Necrons Seem WAY to Weak

[viszurko]

So I have been playing this game with 4 players almost every day now for the last 2 months. I play almost exclusively necrons and we play with all the races. At first it seemed like necrons were to strong due to decent armor and and 1 hp healing rate, as well as the quick heal for influence. After playing though they are honestly one of the weaker races if not bottom tier.

So here are my complaints:

Healing - So you have your healing every turn for 1 hp, and the insta heal for 6 hp (18 if you get both techs but realisticly that isnt gonna happen cause you are gonna be taken out of the game in the first 60 turns in a fast game on a medium map). When you compare the healing for all other races through pain boys, apothacaries, and AM health packs. All of these options out heal the necrons and the pain boys and apothacaries can heal every turn. For AM its an automatic 50% which on average is 8-10 hp. ALl of these options due come in a little later which makes necrons better at kill neutrals, but against players by the time you start skirmishing everyone is out healing necrons.

No Range or anti-armor - So every army BUT necrons have an anti-armor early such as devistators or heavy weapons teams. Necrons dont get an anti armor unit until tier 4 techs with Heavy destroyers (which I will get into how they are the WORST unit in the game). This means all the scount vehicles ESPECIALLY sentinals make playing necrons null and void since you cant hurt the enemy armor. This makes killing castillan robots near impossible and Sentinals almsot unkillable. When it comes to range all these anti armor units for all races are range 3 which keeps them safe and acts as early artillery. The heavy destroyers are range 2 which means you have to take over watch get into enemy range and almost lose these expensive units before ever firing a shot (on top of take up a spot for your more useful infantry units) Ths basically means they are free kills and xp for any army especially imperial guard who can build hunters at the time time i could build heavy destroyers which can almost 2 shot heavy destroyers while staying out of range and being a hell fo a lot more survivable. The only realy artillery necrons have is a doomsday ark, but the high power canon is exessivly hard to use and doesnt give any bang for your buck. You are almost always moving this as people can kite your artillery so easily and make them useless. On top of the fact they are not as survivable as other armies

Weak vehicles - The necron vehicles are so TRASH! Your first bike unit is 8 hp.....really? I am so frustated trying to scount with these things and i get over watched and killed. They are great for flanks to get the last hit in as they do decent damage (better comparativly than almost any other vehicle the necrons have) but litterally a light breeze blows these things over. When it comes to the other vehicles the only one that is decent (excluding planes as their planes are actually decent) is the annilation barge. But even that has such low defense. Also having hydras and hunters be so early in the game makes 2 shotting vehicles a horrible route for necrons when facing SM of AM. Honestl;y i mainly just focus infanty since they are more survivable if you are playing against a player which 1/2 a brain and more than 20 hours of play time.

Huge gap of useful techs, specificly units - Early game your warriors are great and honeslt unupgraded, are probably the ebst unit in the game. But by the time people art getting into tier 3-7 you have nothing for offense of defense. Almopst all the vehicles are trash. Immortals seem to actually be worse than warriors minus the 2 extra armor. (makes them barely more survivable) and your units are all trash up till pretorians and c'tan shards. The spyders do garbage damage on thier own, but if you get the scarab tech they can become effective. The scarabs in my opinion are the best unit mid game for the necrons, and the only reliable damage to tanks and vehicles, and they arent even that good!!!! If my best units are a swarm unit that gets 1-2 shotted and is only good because it does percentile damage against things with high health....this army is seriously lacking. Pretorians are amazing and really strong so no complaints, though by the time i can fininsh the tech a 1/2 way decent player is usually already swarming me with basic level 0-3 vehicles that I cant kill and about to take me out of the game. C'tan shards are SUPER strong but is a late game unit and wont see much play time since you are likely unable to survive.

All in all necrons are weak in sustain compared to a Space marine player with 2 apothacaries and techpriest/thunderfire cannon, less sustain than an orc player with 2-3 pain boys, and SUPER weak to a astra millatrium player with med packs and 1 tech priest. Necrons can't out gun anyone since other players units are way better after a short amount of tech upgrades, and you can't outrange anyone except orcs (depending how they build) as you have 1 unit at tier 6 that shoots at 3 range and only if it stands still. Imperial guard by have heavy weapon teams, hydras (which do stupid damage against necrons and really every army for what it is designed for), leman russ tanks all shooting 3 spaces AND basiliks shooting 6 spaces. I am coming to a point that i just need to switch to a different race as they are not competative. They are easy and very punishing to new player, but if you have some idea how to play the game you stand no chance with necrons.

Has anyone found a stradegy that works? I cant even kill a 0 level tech sentinal (sentials need to be nerfed btw 34 hp? great damage for 0 level unit and great movement along with scout abilities? seems way to over loaded in its kit. Literally just make an army of sentials and guards men and you are pretty unkillable for techs 1-7) reliably with necrons due to it being a vehicle and having no armor pen minus the heavy destroyer which will get fraged or oveerwated to death before it even shoots.

[Total Oh No]

Originally posted by viszurko:

being the best in a 1v1 is kind of irrelevent as it doesnt really matter the army, the better player will almost always win. where a 2v2 or free for all is more about the player and the army.

You have that backwards. The more players you put into one game, the less individual factors like player skill and army balance matter because you introduce a lot of randomness into the game. The best way to check a faction's balance is by looking at how they fare in 1v1s with equally skilled players. Multiple people ganging up on you in FFA/team games doesn't mean the faction is underpowered.

[Blastom]

Originally posted by Magnets:

Necrons are one of the best, if not the best Faction in 1v1 MP.

They have an INSANE economy, because they can spend influence on rushing building construction they basically have the perfect curve regarding their pop.

They have the strongest early unit that is the Tomb Blades, they have the strongest Mid-tier unit that is the Pretorians and have an insane late game with one of (if not the best) air unit and c'tan.


They have no real weakness aside from Very high HP units with 1 model. But when the Pretorians are online, it's already game over.

The best in 1v1 MP is the Orks, with unkillable Warboss that kill everything, except a city, in one attack.

But Necro shall be at the second place after the ASM nerf - decent hero, best units and best economy.

I accurately was thinking about create a guide about how imba the necro units are compare to the equalance in other factions.

[viszurko]

So after tonight testing on a standard speed as opposed to fast speeds there is a SIGNIFICANT better gameplay for Necrons!!!! So i think there is a huge nerf when it comes to necrons when playing in fast and I think this is due in part to being able top explore more of the map and grab more of of the outposts than other players. Also playing on a slower speed I was actually able to drop a 2nd city before the AM player due to production costs.

One thing I did noticed is Guardsmen still have a huge strength with gernades that literally wipe the floor with necrons as well as the orc player. Other than that there wasnt any problems. It was a lose since we played teams 2v2 and the orc player who was on my team was getting 1 shotted by guardsmen gernades (which is nuts....I got hit with one and took 10.3 damage on my warriors from one unit with gernades and the AM player had another 3 guys with). All in all this is way more balanced in a standard game. I still have my complaints about lack of range and armor piercing, and I understand that guass weapons scale.....but man when it takes 3 rapid fire shots, a hero melee and 4 more range 2 shots to ALMOST kill a sentinals and it walks away.....it is pretty upsetting.

[Godwin]

Originally posted by viszurko:

So after tonight testing on a standard speed as opposed to fast speeds there is a SIGNIFICANT better gameplay for Necrons!!!!

Glad I could help :)

[Nitroglycerine]

Yea, standard speed makes necrons more powerful, because you get more time to explore for a tomb / AM is stuck with 3 crappy guardsmen for a longer time. I had experimented a bunch with game speeds when the game was first released :)


Gauss weapon scales based on enemy unit size.
However, sentinels aren't exactly a "large squad" type unit; It's 2 vehicles.

Heavy destroyers do much better against them :)

Originally posted by Blastom:

The best in 1v1 MP is the Orks, with unkillable Warboss that kill everything, except a city, in one attack.

But Necro shall be at the second place after the ASM nerf - decent hero, best units and best economy.

I accurately was thinking about create a guide about how imba the necro units are compare to the equalance in other factions.

Actually, warbosses don't really become unkillable until they level up a few times.
Especially since forest had their damage reduction decreased.

For MP, I think necrons have a "power spike" early (once they have access to HD), while Orks spike a bit later (access to MegaNobz + dakkajets + multiple painboyz + warbosses that are unkillable with 26-32 HP).

[Fosil]

Originally posted by viszurko:

So after tonight testing on a standard speed as opposed to fast speeds there is a SIGNIFICANT better gameplay for Necrons!!!! So i think there is a huge nerf when it comes to necrons when playing in fast and I think this is due in part to being able top explore more of the map and grab more of of the outposts than other players. Also playing on a slower speed I was actually able to drop a 2nd city before the AM player due to production costs.
[...]

you could also try to play with higher tomb density settings while keeping fast speed.

[Total Oh No]

Originally posted by Nitroglycerine:

Gauss weapon scales based on enemy unit size.
However, sentinels aren't exactly a "large squad" type unit; It's 2 vehicles.

Heavy destroyers do much better against them :)

Gauss actually scales with hitpoints, not unit size. If I understand it right then it does 5% of the enemy hitpoints as extra damage, but only up to a maximum of 1.2 (probably per shot). I think it means Warriors can almost double their damage as long as they fire at high hitpoint units like vehicles. If I'm calculating it correctly then they get their max extra damage from units that have at least 24 hitpoints.
Maybe I'm wrong though, I dunno.

Edit: Maybe it depends on the hitpoints of the model and not the unit. I'm comparing the damage of tactical marines and warriors against scout sentinels and predators. Warriors only do a little more damage against sentinels compared to the marines, but they do more than double as much damage against the predator compared to the marines.
Yeah, it must be based on model health because warriors and marines both do the same amount of damage vs guardsmen. So, gauss is best against low model, high hitpoint units like vehicles.

[Nitroglycerine]

Originally posted by Total Oh No:

Originally posted by Nitroglycerine:

Gauss weapon scales based on enemy unit size.
However, sentinels aren't exactly a "large squad" type unit; It's 2 vehicles.

Heavy destroyers do much better against them :)

Gauss actually scales with hitpoints, not unit size. If I understand it right then it does 5% of the enemy hitpoints as extra damage, but only up to a maximum of 1.2 (probably per shot). I think it means Warriors can almost double their damage as long as they fire at high hitpoint units like vehicles. If I'm calculating it correctly then they get their max extra damage from units that have at least 24 hitpoints.
Maybe I'm wrong though, I dunno.

Edit: Maybe it depends on the hitpoints of the model and not the unit. I'm comparing the damage of tactical marines and warriors against scout sentinels and predators. Warriors only do a little more damage against sentinels compared to the marines, but they do more than double as much damage against the predator compared to the marines.
Yeah, it must be based on model health because warriors and marines both do the same amount of damage vs guardsmen. So, gauss is best against low model, high hitpoint units like vehicles.

Hah I knew that. Not sure why I said something else entirely. -_-;
I mean, there's a reason they're good against Castelan robots.

[viszurko]

Originally posted by Nitroglycerine:

Originally posted by Total Oh No:

Gauss actually scales with hitpoints, not unit size. If I understand it right then it does 5% of the enemy hitpoints as extra damage, but only up to a maximum of 1.2 (probably per shot). I think it means Warriors can almost double their damage as long as they fire at high hitpoint units like vehicles. If I'm calculating it correctly then they get their max extra damage from units that have at least 24 hitpoints.
Maybe I'm wrong though, I dunno.

Edit: Maybe it depends on the hitpoints of the model and not the unit. I'm comparing the damage of tactical marines and warriors against scout sentinels and predators. Warriors only do a little more damage against sentinels compared to the marines, but they do more than double as much damage against the predator compared to the marines.
Yeah, it must be based on model health because warriors and marines both do the same amount of damage vs guardsmen. So, gauss is best against low model, high hitpoint units like vehicles.

Hah I knew that. Not sure why I said something else entirely. -_-;
I mean, there's a reason they're good against Castelan robots.

Hmm even in rapid fire rang the best I could do against a sentinel was like 8-9 damage.....which is pretty low given this is a non tech based unit. that means I would need to hit a level 1 sentinel with no upgrades with 5 rapid fire shots, but a sentinel can hit me 2-3 times depending on cover and if it is upgraded. Also you cant catch sentinels due to move through cover. All around it is probably the best early to mid game unit by far and SOOOO easy to pump out hordes of them

Also since each sentinel DOESN'T actually have 25 health. each only has 16 hp each but is grouped in 2 you arent seeing much damage. You see more when the single model has 24 or more hp.

[Magnets]

Originally posted by viszurko:

Originally posted by Magnets:

Necrons are one of the best, if not the best Faction in 1v1 MP.

They have an INSANE economy, because they can spend influence on rushing building construction they basically have the perfect curve regarding their pop.

They have the strongest early unit that is the Tomb Blades, they have the strongest Mid-tier unit that is the Pretorians and have an insane late game with one of (if not the best) air unit and c'tan.


They have no real weakness aside from Very high HP units with 1 model. But when the Pretorians are online, it's already game over.

If you look at the original comment this is a 4 player game so being the best in a 1v1 is kind of irrelevent as it doesnt really matter the army, the better player will almost always win. where a 2v2 or free for all is more about the player and the army. I know the strengths and weaknesses of the army and YES there are weaknesses. Frankly thier range and lack of hard hitting punch to highly armoured units are the biggest weakness. Thier economy is only boosted due to the influence spending because necrons have a super slow expanstion unlike AM and Orcs. Similar to how Space marines have no expanstion due to having the best units pretty much all game minus early game (but they are quickly upgraded and are relevent all the way to late game unlike most early units for other armies)

You arent really pointing out anything new and frankly doesnt seem like a lot of actual playtime was put in for different scenarios to warrent this. Necrons are pretty OP if you are new to 4x stradegy games or Gladius in general. But Necrons do have some very large flaws that are pretty easy to exploit, that is really the whole reason for this thread. Saying that pretorians are awesome is kind of a moot point. I already said it is probably the best unit in the game for where it is tech wise. But I am looking at the army as a whole vs dealing with vehicles and rushing mechs as well as healing compared to other races. There are huge gaps of useful units where other races are kind of always advancing, necrons just seems like you are RACING technology wise to the next power spike cause you are either behind in effectiveness or ahead. which if another player catches you in the long downtimes of being behind in strength you are pretty much done.

Don't complain about balancing if you're not speaking of 1v1 terms then. Because if you want to balance the game for a 4 players game, it's going nowhere.

Thier economy is only boosted due to the influence spending because necrons have a super slow expanstion unlike AM and Orcs.

You're wrong, Necrons don't need to expand that much, you can play a Loyalty heavy game and pulverize everyone with just 1 expand, going further is not cost effective.

(but they are quickly upgraded and are relevent all the way to late game unlike most early units for other armies)

That's wrong, the Canoptek remains great even late-game.

You arent really pointing out anything new and frankly doesnt seem like a lot of actual playtime was put in for different scenarios to warrent this. Necrons are pretty OP if you are new to 4x stradegy games or Gladius in general. But Necrons do have some very large flaws that are pretty easy to exploit, that is really the whole reason for this thread. Saying that pretorians are awesome is kind of a moot point. I already said it is probably the best unit in the game for where it is tech wise. But I am looking at the army as a whole vs dealing with vehicles and rushing mechs as well as healing compared to other races. There are huge gaps of useful units where other races are kind of always advancing, necrons just seems like you are RACING technology wise to the next power spike cause you are either behind in effectiveness or ahead. which if another player catches you in the long downtimes of being behind in strength you are pretty much done.

I played enough games to know where I stand regarding the game balance. I even nerfed the Devastator Squad and Relics before the official patch with the input of a friend, so i'm pretty sure I have a good grasp on the meta.

You're probably playing on an insanely large map with 4 players and then complain that the Necrons are weak, but that's not a good benchmark.


Necrons can reach the Pretorians turn 45 no problem, the only weakness of the Necrons are the IG with a build that focus heavily on vehicles, but their eco won't sustain the push well enough.


Edit: Yep, turns out you're complaining about Necrons being weak on very specific map settings.

[Kabookie]

i havent read all the comments I just saw the title and my response was this:
"AAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..... AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.......AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA."
necrons weak .... omg funniest thing ive seen today so far. hahahahahahahaha

[viszurko]

Originally posted by Kabookie:

i havent read all the comments I just saw the title and my response was this:
"AAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..... AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.......AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA."
necrons weak .... omg funniest thing ive seen today so far. hahahahahahahaha

why even comment? obviously didnt read the circumstances of why this was brought up....

[Kabookie]

sorry i was being a ♥♥♥♥. i dont know why... anyways thats not helpful to you so ive now actually read your initial post and while i havent read all the responses ill respond to the original post in a constructive way:
Healing - The ability to retreat the unit and have it useful again in a few turns is the advantage they have vs the late game healing ability of the other races with the exception of AM as they have no healer unit and all higher tier units roast guardsman so a once every 10 turns heal late game is negligible. but you have to understand that the necron kit more than makes up for every turn healing;
1) EVERY necron unit can be healed for influence. early game the heal is massive, late game not as much but can be the difference.
2)main hero unit grants additional armour to all nearby units (once every 3 turns). as that levels the armour buff is big.
2) heal from support hero every 3 turns (not as good as every turn but marines dont get a heal until apothicary or the chaplain heal at lvl6, AM only have med kit and orcs have the pain boy who is the best healer).
3) support hero grants up to 60% damage reduction at ability level 3 every turn. no one else has that. the 20% alone is fantastic. 40% is really good and 60% is crazy.
can only heal every 3 turns by a skill ... it doesnt matter cause the rest of the kit is so good by themselves and devistating in combination. . you can create an unkillable unit and charge him with + armour and 60% damage reduction. so many options. i dont think you have really played with their kit enough.

No Range or anti-armour - Warriors are the best t1 unit in the game (not including access to higher tier addons and buff spells etc), they are so good infact that they dont need access to frag or krak grenades. they are the only race that can charge kastellans with their t1 units and have a hope in winning. when a kastellan surprises your necron unit, its no way near as bad as any other race because they can retreat and heal without the need for a healer or to stop and heal. the only race better at beating the neutrals is orks and thats cause or the warboss eats everything for breakfast.
Necrons and orks are the fastest researchers, but necrons research fastest early game as its only after you get the weird boy that you start researching quickly as orks. but regardless the flexibility of the warrior squads makes waiting for t4 a non issue and only relevant vs other races tanks/vehicles and heros.

weak vehicles - every starter vehicle unit is a light armoured scout, none of them are particularly good except for sentinals with a commisar bring it down buff. they are excellent for snatching your enemys resources points and getting away, and good back up fire but never a main stay army unit, this is true of all races. vehicles are very fit for purpose and as such while I would agree that the doomstararc is rubbish (cause you lose the 3 range attack if you move), the annihilation barge is anti infrantry and has jink to protect itself and is a good unit, much like the SM hunter is useless against infantry units it is good against flyers and thus is SMs answer to the annihilation barge in vehicle form, tho personally i think meltas do the job better. the Mono is the single greatest unit in the Game at its tier level.
Lets be honest tho. most vehicles suck in this game across all races.

Useful Tiers - i think their tiers are kinda similar across races and the gap for useful units is about the same. i just cant agree with you.

Necons expand the fastest and easiest.

[[oGs] Shadow]

Originally posted by zhukodim:

From my experience necrons are the strongest faction by far. Have maybe 300 hours in MP. Both 1v1 and team games. In fact I stopped playing ~ 1.5 months ago because I do not see players who can do somerthing interesting with any factions but necrons.

Strongest eco + most of they units are cost effective. Can't say the same about others. Will play it again when new race became availble + maybe with some balance changes.

Can you elaborate or provide a build order / tech plan? researchs to prioritize? Honestly I'm a few games in and about to ditch necrons cause I agree with OP, initial impressions leave me with them feeling weaker than other factions.

[Nitroglycerine]

They have arguably the easiest start strategy...

A simple start strategy:
Research Order: hero building, vehicle building, Cryptek, Cryptek Spyder

Infantry Trainer
Energy
Hero Trainer
Ore
You figure it out from here. :) You want more infantry trainers, energy / ore / research to train / upkeep / get more tech.

- Warriors + lord + cryptek easily handle the early game.
- 2nd expansion is key. That should be your vehicle trainer while your main trains infantry.
- I like to get +population skill for Lord, so I don't need to build population buildings. You need to make sure to keep the lords alive if you do this, but I find Lords are more of a support hero anyways (summoning praetorians and boosting armor rather than attacking).
- Research towards Praetorians and monoliths asap. Then smash the enemy and laugh.