Balance Dataslate and points update

[dkng]

So I've heard they were supposed to be out day before yesterday on friday. Apparently they are not out yet but it's quite possible we'd ge them tomorrow. What do you expect? Are we going to get hit third time? If so, what do you think will get worse / more expensive? Do we really deserve to get hit again?

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Probably Monday or Tuesday of this week. They're doing quarterly balance updates, so that would mean October 1st if they're doing this on a calendar year.

[wcgnidz]

Most people agree if you look solely at win rates, that the "sweet spot" of "good enough and not too strong" is 45-55% win rate. But win rate as a statistic is sort of like BMI in the medical field. It's a good/useful piece of information, but it doesn't necessarily mean all is well/bad. 

Since Nephilim, nids have sat at 56%-62% the entire time, with an average weekend of 58%. The community also tends to agree that a win rate of 60+% is objectively a problem(you will see some factions not tyranids hit these numbers but often the explanation is as simple as there was like 2 people playing a specific army, and they both did very very well which skews the data, hence why it's important to see how many people are playing the faction). The army also, while bragging less first place event finishes than we'd expect, even after the last dataslate still has an overrepresentation of podium finishes(aka top 3 at most events, arguably top 10 at very large events). Also, tyranids in terms of collected ITC data ARE one of the more played factions since the new codex. Which means that the data I'm rattling off above.....is more accurate than most factions in terms of being able to draw conclusions, because compared to other armies we have a better sample size from which to extrapolate data.

What all that means. Nids are too good. They deserve a nerf. Do they deserve a significant nerf? Probably not(which has many tyranid die hards rightfully concerned).

What I fully expect. Almost every tyranid list doing well has: a neurothrope, a flying tyrant, warriors.

I won't be a little surprised if the neurothrope goes up 10 points. The flying tyrant(maybe also walkrant) goes up 10 pts. And warriors(please for the love of god make this change to the weapons aka boneswords and deathspitters) go up a total of 5 pts per model(if done to weapons +3 for dual swords and +2 for deathspitters).

I suspect those changes would be enough to bring nids WITHIN the 45-55% win rate range(I'd wager that'd knock nids down to approximately 53%).

Now. My dark desire I've seen others voice that I think would be great for tyranids.

Move warriors to elites, and move genestealers back to troops. Warriors being troops is specifically too good for Hive Fleet Leviathan's chapter tactic. Full transhuman, solid, elite infantry models that count as troops aka have obsec? And provide fearless? And an imperative for your army? They probably have no business being troops in this new tyranid codex from a balance perspective.

Simultaneously, the move of genestealers to elites has doomed them to almost never being run. Because on top of their changes to being able to advance and charge in exchange for forward deploy(arguably a fair trade), they also lost obsec which broke their back. Tyranids biggest weakness is our secondary game. We have a great codex filled with amazing datasheets, priced fairly to too cheap from a points perspective. But our secondary game is trash/bad compared to most good armies. Tyranids only do so well because of how good our raw power is and we need to navigate not being able to score as well as a lot of armies. Removing our over efficient powerhouse troop(warriors) to make them elites in exchange for elite-ish forward deploying obsec would be a MASSIVE boon for our secondary game and suddenly makes stuff like RND, engage on all fronts, spore nodes, and more actually appealing.

Like if they did the above, even if they nerfed neurothropes, warriors, and tyrants points to the levels of being unplayable BUT we got the genestealer change. We'd be a top codex still imo.

Also there's a lot of tyranid players(mostly me) who own like 80 genestealers. I literally can't field them all anymore in a standard 2k game and that feels a little bad.

Halp me GW, you're my only hope.

But yeah, expect tyranids to take a hit. Probably not a soul crushing hit. But a hit.

[purestrain]

Its going to be a restriction similar to chaos marines cultists = marines system.

You'll have to have more infantry that isnt synapse in order to bring synapse infantry.

Warriors to 35 ppm. bonesword/Deathspitter +5 points because no better kill than overkill.

Flyrant BS/LW up 20 points, flyrant up 10 points.

Neuro up 20 points.

Tyrannofex/exocrine/harpies up another 15 points.

Nothing down, nothing good, nothing but hate.

[zimko]

My hope is they specifically target Leviathan, leaving Kraken top tier, lol.

[piersonsmuppet]

I think we’ll just see Warriors +5 (hopefully through wargear if so), tervigon up ~30pts, and Harpy/Rupturefex +15. War/Harpy are the primary nerf and tervigon/rupture prob goes up because it’s the fallback from warrior spam. I could see Zoans going up 5-10 ppm as well, I really hope not though.

Tyrants are fine because of Nephilim CP amounts.

[purestrain]

Oct 3, 2022 2:20:13 GMT piersonsmuppet said:

I think we’ll just see Warriors +5 (hopefully through wargear if so), tervigon up ~30pts, and Harpy/Rupturefex +15. War/Harpy are the primary nerf and tervigon/rupture prob goes up because it’s the fallback from warrior spam. I could see Zoans going up 5-10 ppm as well, I really hope not though.

Tyrants are fine because of Nephilim CP amounts.

You're right, but thats not how GW rolls.

Its going to be somewhat more heavy handed than whats needed because they just nerfed their newest guys pretty fast and need to compensate vs the meta.

[dkng]

I too hope the nerf will hit Leviathan. It alone twists our stats vs other factions and without it I'm not so sure Tyranids really need points increases. But I'm ready to cut my lists nonetheless as knowing GW they will hit the whole faction leaving internal balance (Levi vs rest of the tendrils) as bad as it is.

[No One]

dkng said:

I too hope the nerf will hit Leviathan. It alone twists our stats vs other factions and without it I'm not so sure Tyranids really need points increases. But I'm ready to cut my lists nonetheless as knowing GW they will hit the whole faction leaving internal balance (Levi vs rest of the tendrils) as bad as it is.

Fun fact: Kraken is the highest win% subfaction with more than a 100 tracked games. Not much higher than Levi, and with a fair bit fewer games so it's hard to say whether it's player skill vs actual stronger, but definitely not just Levi issue.

That said, as is I don't think nids really need pts bumps and a Levi fix would cut out a lot of issues. I expect them to bring down sisters/'crons/harlies as well though, and a hit to just Levi would definitely leave us pretty much undisputed top if no other faction got big buffs and other S tiers get hit.

[hiveoverall]

Oct 3, 2022 5:34:53 GMT No One said:

dkng said:

I too hope the nerf will hit Leviathan. It alone twists our stats vs other factions and without it I'm not so sure Tyranids really need points increases. But I'm ready to cut my lists nonetheless as knowing GW they will hit the whole faction leaving internal balance (Levi vs rest of the tendrils) as bad as it is.

Fun fact: Kraken is the highest win% subfaction with more than a 100 tracked games. Not much higher than Levi, and with a fair bit fewer games so it's hard to say whether it's player skill vs actual stronger, but definitely not just Levi issue.

That said, as is I don't think nids really need pts bumps and a Levi fix would cut out a lot of issues. I expect them to bring down sisters/'crons/harlies as well though, and a hit to just Levi would definitely leave us pretty much undisputed top if no other faction got big buffs and other S tiers get hit.

Which is why I am certain "levi nerfs only" is simply NOT gooing to happen. Levi nerfs as well as other nerfs is what i think will happen, sadly.

Warriors will certainly take like a 5 point increase (gear or model who knows), perhaps venomthropes too. Aside from that I don't really see what can be nerfed, but I bet we are in for surprises...

I think secondaries for crons and sisters are the only thing likely to get nerfed there, but again, i feel a suprise is coming. 

[No One]

hiveoverall said:

Which is why I am certain "levi nerfs only" is simply NOT gooing to happen. Levi nerfs as well as other nerfs is what i think will happen, sadly.
Warriors will certainly take like a 5 point increase (gear or model who knows), perhaps venomthropes too. Aside from that I don't really see what can be nerfed, but I bet we are in for surprises...
I think secondaries for crons and sisters are the only thing likely to get nerfed there, but again, i feel a suprise is coming.

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised: it wouldn't be correct, but how much complaining do you see about Kraken? Points is...I honestly don't expect points nerfs, if only because they're not doing an MFM at the same time: could still happen, but tbh I don't think warriors warrant anything (provided an expected Levi nerf).

'Crons/sisters, probably, but it's a bit awkward to be doing secondaries for a specific mission pack in the general matched dataslate: they'll hopefully still do it, and ideally address some of the core silliness with Crons (just SK mainly though tbh). Not sure what else they could do without gutting the factions.

[joysan76]

if gw want to have balanced armies they must rework totally the sub-faction mechanics, else for a super sub-faction that need points adjustment all the other will become really useless also in friendly games

[mrdodo]

I was thinking maybe they do something with the rule that loses you all synaptic imperatives if you lose your warlord if it's a hive tyrant.

But I am looking everywhere in the codex and FAQ, nowhere can I find that rule anymore. Is it somewhere hidden or did they remove the restriction? (I thought it was in a FAQ)

[No One]

It's in the balance dataslate, not FAQ

[piersonsmuppet]

Oct 3, 2022 13:02:19 GMT mrdodo said:

I was thinking maybe they do something with the rule that loses you all synaptic imperatives if you lose your warlord if it's a hive tyrant.

But I am looking everywhere in the codex and FAQ, nowhere can I find that rule anymore. Is it somewhere hidden or did they remove the restriction? (I thought it was in a FAQ)

Fun fact, you do not lose anything from your WL not being on the battlefield, you only don’t gain things. I’m actually finishing a write-up on what that actually means, and I’ll create a different thread so as not to derail this one.

As far as GW repealing some of the previous dataslate nerfs, I doubt many buffs are coming our way due to the current successes of the codex.

Levi is probably going to drop to just mini-trans, and synapse will gain no rr wounds. While it is a substantial nerf, Levi synapse gains durability vs wound rolls of 4+ w/ rr’s so it’s not a complete loss.