How to use / beat Eldar

[Longtoke]

Well, i've maxxed out my eldar ( both in ship lvl's and admiral ), and im surprised to see the volumes of people who simply fold against eldar, some of whom are eldar themselves lol.

So for the benefit of those who want to learn / choose to veiw a different perspective, I thought i'd offer up what i've learnt and how i use them along with how i get beaten.

For the Eldar players :

Anyone who plays Eldar, knows how very restricted the ship variance is, the only real choice being in light cruisers which is between carriers or pulsars and still very limited. Don't get caught up in trying to use the ships like you would with other races, you don't have choice, get used to it.

As far as your light cruiser selection goes, grab two of each ( 2 x carrier, 2 x pulsar ), though this doesn't seem to make sense, it gives you the variety for certain mission types later in game. As you progress unlock your ship slots as soon as you get them open, all saving your renown does is gimp your choices.

Now as far as skills go, YOU NEED PROBES, either the lauchable or fixed will do, but knowing what you targets are, have equiped etc is crucial to any round with eldar. In a round against other eldar you will hate yourself for not having them, and with the other races you need to know which ships have what and which one to target first accordingly. Remember Eldar are all about hit-and-run tactics, intelligence is vital. The rest of your skill selections can in large be preference based suited to your particular tactics until you get to your Battlecruisers and Battleship. The other skill you will need on your larger pulsar equiped ships is the 180 degree instant turn. This is one of my favourites because its short cooldown timer, and goes hand in hand with pulsars.

For your upgrades, a few things you need to be mindful of is how eldar upgrades can be vastly different from other races. Things like the speed increase, it seems great at 75 for the increase, until you read the fine print : It's only when using a move order, an attack order cancels it out. This is great if your going to spend all your time with your back to the enemy running, but is counter to Eldar having only frontal weapons.

When your firing on your enemy you will almost ALWAYS have your opponent comming at you head on, so you need to extend the time you can fire before having to turn and head out for the next attack run. Speed is not useful here, and can actually cause you more problems. A better option for the hit-and-run tactics is the turn degree bonus.

Weapon range upgrades are almost manditory, as it helps extend the firing time while your facing your enemy, and in the later stages can help prevent you closing in range of the dreaded taunt.

To deal with taunt can be very tricky, and your opponent will often have more than one ship with taunt so be ready for chains. There is no easy way to deal with taunts other than stay out of range of them, but this can be difficult even with range upgrades as it can often leave you only 1500 units of range where you can fire without being taunted. The best thing i've found is to have your ships default behavior set to 12k and broadside attacks, use your movement and manual firing for best results. It results in taunts not stopping your ships totally, and makes them veer away from the tauntee. Later in your admirals life, you become less dependant on this because your using longer ranges afforded by your Battleship.

Now this is probably a bit late to mention for it being THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO DO WITH ELDAR : NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER STOP MOVING !!!!! the moment you do, you holofields drop and your toasted by even the most mediocre player who sees the mistake and capitalizes on it. NEVER EVER STOP MOVING. To that end, the holofield upgrade is definately on the list of must haves, but i would place it as about 3 - 4 on the upgrades priority.

One other major weakness Eldar have is the holofield is not a shield, and as such lightining strikes can be brutal, they can be used against Eldar any time ( cooldowns and range permitting ), the only counter to it is the resultant effects from a couple of favours the Eldar have and to increase you troop numbers via crew upgrades ( Bladesworn i think their called ). The favours become a core part of your fleet design, but not immediately, they are more of a mid to late addition in the big picture because of the cost. Short term, lightining strikes happen, the best protection is the belt armour upgrade untill you can afford the favours, and even then there will be ships you will either not have belt armour or not have a troop favour on in the long run.

Now the favours can seem a bit hit and miss, but examine them closely and you'll find they all have a use, including the Saim Hann one. I use the Khaine favour on my cruisers because it pairs well with the shuriken cannons and fights against other eldar, my cruisers are set up almost exclusively for Eldar v Eldar. This is because the pulsars are almost useless against Eldar holofields, but the shuriken seems to have the numbers to overcome them more consistently. The only times i've had trouble from pulsars with my Eldar has usually been only after my gens have been blown and the holofields are down accordingly. So yes for Eldar v Eldar, a shuriken heavy fleet is almost manditory.

Ulthwe and Khaine favours are pretty straight forward, though the Ulthwe one is underwelming ( the storm doesn't do much damage ) but it can be useful against Eldar ( to bypass those holofields ), and you get the anti-lightining stike troop boost. The Khaine favour is golden against other Eldar players, but very limited with other races because you need to get shields down and get within taunt range to use it.

The stealth favour ( Aliatoc ) for eldar is nasty, it can turn the tide of battles, or win them outright for you. Planetary Assualt on attack is a dream run with it, because you can sit in waiting for the bombards and then move on them rapidly to complete to then dissappear again. Many other battles when your opponent is moving the blob to your bait, you can come out of the shadows and burn a ship from behind before the enemy realizes your behind him. This also helps to force your opponents to switch targets, which is always bad for them.

The Saim Hann favour is an odd one, and it seems almost useless at first veiw, but on your Battleship and Battlecruisers it can wreck havoc by contibuting well to eldar hit-and-run tactics. The Damage boost is "hidden" dependant but careful use of your ship and running silent will help make it OP. The primary effect is a single target, but kills that taunt ships range, and so goes very will with pulsar use.

Wow, thats an unintended wall of text, and im sure i've left some things out, but im not giving away ALL my secrets :D

For the Eldar Opponents :

First thing and the most common mistake i see my easy wins come from is "the blob". If you put your fleet in a blob and command it as a blob, YOU WILL DIE SCREAMING in frustration against a skilled Eldar player. Its literally the single most useless thing you can do against eldar, and usually goes hand in hand with sitting on the back line waiting for them to close.....just don't do it.....or do and I can keep getting free wins :D

For any non-Eldar fleet to stand a chance you must have at least a couple of ships with taunt. Now i wouldn't recommend going EVERY ship with taunt, it just gimps your variety to much to be worthwhile. If your orks, i'd agree your fleet could be all taunt equipped but you also want tractor beams ( from the favours ), but if your still going to blob your still going to suffer because the smart Elday player will target your decks and pick of a ship one at a time.

Nearly as important and extremely underated by most players is the need for at least a couple of ships with probes. If you know where all of your opponents ships are, your able to better manage the situations fluidly and with skill. The smart Eldar player will NEVER blob and almost always will attack from two sides. When you pair that with the stealth capability of most eldar fleets, without scan probes you will quickly find youself in trouble.

The best probes are the ones that attach to the target, because of the Eldars lack of shields, if you get in range of them, it will auto attach and they are ♥♥♥♥ed for surprise attacks for the whole round from then on. It can be useful to also deploy them in gas clouds because they remain permanently and it stops the eldar player from regaining "hidden" status from gas cloud runs.

Now one thing that often screws the stealth players over in place of probes is a line of escorts. Get fast moving and large detection range escorts, deploy them in a line across your entire deploy line and set them to move straight to the back line. If you space them correctly you can do it with as few as 4 escorts in addtion to your fleet, and the Eldar player has no where to hide. Once he's been found you can corner and pick of which ships you choose. Again NO BLOB or you will suffer.

Now back to blob and line sit, this seems to be a favoured tactic with imperial nova spam fleets. Just don't do it.....any smart eldar player won't bring a flood of escorts for your insta boom on deploy to work against. Your more likely going to be facing 3 heavy top tier ships with stealth capabilty that will drive you nuts. If your lucky enough to land a hit or 2 with the nova's, it doesn't do enough damage to cripple the ships. They will repair the damage over time and the cost in points for your fleet over other options that you could have used better to actually beat the Eldar. When i go against imps, the nova cannon user is my free win. The most troublesome imps have shield transfers, void shields and lots of lances ( which still seem to hit and hurt Eldar extremely well ), not nova spam.

Live in fear of the Eldar battleship people, it is formidable and nigh on untouchable with the right skills and upgrades. Its pulsars can hit at 12k range, and does horrific damage to even the sturdiest battleship. As soon as it has fired, it will likely turn tail and get back to 13k - 15k range again before swinging round for another blast from the pulsars. The best thing you can do is try and corner it and ram it hard, but again DON'T BLOB, or it WILL slip past a flank when you least expect it and start the pain all over again. Whatever the Eldar player has in tow with the battleship is little more than bait, the Eldar battleship is the single biggest threat to any fleet, ignore it at your own peril.

and yet again another unintended wall of text, likely having left out many things, but hopefully this will help some of those players who are having such horrible game experiences against Eldar.

TL ; DR - Eldar are not "all that" / OP / unbeatable, through better understanding and knowledge you can improve to beat them regularly. Im getting tired of winning 95% of my matches using Eldar and want a higher calibre of challenge from the players. Please don't be my next free meal.

[Longtoke]

Originally posted by Brandoid:

check out this vid https://www.twitch.tv/lkhero/v/61514261

meh, each to his own, but 2 critical flaws i saw that made me stop watching was NO PROBES on his Eldar ships ?!?!? WTF DUDE, no wonder the cloud is giving him trouble. Then there is the all one favour fleet........LOL..........and thats before i go into the fact he was engaging the unseen cloud far to close when he shouldn't need to. You can fire the pulsars into the cloud, and it will still damage anything in its path, along with it often results in forcing your opponent to move from the hide hole. But all of this becomes moot with 1 probe.

Specialist fleets with any race is just madness imho, it might work for orks, but even then the self imposed limitations of your fleet design will result in some rounds where your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the first 10 secs.

sadly, i only have skillz for typing not videos, or id make a vid to display the real world examples of what i've typed :(.

[PK_Thunder]

Originally posted by Bonger Bob:

Well, i've maxxed out my eldar ( both in ship lvl's and admiral ), and im surprised to see the volumes of people who simply fold against eldar, some of whom are eldar themselves lol.

This doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Most gamers aren't worthy of the title, and they would rather cry than try.

[Longtoke]

Originally posted by Z Lethal:

Originally posted by Bonger Bob:

Well, i've maxxed out my eldar ( both in ship lvl's and admiral ), and im surprised to see the volumes of people who simply fold against eldar, some of whom are eldar themselves lol.

This doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Most gamers aren't worthy of the title, and they would rather cry than try.

not like the manual or the tooltips or the tutorial are useful......i find it hard to judge when people are misinformed or misinterpret the poor discriptors in game.

I know there are people more experienced than myself, and likely many more who are better in skill than myself, but if we the players disseminate the knowledge and some people improve, we all as players end up with a richer game experience in the long run, because we have a better calibre of opponent.

[kknd]

This guide accurately shows why Eldar need balance work.

"For any non-Eldar fleet to stand a chance you must have at least a couple of ships with taunt."

Firstly, that a single skill is such a powerful counter shows a design flaw. Secondly, that it is required to stand a chance shows that both the eldar and the other fleets counter play options need work.

I can play Eldar decently (not well) but can't stand the pulsar dependant design. I want them to be a viable option to play and to not require a dedicated fleet setup to match.

Feast or Famine is not the mark of a good design.

[PK_Thunder]

Originally posted by Bonger Bob:

not like the manual or the tooltips or the tutorial are useful......i find it hard to judge when people are misinformed or misinterpret the poor discriptors in game.

Maybe it's because I'm older, but I just dig in and try to figure things out for myself. Hell, I have a page of notes on this damned game saved on my desktop from when the beta launched.

It isn't about experience with this game, or with any other games for that matter. It's about how much of a ♥♥♥♥ you give.

It's really the problem with RTS games these days. Today's generation seems to think they should be able to just right click their way through the whole game, then get a dopamine buzz from seeing the "victory" screen. I don't buy that participation trophy crap.

I don't even think this game is that hard or that time consuming. You can play a match in ten minutes, and the game really isn't all that complex. I simply find it baffling just how many people can't clear that low bar.

[PK_Thunder]

Originally posted by kknd:

This guide accurately shows why Eldar need balance work.

"For any non-Eldar fleet to stand a chance you must have at least a couple of ships with taunt."

Like most real game balance, it ends up being rock-paper-scissors. The epitome of game balance, in fact.

But the mere fact that your chances are improved a lot by teching against their fleet? That's not unbalanced at all. Yes, you do have to change your special snowflake fleet to reflect ALL of the meta, not just the parts you want to deal with.

It's give and take, and that is game balance. Because you actually have considerations like that, instead of being able to build a take all comers fleet.

[-Bro-Brazerc]

Originally posted by Z Lethal:

Originally posted by Bonger Bob:

not like the manual or the tooltips or the tutorial are useful......i find it hard to judge when people are misinformed or misinterpret the poor discriptors in game.

Maybe it's because I'm older, but I just dig in and try to figure things out for myself. Hell, I have a page of notes on this damned game saved on my desktop from when the beta launched.

It isn't about experience with this game, or with any other games for that matter. It's about how much of a ♥♥♥♥ you give.

It's really the problem with RTS games these days. Today's generation seems to think they should be able to just right click their way through the whole game, then get a dopamine buzz from seeing the "victory" screen. I don't buy that participation trophy crap.

I don't even think this game is that hard or that time consuming. You can play a match in ten minutes, and the game really isn't all that complex. I simply find it baffling just how many people can't clear that low bar.

This made me fall over.

[Longtoke]

Originally posted by kknd:

This guide accurately shows why Eldar need balance work.

"For any non-Eldar fleet to stand a chance you must have at least a couple of ships with taunt."

Firstly, that a single skill is such a powerful counter shows a design flaw. Secondly, that it is required to stand a chance shows that both the eldar and the other fleets counter play options need work.

I can play Eldar decently (not well) but can't stand the pulsar dependant design. I want them to be a viable option to play and to not require a dedicated fleet setup to match.

Feast or Famine is not the mark of a good design. :raven:

lets not divert this thread into yet another ill informed self entitled rage discussion about a topic that no player is really qualified to give definative answers on : Balance.

No race is feast or famine, and if you read the thread entirely, you'd understand I'm advocating NOT having whole fleets built to one purpose. Any fleet for it to stand a chance against all races needs to have variance and vesatility. If you make a specialist fleet, you are gimping yourself in one way or another.

Taunt is not an all powerful counter, its a skill that like any other has situational use, and that use can be countered. I Laugh when i come up against and all taunt fleet, it means an easy win because i can immediately recognize my opponents tactics, which have counters. Yes, i'd recommend any fleet has at least 2 ships that have taunt, i'd go as far to say that those 2 ships should be specialists at what they are for.

But that doesn't translate into fitting every ship with taunt because it costs you to much with respect to versatility, the only possible exception to that is orks, because thats what they are about, but even then if your an ork fleet, having all taunts WILL cost you in certain modes because you could be missing key skills that you need outside of it.

btw, just for records sake, I have all races capped out now, im on to making second admirals across all races just for ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles. The game in its current state is very close to if not already very balanced imho, but my opinion is like an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, we all have one and no one wants to see it. Its hold no weight with repect to developement or progression in the future. Its just my opinion.................as is yours.

[Longtoke]

Originally posted by Brandoid:

check out this vid https://www.twitch.tv/lkhero/v/61514261

just played a game against hero, the guy in the vid, props to him, it came down to the last 100 hull points for both of us in a 700 pts cruiser class.

GG hero /salute

ps : i did win, ♥♥♥♥ knows how though, he had me against the ropes for 90% of the match.

[Warhunter]

got a question. not sure if this was anwsered.
but when you do split up your fleet to try to trap eldar with the taunts. what do you do if they go stealth and avoid my probes/beacons from out of my range and pick off my ships on the outer edges of the blockade?
i mean my ships are kind of slow to avoid their beacons/probes so even if i use run silent they know where my ships are and pick them off 1 by 1. even with escorts as radar i tend to lose them instantly as they pick those off and my main ships won't be in range for micro-warp+taunt or stuff of similar nature

or did i miss something since that is a big wall of text XD

[[OG] Brandoid]

Originally posted by Bonger Bob:

Originally posted by Brandoid:

check out this vid https://www.twitch.tv/lkhero/v/61514261

just played a game against hero, the guy in the vid, props to him, it came down to the last 100 hull points for both of us in a 700 pts cruiser class.

GG hero /salute

ps : i did win, ♥♥♥♥ knows how though, he had me against the ropes for 90% of the match.

you got a lucky lightning stike and took out his voidstalkers generators then 1shot its remaining hp with a pulsar from your own voidstalker

Edit: when yo uwere running your last shadow aroudn the astroids did you see that escort coming?

[Longtoke]

Originally posted by Brandoid:

Originally posted by Bonger Bob:

just played a game against hero, the guy in the vid, props to him, it came down to the last 100 hull points for both of us in a 700 pts cruiser class.

GG hero /salute

ps : i did win, ♥♥♥♥ knows how though, he had me against the ropes for 90% of the match.

you got a lucky lightning stike and took out his voidstalkers generators then 1shot its remaining hp with a pulsar from your own voidstalker

Edit: when yo uwere running your last shadow aroudn the astroids did you see that escort coming?

unfortunately i didn't, i was well split and trying to cope with the ramming, lol

it was an interesting game to say the least.

[Longtoke]

Originally posted by Warhunter:

got a question. not sure if this was anwsered.
but when you do split up your fleet to try to trap eldar with the taunts. what do you do if they go stealth and avoid my probes/beacons from out of my range and pick off my ships on the outer edges of the blockade?
i mean my ships are kind of slow to avoid their beacons/probes so even if i use run silent they know where my ships are and pick them off 1 by 1. even with escorts as radar i tend to lose them instantly as they pick those off and my main ships won't be in range for micro-warp+taunt or stuff of similar nature

or did i miss something since that is a big wall of text XD

the "stealth" is only silent running, be that extended or caused from the effect of the saim hann favour. There is even in optimal circumstances a 15 sec window where silent running is down, so if they have the favour, they WILL be stationary. Probes and ship ranged scanners will reveal anything no matter what, there is no absolute stealth.

now as far as your not blob fleet goes, there is no way you can cover the entire field all the time, you need to monitor the blips you see, when they dissapear etc, and carefully place / launch probes around that. You also need to try and discern what the Eldar player is trying to do, and with that you can place fixed probes to limit that strategy and help box him in. The primary thing to remember is not to chase bait.

Decide on your target and kill it, move on to the next while protecting your attacking ships.

never said it was easy, but it is very possible and achievable. hope that helps you somewhat.

[Morglim]

I don't understand any of these tips to play an eldar fleet, besides the probes and not including favors. I have yet to face any Eldar fleet and lose.
For example, I have never seen holofields work, ever, either playing as or against an Eldar fleet. I see an Eldar ship come my way I open fire and it either explodes or flies past/away covered in crits from my 1st volley, rinse and repeat.
Pulsars aren't that scary, sure I may lose one ship from a first pass, if they're lucky but that's it, I've already won. An Eldar ship is so weak you can give it a stern look and it will crumple.
Eldar tactics are predictable and a belief that holofields actually do something I think is the Eldars biggest weakness.

[Fosil]

thats an old thread, where eldars were quite different than today (for example pulsar damage and holofield function were different). a good eldar fleet can beat any other fleet except air tau and chaos.