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I now agree that Riptide are broken. In a game earlier I charged a Riptide with the lone surviving Striking Scorpion Exarch (with claw) as well as 5 wraith blades with axe and shield. On top of turn 2. It took the entire game to kill it. He kept rolling nova charge and getting a 3+ invul. I lost one wraith and my exarch ran away and off the table.

Put it this way: 3 Grav-centurions in a pod don't kill a Stimtide in one turn of shooting on average, doing (15*(2/3))*(35/36)*(2/3)*(2/3) or ~4,3 wounds on average. That's WITHOUT the 3++ or it being in 4+ cover, and it's from one of the most obscenely strong anti-MC units in the game.

Right which is why the upgrades are either undercosted, or the riptide has too much survivability for its current cost (again, 4+ to pass nova, 3+ armor save -1 a wound to start if we leave the stimtide at 225)

With that stat line 3 Grav-centurions in a pod STILL wouldn't one-shot a Riptide on average, because they're now wounding on 3+ rather than 2+. It'd be darn close, though, and 3+ is so much easier to get wounds through on than 2+.

Should anything ever just one shot anything else without spending more points than it though? Otherwise I feel the game would be very hard to balance around that philosophy/norm for units firepower

 Wolfblade wrote:
Should anything ever just one shot anything else with spending more points than it though? Otherwise I feel the game would be very hard to balance around that philosophy/norm for units firepower

And thats one of the major problems with vehicle as opposed to MCs or GMCs. Lots of things can one shot them - the latter not so much.

Also pretty much any 1 W unit can one shot another.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Should anything ever just one shot anything else with spending more points than it though? Otherwise I feel the game would be very hard to balance around that philosophy/norm for units firepower

3 Grav-turions in a pod are an ultra-hard counter to MCs and are more expensive than a Stimtide. It's essentially the worst-case scenario for the Riptide outside of formations and Deathstars, and it still lives.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Should anything ever just one shot anything else with spending more points than it though? Otherwise I feel the game would be very hard to balance around that philosophy/norm for units firepower

Hello? Vehicles.

Yes, yes I know, vehicles suck. Everyone knows that, and I DID mean to include that in what I said. Vehicles all need a points drop if they stay the way they are, or the damage chart needs serious work/be removed as it feels like a holdover from 5th. (Note, at no point did I ever say vehicles are fair/balanced/fine as they are, but that's a different discussion)

As for grav-turions with the changes purposed, they'll take on average 3.92 wounds with a 5++/5+++, which means if the riptide failed its previous nova, it's dead. (thats including the 3+ armor btw). If it had a 3++, then only 1.97 wounds go through, and assuming it fails the next nova (failing one every other turn), it's down to 2 wounds, which means weight of fire has a chance to kill it. Odds get slightly better if the centurions take MLs, inflicting another 1.11 wounds with a 5++, or .55 with a 3++ (hurricane bolters only dealing .296 at 13 inches or more,.592 in rapidfire).

So would losing 2 wounds, fail nova on a 4+ and gaining 3+ armor work then if it stays 225? Grav-turions kill in one turn assuming no nova, and they all make it past any interceptors. Otherwise I think as a start, raising the stimm price by 15 and IA by 20 would be a decent start (now costs 260)

As for 1W units, I assume you mean units of multiple models with 1W. Offhand, what completely wipes each other out while costing roughly the same or less? Units made of mostly special weapons firing at another unit?

3 X D-scythe wraithguard can kill far more than their point value.

" Otherwise I think as a start, raising the stimm price by 15 and IA by 20 would be a decent start (now costs 260) "

This might up end up being sufficient by squeezing Tau lists for a few more points. As the Tau can field fewer synergizing units, their effectiveness goes down.

In contrast, Eldar units usually do it alone, so WK has to go to 400 pts at least.

Thats a good point, wraith guard can pull down way more than they should be able to, assuming they get in range (tau might be able to put them down before they can fire depending on squad size)

edit: Actually a lot of eldar can do that (scatbikes i.e.), but they're the outlier really, having mostly underpriced or overpowered units.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Traditio, you just had a poll on this. Result was that more people than not thought the riptide was balanced, or at least fair.

Except, you can't claim that. Insaniak artificially ended the poll early.

The general trend of the poll was in my favor.

The most that you can claim is that, at the time at which the poll was ended, it was pretty close to an even split.

 Traditio wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
Traditio, you just had a poll on this. Result was that more people than not thought the riptide was balanced, or at least fair.

Except, you can't claim that. Insaniak artificially ended the poll early.

The general trend of the poll was in my favor.

The most that you can claim is that, at the time at which the poll was ended, it was pretty close to an even split.

The majority side was still that it wasn't over powered THE ENTIRE TIME THE POLL WAS UP. Even if your false notion about a trend was true (which was only derived from a very short period of time so isn't actually valid) your trend was so small that you would have run out of active Dakka members before your side of the poll over took the majority

CrownAxe wrote:The majority side was still that it wasn't over powered THE ENTIRE TIME THE POLL WAS UP. Even if your false notion about a trend was true (which was only derived from a very short period of time so isn't actually valid) your trend was so small that you would have run out of active Dakka members before your side of the poll over took the majority

We'll never know. Insaniak artificially ended it early.

Again, all that we can claim is that, at the time at which the poll was closed, it was close to an even split/highly contested.

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:The majority side was still that it wasn't over powered THE ENTIRE TIME THE POLL WAS UP. Even if your false notion about a trend was true (which was only derived from a very short period of time so isn't actually valid) your trend was so small that you would have run out of active Dakka members before your side of the poll over took the majority

We'll never know. Insaniak artificially ended it early.

Again, all that we can claim is that, at the time at which the poll was closed, it was close to an even split/highly contested.

Or we could look at the information we actually did get from that poll which is the majority didn't think the Riptide was overpowered

And yet you still claim you won.
Why is it that we can only claim it was a draw (even though the 'it's balanced' side was winning) while you an claim you won (because of a slight trend that wasn't actually a valid reason for such a claim)?

CrownAxe wrote:Or we could look at the information we actually did get from that poll which is the majority didn't think the Riptide was overpowered

Accounting for margin of error, again, the result at the time of the poll's closing, statistically speaking, was a tie.

But again, Insaniak closed the poll early. We'll never know what the actual popular opinion on the matter is. Because he closed it early.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
And yet you still claim you won.
Why is it that we can only claim it was a draw (even though the 'it's balanced' side was winning) while you an claim you won (because of a slight trend that wasn't actually a valid reason for such a claim)?

You can either look at:

1. Actual results
2. Trends

1. The actual result, accounting for a margin of error, is a virtual tie.

2. If you look at the progression from the beginning of the poll to the time at which it was artificially ended for no good reason, the side supporting my opinion was increasing at a faster rate than the side disagreeing with my opinion.

So either:

1. I did not lose

or

2. I won.

That's not how margin of error works. For one you don't have a margin of error in a poll because you didn't do any calculations with it. It is just adding up the number of yes's and no's there is no error to have. And second of all a margine of errorr goes both ways so it does not automatically mean its in your favor because for all you know it could make the majority even greater against your favor (meaning it could be 60% think its balanced instead of the 55% it was shown)

CrownAxe wrote:And second of all a margine of errorr goes both ways so it does not automatically mean its in your favor because for all you know it could make the majority even greater against your favor (meaning it could be 60% think its balanced instead of the 55% it was shown)

I never claimed otherwise. All that I said is that, assuming a margin of error, we can no more say that I lost than that I won. It was a virtual tie. It could have gone either way, given enough time and people.

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:And second of all a margine of errorr goes both ways so it does not automatically mean its in your favor because for all you know it could make the majority even greater against your favor (meaning it could be 60% think its balanced instead of the 55% it was shown)

I never claimed otherwise. All that I said is that, assuming a margin of error, we can no more say that I lost than that I won. It was a virtual tie. It could have gone either way, given enough time and people.

You can't claim a virtual tie because it wasn't a tie it was 55-45%, thats not a tie. And trying to say that their could be a margin of error (which there isn't) makes it a virtual tie is wrong because thats not how margin of errors work. Margine of errors are +/-5% roughley which still averages out to 55-45% which is not a tie

CrownAxe wrote:You can't claim a virtual tie because it wasn't a tie it was 55-45%, thats not a tie. And trying to say that their could be a margin of error (which there isn't) makes it a virtual tie is wrong because thats not how margin of errors work. Margine of errors are +/-5% roughley which still averages out to 55-45% which is not a tie

1. If the result was 55/45 (in fact, it was actually getting a lot closer; at least at one point, I think it was at a 48/52 split), a margin of error of 5 percent could very well render a 50/50 even split.

2. You may want to look up "virtual" in the dictionary. A virtual tie =/= an actual tie.

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:You can't claim a virtual tie because it wasn't a tie it was 55-45%, thats not a tie. And trying to say that their could be a margin of error (which there isn't) makes it a virtual tie is wrong because thats not how margin of errors work. Margine of errors are +/-5% roughley which still averages out to 55-45% which is not a tie

1. If the result was 55/45 (in fact, it was actually getting a lot closer; at least at one point, I think it was at a 48/52 split), a margin of error of 5 percent could very well render a 50/50 even split.

2. You may want to look up "virtual" in the dictionary. A virtual tie =/= an actual tie.

The fact that a tie is which in a margin of error doesn't let you ignore every other possibility within the margin of error. That's why you are wrong about claiming its a virtual tie and you can;t just ignore the actual result of the poll.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:You can't claim a virtual tie because it wasn't a tie it was 55-45%, thats not a tie. And trying to say that their could be a margin of error (which there isn't) makes it a virtual tie is wrong because thats not how margin of errors work. Margine of errors are +/-5% roughley which still averages out to 55-45% which is not a tie

1. If the result was 55/45 (in fact, it was actually getting a lot closer; at least at one point, I think it was at a 48/52 split), a margin of error of 5 percent could very well render a 50/50 even split.

2. You may want to look up "virtual" in the dictionary. A virtual tie =/= an actual tie.

The fact that a tie is which in a margin of error doesn't let you ignore every other possibility within the margin of error. That's why you are wrong about claiming its a virtual tie and you can;t just ignore the actual result of the poll.

Again, look up the word "virtual" in the dictionary.

 Traditio wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:You can't claim a virtual tie because it wasn't a tie it was 55-45%, thats not a tie. And trying to say that their could be a margin of error (which there isn't) makes it a virtual tie is wrong because thats not how margin of errors work. Margine of errors are +/-5% roughley which still averages out to 55-45% which is not a tie

1. If the result was 55/45 (in fact, it was actually getting a lot closer; at least at one point, I think it was at a 48/52 split), a margin of error of 5 percent could very well render a 50/50 even split.

2. You may want to look up "virtual" in the dictionary. A virtual tie =/= an actual tie.

The fact that a tie is which in a margin of error doesn't let you ignore every other possibility within the margin of error. That's why you are wrong about claiming its a virtual tie and you can;t just ignore the actual result of the poll.

Again, look up the word "virtual" in the dictionary.

You know virtual isn't actually applicable when trying to use statistics to prove your point

CrownAxe wrote:You know virtual isn't actually applicable when trying to use statistics to prove your point

I'll be waiting for you to copy/paste the definition when you find it out.

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:You know virtual isn't actually applicable when trying to use statistics to prove your point

I'll be waiting for you to copy/paste the definition when you find it out.

Virtual
"almost or nearly as described, but not completely or according to strict definition."

Which has nothing to do with math or statistics which is why i said you can't use it ignore your entire poll

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:You know virtual isn't actually applicable when trying to use statistics to prove your point

I'll be waiting for you to copy/paste the definition when you find it out.

Virtual
"almost or nearly as described, but not completely or according to strict definition."

Which has nothing to do with math or statistics which is why i said you can't use it ignore your entire poll

My initial claim was that the poll result, at the time in which Insaniak closed it early for no good reason, was a "virtual tie." Given the definition, would you disagree with me or agree with me?

If you say "but it wasn't a tie," I'll ask you to give me the definition for each of the words that you just quoted in your definition. And I'll keep asking you to do that until you figure out what the word "virtual" means.

This thread is for discussion on how to balance Riptides. The (fascinating as it is) discussion on whether or not a poll showed a majority or a tie can be better held elsewhere.

Or, you know, not, given that it was already discussed in the actual poll thread.

 insaniak wrote:
This thread is for discussion on how to balance Riptides. The (fascinating as it is) discussion on whether or not a poll showed a majority or a tie can be better held elsewhere.

Or, you know, not, given that it was already discussed in the actual poll thread.

"How should we balance riptides?" presupposes that Riptides are imbalanced and are publicly recognized as being imbalanced.

If riptides are balanced, or even are publicly perceived as being such, then there is no need to even ask the question of how to balance them. They already are balanced, under that hypothesis.

What people like CrownAxe, Matt.Kingsley and Wolfblade should be saying to the OP is:

"Keep riptides exactly the way that they are."

It's only under the supposition that riptides are imbalanced (and are publicly recognized as being such) that a need for a rework to make them "balanced" even appears necessary.

Note, it's not enough for riptides to be imbalanced to see a need for a rework. It's only under the supposition that there's public recognition of their imbalance that it makes sense to ask: "So how do we fix it?"

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't both claim that riptides are fine and also claim that they need a rework to make them fine (contra Wolfblade).

There are two initial possible answers:

1. It is the case that riptides are imbalanced and are publicly recognized as being imbalanced.
2. It is not the case that riptides, etc.

If they are not, then no fix is needed.

If they are, then we must ask why they are considered as being imbalanced:

1. They have too much fire power.
2. They are too durable.
3. They are too points efficient.
4. They should be walkers, but are MCs instead.

At which point we come to my fix recommendations:

1. Decrease their firepower.
2. Make them less durable.
3. Price them appropriately.
4. Make them walkers.

So, the only thing I want to say on the matter before dropping it is that the poll was ended 2hrs before the arbitrary time length was up. That's barely early. Also assuming we're not going by when you seemed to want to call it early.

So again, since no one has given any input back, would 3+ armor. 4+ nova, -2 wounds work if it stays 225, or loses only 1 wound but IA raises by 20pt, and stimms by 15. (bringing the total cost to 260)

 Traditio wrote:

"Keep riptides exactly the way that they are."

You mean, except for my purposed changes. Or are you ignoring my posts and just forgetting to read them before you post? Also, in general right now Riptides are FINE, strong vs the weaker codices, and ok against the post-decurion codices. Because the level of power is so vast between the most bottom tier codex and the most top tier codex, a unit can range from super broken to nearly worthless. (i.e. the IG's AP4 russ that ignores cover is great vs orks, but worthless against any of the top 4). So yes, my feeling comparing the riptide to the game as whole is that it's ok, maybe on the strong side, but it's damage output is meh at best assuming average scatter/rolls to wound.

So yes, I'm purposing changes that are assuming everyone is being balanced to SM's level.