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Like them or hate them, there is hardly anyone that would argue grav weapons have heavily affected the game as played today. Virtually making 2+ save units a liability now even more so than the heavy plasma spam days with its built in drawback of gets hot to offset the substancial amount of wounds it could do to a terminator style unit (slot back before grav that is). Now you look around and see them more and more spammed in competative lists, and growing the power gap even more for the haves and have nots.

Is it a symptom of older weapons like lascannons heavy bolters and plasma cannons not being as effective as once before, due to increased model count while GW tries to force 40k to evolve into epic essentially to feed their ever growing sales goals that investors demand? Should instead these aforementioned weapons recieve a much needed upgrade instead? Personally since I see slot of marine lists running nothing but, it's probably a bit of both. Nerf for grav and upgrade the old guard weapons, many unchanged since 3rd ed. And not just marine weapons, but virtually all armies except maybe the newest guns (like skitarii weapons, I feel they are the gold standard of what today's weapons should be balanced like).

So I Don't drown out others opinions and can look at it from a more neutral standpoint, if the devs asked YOU to change grav in some way, and other weapons would be stuck as is for the for see able future, how would you set them? More points? Less shots? Reduced range? Mechanic overall? Some built in drawback ala plasma? A combination of things?

Keep in mind it would also affect cult mechanicus heavy grav, who don't have amps for theirs and a lower BS.

Reduce their rate of fire. 5 shots for an AP2 weapon that wounds most worthwhile units on a 2 or 3 is a massive amount of killing power, especially when a couple 6s from the same weapon will wreck most vehicles.

Drop grav amps from the game entirely, change the immobilized effect on vehiclea to just a glancing hit, and make them Rapid Fire for Grav Guns (too many relentless things running around getting full 3 shot rof after moving 12") and make the Heavy versions Salvo 2/4 or just plain Heavy 3, Drop the price on the grav cannon for tacs and deva down to 25 after that, and you're golden.

As is, they just have too high an rof, and are too effective against too broad an array of targets. They're basically never wasted except against weeny infantry where you're probably not missing much anyway.

Make them AP-. Maybe give them AP2 back on a To Wound roll of 6 or something. Make the Armour Pen roll of 6 do a Stun result with no HP lost.

It's the fact that its a high ROF weapon, with low AP that wounds on a low dice roll against the tough things you want to kill and also screws over Vehicles just because. The simple problem that Grav is good against almost everything, and things its not good against are what Bolters are good against (of which you will naturally have lots of anyway).

I am not really a Space Marine player so take my suggestion with a grain of salt but I would either of the following.

Option 1: Each profile has 1 less shot. So Salvo 1/2 and Salvo 2/4. Less shots = less damage output. Give plasmas some wiggle room as a useful tool, especially when compared to grav guns.

Option 2: Grav Amps give +1 to wound or vehicle roll instead of rerolls and grav weapons cause vehicle stunned results instead of immobilized. Would still be strong against infantry/MCs, less devastating against regular vehicles, same against super heavies. Grav Amp change means it could get stronger if you have shred, preferred enemy, or tankhunter.

Option 3: Combine option 1 and 2. In the event that neither of them have enough impact.

Of course this needs to be play tested to see how much of an impact this would make but I think grav needs to be less of a "do everything" gun and more of a tool for particular targets.

I dunno. My experience with them is primarily as a Dark Eldar player, against whom they aren't that effective.

I don't think I'd really change anything.

(Like I said: admittedly massive bias in experience.)

I would say less shots. Melta are just fine and they used to wound almost everything on a 2+ (not sure anymore, because I stopped caring some time ago).
Also drop grav amp. And make the things they are bad again, i.e. hordes, work better.

Honestly they should never have been introduced into the game as they are now, Grav basically rules all, and is always the superior option when you can choose it.

It needs to be way less effective against vehicles, and not AP2. It is effectively an AP 2 weapon with no risk/reward and high rate of fire. Most AP2 weapons either have a risk associated with it (low or one shot, gets hot, limited range, etc). Grav has none of these.

 ultimentra wrote:
Honestly they should never have been introduced into the game as they are now, Grav basically rules all, and is always the superior option when you can choose it.

It needs to be way less effective against vehicles, and not AP2. It is effectively an AP 2 weapon with no risk/reward and high rate of fire. Most AP2 weapons either have a risk associated with it (low or one shot, gets hot, limited range, etc). Grav has none of these.

If the Grav-Cannon was a single shot weapon you would not be saying such a thing

Its so good because of its massive RoF on relentless units (bikes and cents) and its heavy version always having a grav-amp for rerolls.

It just needs a reduced RoF (1/2 on gravguns, 2/3 on grav cannons) and get rid of the grav amp

What about going back to the original mechanic where it doesn't kill but pins?

Something like S check or be pinned?

I view the main problem with Grav is that it can be taken on relentless platforms very easily. Take it on a foot slogging marine or even the cents it's a great weapon but not broken. Once you factor in bikes and the Skyhammer, it becomes to good.

I would do the following:

-Make Grav Amps an expensive upgrade instead of an auto include
-Take away the auto immobilize on vehicles turn it into an auto glance on a roll of a 6
-Make it AP- unless you roll a 5 or 6 to wound

Make them the 30k equivalent. Small blast, S test or take a wound at AP4, and unit hit moves through Difficult and Dangerous Terrain and Haywire.

I never use Grav and I play marines quite religiously.

Grav Cannons should be 35 on Centurions, and change Grav Guns to Salvo 2/2. Done.

Just make them AP - and were good.

I don't think ap- is a good idea. Then we are back to riptide s having no natural predators again. If we are going to do that we need a rule that says MC's can't get better than a 3+ save.

 Orock wrote:
I don't think ap- is a good idea. Then we are back to riptide s having no natural predators again. If we are going to do that we need a rule that says MC's can't get better than a 3+ save.

MC's having 2+ saves is fine, it's when they've got FNP and invul saves (and can easily get cover saves) on top of 5 or more wounds that it becomes a huge problem.

Grav's great boon here is that it often has the sheer RoF to defeat these other things. I think Grav and the additional overlapping MC resiliency both need to be addressed, in addition to other issues.

Use the 30k rules? They seem to grasp what the Grav Gun is about...

It would make plasma and melta relevant again

I would change their mechanic if wounding. Instead of wounding on the armour save, I would make it a table:

Regular Infantry: 5+
Bulky: 4+
Very Bulky: 3+
Extremely Bulky/Monstrous Creatures: 2+

This way, their original purpose of killing heavy MCs is preserved, while not giving them a huge advantage against all other units.

I would also change the Grav Cannon to Salvo 3/4 and make Grav-Amps re-roll To Hit rather than To Wound.

Made so they cannot ever be fired at Flyers, ap- with 6s as rending. Vehicles are unaffected period.

Welcome to balance you cheesy pieces of loyalist scum!

 GoliothOnline wrote:
Made so they cannot ever be fired at Flyers, ap- with 6s as rending. Vehicles are unaffected period.

Welcome to balance you cheesy pieces of loyalist scum!

I guarantee that a vehicle could not handle having its collective mass amplified and have its mobility components escape intact.

I would reduce the power of MCs and GCs to make them able to be harmed consistently by weapons other than Grav. That is how I would balance Grav weapons better.

 GoliothOnline wrote:
Made so they cannot ever be fired at Flyers, ap- with 6s as rending. Vehicles are unaffected period.

Welcome to balance you cheesy pieces of loyalist scum!

Actually, all you did was create a weapon that NOBODY would take.

I would nerf grav if they also nerf Markerlights and wraithknights. Grav is the great equalizer that gives Imperial armies a chance against those armies.

 jy2 wrote:
I would nerf grav if they also nerf Markerlights and wraithknights. Grav is the great equalizer that gives Imperial armies a chance against those armies.

Bingo. This was exactly my point. When Grav is basically the only way that Imperial armies can even deal with stuff like Riptides or Wraithknights, nerfing THOSE units should come before Grav gets nerfed. Unless those units can be dealt without Grav (which would help the bottom tier armies without any way of dealing with them), Grav needs to stay put.

You said it, brother.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
But assuming Markerlights/riptides and Wraithknights get nerfed, this is how I would nerf Grav: 6's is just a penetrating hit against vehicles. Hey, that's better than auto-immobilized.

Oh, and make it salvo 4/6. Hey, Kataprhons get it, why not Centurions as well?

Nerf the gak out of mcs and gmcs first. Grav is necessary to effectively engage mcs with marines. Lack of grav cannons is a big reason ba suck.

Lower the rate of fire of grav and give sniper weapons rending and instant death or let them do 1d6 wounds.
It is nice to have specific anti monster weapons, but I don't like them to be "anti all" weapons.

 oldzoggy wrote:
Lower the rate of fire of grav and give sniper rifles instant death. It is nice to have specific anti monster weapons, but I don't like them to be "anti all" weapons.

I think giving Sniper Rending back would be nice.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
I would change their mechanic if wounding. Instead of wounding on the armour save, I would make it a table:

Regular Infantry: 5+
Bulky: 4+
Very Bulky: 3+
Extremely Bulky/Monstrous Creatures: 2+

This way, their original purpose of killing heavy MCs is preserved, while not giving them a huge advantage against all other units.

I would also change the Grav Cannon to Salvo 3/4 and make Grav-Amps re-roll To Hit rather than To Wound.

This basically changes nothing as MC usually have the high toughness and infantry have low toughness.

And rerolling to hit in most circumstances would be better than reroll to wound with grav lol