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It is best to assume the law of averages, not the best case scenario. Also taking into account an entire opposing force instead of just picking specific units and comparing in a vacuum.

 Tyr Grimtooth wrote:
It is best to assume the law of averages, not the best case scenario. Also taking into account an entire opposing force instead of just picking specific units and comparing in a vacuum.

We've tried that. Apparently the only response that garners is "it fails every nova check and dies"

nosferatu1001 wrote:

 Tyr Grimtooth wrote:
It is best to assume the law of averages, not the best case scenario. Also taking into account an entire opposing force instead of just picking specific units and comparing in a vacuum.

We've tried that. Apparently the only response that garners is "it fails every nova check and dies"

I noticed that has been the new tactic the past few pages. From one end of the spectrum to the other does not make a valid argument.

Yes I'll reiterate the calls for balance. Asmodean (whilst calling everyone else out on logic and fallacies) makes the rather profound leap in reasoning that you either assume 100% success rate or 100% rate failure as opposed to a somewhat reasonable (if stil fallible) law of averages based on some solid mathammer.

That is the only way to do the passing ridiculous task of trying to reason out how something will perform on the battlefield if you ignore the other dozen variables that will step into play.

Much like saying, "Field a rhino derp and I'll just shoot it" well yes that is of course true but you may miss or many other things and of course whilst you fire on that you aren't firing on other things. Armour saturation is difficult to deal with no matter who you are and if you intercepted that turn you will not be shooting at that. If this then not that. Of course that still may not help the opponent win but other times it will.

Ok i read the thread, through all the vitrole and dripping sarcasm.

The issue is this, being a monsterous creature with a cannon it is basically a tank with more wounds than other tanks, and better saves as it has armor and an invuln AND can be given FNP (which i think is a waste personally)

There is no feasible way to one shot it like you can potentially do to a land raider (which is not a good point comparision)

I think the best way to look at this issue is to math hammer what it would take to bring it down

Lets say the experiemt is done NOT TAKING INTO ACOUNT TERRAIN, RANGE, OR SHENNAIGANS just what it would take to kill it with said weapons based on str, ap value with an average BS4.

How many melta shots does it take to get to the center of the totsie pop? how many lascannon shots?

break down based on its normal invuln and the nova upcharge and you can even average out wounds the nova will do it if it took 6 wounds to kill it with say meltas 1 of those wounds the nova shield is likely to provide since it works 1 in 3 times.


once you do the math hammer, then YOU as a 40k player can decide how much terrain, range, jsj shennanigians will either add or remove fromt he base line mathhammer.

its that simple!

To me the Riptide just exposes a huge flaw in 40K's base rules:

"I am a vehicle! WAAAAGH!"
"Me too, xenos scum!"

"I'm not a vehicle, in accordance with the Greater Good!"
"Neither am I! For the Emperor!

Huh?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
To me the Riptide just exposes a huge flaw in 40K's base rules:

"I am a vehicle! WAAAAGH!"
"Me too, xenos scum!"

"I'm not a vehicle, in accordance with the Greater Good!"
"Neither am I! For the Emperor!

Huh?

I agree HBMC, to me it is a vehicle using a different set of rules, which is where it is a new different unit which was what i was hoping was the original point of this thread.

It is a mobile multiwound heavily defendes tank that does not follow tank rules but monsterous creature rules, but it is still a "tank" that can be killed by poison!

mwahahahaha!

personally i like them thinking outside the box within there own rules, it just remains to be seen if this is broken or just right. Personally i find it to be worth far more than the points you spend for it, but i dont think its into broken land.....

its damn good though!

I hadn't even considered the poison thing. Uhh... why isn't this thing a vehicle? It's enormous!

 whigwam wrote:

Ascalam wrote:One even fell to grots. Now THAT's embarassing. Took them ages to bring it down, but they did it .

Grots are S2, right? If that's the case, I don't think they can hurt a Riptide at T6 (unless the Runtherd was working OT?) That said, it'll usually be good enough to just hold one in place...

To be fair, i got lucky with the grots. The Riptide in question was already wounded, and had ignored the grots in favour of nuking the boyz mob next to them.

Grots are S 2, their shooting is S 3. The riptide had three wounds left, and the grots (plus attendant runtherders) stripped a wound with shooting with a lucky grotblasta shot.

Once in combat the grots themselves couldn't hurt the thing, but did sterling duty as wound soaks, while the three runtherders with Grot Prods (4+ poisoned weapons) went at it like sadistic backwoodsmen with cattle prods. Squeal, Tau, Squeal! After a couple of rounds of grot on bot action, the ladz with the tasers prevailed

So technically, most of the glory goes to the herders, but that one grot sniper is getting a promotion

whigwam wrote:Where does a triple Riptide list (henceforth: Triptide) find room for multiple Railguns anyway..? The list Asmodean
has me imagining is 3 Riptides, 3 Hammerheads, and 2 squads of Fire Warriors crossing their fingers, hoping they don't get noticed. Rock solid. The funny thing is, even the max of 3 Railguns aren't going to reliably stop a single Land Raider. And what, then, are the odds of stopping 2? How about 3 with a PFG tucked inside? But let's not allow math to get in the way! Of course all 3 LR's will get popped turn one. I can almost see the Terminators and Marines now...stranded 64,000" away, wandering the countryside, hopelessly lost.

The price of the Riptide, not to mention Tau players' better judgment, means Triptide probably won't catch on in any significant way. But here's hoping it becomes the new go-to netlist for the next few months. While Triptide will be at least as easy to beat as Scythespam or Turkeytime, it should actually be a bit more fun to take apart.

I fit Longstrike and a Hammerhead into my 1850, Longstrike has Tank Hunter and BS5, so he has a .3 chance of killing a Land Raider everytime he shoots.
Well 3 LRC/PFG is a hard list to stop for anyone. Tau included. You have to agree that LRs are still a risky prospect against Tau considering Railguns.

The price of the Riptide is obviously one of the barriers to entry, the same reason I know only one player who owns/fields a Helldrake and this is in London.
I highly doubt Triptide is as easy to beat as you think it is, do you honestly think Crisis suits are a better choice? The weakness of the Tau codex is essentially their troops choices, and that's where triptide will fall down. Scythespam/Wraithwing is a tournament winning build, and proven. Turkeytime is slightly less good but that's because CSM isn't quite as good as Necrons.

Ascalam wrote:Triptides don't like Orks..

Found that out last night

Sure, they bombard the crud out of them with pie-plates, but they just can't stop a Green Tide before it slams into the Tau lines, and their famed mobility doesn't count for much when they are bipping around a rapidly shrinking share of the table as the ladz close in. IG put out a far higher pie-plate to Tide ratio, and even they struggle to stop a good tide.

One even fell to grots. Now THAT's embarassing. Took them ages to bring it down, but they did it

BR to follow, at some point.

Let's have the BR, you'd think with 180 bodies packed into your deployment zone you would be slightly more susceptible to large-blast even with scatter and massed mobile dakka.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Heres news Asmodai: you are assuming a singular threat source, when competent people have more than 1.

Your opponent has centre line punch you need to stay away from, so you have to hug corners. They also have DP, so you want to spread out. There is also a decent amount of terrain on the table - more than you are used to playing with, apparently - so your LOS is blocked in certain lines.

Against DP spreading out isn't great, because you have to kill it the turn it glides or it will chew through your army. Daemons don't really have much shooting to speak of, the ranged deployments would be better against short-ranged things like SM. Sometimes you do want your Riptide to get shot at, however.

You continue to ignore the odds of killing even a single LR, as you have apparently forgotten you dont get 3 TL S10 railguns in one slot any more. You have to take hammerheads.

Hammerheads aren't great but Longstrike is pretty okay, and he can overwatch multiple times and doesn't afraid of anything.

So, please explain: how are you simultaneously killing 2LR, dealing with DP nasties (since you have so many issues with RP, there are plenty of other nasties you dont want to see) AND having the points left over to not lose 5/6 mission types - namely objective missions.

Not entirely sure who fields 2LR and DP (CSM?) The weakness of the Tau codex shows itself in the troops choices, but this is a Helldrake Vs Riptide discussion, you seem to have forgotten.

We're not saying only consider the worst case. You just ONLY consider the best case, which in a dice based game is an INCREDIBLY foolish way to argue as it ignores the ***Random*** element of the game. Try considering the *average* case - which is that in every average game of 6 turns you will lose at one wound to Novareactor, potentially 2.

That entirely screws your position of course, as none of your sketchy maths has actually considered this. It changes the picture somewhat.

Clearly hyperbole is lost on you. You don't have to Nova charge every turn, and statistically the overcharge will fail 1 turn out of 6. This hasn't stopped people from using plasma weapons, and isn't hugely predictable in any meaningful way in a discussion. If you read my original post, you'll find this covered in my analysis. Don't gloss over the more salient points of the discussion in your nerd rage.

Try this: avoid the massively defensive posture you have over this strong but not over strong Unit, take a deep breath and evaluate your own posts as others may see them.

Even more amusingly? You claim of a lack of substance, but consistently fail to actually provide any yourself. Since page one people have shown you your errors, poked enormous holes in your strategies and provided a fair number of counter points that you have just, simply, ignored or hand-waved away. Provide some of your own substance, or quit posting.

The only reason I have a defensive posture at all is people keep proposing things that do not really work: i.e. short-ranged weapons, deep strikers, jaws, etc. I've covered this again and again.

There is plenty to chew on in my initial post and my development post, if you'd bother to read any and not just skip to the ad-hominem- of which you haven't replied to a single one. In your defence, you've proposed a single good counter: Rune Priests on bikes.

Tyr Grimtooth wrote:It is best to assume the law of averages, not the best case scenario. Also taking into account an entire opposing force instead of just picking specific units and comparing in a vacuum.

Well, specifically I wanted to compare the Helldrake to the Riptide, but the discussion has meandered well off topic.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

 Tyr Grimtooth wrote:
It is best to assume the law of averages, not the best case scenario. Also taking into account an entire opposing force instead of just picking specific units and comparing in a vacuum.

We've tried that. Apparently the only response that garners is "it fails every nova check and dies"

Because that's apparently what you want to happen, isn't it? There is no meaningful way to address the issue of randomness in the activation of the Nova/Overcharge aside from acknowledging that it can and will happen. Which I have, multiple times. If we focus on what actually happens when it gets to shoot though, we can better assess the utility of the unit.

cowen70 wrote:Yes I'll reiterate the calls for balance. Asmodean (whilst calling everyone else out on logic and fallacies) makes the rather profound leap in reasoning that you either assume 100% success rate or 100% rate failure as opposed to a somewhat reasonable (if stil fallible) law of averages based on some solid mathammer.

That is the only way to do the passing ridiculous task of trying to reason out how something will perform on the battlefield if you ignore the other dozen variables that will step into play.

Much like saying, "Field a rhino derp and I'll just shoot it" well yes that is of course true but you may miss or many other things and of course whilst you fire on that you aren't firing on other things. Armour saturation is difficult to deal with no matter who you are and if you intercepted that turn you will not be shooting at that. If this then not that. Of course that still may not help the opponent win but other times it will.

I clearly addressed the failure rate of plasma/overcharge/novacharge in my original post. Assessing what happens if it fails is not useful to anaylsing how good the unit is.

I didn't mention the nova tide but when you are referencing any success in dice it is either winning every time or losing every time instead of a reasonable position.

I thought I made that very clear are you reading what I write?

I'm sorry, but there is a notable difference between deep striking in a drop pod, and deep striking using jump packs.

A drop pod will get killed by Tau AA fire easily, yes - because it is a single vehicle.

A unit of Deep Striking Seraphim will lose... three Sisters to AA railgun fire, assuming three hammerheads (huh?) or a single Broadside squadron. Assuming they fail their rerollable 6+ invulnerable saves, I mean. Or they might lose a couple to Missile Pods, but hey, we get our armour saves against those.

Since all you need to kill a Riptide with a deep striking Seraphim unit is 3 models remaining, I'm failing to see how they're an auto-fail counter. As long as you have your two inferno pistols and someone to toss some krak insurance in (or preferably a plasma pistol), the Riptide has a good chance of suffering critical injuries. Considering it's probably already taken an Exorcist barrage or two by this point, I'd say it's a pretty firmly dead mecha.

I was being facetious about the lychguard. Obviously they're an awful choice who won't be in a normal Necron army. The point was that they've got a good chance of taking it out with a little luck, and the idea of bouncing all those Nova-charged ion shots back at it is just funny (I realise nobody sane would Nova-charge against Lychguard at 6" away, before you jump on that point). As for being Interceptored down as they Veil over, that's what Disruption Shields are for. 4++ invulnerable saves.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I'm sorry, but there is a notable difference between deep striking in a drop pod, and deep striking using jump packs.

A drop pod will get killed by Tau AA fire easily, yes - because it is a single vehicle.

A unit of Deep Striking Seraphim will lose... three Sisters to AA railgun fire, assuming three hammerheads (huh?) or a single Broadside squadron. Assuming they fail their rerollable 6+ invulnerable saves, I mean. Or they might lose a couple to Missile Pods, but hey, we get our armour saves against those.

Since all you need to kill a Riptide with a deep striking Seraphim unit is 3 models remaining, I'm failing to see how they're an auto-fail counter. As long as you have your two inferno pistols and someone to toss some krak insurance in (or preferably a plasma pistol), the Riptide has a good chance of suffering critical injuries. Considering it's probably already taken an Exorcist barrage or two by this point, I'd say it's a pretty firmly dead mecha.

I was being facetious about the lychguard. Obviously they're an awful choice who won't be in a normal Necron army. The point was that they've got a good chance of taking it out with a little luck, and the idea of bouncing all those Nova-charged ion shots back at it is just funny (I realise nobody sane would Nova-charge against Lychguard at 6" away, before you jump on that point). As for being Interceptored down as they Veil over, that's what Disruption Shields are for. 4++ invulnerable saves.

Well you can't actually kill the Drop Pod itself, because interceptor happens at the end of the movement phase. Or you can, but it's better to just shoot the troops that come out of it.

Don't forget the Riptide itself can interceptor you, and the Seraphim will be nicely ringed up in base-to-base (did they lose their 3+ invuln)? And a single template hit will cause quite a lot of wounds on them. Not to mention Inferno pistols have quite a short range, so any combination of bubble wrap + scatter will make the attempt more difficult.

I don't think any Necron player takes Lychguard, so the point is moot. Wraiths work just as well, although they do get ID by the Riptide's shooting.

Three Exorcists, on the other hand, have a good chance of downing a Riptide a turn, although their 48" range is possible to stay out of, with night-fighting on the first turn or positioning. Don't discount the 3++ on the Riptide either, should you get it.

Asmodai - not .3 chance to pop a LR a turn, .23 (5/6 to hit, .5 chance to actually explode, 1/3+2/9 chance to cause the penetrate you need - so just over .5 times 0.5 times just less than 1, which is hopefully obviously less than a quarter) which also assumes no cover and no invulnerable save, neither of which is a safe assumption in 6th given your lack of manouverability

It also assumes your 6" a turn to fire tank can even get LOS on the LR - but again that is probably the assumption you have based on your local deficiency in terrain

Drop Pod, not Daemon Prince.

So, in the one turn you have, possibly two before the contents of the LR are chewing up your army, and stopping your vaunted manouverabilty from meaning jack, you have not even a 50% chance of killing a single LR with your best AntiAV14 weapon.

I do not want you to play the worst, however you havent even played the average - that is all people are asking. Your statistics and maths take NO account of that, *none*, which is why they are more flawed than math hammer usually is

You also still couldnt manage to avoid the ad hominems with that snarky "in your defence" comment - when i've added more than one, given you acknowledge you cannot, any longer, deal with LR.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

I do not want you to play the worst, however you havent even played the average - that is all people are asking. Your statistics and maths take NO account of that, *none*, which is why they are more flawed than math hammer usually is

You also still couldnt manage to avoid the ad hominems with that snarky "in your defence" comment - when i've added more than one, given you acknowledge you cannot, any longer, deal with LR.

Tru dat.

Overall, this comparison is apple and oranges.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Well you can't actually kill the Drop Pod itself, because interceptor happens at the end of the movement phase. Or you can, but it's better to just shoot the troops that come out of it.

Don't forget the Riptide itself can interceptor you, and the Seraphim will be nicely ringed up in base-to-base (did they lose their 3+ invuln)? And a single template hit will cause quite a lot of wounds on them. Not to mention Inferno pistols have quite a short range, so any combination of bubble wrap + scatter will make the attempt more difficult.

I don't think any Necron player takes Lychguard, so the point is moot. Wraiths work just as well, although they do get ID by the Riptide's shooting.

Three Exorcists, on the other hand, have a good chance of downing a Riptide a turn, although their 48" range is possible to stay out of, with night-fighting on the first turn or positioning. Don't discount the 3++ on the Riptide either, should you get it.

Huh. Forgot you can Interceptor with a blast weapon Was thinking it was like Snapfiring. Even so, it's still easy to ensure that your special weapons survive. Just put them on the rear edge of the circle. They don't have 3++, but they do have rerollable 6++ permanently.

As for staying out of range of the Exorcists, just how big a table are you playing on? Any range above 48" is superfluous on a 6x4 table, you'd have to be at opposite corners to avoid it.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Well you can't actually kill the Drop Pod itself, because interceptor happens at the end of the movement phase. Or you can, but it's better to just shoot the troops that come out of it.

Don't forget the Riptide itself can interceptor you, and the Seraphim will be nicely ringed up in base-to-base (did they lose their 3+ invuln)? And a single template hit will cause quite a lot of wounds on them. Not to mention Inferno pistols have quite a short range, so any combination of bubble wrap + scatter will make the attempt more difficult.

I don't think any Necron player takes Lychguard, so the point is moot. Wraiths work just as well, although they do get ID by the Riptide's shooting.

Three Exorcists, on the other hand, have a good chance of downing a Riptide a turn, although their 48" range is possible to stay out of, with night-fighting on the first turn or positioning. Don't discount the 3++ on the Riptide either, should you get it.

Huh. Forgot you can Interceptor with a blast weapon Was thinking it was like Snapfiring. Even so, it's still easy to ensure that your special weapons survive. Just put them on the rear edge of the circle. They don't have 3++, but they do have rerollable 6++ permanently.

As for staying out of range of the Exorcists, just how big a table are you playing on? Any range above 48" is superfluous on a 6x4 table, you'd have to be at opposite corners to avoid it.

Staying out of range is said was POSSIBLE, not a given....just something to try and achieve not that it is a given....see my emphasis on his statement.

That's like saying "tau winning an assault against marines is possible".

True, but pointless.

 Melissia wrote:
That's like saying "tau winning an assault against marines is possible".

True, but pointless.

Eh, depends on the circumstances:

Riptide vs Lone Tactical Marine

Riptide likely wins, due to far superior stats. But, as you say, this is rather pointless as a topic of discussion.

(I'm agreeing with you. Sometimes I sound sarcastic when I'm actually not)

I think it is very important when discussing the Riptide to keep in mind that it's special abilities have a 33% chance of wounding him.

In an average game, assuming you attempt to use any of those abilities each turn, you will cause 2W to yourself dealing yourself 40% of your maximum wounds.

LValx wrote:
I think it is very important when discussing the Riptide to keep in mind that it's special abilities have a 33% chance of wounding him.

In an average game, assuming you attempt to use any of those abilities each turn, you will cause 2W to yourself dealing yourself 40% of your maximum wounds.

Well that puts things into perspective, regarding the Riptide.

Ive played two games with 1 riptide in my list (i plan to use 2 when the second arrives from GW) and i used the nova charge twice (shield) in one game and once in the other (the super jump) and i succeeded all 3 times (which the success is not the point just the amount of times i needed it) . ---- First game was dark angel deathwing (went 6 turns) second game with tzeentch, slaneesh daemons (5 turns).

Largely it doesnt need to use it as the first few turns against MOST opponents it is so far back it does not have many threats till turn 2 maybe or turn 3.

Furthermore i personnally would only nova the shield if I was going to take a torrent of high ap fire which does not happen often. (drop podding meltas)


Summation - you dont use it every turn only when threatened badly, but with good positioning/re-positioning through jsj, its hard to get it into a position where it is threatened by a large amount of things that can hurt it with focused fire.

but that is just my experience thus far from the 2 games I have played

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Asmodai - not .3 chance to pop a LR a turn, .23 (5/6 to hit, .5 chance to actually explode, 1/3+2/9 chance to cause the penetrate you need - so just over .5 times 0.5 times just less than 1, which is hopefully obviously less than a quarter) which also assumes no cover and no invulnerable save, neither of which is a safe assumption in 6th given your lack of manouverability

It also assumes your 6" a turn to fire tank can even get LOS on the LR - but again that is probably the assumption you have based on your local deficiency in terrain

Drop Pod, not Daemon Prince.

So, in the one turn you have, possibly two before the contents of the LR are chewing up your army, and stopping your vaunted manouverabilty from meaning jack, you have not even a 50% chance of killing a single LR with your best AntiAV14 weapon.

I do not want you to play the worst, however you havent even played the average - that is all people are asking. Your statistics and maths take NO account of that, *none*, which is why they are more flawed than math hammer usually is

You also still couldnt manage to avoid the ad hominems with that snarky "in your defence" comment - when i've added more than one, given you acknowledge you cannot, any longer, deal with LR.

You're right, it's not .5 to pen, it's .33. In any case, .23 chance to explode a Land Raider is much better than any long ranged weapon in the game, and Tau still have the best anti LR weaponry. I'm not assuming DA LRs. It's pretty hard to hide a LR, in any case any turn it spends hiding is not moving it full pelt towards the enemy.

The LR can flat-out 12" a turn, so if you don't deploy on the line you're looking at a turn 3 charge, which gives you three turns to plonk at it. ,67 chance is not too shabby, and you're not accounting for the fusion guns you can also field.

If you've noticed, I've not attempted any mathammer of the Riptide at all, because I'm focusing on it's tactical merits and not its actual statistical chance of killing things, because we're all familiar with what Str 8 Ap 2 Large Blast does.

I was actually just stating that your only contribution is Bike Rune Priests, 'in your defence' is not an ad hominem attack. Saying that you don't even play 40k is an ad hominem attack.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Can someone tell me how Crisis suits are better?

They get ID'd by missile launchers, their weapons have terrible range, and they have to take two different weapons leading to redundancy (if this gets faq'd, because it looks like it)

Getting drones and systems on them make them incredibly expensive very fast.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

LValx wrote:
I think it is very important when discussing the Riptide to keep in mind that it's special abilities have a 33% chance of wounding him.

In an average game, assuming you attempt to use any of those abilities each turn, you will cause 2W to yourself dealing yourself 40% of your maximum wounds.

It's voluntary and as an above post has mentioned, you don't have to boost every turn, just when you need to. If you were forced to boost, they would then take the wounds like you said.

Riptide is NOT Fearless. This matters. It can be shut up in melee with a throwaway gaunt unit. It matters also. Can't do that to a Flyer. It can lose melee and RUN, and be swept easily.

Don't need 6's to hit em and they wound themselves a LOT. I gave myself 6 wounds on two Riptides in my first test game with them. SIX. Who needs enemys, right?

I dunno. they are excellent, but..then...you pay an excellnt PRICe to have them and those are serious achilles heels. And that excellent price bites into your model count pretty good too, so if Tervigons, which are common as hell just eject their spawn all over the Riptides, its bad news.

Asmodai - welcome to 6th ed, and that all vehicles can now flat out. 18" a turn. Turn 2 charge against your speed bump units (as you dont use suits, nothing else is as fast at falling back as your big suit) and then your tides are hemmed in.

On a table with a decent layout of terrain hiding 25% to get a cover save is not difficult. Especially as it then requires you to use markerlights, whcih are fairly static, to strip cover and not boost BS. And hiding from your 6" moving a turn (12" if you want to use MORE ML to boost BS again) hammerhead is again not as difficult as you make it out to be.

Claiming my only contribution was X, while being condescending, is an ad hominem.

Your fallacies continue, although you are finally slightly less defnesive angry sounding. Which is some improvement

The thing with the riptide is you can't really plan to NOVA-charge it every turn. That's asking for trouble. I see the nova-charge option as a "get out of jail" function; either overcharge and pop a threatening unit, or boosting the shield to avoid that one turn of crippling fire.

The NOVA reactor has a 1/3 chance of taking a wound of you, then gives your burst cannon the gets hot rule. Seriously.. rolling a 12 shot burst and taking a hit on each roll of 1 is gonna neuter your Riptide quickly.

Finally, I also think the more wounds a riptide has taken, the less you're going to want to risk Nova-Charging. That means a few turns charging for no reason at the start could prevent that big Nova-charged shot when you need it most.

Overcharge every chance you get. So what if you get wounded! You need to do all the damage you can with it.

 Jancoran wrote:
Overcharge every chance you get. So what if you get wounded! You need to do all the damage you can with it.

Works for me.
It's logical in that the Riptide will be used to its full potential before being killed, and it'll die sooner.

You wont care after doing that much carnage. Its too fun. I've not lost a Riptide yet ina situation where I cursed having overcharged beforehand. Three games and all hilariously awesome.