How to balance plasma, Grav and melta ideas?

[Medjugorje]

 

Personally I think plasma when overheated should ignore damage modifiers. I really think dreads and the -1 damage fractions are why plasma isn't more popular. They just feel pointless against armies like deathguard.

 

 

This is great! 

 

no. -1 dmg is that important for the game because if we had not - this kind of weapons would takeover the whole game. In 8th edtion every army tried to spam dmg2 weapons because they were so much cheaper then meltas.

 

I would prefer to make Plasma more efficient in what they do now. They are good against elite infantry but should not be good against higher T (big tanks) with lots of wounds. So make them never overheating dmg2 but +2S but with a point reduction but not selfkilling machines.

 

The problems i have with plasma is that they just work with rerolls but then they are a bit too efficient. I dont like "all or nothing" degsign. 

The output from a normal squad of hellblasters is very good but if they have done their job they normally die as quick as possible and because of that reason

people try to buff them as good as possilbe so that their investment for one shooting round has been worth it. Thats a bad game design in my oppionion because it bringes the game too often to decide who wins game. 

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

 

 

Personally I think plasma when overheated should ignore damage modifiers. I really think dreads and the -1 damage fractions are why plasma isn't more popular. They just feel pointless against armies like deathguard.

 

This is great! 

 

I'm not a fan of adding in additional special rules to counter existing special rules. This would also mean that the Avatar would take full wounds from plasma, same as the CTan/Gaz, definitely not intended.

 

This involves a ground up rework of the units with -1D, such as giving +1T instead to represent how hard they are to kill. 

 

 

I don't blame you for not liking additional special rules that cancel special rules, but they let that cat out of the bag with all the rules bloat. Plenty of fractions have to face fractions that turn of their bonus either by ignoring cover, needing unmodified values to wound or hit, etc. I'm not a fan of it either but I don't think GW is going to try and sell us less books.

 

That said C'tan and Ghaz don't modify the damage, they can only lose a set number of wounds per phase. They wouldn't be affected at all. The plasma would do 2 damage, and they wouldn't lose wounds after they were past their cap. 

 

The Avatar would be affected, but to be blunt he isn't very good to begin with. 

 

 

 

 

Personally I think plasma when overheated should ignore damage modifiers. I really think dreads and the -1 damage fractions are why plasma isn't more popular. They just feel pointless against armies like deathguard.

 

 

This is great! 

 

no. -1 dmg is that important for the game because if we had not - this kind of weapons would takeover the whole game. In 8th edtion every army tried to spam dmg2 weapons because they were so much cheaper then meltas.

 

I would prefer to make Plasma more efficient in what they do now. They are good against elite infantry but should not be good against higher T (big tanks) with lots of wounds. So make them never overheating dmg2 but +2S but with a point reduction but not selfkilling machines.

 

The problems i have with plasma is that they just work with rerolls but then they are a bit too efficient. I dont like "all or nothing" degsign. 

The output from a normal squad of hellblasters is very good but if they have done their job they normally die as quick as possible and because of that reason

people try to buff them as good as possilbe so that their investment for one shooting round has been worth it. Thats a bad game design in my oppionion because it bringes the game too often to decide who wins game. 

 

 

I don't think they would take over the game, because MM equivalents would still be better. I think your underestimating just how bad lascannons, and the other anti-tank weapons were (and with the exception of the MM still are). 

 

I do agree with your sentiments about the poor design philosophy because the buffs are out of control this edition. I just think striping that stuff out makes more sense than having dmg -1 everywhere.  

[The Unseen]

My fix, give tanks and monsters more wounds, and sometimes higher toughness

Right now everything is squeezed into T6-T8, when it could be a lot broader. D2 is really efficient because tanks often have only 12-14 wounds total, and many of the ones that have more are functionally cripped if they take that much damage.

 

Bring the strength of some anti-tank weapons up, melta needs some bonus to wound or str at close range, it's entirely too swingy into T8 targets as-is, and smooth out the damage variance for the anti-tank weapons. A lascannon has a 1/3 chance of doing the same OR LESS damage than an overcharged plasma gun, which further exacerbates the issue. I don't think d3+3 is the right way though, at least not for everything. But 2d3 or d6 with a min value are both good.

 

Grav weapons are in a weird spot, and I think GW should lean into that, a mortal wound weapon would make sense in moderation, Emperor knows marines currently have 0 ways of generating mortal wounds beyond the occasional librarian smite or d3 from a limited strat selection.

 

In its current state its going to be cery difficult for plasma and grav to not overlap substantially and therefore 1 will generally just be better.

 

I think plasma should do mortals equal to the weapon damage to the firing unit rather than just killing models, it makes cheap infantry with plasma significantly more useful than more expensive models. And that rule easily scales for vehicle class weapons without an arbitrary difference.

 

I like Dreadnoughts and the like having no degradation with -1 damage, other tanks should just have more wounds, rather than proliferate that rule, make non-mm anti tank weapons better, and make vehicles broader in durability.

[BrainFireBob]

You're ignoring half your design space

 

Instead of bringing plasma up to melta, bring melta down to plasma.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

You're ignoring half your design space

 

Instead of bringing plasma up to melta, bring melta down to plasma.

That's a fair point, but I think most people aren't going to nerf marines at the moment. I'd like to see heavy weapon changes because I think the game is too lethal but marines aren't top tier. I also don't think that is the direction GW wants to go.

[Medjugorje]

 

You're ignoring half your design space

 

Instead of bringing plasma up to melta, bring melta down to plasma.

That's a fair point, but I think most people aren't going to nerf marines at the moment. I'd like to see heavy weapon changes because I think the game is too lethal but marines aren't top tier. I also don't think that is the direction GW wants to go.

 

when you decrease the points then everything is okay.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

 

 

 

You're ignoring half your design space

 

Instead of bringing plasma up to melta, bring melta down to plasma.

That's a fair point, but I think most people aren't going to nerf marines at the moment. I'd like to see heavy weapon changes because I think the game is too lethal but marines aren't top tier. I also don't think that is the direction GW wants to go.

when you decrease the points then everything is okay.

I'd have a lot better opinion of chapter approved if they were adjusting more units/wargear down in points but they don't do it often.