CA finally saw reason and now the god-specific champions can upgrade lesser Daemons to their exalted variants. Thank goodness.

VERY COOL

This got my blood up.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tyrK_FQtuQ



3 comments:

1) bloodletters are a *direct counter* to 2-axe, both in their damage type and their damage reduction type.

2) I'm reverting the changes and buffing bloodletters.

3) sorry for the inconvenience everyone else. This should be the steady build until I release my next mod.

@alshua

2-axe pick their teeth with bloodletter bones. Even with my previously buffed version and using a 2-axe with *no tech* - just as it comes off the roster, those bloodletters are capped at 41.9 damage which is still just shy of half the 2-axe 84 HP.

2-axe occupy a very large damage and resilience plateau. they'd be a balanced unit at 350-400g.

And you are actually underselling the infinity stones point. At least there were only 5 infinity stones. I look at the crowded bar at the bottom of my Aspiring Champions and I ask myself "What ability *doesn't* it have?"

I don't think the red line is a problem, and the stakes vis-a-vis monogods are unknowable til I've put them in a good place. The main problem with WoC is 3 units are 50-60% more powerful gold for gold than other units on the roster.

@alshua

Bloodletters only have a 78% chance to hit on the initial charge (where they kill 0 units) and a 63% chance to hit 4.8 seconds later, meaning after 5 seconds they have killed ~12% of the 2-axe models (again assuming 25% of the unit in contact)

So 5 seconds in the 2-axe are doubling kills.

It only gets worse for the bloodletters from there because by the time of their 3rd attack the charge bonus has worn off, and they are capped dealing 41.1 max damage, which is less than half of the 84 hp each 2-axe has, meaning they need 3 swings to kill.

Meanwhile the *minimum* a 2-axe can do is 41.7, which is 2-shotting bloodletters, and the attacks come out 20% faster.

And bloodletters only have a 48% hit chance vs. the 2-axe 55%. We didn't add in Rage btw.

@alshua I think you might be missing something about dual axe warriors.

lets just take the armor and charge bonus:

2-axe:
36+5+10(frenzy)=51 attack
39+7.7=46.7 dmg
13+2.6=15.6 AP
4.0 attack interval
33 defense
50 charge
(0.8,0.99) AR

bloodletters:
34+17=51 attack
11+5.5=16.5 dmg
23+11.5=34.5 AP
4.8 attack interval
26 defense
30 charge
(0.15,0.3) AR
0.2 ward

In the initial charge 2-axe are hit capped so they have a 90% chance to do 69.4-79.5 damage. Bloodletters only have 72 hit points per model so every hit that lands has a 74% chance to kill a model outright, meaning if 25% of the unit connects 17% of the models are killed outright.

Because they attack 20% faster, they will likely finish off another ~7% of the bloodletter models before they even get a chance to get a second swing in.

ffs, i dont get, game started crashing on launch. Look that your mod was the last to be updated, disabled your mod, game launched fine. Then i disabled all mods and enabled only your mod, game launched fine .... I thought it must be some mod conflict so i started enabling mods gradually to find the crash.... no fking crash. I have all the mods i had before now with no crash... wtf is going on

They are pretty tragic yeah. I don't think having them go as high as the bonuses Daemon Prince gets would be a good idea, as I think thats kind of the only thing that makes DP strong in the late game, but they're overall pretty damn sad.

@butter

None of those distinctions currently exist, so my goal is to:

1) Fix monogod daemons.

2) create a realistic "undivided option" for Archaeon and the other two, since Undivided is just straight weaker.

3) Populate underutilized areas of Chaos in general with more unique abilities instead of just stats.

As far as plaguebearers, I was comparing 7% ward save to 5% phys resist + terror. I agree with your assessment on slot competition, which was the thrust of my original plan with the mod: if we are limited to 4 they should be at least a situational side-grade to other units. The problem with Plaguebearers is that even with 12% phys resist I still wasn't taking them, so I need to find another way to make them interesting.

@butter

My philosophy (admittedly as a hardcore fan - i got into chaos miniatures at like 8 years old) is that Daemons of Chaos *should* have better daemonic access than Warriors, either in quality or quantity, and Warriors should have superior mortal units, with interesting and unusual combinations, (here represented as vassals)

the fun of chaos was always mixing and matching. Taking anything and mixing it with one of the four gods, or multiple gods.

Between warrior factions, Undivided should get moderate blessings from each God that are applied to novel units, to give you creative play patterns that change the roster in a meaningful way (like how a Tzeentch barrier on a Slaanesh unit would allows for guerilla tactics). Champions should get rigid but potent blessings from their specific god applied to across their mortal units (vassals included)

@butter

Well after looking at how pitiful the daemons tech trees were (at least for N'Kari, who gets an embarrassing +10% weapon strength to daemonettes and that's it) I'm going to tune them up.

Skarbrand is passing but the others have majors holes in them. A real travesty.

I'm also working on a tech tree tuning for the regular Warriors of Chaos, with exclusive techs that buff Chaos Undivided that only the WH1 chaos factions like Archaeon will get access to.

I'm gonna flavor it so choosing to play Archaeon is different from choosing to play a Daemon or a champion in that being a master of Chaos Undivided makes you more well-rounded/synergistic in play. e.g. special techs as you complete expanding tiers in the 4 corners tech tree that soften the drawbacks of marked units (speed for nurgle, melee attack for tzeentch, etc) but also grant your unmarked units advantages for staying Undivided.

One final point, even in base Warhammer 3 monogod support was already a joke from the get go, just go look at the unit buffs the Daemon Prince get, its pretty crazy. You don't even need to devote to a specific god to end up with vastly superior variants of the more basic daemon units, so what we can learn from this is that "having better daemons than monogod factions is bad" is a flawed argument cause that was NEVER the case in the first place. The only truly great support they have is for Greater Daemons (minus Khorne) thanks to all the amazing bound spells they get.

Basically what I'm saying is, dont dial the mod down. Warriors of Chaos are clearly an overpowered faction right now, but its absolutely not due to their daemon access and the Monogod factions all need some serious changes to their research tree, which is on CA.

Iunno about that. Ku'gath has better Plaguebearer support than Festus does, with your mod, even before the nerfs. 7% Ward Save is more valuable than 12% physical resist, and has a huge increase to Exalted Plaguebearer ammo count (which I've found does actually do pretty decent damage to monsters/town siege towers), but most importantly they have a much better red skill line. The WoC skill line support for basic lesser daemons/ground-based Greater Daemons is, quite frankly, god awful. Savage Bloodlust is a terrible skill. Now Warp Fire, that's a pretty good skill that makes Horrors, Flamers, flyers and ranged Soul Grinders worth using (Though to be fair Nurgle Grinders are so good I'd run them even with 0 support).

Another issue is that daemons are excluded from Dark Gifts like desiccated hide, which makes no damn sense. AND for all factions that aren't Be'lakor, lesser daemons etc compete for slots against stuff like Shaggoth's, so they better be damn good.

So I looked at the Daemons of Chaos tech trees aaaaaaand... the problem is just substantial power creep in the new DLC.

so I tuned downward on some things. Full changes in the change notes.

I might actually adjust the main warrior lines so that they have some sort of downside to justify their power level.

Although I might put that in a separate mod cuz nerfing your own game is... an acquired taste.



also @salt dove I put in the dark elf add

@alshua

I can understand that. I aim to undershoot it as well. The issue I found with WoC Champions atm is that the warriors are just head, shoulders, and 8-pointed nipple-rings above every other unit on the roster

e.g. Valkia: 2-axe Warriors get +10 armor, +18 charge, and "Rage" (5 attack, 8 morale, and 10% phys res.) from tech and chosen get "Hellblade" (+20% damage) on top of that.

If I ask myself, "With +8 inf bonus and unbreakable, do I now take [5 units of] bloodletters over [4 units of] 2-axe warriors?" the answer is still no. In fact if I have money on a battle I still take a single unit of 2-axe warriors over a Bloodthirster (250g vs 550g!)

Like the power deficit is so real you could add another +15 to [pick any stat] for any daemon (certainly any vassal unit) and still be choosing the same upkeep's worth of 2-axe in almost every case

Rosters for Festus / Vilitch / Azazel are the same vis-a-vis their specialized warrior

Remember daemons got *nothing* in vanilla tech

Totally get it. The Khaine link is actually a really smart way to introduce a DE buff to Valkia. Thanks for the explanation as well and once again great mod!.

@salt dove

Yeah I understand that. If you look at the changes I made though, a lot of them are flavor/lore oriented in their changes, cuz I've been a warhammer fan since I was a kid and the feeling is just as important as the actual mechanics. And Slaanesh has a strong connection to dark elves - they kinda have to be paired. Dark Elves themselves and the creation of a lot of the physical manifestations of Slaanesh are a result of the ancient decadence/debauchery of High Elf society. I actually considered a small bonus to Azazel for High Elves as well, but decided against it.

And some of Valkia's best options (like skin wolves) are in the Norscan roster which was already covered in the undivided tree.

Now that you bring it up though I might add an upkeep buff to the subset of "Khaine" dark elves (executioners / witch elves etc). Khorne - The Blood God - and [Kaela Mensha] Khaine - The Bloody Handed - are arguably the same dark power.

Thanks for reminding me!

@butter yeah I get you on that. And I was aware of their existence. There's a guy that made a more extensive upgrade mod that allows you to upgrade the tier 2 units as well, for example.

there were 2 reasons I included mine:

1) I wanted a version that made the upgrade cost reasonable (it should take ~rank 8 and they should lose ~8 ranks since there's a +8 melee attack differential between daemonettes and exalted daemonettes) and also was limited just to the basic units. I wanted Champions to be able to get at least one daemon they focused on, but not go overboard (since they are Warriors of Chaos and not Daemons of Chaos)

2) My mod doesn't data core. A lot of those other mods do. Data coring removes and replaces core data folders, which can cause compatibility problems, save corruption, or crashes to desktop. My mods don't do that. Which is actually the answer to your question. my mod should be completely safe and either get implemented or not based on load order.

Sick mod, I wish I had it at the start of my Valkia campaign. One thought though, I get the thematic reason for why Azazel would buff Dark Elves units. But wouldn't it make more sense to swap the Ork+Goblin buffs from Valkia and the Dark Elven buffs from Azazel based on the relative locations of each LL? Like Azazel is in proximity to Bonerattlaz and Black Pit Orks, as well as being much closer to the Grimgor and the various Ork sub-factions. While Valkia is literally in Dark Elven home territory.

I understand she starts nearby to an Ork sub-faction, but in my experiences, it usually gets wrecked by Hellebron very early on.

Hmm...That's actually pretty well reasoned, generally I'm more concerned with being on the receiving end of Unbreakable units, but considering Valkia's general performance I doubt that will ever really come into play. Alright, you've convinced me.

Another thing though, I feel like there's a bit of a feature overlap cause there's already a fair amount of mods that lets you upgrade Lesser Daemons via the warband menu, just a bit concerned that it will cause compatibility issues.

@butter I'm actually surprised to hear that about the bloodletters. I actually thought out of the 4 that was probably the most niche ability.

If you consider the situations in which it makes a difference: In my experience rank7+ bloodletters (especially exalted) tend to lose meaningful morale only when taking extensive damage, to the point where they start to waver at like 20-25% hp. So in those situations instead of getting to 10-15% from damage and then the last 10-15% evaporating, they use that last little bit of their HP.

So really to me it reads "+10-15% effective hp for rank 7 bloodletters"

I'd love to hear more of your reasoning though

I havent tested for co-op compatibility.

As far as save games go, if I were really far in a campaign I'd backup a save before loading a new mod and testing things out, but - that said - i've loaded this mod directly into other campaigns and not had issues, as well as removing this mod from campaigns and loaded the saves without issues.

So in the testing I did I didn't have any issues.

I make sure that none of my mods "data-core" (none of them rewrite core data folders, they always just add or replace entries) so they should be highly compatible

Save game compatible? Awesome Mod and coop compatible?

Alright, this looks pretty good! Different from how the monogod factions buff their daemons, I like it. Right off the bat though, unbreakable for Bloodletters is quite frankly way too powerful ability for them to have.