Total Warhammer 2 - the thread is dead, long live the thread

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Tiler Kiwi: Feb 26, 2011

skaven more, no?

# ? Dec 3, 2020 08:27

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 11:05

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

# ? Dec 3, 2020 08:42

Eimi: Nov 23, 2013; I will never ~~log off~~shut up.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 09:00

pnutz: Jan 5, 2015

Kanos posted:

Wood Elves were always an absolute blast of a faction to actually play, but were saddled with poo poo game mechanics like amber and had some gaping roster weaknesses in campaign, like sieges being terrible because you had no siege weapons or units that could fight well on walls.

yeah they had a tech that made attrition kick in 4 turns earlier but goddamn that was still a pita to play

Ra Ra Rasputin posted:

Come the patch people will have to get used to their giant monsters not being able to just walk away from a infantry moshpit whenever they want, you now need something to rescue your monsters completely surrounded by cheap spearmen or hope they have a animation that takes them back out of the swarm.

The gently caress-your-moshpit ability of giants was one of only a couple things they had going, though playing against walking with dinosaurs (or walking with cavemen) is going to be much less of a nightmare now. perhaps an extra roll to knock back if they're real-fuckin-huge as a special rule.

I also feel this is a nerf to minotaurs but beastmen already has enough problems with its campaign

# ? Dec 3, 2020 09:03

pnutz: Jan 5, 2015

also since I have no space on the OP (remind me when 3 comes out to reserve more posts) I'm going to post the unit guides back here and also free up some space for memes

high elf roster from the custom battles screen posted:

martial prowess
all elf units receive a passive skill called martial prowess (some units get martial mastery instead). These confer melee attack/defence (not damage) bonuses as long as the unit is above 50% hp.

martial prowess:
+2 attack
+12 defence

martial mastery:
+8 attack
+12 defence

units that have martial mastery (or no bonus at all eg creatures) will be mentioned below

Lords

Tyrion
Tyrion has the best natural combat skills of any unit in the game. he also gets 2 items, one which gives him a bunch of extra hp if you get him down under 10%, and his sword which gives some more combat bonuses and a breath attack in case he needs to get himself out of somewhere.

~~Dr Strange~~Teclis
Teclis is the worst melee character in the game (seriously he has worse combat stats than the wizard heroes) but makes up for it with serious magic bonuses and a load of spells and abilities. he also gets an ability to turn on his sword if someone tries to engage him, which gives him actual melee strength like popeye eating spinach for about 45 seconds.

Alarielle
Alarielle is the everqueen, charged with protecting ulthuan from within. She has campaign bonuses and a unique set of spells from light, life and high magic. If using her in MP or campaign you can also use wood elf trees to fight for you.

Alith Anar
Alith Anar is a Free-lc lord released alongside QatC. Most of his bonuses are related to campaigning in Naggaron murdering dark elves, and he gets occasional assassination missions with big bonuses assigned to them. These can be against Dark elves, or he can go all Dark Angels and pick on his own kind. He can even get a mission to kill the make-a-wish kid's hero.

Eltharion the Grim
This guy rules one of the old palaces, he also had a previous beef with Grom the Paunch and is preparing for his return

There's also a secret white lion hero some make-a-wish kid got added into the game that you can recruit in the campaign - look for Alastar

magic lores: Shadows | Beasts | Metal | High (racial) | Death | Life | Light | Fire | Heavens
*Loremasters of Hoeth get a sample pack of these lores:
Shem's (light, magic missile)
Harmonic Convergance (heavens, short but significant melee buff)
Life Leech (death, single-target direct damage)
Melkoth's (shadows, numerous-model-unit direct damage)
Wyssan's wildform(beasts, armour+damage buff)
Earthblood(life, small group heal)

Heroes

Noble
Comes with anti-large halberd, may mount a chariot or giant eagle. You're likely bringing this guy to combat because you need to level them up ahead of world-level skills, however.

(QatC)Handmaiden
Can mount an armoured horse. She has an anti-large spear but her real asset is sitting in the back like with stacks of archer-boosting abilities. Sadly does not charge into battle yelling LUMBERFOOTS at people.

Mages(see the lores, basically all the normal ones)
May mount a chariot, can come with some more mana-boosting abilities and items

Loremaster of Hoeth
No mounts. Comes with the spells mentioned earlier and is a fairly good on-foot infantry blender.

Infantry

Speramanii
Following tt in having the best spearwall in the game. They're also quite cheap.

(GatG)Rangers
physical resist, woodsman, dual swords level damage. There are better units than this at 'cheap infantry blender' but the elves are lacking in them, so this has a niche

White Lions of Chrace
The awesome looking axemen with lion pelts. Great AP damage and missile resistance to make up for lack of shields.

Swordmasters of Hoeth
<insert battle of mordor image here>
Top-tier line infantry with great anti-infantry AP attack. Combine with healing spells for the best results.

Randarkman posted:
Jesus, swordmasters are just completely bonkers versus infantry.

they also get a little shield too (only 20% but that's better than nothing).

Pheonix Guard
Similar to the swordmasters, but they get halberds so rip and tear big units.
these units have martial mastery

archers

You'll usually just get loads of these and recreate the rain of death scene from hero

Archers/light armour
Will get chewed up by dwarf quarrelers but have much better range. They also have a version that wears something tougher than a t-shirt to last longer.

Lothern Seaguard/shields
it's an archer! it's a spearman! it's both! they're expensive but you get a very good archer with the same melee stats as an elf spearman, with an upgraded version with silver shields. great mid-game units.

paraphrased from a few pages into this thread posted:
[Lothern Sea Guard] are just a big gently caress You to all normal archer counters in this game (your own archers or cavalry)

Shadow Warriors
FreeLC stealth archers with vanguard deployment, stalk and parthian shot. The last ability is the real strength they have over Dark Elf Shades and should be abused accordingly.

At least they can't snipe, though there is a RoR that does that too (and has an ability to go invisible for half a minute to get away if you somehow find them) which is infuriating when you have to sit there and just eat it forever and then have them appear in melee out of nowhere

Shadow-walkers(Alith Anar ~~and sons~~ only)
Not to be confused with Shadow Warriors, these guys have a slightly different unit portrait and small stat buffs, along with poison attacks. Other than that they're exactly the same.

(QatC)Sisters of Avelorn
Super-archers that are good at everything and hit from stupid range with glittery magic and fire and armour piercing damage. It is possible to do a glittering deathstar of alarielle + 19 sisters and quickly get bored of the game because you're one of those people that does the broken thing and then complains that it's broken. You will also have to fight these awful stacks in the campaign and it's absolutely awful because even zap brannigan tactics won't save you and you have to throw doomstacks at them in suicide missions just to thin out the stack for another doomstack to win and a third doomstack to finish them off

Cavalry

Ellyrian Reavers
If pistoleers dropped their guns and had a proper melee weapon and not that pansy hipster cane sword they smack people with. vanguard deployment, ok melee abilty, average low-tier armour but the mass and speed to clean up units is what you're looking for when you buy these

Silver Helms/shields
Slightly less armoured than empire knights, but significantly faster (78 on heavy cav ), excluding martial prowess most other stats are simlar. charge in, spend 5 seconds looking over the rest of your army then pull out again. the shielded versions come with a 30% shield and 8 extra defence so it's not an insignificant upgrade.

Ithilmar Chariot
It's an armoured chariot, it does chariot things. Drive them into crowds of small units without charge defence.

(GatG)Lion Chariots
Ithilmar Chariots but now they have lions at the front for more feasting

Dragon Princes
In the lore these guys used to all get dragons, but most of those have ~~died~~gone to sleep so they're on cavalry instead.

these guys have heavy cav hp but a 25% physical resist (and a 70% fire resist like they're irondrakes) so they'll last in non-magical combat like their more monstrous cav counterparts.
these units get martial mastery like the pheonix guard.

Archer cav

Ellyrian Reavers with bows
Unlike the old cav archers from old TW titles, these have low armour and can be dispersed by enemy archers. They're still quite effective though

Tiranoc Chariot
Badly-armoured chariots with bows. surprisingly good dps due to triple-shot attack, so only send these in after using all your arrows first.

artillery

~~scorpions~~ Eagle Claw bolt thrower

the ammo is more or less like this.
High elves only get one piece of arty. It can fire one big bolt or 16 smaller ones with less AP power. While it feels anaemic compared to everyone else's arty (especially range), it is very accurate and can quickly snipe enemy arty if somehow left alone.

monsters
no monsters have martial prowess or mastery

Great Eagle
Causes fear, same poo poo as the wood elf one from game 1 - cheap for a monster, flies fast, causes fear, but unarmoured and suffers from the eagle problem of being shot out of the sky by the archers it's supposed to be killing. ditch it as soon as you can get something else to peck at catapults and cannons.

(Gatg)War Lions
Like wardogs if they had AP and strider and an attack bonus vs infantry. So basically wardogs that can chew up chaos warriors for breakfast, and are thus useful outside of early-game

pheonixes

Scroobius Pip posted:
Thou shalt spell the word pheonix p-h-e-o-n-i-x, NOT p-h-o-e-n-i-x regardless of what the oxford english dictionary tells you

Pheonixes come in two types - the faster, firey, high damage flamespyre pheonix that can regenerate and drop flame bombs on people, and the older, colder, slower but much tougher frostheart pheonix that's better in melee.

Pheonixes cause fear, terror and if you have more than 15 mana in the big circle they get a 12% ward save and magic attacks to live a little longer.

Dwagons

Someone who thinks they're playing Total War: Westeros posted:
Dracarys lolololol wait why is my dragon dying NOOOOOO

Dragons come in 3 types - Sun, Moon and Star dragons, in ascending order of age. Like Pheonixes, the oldest ones are the toughest. Unlike the Pheonixes, they're also much more powerful.

Dragons suffer from the monster problem of being artillery/gunpowder bait, but are largely immune from lesser fire with a 25% missile resistance and reasonable armour.

They also get an evil breath attack that gets more devastating with the older dragons, the stock game only lets you use this a few times before they're out of burps but fellow goon Gejnor made a mod to fix that http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1158815814

pnutz fucked around with this message at 11:49 on Dec 3, 2020

# ? Dec 3, 2020 09:16

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

DLC usually unlocks 10am EST?

# ? Dec 3, 2020 11:19

Lt. Lizard: Apr 28, 2013

They should still add that chameleon skink that got sucked into the Warp and turned into WH Doomguy (Doomskink?) as either a special hero, or LL.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 12:38

Anno: May 10, 2017; I'm going to drown! For no reason at all!

Unit balance changes. There are...a lot.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 13:12

Junkenstein: Oct 22, 2003

Wood Elves is the one DLC I never got round buying. If I buy the new DLC, I'll be able to play with everything Welve apart from the original lords?

# ? Dec 3, 2020 13:13

Ethiser: Dec 31, 2011

Ravenfood posted:

DLC usually unlocks 10am EST?

It looks like it'll be 1PM EST according to the Steam countdown.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 13:13

AnEdgelord: Dec 12, 2016

Junkenstein posted:

Wood Elves is the one DLC I never got round buying. If I buy the new DLC, I'll be able to play with everything Welve apart from the original lords?

You also dont get drycha

# ? Dec 3, 2020 13:19

ThingOne: Jul 30, 2011; Would you like some tofu?

I wish CA would explain what some of these changes are actually going to do. Like Projectile Intersection Radius going from 130% to 120%; I'm guessing this means that it's going to be harder for certain units to sit there dodging ranged fire.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 13:28

Torrannor: Apr 27, 2013; ---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

ThingOne posted:

I wish CA would explain what some of these changes are actually going to do. Like Projectile Intersection Radius going from 130% to 120%; I'm guessing this means that it's going to be harder for certain units to sit there dodging ranged fire.

I read this as the opposite? To me this sounds like "an arrow hit this unit in a radius of 130% of this unit's visible size, not it will only hit it in a radius of 120% this unit's size". But that's just my guess, explainers for these kind of changes would indeed be very appreciated.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 13:32

Communist Thoughts: Jan 7, 2008; Our war against free speech cannot end until we silence this bronze beast!

I'm sad this isn't a beastmen dlc though moulder is cool

Beastmen are my fav faction from ham1 and one of my overall faves. There are dozens of us

# ? Dec 3, 2020 13:45

ThingOne: Jul 30, 2011; Would you like some tofu?

Torrannor posted:

I read this as the opposite? To me this sounds like "an arrow hit this unit in a radius of 130% of this unit's visible size, not it will only hit it in a radius of 120% this unit's size". But that's just my guess, explainers for these kind of changes would indeed be very appreciated.

That makes sense. I figured it had to be some sort of nerf since it was applied to all flying elf casters and this whole patch seems like it's trying to rein in flying goon squads a bit.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 14:13

AnEdgelord: Dec 12, 2016

https://twitter.com/totalwar/status/1334486424628977665?s=19

# ? Dec 3, 2020 14:18

pnutz: Jan 5, 2015

Anno posted:

Unit balance changes. There are...a lot.

buffs to khazrak

# ? Dec 3, 2020 14:32

Broken Cog: Dec 29, 2009; We're all friends here

AnEdgelord posted:

https://twitter.com/totalwar/status/1334486424628977665?s=19

Eeh, so it'll still be decision spam, but it won't be 100% pointless lategame? Not too much to be excited about tbh.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 14:35

AnEdgelord: Dec 12, 2016

Broken Cog posted:

Eeh, so it'll still be decision spam, but it won't be 100% pointless lategame? Not too much to be excited about tbh.

Them taking a second look at the items to see if they can be made more exciting is the part that interests me

# ? Dec 3, 2020 14:43

Anno: May 10, 2017; I'm going to drown! For no reason at all!

Yeah so long as the items are interesting I really don�t care what the UI for obtaining them is.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 14:51

Broken Cog: Dec 29, 2009; We're all friends here

AnEdgelord posted:

Them taking a second look at the items to see if they can be made more exciting is the part that interests me

Yeah, we'll see what they come up with.
Right now it just seems to me that they're responding to the backlash with the least effort they could, I. E. Just by tweaking some numbers. It won't change that it's an unengaging mechanic.

But yeah, we'll see.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 14:54

punishedkissinger: Sep 20, 2017; Can't post for 10 hours!

the fact that they're responding this quickly is good imo

# ? Dec 3, 2020 14:59

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

more skaven

Motherfucker posted:

Also people who insist on balance in a singleplayer game can shampoo my crotch lmao.

I laughed so hard at this that I had to explain to my wife that a forumsposter named "Motherfucker" had made a funny joke about a videogame.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 15:02

Gejnor: Mar 14, 2005; Fun Shoe

punishedkissinger posted:

the fact that they're responding this quickly is good imo

Grace answered my question rather fast too!

# ? Dec 3, 2020 15:03

punishedkissinger: Sep 20, 2017; Can't post for 10 hours!

maybe i've become a shill for CA or something, but most of the time I've spent playing the Total War series has been wayyyyyyy buggier and more broken than where they're at now. Like, yeah, sieges don't work great now. But do you people remember how often the AI used to break and would literally stand still in front of your walls getting picked off one by one? The fact that issues like this actually get acknowledged now is just so awesome to me.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 15:06

Theswarms: Dec 20, 2005

Motherfucker posted:

more skaven and bigger too!!

Also people who insist on balance in a singleplayer game can shampoo my crotch lmao.

People should stop misusing balance to mean everything is the same.

Things being balanaced so some factions are easier and others are harder is good actually. Sometimes you want to easily overwhelm everything and sometimes you want the hardest challenge the game has to offer and this too is balance.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 15:07

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Anno posted:

Unit balance changes. There are...a lot.

Some significant magic nerfs to Burning Head, Penumbral Pendulum and Seafang damage. They also increased summon spells cost again and summoning Ushabti through the Realm of Souls takes twice as long so it's going to be totally useless for intercepting now.

Vlad's also interesting since they finally gave up and gave him a ton of armor-piercing damage and gave his ring infinite charges (though they lowered the ward save from 90 to 66%). I wonder how that's going to play out? Malus got huge buffs too now that his demon form does 60% less damage over time to him.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 15:38

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Wow, does Penumbral Pendulum really two half the damage it used to do now? Ouch

# ? Dec 3, 2020 15:42

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

I don't get a lot of these. Maybe Dwarfs need an across-the-board leadership nerf but is 2 points going to accomplish much? Does Queek Headtaker need to be ~25% better in melee than he already is? Tyrion was a pretty good melee blender but now he can AOE 60% more fools at once?

I guess they have analytics and stuff, but it's really hard to work out what all this actually amounts to overall. Partly cos there's just so much of it, heh.

Zephro fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Dec 3, 2020

# ? Dec 3, 2020 15:43

Gejnor: Mar 14, 2005; Fun Shoe

Zephro posted:

Does Queek Headtaker need to be ~25% better in melee than he already is?

On this point i would have to give an empathetic YES because holy poo poo did he get left in the dust vs other Lords, Rats or otherwise.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 15:48

Motherfucker: Jul 16, 2011; I certainly dont have deep-seated issues involving birthdays.

Theswarms posted:

People should stop misusing balance to mean everything is the same.

Things being balanaced so some factions are easier and others are harder is good actually. Sometimes you want to easily overwhelm everything and sometimes you want the hardest challenge the game has to offer and this too is balance.

Exactly. I could literally go over the entire game and remake every unit type to be identical to its peers, every stormvermin is the same as every elven spearman is the same as every empire spearman. But that would fffuuuuhcking suck and be lame as hell. The points system is in place to adress these issues in multiplayer and in single player the only person whose enjoyment matters is your own.

I would say that skaven getting ALL the dopest poo poo may be a problem if you intrinsically dislike them but like, also you're not... denied from just bein' the skaven and enjoying being the giant rat who makes all of the rules... Plus this whole thing is so they never have to be addressed again in tw3 anyway...

# ? Dec 3, 2020 15:49

AnEdgelord: Dec 12, 2016

Skaven will get Thanquol and probably Verminlords at some point in Warhammer 3 but that could end up being FLC

Though a Thanquol vs Skarbrand lord pack would be funny as hell

# ? Dec 3, 2020 15:54

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

Motherfucker posted:

Plus this whole thing is so they never have to be addressed again in tw3 anyway...

Game 3 will have all 30 Skaven clans listed here implemented as major factions: https://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/List_of_Skaven_clans

Everyone else will be deleted and the various Skaven factions will inherit their gimmick. Tomb Skaven vs Pirate Skaven, Aztec Skaven vs Noblebright Skaven, Grumpy Skaven vs Vampire Skaven, yes-yes forever

# ? Dec 3, 2020 16:01

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Motherfucker posted:

Exactly. I could literally go over the entire game and remake every unit type to be identical to its peers, every stormvermin is the same as every elven spearman is the same as every empire spearman. But that would fffuuuuhcking suck and be lame as hell. The points system is in place to adress these issues in multiplayer and in single player the only person whose enjoyment matters is your own.

I would say that skaven getting ALL the dopest poo poo may be a problem if you intrinsically dislike them but like, also you're not... denied from just bein' the skaven and enjoying being the giant rat who makes all of the rules... Plus this whole thing is so they never have to be addressed again in tw3 anyway...

Personally I define "balance" not that everything needs to be exactly identical, but that everything needs to be equally viable. Different games have different levers to pull to accomplish this; loosely speaking Total War can either change the unit's cost/accessibility, the unit's baseline stats, or the unit's abilities. People often claim that in SP it "doesn't matter" but the reality is that the majority of people will default to what appears to be the "best" option every time. If you put the stronger units in a lower tier building, nobody will bother going past that tier to unlock units they have no incentive to use. If two units have similar abilities and cost but one has 10% higher stats, then players will build the stronger one exclusively. The issue is that it's generally more difficult to balance by adjusting all the different levers instead of just pushing stats to be identical, so lazy or (more often) time-constrained devs will default to homogenization as a band-aid.

I will agree that in SP the acceptable range of viability is wider than in MP. As a general statement if your game has enough incentive to balance for the MP crowd you might as well carry those changes to SP too - if the changes are done properly it doesn't hurt anything.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 16:04

Zephro: Nov 23, 2000; I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...

orangelex44 posted:

Personally I define "balance" not that everything needs to be exactly identical, but that everything needs to be equally viable.

I think in multiplayer this makes sense, though it can very easily devolve into a purely cosmetic choice along the lines of "would you prefer to shoot blue fireballs instead of red ones?" because 'equally viable' really boils down to 'equally effective'.

In a single-player game I think it's fine for some factions to have a harder time than others because it provides some variety and challenge. Eg the fact that Imrik has a really hard start is fine and his location makes a nice change of pace from the other High Elf lords. Giving players different challenges keeps the game interesting.

edit: VVV good point, didn't realise that's how weapon damage worked with AOE

Zephro fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Dec 3, 2020

# ? Dec 3, 2020 16:09

Anno: May 10, 2017; I'm going to drown! For no reason at all!

Zephro posted:

I don't get a lot of these. Maybe Dwarfs need an across-the-board leadership nerf but is 2 points going to accomplish much? Does Queek Headtaker need to be ~25% better in melee than he already is? Tyrion was a pretty good melee blender but now he can AOE 60% more fools at once?

I guess they have analytics and stuff, but it's really hard to work out what all this actually amounts to overall. Partly cos there's just so much of it, heh.

The max AOE thing isn�t even a blanket buff is it? It means they hit more things but for less damage since it divides their weapon damage across all targets. So they might be better at fighting low-HP models but worse at more elite infantry or maybe monstrous infantry depending on their splash size.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 16:09

Electronico6: Feb 25, 2011

DLC out.

Remember to get your free elf captain from Total War Access and the Rat chieftain from Steam.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 16:12

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Ravenfood posted:

Wow, does Penumbral Pendulum really two half the damage it used to do now? Ouch

Yeah this change blows and I hate it.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 16:16

Broken Cog: Dec 29, 2009; We're all friends here

People aren't complaining about Tehenhauin and Malus (and now the Sisters)being more difficult, they are complaining about their campaign mechanics being laughably barebones compared to what Skaven got in the respective DLC's. I wish people would stop trying to make this argument.
I would also argue that the same issue was present for Nakai and Eltharion, though to a lesser extent.

I've made the argument before, but sometimes I feel like CA bumped up the difficulty of Tehenahuin specifically just because they realized his meta stuff was lacking compared to Ikit, and it was too late to do something about it.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 16:17

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 11:05

Party In My Diapee: Jan 24, 2014

Electronico6 posted:

DLC out.

Remember to get your free elf captain from Total War Access and the Rat chieftain from Steam.

Is anyone managing to log in to total war access right now? I've used it before, but now it says my account isn't confirmed and they won't send me a mail either.

# ? Dec 3, 2020 16:22

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Total Warhammer 2 - the thread is dead, long live the thread

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