Dawn of War 3

First off, I think the balance in the game is largely good – most of the points I make are about fine-tuning.

Eco:
I don’t mind the resource changes in the game – the early requisition increase does make the game less punishing for early squad wipes, which is a good thing for pacing the game into mid and late game. However, because of the extra requisition, building infrastructure is likewise easier.
A listening post is only 200 Requisition. While this felt like a bit more of an investment last patch, it is now quite easier just to place these things all over the map without too much investment. I think LP’s should cost more like 300 requisition to not only be more in line with the new economy, but also represent their power in locking down zones from harassment.
Power Generators:
Power generators are extremely powerful – even having a single power generator over your opponent can feel like a significant tech lead. This is to say that the potency of power generators is far greater than a requisition generator. For example, a req. generator gives +30 to increase a base of +320 to 350, or about a 10% increase. Contrasting requisition gens, a power generator will increase power from +10 to + 35, a whopping 250% increase in power. As such, the marginal benefit of building power generators has a far greater impact on your economy than building a requisition generator.
- This is why you will likely see power generators built on almost every point you grab – the potential benefits of generating 100% more power or so far outweighs the risk of losing the 150 requisition or so used to build it. Most high level matches will often revolve around controlling more power generators than your opponent in order to quickly rush vehicles out (mostly Land Speeders) to quickly end games since your opponent will likely not have sufficient counters in time to stop the damage it will cause.
To promote more strategic (complex) decision making in developing economy, as well as represent the potency of power generators, I think they should cost more requisition to build (Something around 200-250 requisition). At the moment, building power generators is more like a drop in the bucket than a real investment in economy development that requisition generators possess (since they cost power to build, a far scarcer resource, you really don’t want to lose those and will not seem them placed in risky zones like power gens).
- This way, early power investment will hamper early game aggression more, rather than just barely hamper it. Like most RTS, developing economy usually means forgoing quite a bit of combat power, but I feel this opportunity cost isn’t very impactful at the moment. More of that strategic decision making I mentioned.

Space Marines:
I think most people feel that SM are overperforming. While I think this is true in a general sense, I don’t think they are totally OP as to be unbeatable or anything. Like most balance problems, the variables sending SM OTT is more nuanced than what most think and can’t be blamed on any single thing. I will go over some aspects and unit stats of SM. Separately, they don’t seem like a problem, but the combination effect of all together makes them too efficient.

Drop Pods:
Drop pods come down very quickly once you call them down – a bit too quickly imo. They feel more like a “panic button.” A way to quickly call reinforcements and turn a fight on a dime. For example, if you meet an opposing force of, rather than having to back up or suffer a bad engagement like an Ork boyz or an exposed Dire Avengers, the SM can almost instantly reverse the fight. While I understand this principle is the intended faction mechanic and design this way, I think it promotes a bit lazier play than it should since the SM always has a “get out of jail free” button to avert disaster.
- Make drop pods take 2 or 3 seconds longer to hit the field from call-in. In DoW2, drop pods took quite a while to land and felt much more like a strategic decision than an instant power-boost global (also why it was a bit weaker than the standard unit-buff globals). The drop pod mechanic will still retain a lot of potency, but this will promote more strategic use of drop pods (i.e. setting up deep-strikes far behind enemy lines to flank). It will also give a small opening to punish an SM squad out of position that is almost impossible to do so right now.
- There are other ways to go about achieving this goal – not just increase cast time (maybe a slight price tag increase in building squads? Say an extra 15% requisition 5% power?).

Tireless:
Quite self-evidently OP I think, but I’ll quickly go over why; Tireless has too much utility on your backbone unit. It allows the normally “slow” space marines to run faster than anything in the game. This then allows for very quick reactions to either harass distant points, quickly defend harassments or far-away zones, reinforce pushes, and sometimes even run-down squads that are trying to disengage. Example: On K’homet’s Pass, your first tact squad can make it your opponents “natural” generators almost as soon as you can cap them – applying amazing pressure very quickly, further compounded by drop pods + standard. Rather than having to spend ~30 seconds of walking, they can do it in about 1/3 of the time – quite significant in evenly matched fights – particularly when the players are more skilled and know what they are doing.
- Imagine if Zerglings just came out with speed upgrade instead of spending time to research – having the ability to run super fast at minute 0 is too much. Especially in 1v1 and especially in the early game. That 20 seconds of time saved from walking can easily mean the difference between getting that LP up in time or getting it only ½ built and shot down by a hit squad of tacts on your back line.

ASM:
I honestly think their stats are too good. They have some of the highest HP in t1, good crowd control, can jump on back line ranged units, AND they have the highest melee DPS in t1. So not only do they obviously counter ranged units and screen well with their tankiness and jumping, by they are also very strong dueling units vs. boyz and banshees. Additionally, their utility in circumventing front line defenses and going to harass back line generators also means they make space marines one of the strongest eco-harass races in the game with a low lower risk (you can jump out).
- Lower ASM DPS. The Codex says they have 77 Melee DPS. Compare this to Banshees’ 62 Melee DPS. They already have tankiness and crowd control abilities that are good, they don’t also need really high melee DPS too. I’d lower their DPS to ~60 – still high, but not high enough to really go toe-to-toe with more dedicated melee squads.
o “But vindi! They cost way more than other melee squads!” This is true – but I think the utility in jumping, crowd control, power swords, high HP, and harassment can more than warrant a high price tag – even if their melee DPS way quite low.
- ASM in DoW2 were balanced in this manner – tanky, crowd control squad with light anti-tank capabilities in T2, but relatively low DPS compared to banshees or sluggas.
- And/or raise their power tag to 20 or 25 power to reflect their potency. Many SM players will just spam these guys out and completely forgo the actual damage dealer SM unit – devastators – because their melee dps is so high as to be able to take anything on.

Flamers:
I think the damage should be toned down while simultaneously reducing the power cost. This way, it will act much more like a support and area denial tool rather than the squad nuking tool it’s currently used as now. Even a 1-2 second burst is enough to decimate squads. Even a quick reaction to disrupt the flamer is not quick enough to avoid it’s massive damage.

Eldar:
While the last patch nerfed many aspects of Eldar that were warranted (namely, improved webway gate and Scorpion True Damage), some nerfs I do not think fit well; the rangers not cost too much power to justify building. I think their line units could just a slight buff in stats to compensate for their weaker ability to push (i.e. commit to fights and “duke it out” rather than always having to run away).
Some suggestions:
- Increase banshee DPS – at the moment, their DPS is not a strong deterent to keep boyz or ASM off of your fragile ranged Reapers, Avengers, and Rangers. The scream is useful no doubt, but since you can’t turn off auto-cast, they tend to waste it on units like builders or buildings. Additionally, they always have to run at the enemy and lack the shield of boyz or the jump of ASM to help close the distance. By increasing their DPS, they will act much more as an anti-melee unit than the cannon-fodder or back-line crowd control of boyz/ASM.
- Reduce Dark Reaper tear-down time. Dark Reapers lack the burst DPS that Lootas or Devestators can pump out, but do have the added utility of being able to engage more targets like building and vehicles. However, this doesn’t really help Eldar early game where games are often decided. Giving the added mobility to react and dodge incoming threats will help make them more of a threat to face. I also think this goes into the theme of Eldar more and will help differentiate them from lootas and devastators.
- Revert or change Rangers. They simply cost too much power – building your first ranger costs a total of 50 power – far more than the 15 from before! I think either making rangers themselves cost 25 power or the unlock cost 25 power would’ve been sufficient, but not both. Their DPS just doesn’t justify the price tag, regardless of what players who play 3v3s say (where even before this patch, there existed real and effective counters to this “spam” that was the reason for their nerf – spam I’ve rarely saw executed properly at high skill levels).
- A damage or sight increase would also justify their cost now.
Ork and Space Marine mechanics also increase as you teir up (more WAAAGHs, more Drop Pods, stronger Standard). But Eldar only get teleporting t2 webway gate and access to connect webway gate to building in t3 (I think? It’s such an after thought to the actual combat it’s hard to make use of it imo – but maybe I’m just a noob about it).
- Perhaps give webways a stronger shield regen bonus as your tech up, or give access to webway connection to buildings in t1, to “compensate” for the lack of webway gate presence on maps early game. Eldar will be able to hit and run quicker and harder as the tech increases.
- I really like the idea of static webways in t1 giving eldar players strategic considerations of where to defend and where to attack – but it does feel a tad impotent to the very flexible and easy to execute drop pods, or the equally as powerful Ork Forward-encampment fortress.

Orks: I think they’re in a very good spot. But I’ll mention a couple of concerns:
Stikkbombs: Deal a lot of damage compared to any other early grenades. Even taking 1 stikkbomb will often spell death to the squad. Could use a damage decrease.
Nobz: their taunt AOE is too powerful. The range is really far, there’s no casting time, and the fact that all taunted squads go into melee means the entire army will be clumped up into 1 zone for easy chain taunts, stuns, and AOE damage.
- Reduce the range on taunt so nobz will have to be very close to the squad to make use of this powerful ability.
Boyz: Perhaps reduce their cost to 270 requisition, but slightly, slightly decrease their DPS. This way, they will act more like the “green tide” and cannon fodder units and will have a role in late game as a cheap requisition sink.

I’m not sure if all of these changes should be made because, like I said, the balance problems affecting the game are more nuanced and require fine-tuning (which is a good thing – it means balance is getting to a good spot very quickly in DoW3’s life cycle). However, I do think each one of these problems/suggestions address an area of concern for each race this patch.

As always, I’d like to hear other views or refutations of my rationale behind these balance proposals.

I think LP's are the sort of thing people just need to focus more on killing. People seem to avoid fighting them unless they have a massive army. I wouldn't mind a slight cost increase to account for increased req gain though.



I think this will be a non issue once people build more units with their increased requisition. If they had 10-12 squads instead of 7-8 + 4 LP's, suddenly that vehicle rush is much more impotent. Personally, as Orks I haven't had any trouble with any sort of vehicle rush in a looooong time. (Hell, most people can't even get their vehicle out.)




I think it's fine because you have to spend the resources to put the unit in the pod, which is tied up doing nothing until you actually call it down. (And the build time for that unit is quite a bit longer.) It's a balanced mechanic imo. I think if people used detectors more while fighting they would be better prepared to disengage when the space marine player wants to use a drop pod to turn a fight. (Or punish the SM player for committing an extra unit to a fight they can't win)




I agree, I think the speed buff should be dialed back so they don't run quite as fast.



I think they need a higher power cost.



I think it's fine without Slow Death. It works as aggressive area denial that way. The problem is that with Slow Death you can't dodge it and you're going to take massive damage from it no matter what you do. imo I would tweak slow death so that it only stuns vehicles, which would still make it a very useful doctrine.




That's what upgrades are for. Imo until players start experimenting more with infantry upgrades I really am hesitant to suggest altering any unit stats.




Massively telegraphed, I think this is just a "git gud" type thing. It's really not any different than grenades in DoW2, except losing squads is way less punishing in this game.



This is another "git gud" thing. I think people need to better spread out their squads and use zoning abilities to reduce the effectiveness of taunt. The only way I would consider changing this ability is if the AoE creeped out like the turret shockwave so you had a second or two to run squads away if they were at a reasonable distance, but squads up close were affected immediately.



Nope nope nope. Orks already have a late game upgrade to make Boyz an orky horde that lets them reinforce 1/3 of their squad for free with every shout. They don't need to be touched, people just need to git gud and use upgrades.

The biggest thing I think people need to start doing is buying infantry upgrades. Their effectiveness is grossly underestimated, especially as Eldar who get a free army wide heal when they upgrade their shields. (Which can be used to win an engagement if you time it correctly.) Additionally, the increased shield regen upgrade for Eldar is massive. I don't know the numbers, but it feels like it atleast doubles shield regen which makes hit and run tactics much much stronger.

There's also the lesser used upgrades, like scout mines, ranger beacons (especially with Ronahn's stealth beacons), Call Da Boyz, a myriad of eldar upgrades (reinforce at webway gates, the aforementioned shield regen upgrade, various wraith unit upgrades.) Eldar out of all the races I feel has the most hidden potential right now, because their old playstyle was by far the cheesiest.

I think there's still so much depth to unlock in the game as is, I'm very wary of changing too much at this point. The balance is pretty solid right now and I think as people continue to get better the game will change quite a bit.

If implemented these changes would really help the balance of the game, I don't feel SM units at their base stats are OP just the fact they synerge so well with the drop pod/standard early and late and certain doctrines. For example banshees have 960 hp but don't do more dps as you've stated than ASM which have 1,500 hp then get buffs coming out of drop pod or by a standard. Good example of KHomets Pass, I see the tireless doctrine in loadout before the game loads, I know whats coming but it still doesnt matter bc i can't field units to counter that early 2 tac squads one from drop pod and 1 made right of the bat from stronghold, a lot of pressure applied early and if i do start to fight back then standard gets dropped and gives 450 extra HP to already tanky squads where i have to reatreat or i start losing stuff but in this process I lose that important 2 power resource sight on my side

@Dullahan

I've seen people, including myself, almost instantly react to drop pod sound indicator and still get clipped by the pod and get sent flying - it's no joke hard to dodge - and simply seeing the reticle doesn't really help that - especially if the SM player wisely places his drop pod to cuttoff retreat paths.
- This was the same argument people like Gorb used to refute the OP-ness of Fist of Gork/Macha Psychic blast and other elite abilities - pretty weak argument and even the expert players can't manage it with high frequency.
- nor is getting hit by the drop pod my main point - it's the fact that a unit can reinforce that zone almost instantly - thus the "panic button" analogy I mentioned. It makes it a tad too easy for the SM player to turn around that fight too quickly. Every second counts in this regard.

I constantly have been getting early upgrades as Eldar - they are good, but don't really add lethality to their units like a flamer can. I often go early shield regen + shield HP boost, nor drastically change the potency of the strategy vs. the more standard strategies like you're suggesting.

You may have a point about the meta evolving (Although I think this is a major cop-out argument as you don't really address or refute my points, just say that that I might be missing some Gosu strategy...), but I can say that the experimenting with builds in my personal experience ends up being far less effective against current SM/Ork meta - indicating that there's a balance problem more so than a "meta" problem in my opinion...

I'll admit I'm still learning Eldar - but I doubt there's some secret new meta strategy that will pop-up and existing somewhere in the nether...

This post has been edited by VindicareX: Jun 9 2017, 03:29 AM

If you bring a worker, you get even more advanced warning than the sound queue. I think drop pods are entirely dodgeable even without this, but it does give you roughly twice the telegraph warning. I don't find it that hard to dodge personally, but obviously placement is always going to be a factor. (And people get better at placing it the better they are.)



If you're looking for high potency, have you tried using Fortune? It's when you use Macha's Q and press the W but hit your own units rather than the enemy ones. They get a massive 75% damage resistance and bonus damage. More damage boost if you leave the spearin the ground too. You can also use Stasis to divide his army and negate his elites. Skip Scorpions, go straight for Macha and life is much easier.

Yes I'm well aware of Macha's mechanics, they are quite good, thanks. I barely touch striking scorpions for this reason (I even rush out Jain Zar for timing pushes).

Im still busy learning the game, but I like your take on eldar. But then again I believe relic intents to have eldar more unique due to their squishy hit & run playstyle. I cannot really agree on dark-reapers , it must be a baby-step for the improved tear-down time.

Also SM being somewhat versatile and effective, they are literally game-enders due to dreadnaughts waiting in their droppods. Again I like the concept very much and they are interesting to play. Tireless gets adjusted hopefully. Further , I find Heavy-Bolter-Team HP is something that should be looked at. Since they dont supress or anything I find it a bit ridiculous how easily they can approached.

For Orks I cannot tell much, but they're somehow unique and interesting as well. And I suppose they're stronger than People perceive them (due to previous eldar/sm dominance over them).
I find the Kommando elite too strong because of his mines. As always, the detection is causing a lot of unfortunate issues, but I'd say they're less impactful compared to DOW2.

Id like to add those things.

- Personally I find energy-shields as map or game mechanic are a bit too strong & predictable overall. they make the game somehow stall , sometimes even boring because you know what the upcoming encounter would be like. Often you and the foe bash each other from one side to the other, so who choses to attack first gets pushed afterwards. It's not a general, but I think attacking should be more promoted!! it'd lead to less 'camping' which adds more excitement.

- detection System & stealth-terrain ..... not sure if I like it.

For detection I can just say its a fucking pain in the ass for SM, esp. against Kommando.

Just takes some practice at spreading servitors out and making sure you're using the AoE detect aura. You can also toss servo-skulls out like candy.

I know, but it feels like unneeded reason to keep u even more busy Im old meanwhile