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 Daedalus81 wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
We should not ignore a situation where competitively Drukhari have 90 wins and 38 losses. You can twist and turn, ignore data you don't like etc but you are left with those numbers.

They should pull the Charandon supplement from competitive play and then see what happens (besides the obvious fix to Reaver points). Take some to time to rework that supplement.

We're not ignoring it. We're getting to the root of the issue.

Look at Deathwatch. Panned as universally bad, but suddenly they're #2 ( at least for one week, anyway ). What happened? They had no changes. Some people must have learned how to use them.

People also need to learn how to face DE whether or not they're strong. And despite the DE wins lots of armies are still taking top spots. When Ynnari had that win rate it was Ynnari, Ynnari, Castellan, Ynnari, but it isn't that way with DE. Why?

So "Get good" is the answer? Ok.

At the risk of discounting data, Deathwatch have four games in that data set - likely one player. Drukhari have 128 games with 90 wins. Pull Charandon and see where the Codex settles.

Yeah I'm sorry but one result for DW is meaningless.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:


So "Get good" is the answer? Ok.

At the risk of discounting data, Deathwatch have four games in that data set - likely one player. Drukhari have 128 games with 90 wins. Pull Charandon and see where the Codex settles.

I am not saying get good at all. DE have plenty that can be hammered down without breaking the faction.

I am asking questions about certain aspects to get a better understanding as to why things seem different than in the past. Some of that may be lack of adaptation on top of a strong book. Marines are a big player in the meta still. If they still lean heavy old their old lists it may allow DE more victories.

Look at DA - the juggernaut lots of people feared - treading water. Are people miscalculating how easy it is to use a giant unkillable block of terminators effectively and still control the board or is it something else?


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 Bosskelot wrote:
Yeah I'm sorry but one result for DW is meaningless.

\

Not technically one result though I agree it is statistically meaningless, but this was four different people ( 20 games played - not 4 ) on the same weekend doing pretty well with an army almost no one thought was good. At the same time DA, the army everyone thought was amazing, isn't doing so hot.

Just had a thought. 30k has a rule where if you have a template weapon with gets hot, you still have to roll to see if it explodes even if there’s not a hit roll. Seems like something like that might curb the enthusiasm for dark technomancers a bit.

Honestly, I'd be fine with GW doing whatever at this point. I want that FAQ so that I can see what I'm actually working with with this faction.

However, given the game I got to play recently against drukhari with Deathwatch, I do think the explosion of Drukhari into the meta did have something to do with their success. I was able to beat down drukhari going first against me pretty good, and I can imagine I'd be able to repeat the performance against a competitive Harlequin setup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crackedgear wrote:
Just had a thought. 30k has a rule where if you have a template weapon with gets hot, you still have to roll to see if it explodes even if there’s not a hit roll. Seems like something like that might curb the enthusiasm for dark technomancers a bit.

IMO no. The mortal wounds from DT are extremely un-scary. You could guarantee 1 MW (or D3 if youre monster/vehicle) for each time you fired an autohitting weapon with DT and i think it'd still be just as powerful.

you gotta keep in mind 1, everything has a 5+ vs those mws, and 2, you have to deal 3mw to any liquifier-holding squad to actually remove a liquifier.

 the_scotsman wrote:
Honestly, I'd be fine with GW doing whatever at this point. I want that FAQ so that I can see what I'm actually working with with this faction.

However, given the game I got to play recently against drukhari with Deathwatch, I do think the explosion of Drukhari into the meta did have something to do with their success. I was able to beat down drukhari going first against me pretty good, and I can imagine I'd be able to repeat the performance against a competitive Harlequin setup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crackedgear wrote:
Just had a thought. 30k has a rule where if you have a template weapon with gets hot, you still have to roll to see if it explodes even if there’s not a hit roll. Seems like something like that might curb the enthusiasm for dark technomancers a bit.

IMO no. The mortal wounds from DT are extremely un-scary. You could guarantee 1 MW (or D3 if youre monster/vehicle) for each time you fired an autohitting weapon with DT and i think it'd still be just as powerful.

you gotta keep in mind 1, everything has a 5+ vs those mws, and 2, you have to deal 3mw to any liquifier-holding squad to actually remove a liquifier.

You know whats funny? Quinns pretty much destroy this lame DT build with their own lame OP build.

Yeah probably. Full DT would get completely fething demolished by comp quinns. Just utterly destroyed. Also any of the weird funky skew lists like nids with the un-attackable harridan or DG with morty or Necron silver tide would probably just eat it for lunch as well.

The DT detachment that everyone is just slapping into their comp DE lists is actually just patrol, Drazar, 3x wrack squads, and the Raiders are DT if theyre not taking BH or Obrose.

That's it. but that exact same detachment appears in like 6 or 7 of the top placing drukhari lists from the last week. Nobodys bothering to bring liq grots or cronos engines at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
its a weird, unfun skew list that I dont want to result in units and options that aren't otherwise Op getting point bumps.

they could just straight up delete DT for all i care, it's not interesting and I feel the same level of sympathy for someone who built a 2000 point army around it as i do for someone who built like a Guard infinite daemon summoning loop army in 7th ed.

Change DT so that in addition to not letting you reroll the hit roll, you also lose the "hits automatically" on weapons that have it. So you get your souped-up liq guns, but now you have to roll to hit with them. They still come out ahead (except for grotesques, lol), but now it's only 50% more damage from wracks, instead of 150%.

Like you know what I'm glad they did? Make Test of Skill melee-only. Having Test of Skill there making all ranged weapons in wych lists WAY more powerful against vehicles when basically no other wych trait affected vehicles at all led to people taking wych detachments just to bring flyers and weird FW vehicles. Having that bizarre outlier hanging out there could have led to them having to do something like nerf drukhari flyers to account for that one weird outlier trait that works really fundamentally differently to everything else wych cults bring to the table.

Now? ToS is just a trait you can take. it makes some units pretty interesting - hellions and bloodbrides are really fun with it - but there's no unit that functionally gets no traits if you take aaaaaaany other subfaction but suddenly has a really good powerful trait if you take ToS.

 the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah probably. Full DT would get completely fething demolished by comp quinns. Just utterly destroyed. Also any of the weird funky skew lists like nids with the un-attackable harridan or DG with morty or Necron silver tide would probably just eat it for lunch as well.

The DT detachment that everyone is just slapping into their comp DE lists is actually just patrol, Drazar, 3x wrack squads, and the Raiders are DT if theyre not taking BH or Obrose.

That's it. but that exact same detachment appears in like 6 or 7 of the top placing drukhari lists from the last week. Nobodys bothering to bring liq grots or cronos engines at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
its a weird, unfun skew list that I dont want to result in units and options that aren't otherwise Op getting point bumps.

they could just straight up delete DT for all i care, it's not interesting and I feel the same level of sympathy for someone who built a 2000 point army around it as i do for someone who built like a Guard infinite daemon summoning loop army in 7th ed.

I really don't care what they do - I think it would work better like this. They can chose to deal a mortal wound to themselves and their target unit any time they successfully wound something.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Spoiler:

 the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah probably. Full DT would get completely fething demolished by comp quinns. Just utterly destroyed. Also any of the weird funky skew lists like nids with the un-attackable harridan or DG with morty or Necron silver tide would probably just eat it for lunch as well.

The DT detachment that everyone is just slapping into their comp DE lists is actually just patrol, Drazar, 3x wrack squads, and the Raiders are DT if theyre not taking BH or Obrose.

That's it. but that exact same detachment appears in like 6 or 7 of the top placing drukhari lists from the last week. Nobodys bothering to bring liq grots or cronos engines at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
its a weird, unfun skew list that I dont want to result in units and options that aren't otherwise Op getting point bumps.

they could just straight up delete DT for all i care, it's not interesting and I feel the same level of sympathy for someone who built a 2000 point army around it as i do for someone who built like a Guard infinite daemon summoning loop army in 7th ed.

I really don't care what they do - I think it would work better like this. They can chose to deal a mortal wound to themselves and their target unit any time they successfully wound something.

Would you play a Marine chapter where that was the whole Chapter Tactic? Deal 1 mortal wound to the target and the firing unit? You just made a very silly suggestion.

Something has changed with DW actually, and I am not suggesting this is why as I have not seen the lists involved, but if they are including heavy intercessors which are then acting as ablative wounds for eradicators, then this could be the reason why, additionally, they could also be providing the same for plasma inceptors.

Anyway, not suggesting this is competitive by any means, or is actually happening but it is one hypothesis.

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Something has changed with DW actually, and I am not suggesting this is why as I have not seen the lists involved, but if they are including heavy intercessors which are then acting as ablative wounds for eradicators, then this could be the reason why, additionally, they could also be providing the same for plasma inceptors.

Anyway, not suggesting this is competitive by any means, or is actually happening but it is one hypothesis.

You could be right. One feature I have noticed is a HI and Eradicator kill team.

 the_scotsman wrote:
Honestly, I'd be fine with GW doing whatever at this point. I want that FAQ so that I can see what I'm actually working with with this faction.

However, given the game I got to play recently against drukhari with Deathwatch, I do think the explosion of Drukhari into the meta did have something to do with their success. I was able to beat down drukhari going first against me pretty good, and I can imagine I'd be able to repeat the performance against a competitive Harlequin setup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crackedgear wrote:
Just had a thought. 30k has a rule where if you have a template weapon with gets hot, you still have to roll to see if it explodes even if there’s not a hit roll. Seems like something like that might curb the enthusiasm for dark technomancers a bit.

IMO no. The mortal wounds from DT are extremely un-scary. You could guarantee 1 MW (or D3 if youre monster/vehicle) for each time you fired an autohitting weapon with DT and i think it'd still be just as powerful.

you gotta keep in mind 1, everything has a 5+ vs those mws, and 2, you have to deal 3mw to any liquifier-holding squad to actually remove a liquifier.

Yeah that part I don’t get. Plasma guns all say the bearer is destroyed, yet for DT it says the unit takes damage.

I am really enjoying "The Sky Is falling!" people. DE have been out for literally 1 month and people are losing their minds about it. Its like we as a collective forget the past at an astounding rate. Every time a new codex is released that isn't meta, or isn't hot garbage there is a spike in W/L. Even without nerfs you can expect DE to slowly normalize as people learn to play against them and stop taking 8-12 Multi-melta's to every game. Its almost like....wait for it...you need to take a .....TAC list sometimes to have a better chance at winning overall

I remember when Orkz finally got a codex that wasn't the worst thing ever and we had a nice period of winning until people learned how to play against Ork lists and we went back into the middle of the pack.

Keep in mind, none of this is to say DE don't deserve a nerf or two here and there, I'm just having a great time, especially at the people who a few months ago were spouting that Eradicators and Multi-meltas were fine as is, and that Aggressors didn't need that nerf to their firepower.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Something has changed with DW actually, and I am not suggesting this is why as I have not seen the lists involved, but if they are including heavy intercessors which are then acting as ablative wounds for eradicators, then this could be the reason why, additionally, they could also be providing the same for plasma inceptors.

Anyway, not suggesting this is competitive by any means, or is actually happening but it is one hypothesis.

You could be right. One feature I have noticed is a HI and Eradicator kill team.

That's what the better lists for Deathwatch are falling on, more wounds for a broken model that they can spam a little more. Can't say I blame them since Deathwatch was gutted for rules basically.

Going to echo the “Deathwatch results are near meaningless” You take away 1 players record and the faction is now around a 55%. You take away one 5-0 drukhari list and the faction is still over a 65% win rate.

Perhaps I’m being too aggressive in how I’m requesting nerfs. The list I presented was more of a hypothetical nerfs I’d like see at some point. You certainly don’t to make all these changes at once (why I also said I don’t feel all those nerfs are needed). I certainly would like to see how the “hotfix” changes will impact the army. IMO they won’t drop the factions win rate below 60% though.

Finally I’m not moved at all by the “let the meta adjust” point. To me it’s a lazy argument that gets trotted our because it’s right some of time, You know what also happens sometimes? New armies can sometimes get better as people find optimal builds. Both Ynnari and the Castellan soup list didn’t hit their peak performance until around a month after their main component book came out. People love comparing Drukhari to DG but IMO, that’s like comparing apples to oranges.

For DG it was readily apparent that builds using terminators, foulblightspawn, morty, PBC, and tallyman were going to be the way to go. The only trap unit people were taking are PMs, and they’re not even all that bad if used correctly (just overshadowed by better choices), Finally the faction only ever had an 58% win rate that since has dropped to a 52% win rate with the release of drukhari. Not exactly a riches to rags story due to the meta adjusting.

Drukhari meanwhile have a very complex book where the best builds were not at all apparent. You can even see from this weekend that the only main common elements among the winning and worse drukhari lists are what HQs people run, Wyches, and raiders. That to me reeks of an unsolved book.

Finally people assume tournament players are far more inflexible in their list building than they actually are. Maybe a chunk towards the bottom don’t have the ability / no-how to adjust for drukhari in the meta, but I guarantee the more veteran players where building lists with drukhari in mind.

Many of you are throwing around theoretically answers to drukhari with zero tournament playtest experience behind it and using it as evidence to support your “let the the meta adjust” argument. Agressors for example may work sometimes at LCS level, but haven’t had any real tournament success since they were nerfed. This is despite the fact that both DG and harlies have been marine counters for a while and theoretically should be countered by aggressors.

So TLDR/ closing thoughts a lot “meta adjust” proponents are making a lot of assumptions and presenting those as facts, while also completely ignoring the possibility that drukhari could become better once people become more experienced with the book.

Quick question. How many "new" Dark Eldar players do you know of? How many "starter Boxes" or other discounted box releases do Dark Eldar have? Now compare all of that to Death Guard. So why are DE doing really well in tournaments? Because the people who take them already had DE armies and knew how to pilot them and do so well. I would compare them to Ork players in that regard. When 8th dropped Orkz weren't exactly swimming in New Players, but the core players we did have had on average over a decade of experience playing orkz and as such were able to best capitalize on the resulting buffs while minimizing the nerfs we got in 8th. Hence Ork W/L rate AS WELL as tournament placings went up for a time. People adjusted to the new Ork menace and our W/L and placements normalized without that many nerfs for the most part.

DG had a relatively small player base, but they got a massive release as well as a big discount box release which buffed their armies player base with a plethora of new recruits. I can't tell you how many green plastic armies of DG I faced in tournaments when they were "the hawtnezz".

Discounting my opinion because it sometimes doesn't happen is a lazy argument that doesn't look at the elements leading to that position. Rather, I would argue, the massive over reaction to a new codex doing well is...well, obvious. It literally happens every time a new codex gets dropped, sometimes the over reactions are justified, sometimes its just players needing a bit of time and a few smaller nerfs to equalize the field.

We orks had the SSAG that when taken as deathskulls was utterly broken. GW never fixed that, and I hope they won’t make that kind of mistake again (not fixing I mean, the mistake of releasing the stuff, we know they will never stop repeating hah hah).

Any such thing as a SSAG deserves to be FAQed, regardless of whether the faction will still be good without it.
We know Druka will still be good even with the nerfs we are calling for

SemperMortis wrote:
Rather, I would argue, the massive over reaction to a new codex doing well is...well, obvious. It literally happens every time a new codex gets dropped, sometimes the over reactions are justified, sometimes its just players needing a bit of time and a few smaller nerfs to equalize the field.

What other time did a codex come out with a win rate this strong?

SM 2.0?

 vict0988 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Rather, I would argue, the massive over reaction to a new codex doing well is...well, obvious. It literally happens every time a new codex gets dropped, sometimes the over reactions are justified, sometimes its just players needing a bit of time and a few smaller nerfs to equalize the field.

What other time did a codex come out with a win rate this strong?

SM 2.0?

Yep it was absolutely, which funnily enough had plenty of defenders saying the “meta will adapt/ things will get better once new rules for other armies come out” I remember laughing at an interview where a 1 month removed from returning to 40k tournament winner stated the brand new iron hands book was fine. We just need to see more rules for other factions and for the meta to adapt. This ancedontal experience might partially be why I never take “let the meta adjust arguments too seriously.

The name of the video is “Iron hands are OP, the falcon is here to tell you why.” I even just found out I left comment trying to refute the “wait and see on how the meta adjusts” crowd. The more things change the more things stay the same I guess.

A post from r/WarhammerCompetitive in the last 24 hours is making the point that we're now at a 70% win rate for DE. This uses a 1000+ games worth of data:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/mzubmt/drukhari_stats_update_70_win_rate_over_1500_games/

No one arguing in good faith - including the Drukhari players - are saying 'all is well'. It isn't. We can ignore anyone who claims the contrary.

The important discussion now has surely got to be why we're at this point, not if.

And that why argument can and should be backed by data and reason in the same way as the if one has been. Conjecture isn't helpful.

SemperMortis wrote:
Rather, I would argue, the massive over reaction to a new codex doing well is...well, obvious. It literally happens every time a new codex gets dropped, sometimes the over reactions are justified, sometimes its just players needing a bit of time and a few smaller nerfs to equalize the field.

There is no overreaction. If anything, people have become too jaded post Marines 2.0 in calling out the not-quite-as-broken-more-regular power creep as they should, and giving in too easily to the ever-present appeasement nonsense of "the meta will adapt" or "this one or two armies are still a hard counter to the new books, so it cannot be OP", etc..

It's not rocket science, really. Nor does it need to be literally unbeatable to be considered a problem (I dont think GW released a 100% win-codex yet ... if they do, it's a different conversation).

Stuff should be balanced against all existing factions. And to avoid power creep, it should most definitely be balanced well against non-9th Edition books. Continuously moving the goal post of "8th Ed. Codexes don't need to be balanced against index" and "Psychic Awakening doesn't need to be balanced against non-PA factions" and "9th Ed. books don't need to be balanced against 8th Ed. book" essentially capitulates before the problem, rather than addressing it.

 StrayIight wrote:
A post from r/WarhammerCompetitive in the last 24 hours is making the point that we're now at a 70% win rate for DE. This uses a 1000+ games worth of data:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/mzubmt/drukhari_stats_update_70_win_rate_over_1500_games/

No one arguing in good faith - including the Drukhari players - are saying 'all is well'. It isn't. We can ignore anyone who claims the contrary.

The important discussion now has surely got to be why we're at this point, not if.

And that why argument can and should be backed by data and reason in the same way as the if one has been. Conjecture isn't helpful.

It is very hard to judge the real situation.
It is clear that at the moment DE are very very strong. Potentially broken strong. Point is that there are 3-4 dubious interactions right now that are surely boosting this efficency. I would wait the first FAQ and if those interactions are fixed, give it a month of time to stabilize before calling for nerfs.

Honestly, assuming that this is the case, it still speaks against GW for failing to consider these interactions.
It's also another key point against the "DLC" fashion they used PA and now the newer ones.

Book of Rust is evil GW incarned, there's no way around it.

Spoletta wrote:
Book of Rust is evil GW incarned, there's no way around it.

replace with Corporate greed made manifest to the detriment of their rulesteam already somewhat slim capability and i agree.
Evil is something else entirely.

But it does indeed speak against GW, especialy corporate GW once more selfsabotaging the already somewhat lackluster performance of their ruleswriters.

Spoletta wrote:


It is very hard to judge the real situation.
It is clear that at the moment DE are very very strong. Potentially broken strong. Point is that there are 3-4 dubious interactions right now that are surely boosting this efficency. I would wait the first FAQ and if those interactions are fixed, give it a month of time to stabilize before calling for nerfs.

It really is hard, yes.

I suspect the best approach will be to start taking apart lists that are placing well. See what the common elements are. Then look at those lists in play. Is it a specific unit or units that are overperforming in practice, or is it the army as a whole? Are DE achieving a certain set of secondaries too easily, or able to block their opponent from doing so over efficiently?

After that, we're still left with variables that it's difficult to account for: DE being a rarer, exotic army. The prevalence of Marine lists at any events, and the DE 'counter' factor to such lists. Covids impact on event turnout in many locations.

It's a worthwhile starting point at least.

I'm encouraged by the fact that I'm yet to come across a fellow Drukhari player that doesn't want balance also. We want an army that can perform, but we also want to win or lose based on our play - not based on a set of rules that makes the result almost a foregone conclusion.

 vict0988 wrote:


Would you play a Marine chapter where that was the whole Chapter Tactic? Deal 1 mortal wound to the target and the firing unit? You just made a very silly suggestion.

Well on flip side of things imagine what would happen, if GW decided that getting hit by a space marine bike or a half a ton of plasmaceptor should very much cause MWs.
In the end it comes down to people liking their army and not really liking or carrying about other armies. And I don't even think that it is a bad thing. I would just rather see people say, that at lets say that moment their harli army was beyond good. Same way as people should be willing to look at something like knights or GSC, and say that those armies are really bad right now, without actually being those armies players.

And if this is not possible, then we probably should just do away with any arguments about stuff being good or bad, because it starts to look like politics, when your camp is always right and the opponents camp is always wrong.

Karol wrote:

And if this is not possible, then we probably should just do away with any arguments about stuff being good or bad, because it starts to look like politics, when your camp is always right and the opponents camp is always wrong.

I couldn't agree more Karol. So much pointless arguing occurs along faction lines. People will defend every element of their favourite army to the hilt, while attacking the toys in another's factions that they don't like, or might be 'better' than their own.

Yet, we're a community of people all enjoying the same hobby!

We really should be able to have factual, honest discussion about what problems are out there without bringing bias and defensiveness into it.

I'm mostly a hobbyist who likes to paint. I have two armies, both of which I love: Drukhari, and Chaos/Renegade Knights. My Drukhari army needs toning down - it is problematic right now. My Knight army is competitively pretty terrible, because Knights are not as yet built to play 9th well - but can still be a miserable experience for an unprepared player to face, and I don't want that for anyone either.

There, it's that easy!

Now the reasons why these problems exist could be discussed, and what GW and the community might be able to do to amend them.