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Wolfblade wrote:You mean, except for my purposed changes. Or are you ignoring my posts and just forgetting to read them before you post?

According to you, the riptide is balanced just like it's written in the codex. Why are you proposing changes to a unit that you think is just fine?


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Also, in general right now Riptides are FINE, strong vs the weaker codices, and ok against the post-decurion codices.

There's no such thing as "against an entire codex."

C:SM isn't Codex: Teleporting/drop-podded grav centurions.

C:Necrons isn't codex: decurion.

C: eldar isn't codex: Wraithknight + scatterbikes.

We shouldn't be considering Riptides vs. the most broken gak in other codices. We should be considering Riptides in comparison to the things in the other codices that are actually considered of "average" power level.

You should be weighing riptides against dreadnoughts and devastator marines with lascannons, not to teleporting grav centurions.

Saying that x is fine because other codices have cheese too isn't really much of a defense of x being fine.

No codices should have cheese. Not even a little.

"
C:SM isn't Codex: Teleporting/drop-podded grav centurions.

C:Necrons isn't codex: decurion.

C: eldar isn't codex: Wraithknight + scatterbikes.
"

Except they basically are. The "cheese" is what makes C:SM great and C:BA awful.

Martel732 wrote:The "cheese" is what makes C:SM great and C:BA awful.

And take away the cheese, and all codices would be in a much better balance-situation relative to each other. Take away grav centurions, whether teleporting or drop-podded, increase the cost of drop-pods, nerf the feth out of wraithknights, riptides, etc., nerf Necrons, etc., and 40k would be a whole lot better off.

I mean, people with cheese armies would be much worse off. They'd actually have to rely on tactics, strategy and good list-building ideas. They'd actually have to "git gud" and "learn 2 play" instead of just relying on the latest net-list.

Why should riptides be balanced against dreads? They're not even remotely comparable. The closest thing any SM has would be a dreadknight.

I also want to point out a lot of comp players massively better than you. I don't see you with any major tourney wins under your belt. I see you yelling about how you have skill, or honor, or whatever, just like in that link I posted in the other thread. What you want is to not have to change or adapt in any way. You blatantly refuse to take any counters to problem units, then whine about said problem units.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Why should riptides be balanced against dreads? They're not even remotely comparable. The closest thing any SM has would be a dreadknight.

Except, dreadknights aren't really a fair comparison. "Good" GK lists include at least two of them. When it comes to balancing, you can't compare cheese to cheese. You have to compare it to a balanced, average unit that nobody considers "auto-take."

Dreadnoughts are the iconic 40k walker. They have a "shooty" configuration.

I also want to point out a lot of comp players massively better than you.

Even if true, I fail to see how this is even remotely relevant to the conversation. I mean, it makes for a "great" personal attack. But meh?

I don't see you with any major tourney wins under your belt.

You mean, those events where everybody spams the cheesiest builds available in their codex? Those things?

I see you yelling about how you have skill, or honor, or whatever

Where?

Quote me.

 Traditio wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
Why should riptides be balanced against dreads? They're not even remotely comparable. The closest thing any SM has would be a dreadknight.

Except, dreadknights aren't really a fair comparison. "Good" GK lists include at least two of them. When it comes to balancing, you can't compare cheese to cheese. You have to compare it to a balanced, average unit.

Whether or not a Dreadknight is a fair comparison to make when trying to balance the Riptide, it's still a better comparison than a comparing the Riptide to a Dreadnought.

 Traditio wrote:
Dreadnoughts are the iconic 40k walker. They have a "shooty" configuration.

Just because the Dreadnought is Iconic doesn't in any way mean Riptides vs Dreadnoughts is a fair comparison. As for a 'Shoot-y Configuration', the "Basic" Dreadnought has a Power Fist, a Storm Bolter, and a Multi-Melta as its default configuration. I (and I'm sure many others) would say that - for a Walker - that's hardly a 'Shoot-y Configuration'.

IllumiNini wrote:Whether or not a Dreadknight is a fair comparison to make when trying to balance the Riptide, it's still a better comparison than a comparing the Riptide to a Dreadnought.

What would you consider a "fair" thing to compare the riptide against?

Note, the thing to which you are comparing it must:

1. Not be an auto-include or otherwise cheesy unit.
2. Must be commonly considered to be well-balanced.

Here, I repeat what I've often said before:

Balance is relative (in the sense of implying a relationship, say, of A to B).

If you want to balance a riptide, you have to balance it AGAINST something. If you balance it against cheese, you're going to get cheese.

Just because the Dreadnought is Iconic doesn't in any way mean Riptides vs Dreadnoughts is a fair comparison. As for a 'Shoot-y Configuration', the "Basic" Dreadnought has a Power Fist, a Storm Bolter, and a Multi-Melta as its default configuration. I (and I'm sure many others) would say that - for a Walker - that's hardly a 'Shoot-y Configuration'.

You can get a dreadnought that has neither a power fist nor a multimelta. See my earlier postings.

 Traditio wrote:

IllumiNini wrote:Whether or not a Dreadknight is a fair comparison to make when trying to balance the Riptide, it's still a better comparison than a comparing the Riptide to a Dreadnought.

What would you consider a "fair" thing to compare the riptide against?

Note, the thing to which you are comparing it must:

1. Not be an auto-include or otherwise cheesy unit.
2. Must be commonly considered to be well-balanced.

So now I have to conform to more of your conditions? No thanks, I'll pass.

 Traditio wrote:

Just because the Dreadnought is Iconic doesn't in any way mean Riptides vs Dreadnoughts is a fair comparison. As for a 'Shoot-y Configuration', the "Basic" Dreadnought has a Power Fist, a Storm Bolter, and a Multi-Melta as its default configuration. I (and I'm sure many others) would say that - for a Walker - that's hardly a 'Shoot-y Configuration'.

You can get a dreadnought that has neither a power fist nor a multimelta. See my earlier postings.

I am very well aware. It still doesn't at all mean that Riptides vs Dreadnoughts is a fair comparison.

IllumiNini wrote:So now I have to conform to more of your conditions? No thanks, I'll pass.

So there is no non-cheese to which you can compare the riptide.

Noted.

I am very well aware. It still doesn't at all mean that Riptides vs Dreadnoughts is a fair comparison.

Eheu.

This is something that constantly annoys me and smacks of blatant trolling on the part of my interlocutors. It's so patent a misrepresentation of what I've said that it makes me think that it's probably intentional:

I never said that we should compare riptides vs. (any and all) dreadnoughts.

Clearly, ironclad dreadnought vs. riptide is just a bad comparison.

Clearly, power fist + multimelta dreadnought vs. riptide is a bad comparison.

It would be very silly to compare these things.

If you're going to answer something that I've said, at least represent what I've said in a fair way that doesn't make me look like I'm saying something patently silly.

But how about a dreadnought with missile launcher and lascannon?

All of a sudden, it looks a lot more comparable, doesn't it?

 Traditio wrote:
If you want to balance a riptide, you have to balance it AGAINST something. If you balance it against cheese, you're going to get cheese.

Yes so go ahead and balance it against another unit in the same slot , performs the same functions , in the same type of codex.

 Traditio wrote:
You can get a dreadnought that has neither a power fist nor a multimelta. See my earlier postings.

So you admit they aren't even comparable since they can be set up something different that shooty . Riptides can only ever be shooty. Grats you just proved they need to pay a premium for the ability of having a choice, so they would never be equal the way you are looking at them.

 Traditio wrote:
But how about a dreadnought with missile launcher and lascannon?

All of a sudden, it looks a lot more comparable, doesn't it?

No , they do not

kambien wrote:Yes so go ahead and balance it against another unit in the same slot , performs the same functions , in the same type of codex.

This ultimately comes out to saying:

"But riptides are in the TAU codex. Look, my codex has TAU on the front. That means I should get a discount!"

So you admit they aren't even comparable since they can be set up something different that shooty. Riptides can only ever be shooty.

So what?

Grats you just proved they need to pay a premium for the ability of having a choice

Why?

so they would never be equal the way you are looking at them.

I don't admit that at all. Options or not, what you end up with in the case of a shooty dreadnought and a riptide is very much comparable. They fill essentially the same combat role. The only difference is that the riptide does it much better. As such, it should pay a lot more for it.

No , they do not

Why not?

 Traditio wrote:

IllumiNini wrote:So now I have to conform to more of your conditions? No thanks, I'll pass.

So there is no non-cheese to which you can compare the riptide.

Noted.

I didn't say that. All I said was that I was not going to do what you asked. There's a difference.

 Traditio wrote:
If you're going to answer something that I've said, at least represent what I've said in a fair way that doesn't make me look like I'm saying something patently silly.

Because you've always extended everyone that same courtesy...

 Traditio wrote:
But how about a dreadnought with missile launcher and lascannon?

All of a sudden, it looks a lot more comparable, doesn't it?

If you knew how bad a (Venerable) Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and a Missile Launcher really is, then you'd know that even that isn't a fair comparison to a Riptide.

 Traditio wrote:
It would be very silly to compare these things.

Given that you're comparing a Riptide to a very specific set of load-outs for Dreadnoughts, it's a silly comparison anyway.

IllumiNini wrote:If you knew how bad a (Venerable) Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and a Missile Launcher really is, then you'd know that even that isn't a fair comparison to a Riptide.

They fill the same combat role. Therefore, it's a fair comparison.

Given that you're comparing a Riptide to a very specific set of load-outs for Dreadnoughts, it's a silly comparison anyway.

Why is it a silly comparison? A fair comparison is to compare one thing with a given combat role to another thing with the same combat role.

A shooty dreadnought fills the same combat role as a riptide.

 Traditio wrote:

IllumiNini wrote:If you knew how bad a (Venerable) Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and a Missile Launcher really is, then you'd know that even that isn't a fair comparison to a Riptide.

They fill the same combat role. Therefore, it's a fair comparison.

Regardless of whether or not that's true, the fact that a Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and Missile launcher is severely under-powered makes it an extremely poor comparison to anything that is supposed to fill this particular combat role.

 Traditio wrote:

Given that you're comparing a Riptide to a very specific set of load-outs for Dreadnoughts, it's a silly comparison anyway.

Why is it a silly comparison?

See Above.

IllumiNini wrote:Regardless of whether or not that's true, the fact that a Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and Missile launcher is severely under-powered makes it an extremely poor comparison to anything that is supposed to fill this particular combat role.

Underpowered in comparison to what?

 Traditio wrote:

IllumiNini wrote:Regardless of whether or not that's true, the fact that a Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and Missile launcher is severely under-powered makes it an extremely poor comparison to anything that is supposed to fill this particular combat role.

Underpowered in comparison to what?

You don't have to compare it to anything. Consider the fact that you're paying 125 Points for a basic Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and a Missile Launcher. You get to make two shots (one of which is Twin-Linked), so assuming you're using a Krakk Missile, you're not going to be inflicting more than 2 hits. With a Frag Missile, it's hardly much better in terms of maximum number of hits. This is before you consider the To Wound rolls.

If - for 125 Points - that's not under-powered, then at the very least it's not on the same level of "Shoot-y-ness" of a Riptide and thus hardly makes it a fair comparison.

IllumiNini wrote:You don't have to compare it to anything.

Yes, you do. Balance is relative. If you tell me that dreadnoughts are under-powered with a missile launcher and TL lascannon, what you are saying is that a dreadnought of this configuration is not worth the 125 points that you would otherwise have paid on something else.

onsider the fact that you're paying 125 Points for a basic Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and a Missile Launcher. You get to make two shots (one of which is Twin-Linked), so assuming you're using a Krakk Missile, you're not going to be inflicting more than 2 hits. With a Frag Missile, it's hardly much better in terms of maximum number of hits. This is before you consider the To Wound rolls.

So what?

If you purchase 2 obliterators in the CSM codex, you get 2 shots for 140 points. What is your point?

If - for 125 Points - that's not under-powered, then at the very least it's not on the same level of "Shoot-y-ness" of a Riptide and thus hardly makes it a fair comparison.

Non-sequitur.

The fact that it's less shooty and gets less shootiness for its points doesn't contradict the point that the shooty dreadnought and the riptide fill the same combat role. The riptide just fills it a lot better.

That's why riptides should cost a lot more.

 Traditio wrote:
But how about a dreadnought with missile launcher and lascannon?

All of a sudden, it looks a lot more comparable, doesn't it?

No, it doesn't look comparable. The dreadnought is optimized for low-volume high-strength shooting (at least as far as a dreadnought can be), the Riptide's strength is its anti-infantry pie plate. For example, if you want to kill MCs the dreadnought is significantly better than the Riptide (two shots vs. one, and the blast doesn't help against single-model targets). But of course you'll insist they're comparable, because this is a classic Traditio argument: find some random unit, compare one of its stats to the "overpowered" unit and find it lacking, and declare that you must be right. And meanwhile any depth of analysis is completely ignored in favor of that single stat.


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 Traditio wrote:
The fact that it's less shooty and gets less shootiness for its points doesn't contradict the point that the shooty dreadnought and the riptide fill the same combat role.

Except they DON'T fill the same role. The dreadnought is a melee unit that can be armed with double guns if you stubbornly insist on it. The Riptide is a mobile shooting unit in an army full of mobile shooting units. The fact that you can make an LC/ML dread and fail to accomplish much with it doesn't mean that the Riptide is overpowered, it just means that taking LC/ML dreads is a bad idea.

Here's an equivalent comparison: crisis suits with no weapons are clearly a melee unit, but they're obviously worse at it than all those overpowered melee units. Therefore we need to buff the basic stat line of crisis suits to be better in melee (while of course not making any nerfs to shooty crisis suits, since those are a different combat role). Sound reasonable?

 Traditio wrote:

onsider the fact that you're paying 125 Points for a basic Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and a Missile Launcher. You get to make two shots (one of which is Twin-Linked), so assuming you're using a Krakk Missile, you're not going to be inflicting more than 2 hits. With a Frag Missile, it's hardly much better in terms of maximum number of hits. This is before you consider the To Wound rolls.

So what?

If you purchase 2 obliterators in the CSM codex, you get 2 shots for 140 points. What is your point?

But we're not comparing Riptides to Obliteraters, so what's yours?


Also, I agree with Peregrine's most recent comment here.

 Traditio wrote:

I see you yelling about how you have skill, or honor, or whatever

Where?

Quote me.

By the fact you complain endlessly about "cheese", how you refuse to use it (or anything you THINK is cheese) to counter anything that beats your poor little helpless marines and:

 Traditio wrote:

They'd actually have to rely on tactics, strategy and good list-building ideas. They'd actually have to "git gud" and "learn 2 play" instead of just relying on the latest net-list.

bold mine. If they don't have skill by the inverse you must right? Otherwise how would you know they have no skill?

and, as Peregrine said about dreads, giving a melee unit guns does not make them firebases, especially when all the guns they get suck (except for maybe TL autocannons).

Plus, Traditio, let's consider exactly what you said:

 Traditio wrote:
If you want a fair comparison, the riptide must be balanced either against:

Space marine dreadnought with TL lascannon and missile launcher: 125 points

Or

Space marine dreadnought with TL heavy bolter and TL autocannon: 120 points

Or

Space marine dreadnought with TL lascannon and TL autocannon: 130 points

That is a very specific set of load-outs for one particular unit. Even if comparing Riptides to these load-outs is fair (which is very, very arguable at best), it's still an unfair comparison because you're comparing a unit with all its load-outs (Riptide) against a small sub-set of load-outs for a unit that isn't all that similar to it (3x Load-Outs for a Dreadnought). Now, I think it's more than fair to say that the Twin-Linked Lascannon/Missile Launcher Combo on a normal Dreadnought is not comparable to the Riptide and its load-outs because at the very least the capabilities of the various load-outs are very different.

Then there's the issue of the Dreadnought's other load-outs (i.e. the one's not mentioned in the above quote). The fact that you have not so much ignored as excluded a number of other load-outs automatically means that the Dreadnought vs Riptide Comparison is not a fair one because it relies on the Dreadnought taking a specific sub-set of load-outs.

So, with the Dreadnought comparison out of the way, we can focus on the real topic which is balancing the Riptide. The biggest problem with a Riptide (at least to my mind) is that to some extent or another it is under-costed in the current system. Honestly the issue surrounding units such as Riptides could also be fixed by limitations such as 'Only on can be taken for every 1,000 Points', but that's not only outside the scope of the current rule set, but also something that is even less likely to be agreed upon relative to a points increase.

Just got back from the ATC, where our Marine player went 5-1. He faced a Tau player and tabled him. The army had a Riptide Wing ,storm surges and Broadsides. Sorry but Riptides are just fine in the meta.

 Traditio wrote:

4. They should be walkers, but are MCs instead...

Prove this.

 raverrn wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

4. They should be walkers, but are MCs instead...

Prove this.

That's asking to derail the thread. We don't need more arguing about whether Riptides and other MC's should be Walkers or MC's.

Hezmana, I even said that in the original post. There have been threads on that very topic, over and over and over. The usual consensus seems to be that it would cause as many problems as it solves, and walkers suck, anyway. (and usually degenerates into various Dreadnought-as-MC proposals, sidetracks on Dreadknights and Wraithlords and such...)

It never goes anywhere productive. Spare us yet another frakking derail.

I still stand by my suggestion to get rid of the 72" pie-plate-puker. That's the genesis of about 75% of the salt, as far as I can tell. Durability is the rest, but the durability fades fast when the Riptide has to come to you, rather than you having to QWOP your entire army up the field at it, eating S8 AP2 large blasts every turn.

pm713 wrote:

 raverrn wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

4. They should be walkers, but are MCs instead...

Prove this.

That's asking to derail the thread. We don't need more arguing about whether Riptides and other MC's should be Walkers or MC's.

This doesn't mean Traditio gets to make these kinds of claims without backing himself up.

 raverrn wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 raverrn wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

4. They should be walkers, but are MCs instead...

Prove this.

That's asking to derail the thread. We don't need more arguing about whether Riptides and other MC's should be Walkers or MC's.

This doesn't mean Traditio gets to make these kinds of claims without backing himself up.

You know full well that he won't/ He'll spout rubbish and madness.

 Traditio wrote:

C:SM isn't Codex: Teleporting/drop-podded grav centurions.

Nor is it codex:exclusive use of las/plas tactical spam, maybe with rhinos. Which is all you insist on playing apparently.

 thejughead wrote:
Just got back from the ATC, where our Marine player went 5-1. He faced a Tau player and tabled him. The army had a Riptide Wing ,storm surges and Broadsides. Sorry but Riptides are just fine in the meta.

Was the marine player running teleporting grav centurions? I bet he was running teleporting grav centurions.

 thejughead wrote:
Just got back from the ATC, where our Marine player went 5-1. He faced a Tau player and tabled him. The army had a Riptide Wing ,storm surges and Broadsides. Sorry but Riptides are just fine in the meta.

Define "marine player". If this is Codex: Space Marines, then this post is invalid. "One army that has Grav Guns and Obj Sec dirt cheap Deep striking transports can beat Tau? My god man, everyone can do it then."


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 Traditio wrote:

 thejughead wrote:
Just got back from the ATC, where our Marine player went 5-1. He faced a Tau player and tabled him. The army had a Riptide Wing ,storm surges and Broadsides. Sorry but Riptides are just fine in the meta.

Was the marine player running teleporting grav centurions? I bet he was running teleporting grav centurions.

Damn, somewhat ninja'd.