of how hard can they be countered. Only some hardcore fans gonna play GK if that happens

Termies/pallies are brokenly strong in 3v3. I'd like to see changes to them to make them worthwhile in 1v1 and more manageable in 3v3.

Nerf purgations and they gonna get hard countered by every player that have any micro, they would be hard to use, still very buggy, expensive unit that can only delay enemies by dying slowly

Buggy how so? I haven't noticed anything personally.
As for changes, I think they are one of the squads that over preforms, making the roster too small. Giving out a bunch of buffs to under preforming units needs to be paired with nerfs to over preforming ones. I'd specifically like to see the burst duration of the psy-cannons reduced to 1s and get a cooldown of .1s. This would make suppression effect them, and reduce the damage to vehicles that make it out of the firing arc, while keeping the dps almost exactly the same. Heck, the damage could go up by 9% (since the .1s cooldown would kindda cover this).

Buff rhino? How? U give it more armor and it gets too stronk, give it more damage? It will require much more damage to compensate the terrible vehicle pathfinding. I'd say just move it to t2 and bring purgations back

I've listed various possible direction for the Rhino elsewhere. Focus it as a better transport and take the gun away, improve acceleration / turning radius, give it more seats, reduce cost, increase health, reassess upgrade costs, grant renforce aura in T2 etc. There are many options, and I think baby steps would work fine.

Buff SS scaling? How? As soon as u touch them, u'll drown in tears. "boo hoo, upgreaded purgations kill my vanilla CSM"

Buffs to SS scaling would need to coincide with some T1 changes, but I think it's very doable. I like the idea of making SS a 1.5 unit (costs power). In that would, the power cost alone would be enough of a nerf for T1, heck it could even get some damage increases (or start with purification). As for scaling, Cael has even spoke on this - move weapon upgrades to T3 and buff them maybe, or psy-ammo to T3 and buff it. Replace psy-cannon with something that is more focused on fighting a specific type of enemy and move incinerator to T2 and make similar changes. Lots of different possibilities.

Add new t1 unit? It should be extremely good to make GK not suck vs so much things. Better than ops for sure

Warrior Acolytes or Crusaders. And no way should a new unit use ops as a balance target, they are borderline (if not outright) OP, but do allow GK to function in 1v1. No unit should preform that well for so little cost

Purifiers buff? They are extremely situational and extremely deadly. U buff them and they will become a nightmare in some situations

Leaving them alone might be fine, but my goal for them would be to make them less situational and more broadly usable in more compositions. I agree that right now, they are a "win more" unit, and that's about it.

BC is a very complicated guy and nerfing smth will require buffing smth cuz he is "not bad at everything, not good at everything type" which u want to make just "not good at everything"

Do you really think my goal is to make BC "not good at everything"? I listed a bunch of things on him to both nerf and buff. Half his wargear is situational to the point of worthlessness, and the rest is real cheap. I can barely remember the last game I played where I didn't end up with halberd, agies and teleporter! Nothing else is as efficient in cost and as impactful in play.

To sum things up: u created a faction that can be played only in t2 and is very good in t2. Congrats, no1 plays GK since game have t1 and t3 and you are drowning in boiling poop and tears cuz of how OP they are in t2

I'll turn the question to you then. I agree that GK have the most limited number of build options of any faction, and are incredibly predictable. I find that despite that, they are viable in 1v1 and downright goofy in 3v3. My proposal is to generaly nerf some of the units that are auto-buys, while buffing up the junk I never touch. What direction do you think would help them be more varied in builds without being OP?

I've been toying with a GK full proposed changelist, so it's nice to talk some of these out. I'd love to do some matchs some time, my roster of 1v1 players is small cause west coast.

[Bahamut]

why people think SS scale badly? they're nurmerically superior in every way than tactical marines.. only thing tacs got in their favor is the bursty mechanic of rocket launcher, cause SS psycannon has the same or even more dps than the rocket launcher

Simply put, if SS "scale badly" then tactical marines scale even worse

[DarthMoose]

Tactical Marines scale better for 2 reasons as far as I can see, plasma weapons give them a potential dps against heavy infantry and super heavy infantry that SS can't deal with as well come t2-t3. The rocket launcher does burst damage which is harder to account for. I think this is fine, SS trade in that specialized nature for the Psycannon which cover multiple roles at the same time, they even get a snare.

All said, I'm not expert.

[Bahamut]

so we are just ignoring that SS squad leader does have plasma damage, plus the psycannon upgrade which will also do full damage to HI and SHI? having in mind that SS got a permanent 20% damage increase with the upgrade that gives a plasma weapon to the squad lead

[DarthMoose]

The justicar and psybolts ammunition and psycannon add up to 230 req 75 power and 5 pop, that's far more expensive than plasma guns (60 req 30power) for similar dps against SHI. Thats a 170/45 disparity, or a quarter of a dreadnaught. Tacs just scale cheaper i.e better.

Please if my notions are wrong, correct me.

[ol'smithy]

Tactical Marines scale better for 2 reasons as far as I can see, plasma weapons give them a potential dps against heavy infantry and super heavy infantry that SS can't deal with as well come t2-t3. All said, I'm not expert.

Don't forget the splash damage on the psycannon, as well as the fact that it does full damage to units in cover.

[Codex]

The justicar and psybolts ammunition and psycannon add up to 230 req 75 power and 5 pop, that's far more expensive than plasma guns (60 req 30power) for similar dps against SHI. Thats a 170/45 disparity, or a quarter of a dreadnaught. Tacs just scale cheaper i.e better.

Please if my notions are wrong, correct me.

Why consider the cost of the Justicar but not the Tac sergeant in the comparison?

[saltychipmunk]

Codex's comments about scouts a few posts back is partially why i dislike units that rely on mobility /capping speed to be balanced because all one needs are units that are almost as fast but slightly better in every other way to outright counter units like scouts.

and scouts really only have that ms, their hp is abysmal , their out of gate ranged damage is quite low and their pop cost in comparison is extremely high

saying strikes dont scale well is not really the best way to think about it. it is less that they dont scale well and far more that they are just ridiculously good from the word go but their upgrades are expensive or dont mesh well.. the days of them being weak ranged units are gone now.

slightly different from the upgrades being crap.

[DarthMoose]

Why consider the cost of the Justicar but not the Tac sergeant in the comparison?

I was looking specifically at dps vs SHI, it would take the Justicar and the Psycannon to match a tac squads plasma gun. Pretty sure the Justicar is ~16 dps as is the Psycannon vs the 31 dps of the Plasma gun. I was just exploring Ideas on why some might say Tacs scale better than SS.

[xXKageAsashinXx]

Just a thought, but since SS are supposed to be a hybrid squad that acts as the main compliment of your army like tacs, why not give them melee upgrades alongside their ranged ones as well? I can't see any reason why they should only be able to boost their ranged damage when their whole point is being able to fight some game initial squads with melee resist by themselves without resist since they can both shoot them up and then special them all over the place? Give them a melee upgrade that gives them power melee or melee resist or something and they should be able to scale well enough since they move up from "not bad at everything, not great at everything" to just "not bad at everything".

[Dark Riku]

They already have melee resistance.

[xXKageAsashinXx]

... welp

[Crewfinity]

strike squad is in a very interesting place right now. their T1 performance is awesome, they really shine in the early game, countering almost any combination of starting squads from other factions. they can bully other units all through the early game, and their burst pattern lets then get lots of model kills and experience as well. however, while their upgrades in T2 are all very good upgrades on paper, there are a few reasons why their scaling is criticized. For the rest of this post, I'll be mostly comparing them to tactical space marines and chaos space marines, since they are the most similar units.

Melee Performance
A large part of their strength in T1 is having 70 melee skill. this allows them to beat similarly statted and priced units by forcing melee (tacs, csm), and also force off dedicated melee units by firing at them on approach, and relying on special attacks to force them off (sluggas, banshees). However, this unique advantage of theirs is largely nullified in T2, since dedicated melee units get leaders, higher melee skill and damage, and more durability. other ranged squads get similar boosts in damage and durability and artillery hits the field, meaning that forcing melee on other ranged squads is often no longer viable, as you bleed too much trying to approach. Justicar helps somewhat of course, with high damage and another model, but its not as drastic of an increase in squad melee performance as a TSM or CSM leader, as both give you an offensive ability improving squad melee performance and a special attack which the squad did not previously have access to.

Ranged Performance
These guys have fantastic starting ranged damage, better than both TSM and CSM, and are fantastic at bleeding light infantry models from cover or on the move. however, come T2 the prevalence of artillery and plasma damage type takes away a lot of their efficiency, making them less able to bully squads like guardsmen, and the Strike Squad's wide array of damage types through their upgrades makes them much less efficient than their counterparts at scaling or switching roles to counter an enemy unit.

Specialization
One of the biggest advantages that TSM and CSM have is their ability to specialize roles, whereas Strike Squad is designed to become more generalist. By this, I mean that all three squads have similar roles in T1, being tanky frontline ranged squads, and being particularly effective at fighting high model ranged infantry squads. In T2 however, CSM gain access to specialization against infantry, gaining huge performance advantages through their marks and leader. Because this role is so anti-infantry focused, the upgrades are very efficient, only 100/30 to become strong HI counters (MoT), or 70/30 to become a very strong melee unit. Tactical marines get access to almost 31 plasma dps for HI-countering purposes for 60/30, or a high burst damage missile launcher for anti-vehicle. These are both efficient upgrades, and improve squad performance for a specific role. However, Strike Squad does not specialize like these units do, and therefore suffers from a huge disparity in efficiency, being able to fufill more roles but not receiving as high-impact upgrades. Say you're trying to tech your SS into a heavy infantry role, do you get the justicar for 75/25 to get the plasma damage? you're paying almost the same cost as the SM plasma gun for half the dps. of course you also get access to the support abilities that the justicar offers, but you're adding more pop and upkeep, and the TSM are going to perform better against HI. Not to mention that the CSM who got MoT for just a bit more are now going to shoot your SS off the field with ease. Even if you get Psybolt ammo, an additional 75/25, you're only putting out 19.2 plasma dps, for a now total cost of 150/45 in upgrades! you also get better at fighting light infantry through the 20% damage increase, but its obvious that their upgrades are much less efficient than their counterparts. Similarly, when buying the psycannon you get a weapon that performs well against all unit types, but does not hard counter everything, and is nowhere near as good in an AV role as the SM missile launcher. The problem with all of this is that when you reach T2, you're trying to be as efficient with your resources as possible to counter your opponents purchases, and while SS is good at fighting anything, they'll be outclassed by units that have a specific role.

Upgrades
As a generalist ranged squad, you're usually going to want to have psybolt ammo, psycannon, and justicar. All three upgrades cost 230/70, but turn the SS into a very formidable ranged squad. However, each upgrade only gives small performance benefits, so you almost always have better/more efficient purchases you can make. This has the effect of making their T2 upgrades seem like luxury or 'win more' expenses, since there are very few situations when it is the best decision to buy them.
Justicar: for 75/25 you get support and snaring abilities, more durability and damage, and moderately better scaling against HI. probably my favorite upgrade for the squad, you get good value from this purchase usually. Helps SS find their place as a midline support unit.
psycannon for 80/25 you get a great weapon upgrade, good against all units. however, its not really something you usually get as a counter purchase against a vehicle, you need harder counters. its good against infantry but not usually good enough to make me want to buy it, since SS already did good damage to infantry. really it just makes the SS better at a general fire support role, but when you compare it to chaos marks or tactical weapon upgrades, it feels like you're paying close to the same amount of resources to get a little bit more damage. Also something to consider is that their weapon upgrades make them lose even more melee effectiveness, so there's a bit of clashing synergy between this and the justicar.
Psybolts Ammunition for 75/20 you get a 20 percent ranged damage increase. compare this to eternal war, which is cheaper, affects melee and ranged damage, and comes a tier earlier when its much more effective. You'll get moderately better ranged performance, but this is definitely the most luxury purchase for the SS. Additional to that, the differing damage types of the squad have some anti-synergy with this upgrade, as often times a lot of their potential damage is wasted due to the armor type (piercing vs HI, plasma vs LI, either of those vs vehicles). This upgrade competes with a lot of other potential purchases, and really does nothing to alter the squad's role or performance, just makes them a little bit better at ranged fire support.

So to sum it all up, SS are a very high investment high impact unit in T1, and dominate the battlefield early game, but have to transition to a more general fire support role in mid/late game. their generalist upgrades are expensive and inefficient, and their T1 advantages are lost in the transition to T2. while a fully upgraded SS is good against many unit types, it takes a huge amount of resource investment which would be better spent of high impact purchases like a vehicle or a new squad. they are not as adaptable as CSM or tacs, and lose a lot of their initial flexibility.

[xXKageAsashinXx]

So, would it be alright to make some of their upgrades more specialized, like a melee upgrade for their halberds to add splash or something of the like? And yes, I know I just said this, but this post is directly replying to crew so I feel like I have to say it again. Maybe have their justicar give them an additional 10 melee skill, to keep their special attack advantage into tier two? Have a mirror to Psybolts Ammunition that's like Purified Blades to increase melee damage? Assuming that last bit was taken into consideration, make both Psybolts and the melee buff more substantial like 35% or 40%, since they are separate after all (EW for CSM is 20% dmg increase for everything and is 10req 5pow cheaper, which makes psybolts downright crappier in comparison, even if you bring in the psycannon into the mix since there is such thing as TCSM), and make them a one-or-the-other upgrade choice as balance?

[Codex]

I was looking specifically at dps vs SHI, it would take the Justicar and the Psycannon to match a tac squads plasma gun. Pretty sure the Justicar is ~16 dps as is the Psycannon vs the 31 dps of the Plasma gun. I was just exploring Ideas on why some might say Tacs scale better than SS.

I don't think you can draw the conclusion that tacs scale better than Strikes off looking at their damage vs SHI... many things don't bear direct comparison at all. For example, I could cherry pick and state that Strikes scale better than tacs because with full upgrades they do good damage against vehicles, SHI, HI and infantry, while tacs have to choose between doing good AV or going with the plasma gun.

Another problem with the comparison is that you're looking at anti-SHI damage, which really isn't that prevalent until T3. Sure, the Tyrant Guard and Ogryns have it, but the reality is that Tyrant Guard requires AV to truly deal with it anyway and Ogryns require anti-melee units to deal with them, as neither tacs nor SS can handle Ogryns on their own. As always, it's important to consider the compositions and game scenarios when drawing a comparison.

Since we're dealing with SHI, it's likely T3. Tacs at this point are likely to have a sergeant. They're pretty vulnerable to getting forced off without him, and ATSKNF gains value as the game drags on, since the amount of plasma/ explosive/ artillery/ powerful melee squads just goes through the roof. In fact, unless you somehow have critical mass of ranged blob, the sergeant is practically essential to ensuring they are allowed to output their dps. After all, a unit actually needs to do something to be worth something. If the tacs without sergeant get forced back to base instantly, dealing no damage, while Strikes can stand and fight with their Justicar, it's basically not even worth considering: tacs without sergeant scale worse than fully upgraded Strikes. But of course, that would be a fallacious comparison, since I haven't considered the case where tacs can stand and fight (perhaps with Sergeant and ATSKNF).

This is without even considering the synergy that GK units often bring to each other. There are two (?) activated abilities that allow the Strike Squad to enhance what their allies are doing. Generally synergistic buffs tend to scale well over the course of a game, since they are applied to better units (think applying a buff to a Slugga squad, now apply that same buff to a Nob squad).

It's easy to say x costs this and does this dps, but dps in itself is misleading: a weapon that does spread damage (like TCSM) will have very different behaviour than a burst orientated single entity weapon (like tac plasma gun). TCSM as a squad has higher anti-HI damage than tac plasma gun, but that's not the whole picture. Taking an example of TCSM vs tac plasma gun, you'd find that a plasma gun tends to kill a single model quite quickly, thus reducing the enemy's dps, while the TCSM will not tend to focus down single models unless the enemy is attempting to kite and getting the last model focused. Another example of dps being misleading is with burst AV weapons: burst AV weapons tend to have low dps but are generally more useful due to the difficulty of catching a vehicle when you have to stand still to shoot.

TL;DR: Care always needs to be taken to ensure that a comparison is fair and representative of a likely game situation and army composition.

[Cyris]

As my capstone to Crews solid writeup: Games where I completely ignore my SS in T2 (or even if they get killed in T1.5/2) tend to go better then games where I make the T2 investments into upgrading them. The bang for buck is just not there, other options are nearly always straight up better. Getting Justicar alone is sometimes good, but even then it's a big chunk of req/power and upkeep that is better spent on other units or upgrades.

This makes me firmly say; they do not have progressive scaling, they have poor scaling. This might be arguably balanced from their T1 potency, but I'd gladly see their potency spread out (T1 nerfs for T2 buffs), making for a long term investment. As of now, it is a transitional replacement unit.

Edit:
A few other notes about SS scaling: Psy-cannon can't fire on the move and has low burst damage. Weapon upgrades remove melee weapon / specials on the model. Justicar dealing plasma damage means lower damage to infantry.

[DarthMoose]

Apologies, rather new to elite and I'd rather avoid prefacing every discussion with keep in mind army compositions. And yes codex that's exactly my point, their two different squads doing somewhat similar role. But there's certain things tacs do better in the end game (AV and SHI being t3 concerns) that SS struggles with.

SS trade in that specialized nature for the Psycannon, which covers multiple roles at the same time, they even get a snare.

[Crewfinity]

So, would it be alright to make some of their upgrades more specialized, like a melee upgrade for their halberds to add splash or something of the like? And yes, I know I just said this, but this post is directly replying to crew so I feel like I have to say it again. Maybe have their justicar give them an additional 10 melee skill, to keep their special attack advantage into tier two? Have a mirror to Psybolts Ammunition that's like Purified Blades to increase melee damage? Assuming that last bit was taken into consideration, make both Psybolts and the melee buff more substantial like 35% or 40%, since they are separate after all (EW for CSM is 20% dmg increase for everything and is 10req 5pow cheaper, which makes psybolts downright crappier in comparison, even if you bring in the psycannon into the mix since there is such thing as TCSM), and make them a one-or-the-other upgrade choice as balance?

They used to have this back in like 2.2 or something like that with nemesis focus.
adding upgrades that make them somewhat better at melee suffer from the same problem, not efficient enough. for an upgrade like that to be worth it it would have to be comparable to MoK, which gives increased speed, melee skill, power melee, and a charge. Thats something you cant do because that's what purifiers are for. melee splash would be either OP or useless since they're rarely in melee in T2 and dont want to be. additional melee skill would be OP because they already have the standard amount for dedicated melee units. having melee skill comparable to bloodletters would be crazy. one thing i could get behind is maybe adding a melee charge to the squad with the justicar purchase, but both psybolt ammo and weapon upgrades have negative synergy with melee so adding melee buffs doesnt really make sense.

i think psybolt ammo could be improved definitely, its their weakest upgrade. 40 percent seems extreme. I think it could easily be 25 percent without changing the cost though. that would make it have better value relative to justicar or psycannon without making it OP imo.

[xXKageAsashinXx]

So, would it be alright to make some of their upgrades more specialized, like a melee upgrade for their halberds to add splash or something of the like? And yes, I know I just said this, but this post is directly replying to crew so I feel like I have to say it again. Maybe have their justicar give them an additional 10 melee skill, to keep their special attack advantage into tier two? Have a mirror to Psybolts Ammunition that's like Purified Blades to increase melee damage? Assuming that last bit was taken into consideration, make both Psybolts and the melee buff more substantial like 35% or 40%, since they are separate after all (EW for CSM is 20% dmg increase for everything and is 10req 5pow cheaper, which makes psybolts downright crappier in comparison, even if you bring in the psycannon into the mix since there is such thing as TCSM), and make them a one-or-the-other upgrade choice as balance?

They used to have this back in like 2.2 or something like that with nemesis focus.
adding upgrades that make them somewhat better at melee suffer from the same problem, not efficient enough. for an upgrade like that to be worth it it would have to be comparable to MoK, which gives increased speed, melee skill, power melee, and a charge. Thats something you cant do because that's what purifiers are for. melee splash would be either OP or useless since they're rarely in melee in T2 and dont want to be. additional melee skill would be OP because they already have the standard amount for dedicated melee units. having melee skill comparable to bloodletters would be crazy. one thing i could get behind is maybe adding a melee charge to the squad with the justicar purchase, but both psybolt ammo and weapon upgrades have negative synergy with melee so adding melee buffs doesnt really make sense.

i think psybolt ammo could be improved definitely, its their weakest upgrade. 40 percent seems extreme. I think it could easily be 25 percent without changing the cost though. that would make it have better value relative to justicar or psycannon without making it OP imo.

The thing I thought up as a melee upgrade would be the splash for their halberds. I can't really see that as OP since something like that would obviously be in either T2 or T3, where they'd have to compete against true melee units like MoK CSM. Since they use only normal melee damage, and of course the splash would be the same, they'd only be truly dangerous to IA since SS are a hybrid unit, not a dedicated melee unit. That reinforces their role of a good ranged unit that can not only steamroll other ranged units in melee, but also their role of a light melee counter. Since you mentioned a charge and increased speed, I'd just put that in the same upgrade as the splash and the melee damage buff and treat it like a mark, whereas you can't upgrade any further and are stuck with a melee-oriented SS. Though not outstanding, their ranged damage is really good when you consider the damage other melee squads have, so this should at least make them more useful in T2 and drop off in T3. It'd also make them great at chasing because of that, their ranged damage on retreat isn't like 1, especially with WATH, so there's that aspect as well.

As a short intermission, I only noticed at the end of my post that I practically doubled the damage increase for psybolts. I didn't mean to, but it just came out like that. Though I still stand by keeping it at least in the 30% range, for melee or ranged. 25% doesn't change it enough to warrant it because of the initial numbers being too small. The price difference between it and EW is too close, and psybolts are the more expensive one. And while I can see that as something to be concerned about for the psycannon, I'll once again bring up TCSM. Even if that's not acceptable, you could always just make an exception to where the psycannon gets a lower percentage increase. Shouldn't be hard to add an if-then statement in the code.

... like hell that was an intermission...

Back to the upgrades, I was about to suggest a flamer for them, but realized that they already had one. I guess since they can't switch their weapons once they get one, people rarely if at all get them. I'm half inclined to suggest allowing them to switch between their flamer and psycannon if only to see some use out of it. Maybe have it as a one-way trade where you can get the flamer, then get the psycannon, but can't go back? Or have it as you'll get both weapons as a trade-off; get a good anti-all weapon even though you got a flamer for gen bashing, but pretty much take out one model from fighting due to the smaller range a flamer has and make SS even weaker in melee.