Need Ideas (Trying to balance some things) (Tau)

[Gaxer]

Hi all, im working on some easy balance mods. I will need ideas or opinions about the worst and best Tau Units. (I always play at very low game speeds so i normally start T2 at turn 100, thats plenty of time to play with T1/T2 units)
FireWarrior --> OK but i dislike their plus damage mechanic, still good
Breachers --> Meh... Niche, they need something more, their passive dont work until tier 3
Piranha --> OK - Drones on 5 cooldown (GOD)
Pathfinders --> OK, I just modified their marking range to 3
T1 Hero Cadre --> OK, I just modified their marking range to 3

Ideas or opinions? to any Tau unit not T1,T2 alone

[DWI_Suriil]

Dont turn CD down on Tau drones. They are powerfull enough.
They struggle early until drones , then they have insain powerspike already. You play Ethernal + FireWarrios ball - nothing you cant deal with early game.

In late drones 5 turns CD is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ . Cheap gun drones are excelent decoy to take off overwatch and make a scout.

In infantry branch
I would rise a price and upkeep for XV8 and XV88 battlesuites
Upeek to 4(now 3) and 6(now 4)
Price to 40 - 40 (30 now) and 60 - 60 (40 now)
Also I would rise production cost on XV88 to 56 (48 now)

In heavy mechs
XV95 price from 40-40 to 60-60, upkeep 4 as is.
KV128 price from 80-80 to 120-120 , upkeep to 10 (now 8) , prod cost to 72 (now 60)

Land vehicules
TX78 Gunship price from 40-40 to 60-60 , upkeep top 6 (now 4) , but change ore to energy.

This will bring Tau late game close to Astra M and Aeldaries

[DWI_Suriil]

Right now, the big thing about Tau - all thier units in 3 branches have thier place.
In infantry you never stop spam XV88, and those KICK ASS , in heavy Mech you build non stop KV128 stormsurge and in land you spam TX78....
And even if you dont want to make doubles of your buildings, thanks to loyalty bonus + loyalty bonus on Tau hero , you sit as Tau on 5 - 6 cities and just spam spam spam.

The thing is , the KV128 is twice cheaper than the Scorpio or Bane blade....and have like 50% of its HP...but it has more firepower than either of those + it has drones + shield for damage reduction + killer missiles each 5 turns.
It puts Tau ahead in late in equal conditions. Astra Militarum w.o valkiry hard spam HAVE 0 chance vs Tau. On land Aeladies can eventually out scale Tau , thanks to its economy buble with Autarches , and field more Scorpions than Tau can manage, but we talk very late game , like turn 130+

[Stormfox]

In my personal mod, I changed the Piranha to be two ships that have individually less HP (IIRC 10 or 12 each). This had the side-effect that they also fire twice as many seeker missiles, which made them *really* good, but its better than the current iteration where they are basically useless. If I were to revise them, I might nerf their drone cooldown to the usual 10 to compensate or something like that.

Pathfinders went up to the same unit strength as Fire Warriors and suddenly they are at least theoretically interesting and you can play around with them if you want to. They still suffer from the same issue all squishy non-support early tech unlocks have: You are usually better off skipping them towards some decently durably decently killy midgame unit asap.

Stealth Suits got an extra HP per model and again are now usable but still have the issue of not being really purposeful. They are decent to soak overwatch, but still die to anything that denies them their ranged damage reduction, and three Meltas is still not a particularly powerful output. Again, they compete with stuff like Crisis and have a hard time justifying themselves overall. With the extra HP, they are playable for fun, though.

I like your idea of upping the marker range. I went with more range per level in the Fireblades' special shot (3/4/5 range), but I also nerfed the loyalty boost to 4 to make them less of a "I build this in place of a flag in each city". I did similar buff-nerfs to most of the heroes that grand passive global resources in all factions because they often tend to suffer from exactly his issue that the unit itself is meh but the resource buff extremely powerful. I would rather have heroes be built because of their actual abilities in the field.

The Broadsides are another infantry building unit that needs some kind of change. They are simply not that much more useful than the Crisis because they lose so much damage when moving and have much lower mobility without being that much tougher. They would be okay if they came at the same time, but for how late they come, they are a bit meh. Perhaps one could try to give them Steady, but if you do that, they might become too easy to use. Perhaps buffing their SMS could do the trick, or giving them an extra point of armor or a few extra HP to reinforce their tankyness? Remember, they need to compete with the late collossal units in that regard.

Skyrays could also use a tiny buff. A cooldown reduction on the missiles perhaps, or if you buff the SMS as a solution to the broadsides, that would also buff them for these guys, which might be just enough to make them more useful outside of their missile turns and let them compete with the Hammerheads.

[Gaxer]

Ok, i will discuss everything later.
Right now: I changed the Breachers, removed the shield trait, removed the weapon counterattack trait. Modified Accuracy to 8 from 6. Increased damage from 2 to 2.4 and +1 to armor penetratior. Now they are a Eldar Guardian but with a bit less of dmg but a very little more sturdy. Opinions?
PD: I need help with piranhas, are too squishy and does neglectible damage.... ideas?
(Only Focusion on Breachers and Phiranas)