Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Issues dealing with gameplay balance.
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welshy
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Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby welshy » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 3:48 pm

Surely these damned creatures are more resistant to fire than mere humans?

Yet their armour type is infantry and not infantry (fire resist)?

Thoughts people? :)
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Codex » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 3:51 pm

Balance.

A lot of early melee squads, especially the ones with high model low hp profile, need fire resist to be viable in melee. Eg have you considered how easy it would be to counter sluggas or tics with a simple flamer?

Ask yourself if blood letters need fire resist to perform.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby welshy » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 3:55 pm

If it is a question of "need" I am sure there are a few attributes in the game that can be brought up as "unneeded"?

For example, do fire dragons need to be immune to all knockback, have fire resist and, high speed and a range boost upgrade? All of this can't be because they "need" it?

I am sure flavour can be inputted when balance is unaffected. People don't go around trying to burn down bloodletters, so why not just add in the flavour :)
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Sub_Zero » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 4:41 pm

Fire dragons are mental and very broken, let's not mention (and use) them until they are fixed (and according to my idea ;))

And regarding your proposition. You have to explain why it is needed. If there wasn't this armour type you could introduce one. And give us this reasoning - melee units with high model count (slugga boyz could lose this trait actually, op enough with their leader, but kinda mediocre in T1 so let it stay but nerf their retarded nob) are too easily killed up close by flamers and hence can't really perform well because of that. But bloodletters are very cheap and beastly. Why add them an additional benefit?

P. S. But you can make a counter-argument that flamers are more to counter melee units than ranged ones due to their decreased range and that would also sound reasonable, like why nerf flamers against their intended targets?! If this mechanic has been here for years it doesn't mean it is a balanced mechanic, everyone just got used to it and no complaints are heard (but honestly hormagaunts, tics and cats really need that, whereas I would question slugga boyz' and fire dragons' armour type)
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Codex » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 5:32 pm

welshy wrote:If it is a question of "need" I am sure there are a few attributes in the game that can be brought up as "unneeded"?

For example, do fire dragons need to be immune to all knockback, have fire resist and, high speed and a range boost upgrade? All of this can't be because they "need" it?

I am sure flavour can be inputted when balance is unaffected. People don't go around trying to burn down bloodletters, so why not just add in the flavour :)


Flavour can be inputted when balance is unaffected. On the other hand, you haven't proven at all that it doesn't affect balance.

I'm loathe to pay heed to an argument of "Surely these damned creatures are more resistant to fire than mere humans?" in the Balance forums. Give a compelling reason for them to get said change, and make it a balance reason.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby welshy » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 5:52 pm

Why weren't they flame resistant in the first place, was it like this in retail as well?

Surely flamers are not the weapon people use to get rid of Bloodletters? Like when they pop up, they don't go "right flamers are the soft/hard counter for Bloodletters, so lets equip some"?

Therefore the change would not effect the balance? People probably wouldn't even notice the difference.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Paradise Lost » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 6:28 pm

Why would you even use Bloodletters? They are next to useless if the enemy has any ranged capabilities, specially for their cost.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Wise Windu » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 6:41 pm

Some early squads have fire resist armor because of how little HP they have, and how much they bunch up. Flame weapons do AoE, and having that AoE dealt to a whole squad of really squishy models would cause some problems. Bloodletters aren't as prone to bunching up. And if you compare them to Heretics for example, they have 4 300 HP models, whereas Heretics have 8 75 HP models. Put an AoE damage effect on top of the Heretics and they would melt without some extra resistance.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Vapor » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 7:38 pm

Paradise Lost wrote:Why would you even use Bloodletters? They are next to useless if the enemy has any ranged capabilities, specially for their cost.


nah, bloodletters are fine
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Cyris » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 7:42 pm

Vapor wrote:nah, bloodletters are fine


Heck, Bloodletters are borderline OP when their abilities and worship are microed well. Very low cost for the amount of damage and disruption they do, paired with how elusive they are with Phase Shift. If you are finding them not useful, it's likely you are using them against the wrong compositions, not utilizing worship of heir abilities.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Paradise Lost » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 8:29 pm

Cyris wrote:
Vapor wrote:nah, bloodletters are fine


Heck, Bloodletters are borderline OP when their abilities and worship are microed well. Very low cost for the amount of damage and disruption they do, paired with how elusive they are with Phase Shift. If you are finding them not useful, it's likely you are using them against the wrong compositions, not utilizing worship of heir abilities.

That is most likely true since almost everyone agrees that they are very useful. Which leads me to ask, what exactly are they good for? To me they seem like a squishier-than-normal jump squad that has suppression immunity. I don't really get what they excel at, because setup teams are more easily dealt with by using Raptors (which as a bonus can suppress and are tankier) blobs with a Dreadnought/Blastmaster NMs, super heavies with MoT CSMs, and jump troops with MoK CSM/Tics.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Vapor » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 8:42 pm

Bloodletters do far more damage. They can beat dedicated melee with worship support and can wipe setup teams with ease. They can also phase out to nullify damage and heal while phased out (again, worship).
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Crewfinity » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 8:59 pm

really it all comes down to worship.
Under worship bloodletters(and demons in general) get 10 hp/s and 1.5 energy/s, plus the normal worship benefits.
with 4 models, thats 40 hp/s regeneration on a unit with 180 power melee damage.

what you can do with this is teleport onto a setup team or other high value target, and get them under worship ASAP. they'll start taking damage, but once under worship they can tank most things. because they get energy regen as well they can then phase out if they're in real trouble, and while phased out they can chase the setup team or other juicy targets while invulnerable and regaining 400 health for the duration of the ability (if under woship). their high power melee damage and melee skill, along with the health regen, allows bloodletters to shred anything dumb enough to tangle with them in melee, making them good at counter-initiation as well as engagement openers.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby welshy » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 11:11 pm

Why do threads keep going off topic, this is the one flaw of this community :/. Can a moderator step in here?
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Codex » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 11:27 pm

I'm not sure this is off-topic. You've posted in the balance forums, and I've asked you to convince us that they need fire-resist armour through a balance related argument, preferably with regards to their cost-efficiency performance. People step in talking about Bloodletter performance and how to maximise performance through play. Seems on-topic to me.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby welshy » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 11:38 pm

They aren't discussing anything to do with the query raised in the original post. They are just talking about general Bloodletter effectiveness in the game which is completely different to discussing whether the impact of fire-resistant armour would effect the balance.

I just wanted to bring up the idea of changing their armour, not argue all the way by myself?

Probably just best leaving it alone.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Codex » Tue 22 Sep, 2015 11:43 pm

I feel pretty confident that we can interpret their posts as claiming that Bloodletter performance is fine as is, and they don't need a buff. It would be a small one, but they are arguing against it.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Cyris » Wed 23 Sep, 2015 12:35 am

welshy wrote:They aren't discussing anything to do with the query raised in the original post.


Sure, here you go.

The problem is that the OP's is thinking more about the mechanics and terminology of armor type more then the in-game reality. In game, Blootletters will survive through a flame attack much better then heretics. BL will take 300 points of damage before dying, while heretics only 150. So, by that logic, Heretics are much more vulnerable to flame. As Obi-wan would say "many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view".

Reasoning like in the OP will find infinite problems. Like, why isn't the wierdboy Commander armor? Why do Tacs have the same accuracy as Orks? Why do Heretics beat Tacs in melee? Why are Ogryns "small"? Why is a Warrior "medium?" Why does a Rhino have less seats then a Razorback? How does a TM beacon reinforce orks? It gets real silly fast!

Also, BL in no way need a buff. At all. Even remotely. So as a cute observation, sure, it's funny! Balance wise, not so much. Maybe BL health goes down 10% and they become fire resistant. ::shrugs::
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Bahamut » Wed 23 Sep, 2015 2:59 am

thinking like that makes no sense on a balance forum, infantry_fire_resist is a way better armor type than normal infantry and IIRC there's alot of armor multiplier differences other than flame damage, which would make big differences outside flame damage that WILL affect balance.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Wise Windu » Wed 23 Sep, 2015 3:31 am

Nope, just flame and flame_aoe type damage: http://www.dawnofwar.info/index.php?pag ... mage_table

Aside from sniper_av (in favor of regular infantry), I guess. But that's only done by the Vindicare's AV rounds, and it's inefficient to use that against infantry anyway :P
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Sub_Zero » Wed 23 Sep, 2015 5:54 am

why isn't the wierdboy Commander armor? Why do Tacs have the same accuracy as Orks? Why do Heretics beat Tacs in melee? Why are Ogryns "small"? Why is a Warrior "medium?" Why does a Rhino have less seats then a Razorback?

All of these questions are VALID balance issues that anybody can raise. The only thing that might have gotten silly was the last question. But even then it contains a balance-related point - why other factions benefit from a TM's beacon? But when someone asks these questions and presents them as balance problems he has to explain why it negatively affects balance. Like in the case with the weirdboy. He is a subcommander, he has to have commander type armour, like any other commander, that is logical (reasoning without consideration of balance). But when consider how much HP he's got for a unit that shuts down ranged and melee units with ease his armour type and the absence of the melee resistance is more than justified, he would be very op if he had this. But then again nothing seems OP anymore with the melee resistance because havocs have it and nobody complains. People can get used to everything. Give that melee resistance to the weirdboy and ignore all the objections and players will eventually get used to it and adjust their play. You may try to convince them by telling how strong Chaos is in terms of protection from melee but all your attempts will go in vain because they have a different perception and havocs with melee resistance will be the way they are till the end of ages...

The topic actually has gone off-topic. One thing is to discuss the possibility of adding them this armour. Another thing is to discuss how to use bloodletters (strategy discussion). That khorne marine started this and people started explaining him how to utilize bloodletters. Once again different perceptions...

6 posts are off-topic (+ mine). If you want I will list them all. How many posts did you consider off-topic, Welshy (+your reply if you actually do that)? 8 posts in total that flood the discussion.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Swift » Wed 23 Sep, 2015 8:25 am

I'll clarify, the only reason infantry_fire_resist exists is to prevent all early squishy melee squads from dying in a ball of flame, not because they are particularly resilient but because they would die so fast otherwise.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Cyris » Wed 23 Sep, 2015 3:06 pm

Sub_Zero wrote:All of these questions are VALID balance issues that anybody can raise.

Sure, but "I think BL should have fire resist armor" is a VALID balance issue that someone DID just raise. Or did they?

"Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?" is riding that line between a balance question and a lore question - so how should we treat it? Each of the examples I gave ARE lore "concerns" AND balance "concerns" depending on how you want to translate them. Here are those points worded slightly differently:

Isn't the Wierdboy a sub-commander? He doesn't have the commander armor, so it means he's outranked by a Painboy? This is wrong!

Tactical marines are supposed to have BS 4 (is this still true TT people?), why do Ork shootas hit just as often? Tacs are supposed to be the best trained in the galaxy!

There is no way a bunch of Heretics would beat Tacs in melee, this should change.

Ogryns are much bigger then humans, they should not be "small". Warriors are smaller then them, and are "medium", what gives!

The Razorback is a Rhino with weaponry added at the expense of transportation capacity. Why is the Rhino a weapons platform and the Razor a better transport/reinforce point?

Space Marine reinforce Beacons shouldn't be able summon up tyranids, that makes no sense! They should only be able to reinforce SM and IG (but not Ogryns).

Each of these is a LORE question, though addressing them would clearly effect balance. Perhaps I'm "showing" instead of "telling" too much. How about this: BL don't have fire-resist armor for the same reasons Wierdboy is infantry, tacs have the same accuracy as shootas, tics can beat tacs in melee, Ogryns are small, Razors have more seats then Rhinos and Beacons reinforce everyone: Balance.

As a musing about how it's a bit silly, I like the OP's point. I also think it's really silly that Ogryns are small - their are taller then Terminaters and Warriors for goodness sake! And Rhinos are literally dedicated transports, but are the least transport like unit of the bunch. These things are funny. But the OP put this in the Balance forum, didn't pose it as a silly observation, and then got miffed that people treated it as a balance question.

If this isn't on-topic, I don't know what is.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby saltychipmunk » Wed 23 Sep, 2015 4:14 pm

some of those are also quite hilarious , but in the case of the rhino it is kinda shit right now anyway ....so there maybe some balance to look at there.

also that wierd boy so bloody needs a better armor type.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Sub_Zero » Wed 23 Sep, 2015 4:38 pm

My point is that anything in the game can be considered a balance problem. But to prove that for others you have to use in-game logic rather than external sources. He didn't use in-game logic, he used "real-life" (of warhammer realm) logic. If he described us a picture he sees and that fits the realities of the game it could be considered as a possible change (like I tried to explain why +40% range for AK stormtroopers was fine, shared my own view). But everyone's opinion is just a subjective point of view, unless we talk about strict numbers, and it is really hard to convince somebody that something is right purely because he sees one shade of color and you see another and you will never concur. And this is not good to tell that this is wrong and this is right about subjects that are really not that clear.

In short - present whatever aspect of the game as a balance problem but to prove that use the logic of this game.

P. S. I can't think of a single thing that would justfiy bloodletters having this armour type.
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Lichtbringer » Wed 23 Sep, 2015 4:47 pm

I am pretty sure the Firedragons didn't get ranged damage resistance and knockback immunity and increased range because of the Lore, because it has no connection to it. These were all balance changes. Because they needed it. (Or atleast thats the intention, no point arguing here if they turned out to be OP or not. (Really please, thats not the point^^).

As for Bloodletters getting Fireresistence:

I see no balancereason for it (not in a positive nore in a negative sense) but I play Eldar and we don't have flamers... -_-^^
That leaves the Lore. But that is also absoutly minimal. Because, it isn't even noted anywhere if a unit has fireresist. It's not like they get a cool effect that shows it. If we assume that it has no impact on gameplay, then it will also have no visible impact ingame. If it has impact in the game, and someone goes like "Oh, my Flamer does really little damage against Bloodletters, I guess it makes sense they are from a fiery place", then it logically HAS balance impact.

So every minimal lorechange in this regard comes with a as big (or minimal in this case) balancechange.

That leaves us with: "It will be cool if you look through the codex". Not a very compelling reason, and one might argue that it clutters the Codex if it has no balance impact anyway, and just confuses people.

But! I will add, that I also had those thoughts for my favorite race. We all love the fluff. So for a Chaosplayer whose favorite unit is Bloodletters, I can definitly see where this Idea comes from. Its a at maximum minimal balancechange, but would add flavor for people who love bloodletters. But for other people its useless, makes no sense, would just be data clutter and unneeded complexity for the sake of nothing.
I felt the same about some Eldar things, but yeah, in the End we have to accept that we can't change everything just to be a bit cooler for us, if it wouldn't make sense for most other people^^. (I remember I had a thread about the Autarch, and renaming her shield :D)

(Also, we like to propose Lorechanges that have "almost no impact on balance" aslong as the impact is in our favour :P be it as small as it can get.)
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Re: Bloodletters hate fire more than heretics?

Postby Swift » Thu 24 Sep, 2015 9:31 pm

I think this fire resist thing is rather trivial, as fire resist is actually not a game changing thing it only exists to make sure flamers aren't so stupidly strong vs low hp squads.

It's intuitive, no?
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