Serious balance problem: armor system vs heretics

[ddmsky]

Originally, this is the topic that almost made me to give "not recommended" review. And I'm still on the fence tbh.

Armor, and how paper thin it is, makes any heretic operation into an unfun chore. To the point when quick play almost exclusively loads me into nids operations (at 4th difficulty level) as people avoid heretic missions like a plague. My play group also doesn't like ops 3-5 either and refuses to play these missions.

The sheer volume of the shooting barrage burns through 4 bars faster than the low-damage weapons can force an execution. Gun strikes give no iframes, so they are mostly useful for damage after parrying majoris+, but a gun striking into a horde (let alone a shooting horde) guarantees a net loss of armor. Classes like Heavy or gun-oriented Tac are totally screwed - since there's no way Heavy or a Bolter class will ever regain the armor at range, and they will lose it. The same goes for Sniper, but at least he has the best melee weapon in the game (knife) and constant invisibility to disengage at will, so he's not afraid to go into melee range. Assault though...despite being a dedicated melee class, Assault gets his ass handed to him by the volume of unblockable fire - no weapon Assault has can force executions fast enough on 4th diff.

This has to change Saber. Armor needs to start meaning something. Ranged executions need to be a thing. Gun strikes should give iframes. Current armor system needs a ground up rebalance.

[Ragvard Grimclaw]

While I agree with chaos mission being severly less popular due to amount of ranged damage and shield bastards, most of your post makes no sense. Heavy suffering in chaos ops? This is literally my second best class to use in chaos missions due to iron halo and good ranged dps allowing me to facetank terminators or wipe multiple rubrics while shielding my teammates (also heavy weapons shred shields). Sniper (with las fusil, mostly) is best at chaos ops as it two-shots (even one-shots from stealth with right perks and skills) all rubrics and makes quick work of terminators (you rarely even need to go into melee if you don't play solo). Tactical is not the best at range (obviously, compared to heavy or sniper), but with stalker bolter/marksman carbine/plasma still can hold its ground. Assault just sucks until lvl 20+, then it still sucks but a little less.
Overall, from 'The sheer volume of the shooting barrage burns through 4 bars faster than the low-damage weapons can force an execution.' I have a feeling that you're trying to just trade ranged damage without even trying to strafe (bolts fly slow enough to sidestep at least some of them), which will kill you even on tyranid ops. And gunstriking inside the horde is bad idea no matter who you play against.

[KrayZee]

>Gun strikes give no iframes

biggest issue imho. Not necessarily required for balance reason or anything, but it just should be more usuable in overwhelming situations because it's supposed to be armor regeneration when you face hordes of small enemies, yet it's exactly the moment when you *can't* use that mechanic.

Heavy should be fine although it will probably depend on the team - Sniper with recharge will allow them to score headshots that get the shield up in no time. Tactical seems to have it worse when they choose to play with bolters.

[Sygmaelle]

Outside of some bugs which you cant do much about, the armor system in this game is so permissive that I honestly don't know what the hell you're alluding to. You get a lot of invul time in any horde if you know what you're doing. I dont see a lot of people using the absurdly big range of melee executions in order to save themselves, for starter

[ddmsky]

Originally posted by Ragvard Grimclaw:

While I agree with chaos mission being severly less popular due to amount of ranged damage and shield bastards, most of your post makes no sense. Heavy suffering in chaos ops? This is literally my second best class to use in chaos missions due to iron halo and good ranged dps allowing my to facetank terminators or wipe multiple rubrics while shielding my teammeats (also bolter shreds shields). Sniper (with las fusil, mostly) is best at chaos ops
as it two-shots all rubrics and makes quick work of terminators (you rarely even need to go into melee if you don't play solo). Tactical is not the best at range (obviously, compared to heavy or sniper), but with stalker bolter/marksman carbine/plasma still can hold its ground. Assault just sucks until lvl 20+, then it still sucks but a little less. Overall, from 'The sheer volume of the shooting barrage burns through 4 bars faster than the low-damage weapons can force an execution.' I have a feeling that you're trying to just trade ranged damage without even trying to strafe (bolt fly slow enough to sidestep at least some of them), which will kill you even on tyranid ops. And gunstriking inside the horde is bad idea no matter who you play against.

Heavy has a difficult time to close the distance to score elims, especially vs Chaos due to armor issue, while elims are basically required by the game design to prevent HP damage. Lack of fencing weapon doesn't help when horde surrounds him, as well as dodges not being animation cancels like parrying (just... whyyy) while low ammo replenishments demands being very conservative about targets on Heavy. Wayyy more than a Sniper needs to be - Sniper is very effective melee range and can keep Las only for special occasions (or... to obliterate the horde without spending a single round). I'd rather fight a Zoan than rocket Terminator or Neurothrope than a Hellbrute, that's for sure, across all classes.

As for trading - there are segments of the game where trading is an unavoidable must. Like the Helldrake chamber. Like the Deamonhost points. Like the battery charging. Weapons don't deal enough damage to delete Rubrics fast enough, and that's before we account for all the minor hordes that ill come to get your ass on open segments of the map (with side objectives other than "shoot the living hell out of the enemy").

Paper armor and executions system is the main culprit why heretic missions arent fun and why arent they played.

[NeonRed]

Heavy you can smack small enemies coming at you with a light attack to prep them for a gun strike. Assault is the weakest class with a lot of terrible perks, and thunder hammer is honestly terrible for how slow it is vs the flow of the game because majority of it's damage is charge related. Until you pick up Armour Reinforcement at 18, surviving is going to be pain unless you can parry constantly; Proven Efficiency is also actually very worth it for how often you'll be gun striking on Assault (50% is huge).

Chaos missions actually suck because of the flamethrower enemies in all honesty; used to hate the shield goons, but they aren't that bad to me anymore compared to being swarmed with flamethrower Runic's.

[ddmsky]

Originally posted by NeonRed:

Heavy you can smack small enemies coming at you with a light attack to prep them for a gun strike. Assault is the weakest class with a lot of terrible perks, and thunder hammer is honestly terrible for how slow it is vs the flow of the game because majority of it's damage is charge related. Until you pick up Armour Reinforcement at 18, surviving is going to be pain unless you can parry constantly; Proven Efficiency is also actually very worth it for how often you'll be gun striking on Assault (50% is huge).

Chaos missions actually suck because of the flamethrower enemies in all honesty; used to hate the shield goons, but they aren't that bad to me anymore compared to being swarmed with flamethrower Runic's.

Flamethrowers are problematic only because of the paper thin armor. Exactly what I mean

[KrayZee]

Originally posted by ddm:

Flamethrowers are problematic only because of the paper thin armor. Exactly what I mean

Don't know about that. Game is easy enough already, imagine enemies never breaking your armor. It's okay to take HP damage, lots of classes have perks that kinda even make you want to lose health.
They should make the damage more avoidable, them hitting you with range attacks while in melee is the problem. Especially since you need to dodge/roll range attacks to not get hit by them and these inputs don't cancel attack animations.

At least that way, it's still related to your input and not just a flat -% dmg taken resistance buff.

[Tuuka]

Originally posted by KrayZee:

Originally posted by ddm:

Flamethrowers are problematic only because of the paper thin armor. Exactly what I mean

Don't know about that. Game is easy enough already, imagine enemies never breaking your armor. It's okay to take HP damage, lots of classes have perks that kinda even make you want to lose health.
They should make the damage more avoidable, them hitting you with range attacks while in melee is the problem. Especially since you need to dodge/roll range attacks to not get hit by them and these inputs don't cancel attack animations.

At least that way, it's still related to your input and not just a flat -% dmg taken resistance buff.

You ever played on the hardest diff?

[Munchmatoast]

Heavy is a very strong pick against chaos. All 3 of its weapons are strong against chaos and it has iron halo.

Sniper is a very strong pick against chaos for obvious reasons.

Tactical is a very strong pick against chaos for obvious reasons.

Vanguard is only viable due to the melta rifle.

Bulwark is not effective in comparison due to crippling melee against chaos, thankfully it's a bulwark so teams like them and it has a plasma pistol which is very strong.

Assault is pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in general against chaos. My opinion would change if assault had a plasma pistol or something as well.

[Kalitz]

Chaos missions are unfun by themselves and shield wielding Tzaangors hordes make it even less fun.

[RIPTOR]

Originally posted by KrayZee:

>Gun strikes give no iframes

biggest issue imho. Not necessarily required for balance reason or anything, but it just should be more usuable in overwhelming situations because it's supposed to be armor regeneration when you face hordes of small enemies, yet it's exactly the moment when you *can't* use that mechanic.

Heavy should be fine although it will probably depend on the team - Sniper with recharge will allow them to score headshots that get the shield up in no time. Tactical seems to have it worse when they choose to play with bolters.

Surrounded "parry" most enemies around you at wave are pushed back -> gun strike, you cccant ? dont do it wait the moment, eventually you go to get some stoopid mob jumping to bring you a free armor back, cc at wave and the free chance to push some others to the floor and do a second armor back by gun strike, gun strike dont need iframes is op af ussed correctly...

Not issues for me with GS in any situation or dif, EVEN MORE the only issue i have with GS is the rule to auto shot when you want shoot to another mob and some at your vision have the mark of GS up for this a simple solution is: extra button to perform GS instead auto trigger at fire button

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by ddm:

...

I'd argue that it has little to do with armor or anything related to difficulty. Fighting the dust boys just isn't as fun (wouldn't matter if they just made them easier, they would have to redesign them to be more fun instead).

[Deraius]

I think the biggest problem with Chaos is too much ranged. Give the flamethrowers and buring chainsaw and make the charge at you instead. Too late to do that now obv.

[InVader]

Tac, Sniper and Heavy are the best classes for chaos (and just everything, really), git gud OP.

I think this can be solved by ranged fire not leaving enemies downed for execution. Only melee should do that. This will make kill faster, save you ammo...

That and the shielded demons. They soak up so much (unless someone has a melta). Why can basic enemies block a thunder hammer??? If you can get rid of the demon swarm, dodging ranged fire isn't that big of a problem anymore.

The Hellbrute attack can be parried and gun-striked, same as everything else. People die to the Scarab warrior too, cuz they don't know how to parry his combo. It's not a hard fight, people just don't know how to coordinate. Gotta kill the adds first, because you can't duel the boss if you're getting destroyed by flamethrowers.

Fall of Atreus is also just way too long of a mission, with several wide open areas where avoiding ranged fire is impossible.

[ddmsky]

Originally posted by InVader:

Fall of Atreus is also just way too long of a mission, with several wide open areas where avoiding ranged fire is impossible.

Awww... shouldnt you just take Tac, Sniper or Heavy and git gud then? Or, maybe, armor and armor restoration dont work like they should?